Cheap Grace

Definition and Meaning

Cheap grace is a term used to criticize the attitude that treats grace as a kind of certificate guaranteeing the forgiveness of sins and assumes that those who receive it need not respond with repentance or a life of following Jesus. In his 1937 book Nachfolge (published in English as The Cost of Discipleship), Dietrich Bonhoeffer called cheap grace "the deadly enemy of our Church." He identified as forms of cheap grace forgiveness without repentance, baptism without church admonition and discipline, Communion without confession of sin, and grace without a life of discipleship.

In opposition to this, Bonhoeffer spoke of costly grace. Costly grace is grace that cost God the life of His Son, and it calls those who receive it to a life of following Christ. He wrote, "Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes." By this he meant that faith and obedience cannot be separated.

Biblical and Historical Background

The concept is connected to Paul's question in Romans 6:1–2: "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?" Also commonly cited are Jude 1:4, which warns against those who turn grace into an excuse for licentiousness; Luke 9:23, which calls believers to take up their cross daily; and James 2, which addresses faith without works.

Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor. He believed that the principle of "grace alone" emphasized by Martin Luther had hardened, in the church of later generations, into an assurance without obedience. He wrote the book while training candidates for ministry in the Confessing Church under the Nazi regime.

Usage in the Korean Church

In the Korean church, the term frequently appears in sermons and writings that criticize evangelism of the "just pray the sinner's prayer" variety, faith that produces no change of life, and ministry focused primarily on church growth. Churches that emphasize discipleship training also cite the concept often.

Denominations differ in the emphases they bring to it.

• The Presbyterian churches and the wider Reformed tradition distinguish justification from sanctification without separating the two. As the Westminster Confession of Faith teaches, this tradition regards good works as the fruit and evidence of true faith.
• Methodist and Holiness churches understand the concept as closely related to the emphasis on sanctification and holiness in Wesleyan theology.
• Lutherans read the concept not as a denial of the doctrine of justification by faith alone but as a self-critique arising from within Lutheranism itself.

Some have also cautioned that the concept, if misused, can drift toward the claim that salvation is by works. Some conservative denominations keep their distance from Bonhoeffer's later thought while still accepting and citing this concept.