Bonhoeffer on Discipleship and Grace

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s ‘The Cost of Discipleship’ begins with an exploration of the relationship between discipleship and grace but also emphasises the starting point as being recognising the call to discipleship.  Discipleship is not something that we choose to do.  It is not something on which we take the initiative.  It is God’s initiative.  As Bonhoeffer has it:

“Discipleship is not an offer which man [sic] makes to Christ.  It is only the call which creates the situation.”

We often talk about response, and that is valid, vital even – but we need something to which to respond.  Bonhoeffer takes this a little further, pointing out that it is what we do, not what we say, that makes us disciples.  It is not the confession of faith that is the defining mark of a disciple, important though that may be.  It is the act of obedience, though both are needed.  We can’t be disciples without doing the stuff that disciples do.  So, Bonhoeffer says:

“And as he passed by he saw Levi, the son of Alphæus, sitting at the place of toll, and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him. (Mark 2.14) The call goes forth, and is at once followed by the response of obedience. The response of the disciples is an act of obedience, not a confession of faith in Jesus.”

It is, of course, all bound up with the actual cost of discipleship.  Discipleship is about commitment.  What is the level of commitment that we are willing to make, in secular, practical terms, what is the price that we are prepared to pay?  This takes us into the realm of grace and Bonhoeffer’s challenging, yet helpful, concepts of costly and cheap grace.  As he says:

“The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ. Such a man knows that the call to discipleship is a gift of grace, and that the call is inseparable from the grace. But those who try to use this grace as a dispensation from following Christ are simply deceiving themselves.”

Discipleship that doesn’t make a difference is not discipleship at all.  The grace is God’s, but it needs to flow through us.  That is something that just happens.  So grace enables discipleship and discipleship responds to grace.