It seems to me that the economic axiom “there is no such thing as a free lunch” can also provide the springboard for exploring the spiritual economics. As Lutherans we appreciate, and rightly so, Paul’s words “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Tragically, we can become comfortable with our ‘free gift.’ Therefore, Christians often run the risk of spiritual indifference, or even moral licentiousness under the assumption that we have been/will be forgiven. The free gift of God becomes a cheap gift. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 20th century Lutheran theologian, puts it this way:
Cheap grace means grace as bargain-basement goods, cut-rate forgiveness, cut-rate comfort, cut-rate sacrament; grace as the church’s inexhaustible pantry, from which it is doled out by careless hands without hesitation or limit. It is grace without a price, without cost. (Discipleship, p. 43)
The truth is that cheap grace is no grace at all. There is no grace without suffering, there is no grace without the cross, and there is no grace apart from Jesus Christ. Authentic grace is quite costly; it costs people their lives, as it did our Lord Jesus Christ His. The grace that we experience is anything but cheap, “You were bought with a price” (1Co 6:20).
Believing in cheap grace is believing in a fantasy. Living as if one does not need repentance, avoiding the sacrament, embracing sin, and avoiding the word all fall under the category of cheap grace. Faith of this sort, it no faith at all, and does not save. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). Costly grace, that grace which gives eternal life, comes from the cross and is delivering in the church to sinners.
Costly grace will cost you your life, as Luther's Catechism says:
What does such baptizing with water indicate? It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.
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The miracle, as Bonheoffer puts it, is that the death of costly grace “thereby makes people live” (p.45). From this death, life emerges, we emerge in Christ. It is the death of sin and spiritual fantasy. In our baptism we become awakened to reality, awakened to the fullness of our humanity as God intended for us to experience. It is grace that God has revealed to us the path of salvation, through His Son Jesus Christ. During this Epiphany we celebrate this revelation of costly grace which has given us life, made us fully human, and united us to Christ. In this revelation we dine on the meal that is not free, but costly, sumptuous, and exquisite. It was bought at the high price of our Lord’s body and blood.
Blessed Epiphany!
