Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Far too common

A church in which only grace is being preached not only reminds us of the temple cult in Amos’s day (cf. Amos 5:21–23) but is a place where sins are easily covered. It is a place where people do not repent of their wrongdoing and certainly do not wish to be freed from their sins (why should they, if God forgives them anyway?). “Cheap grace is justification of the sins and not the sinner.”[fn. My translation of “Billige Gnade heisst Rechtfertigung der Sünde und nicht des Sünders.” By Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Nachfolge: DBW 3] Ignorance, sloth, or a self- serving theology are clear symptoms of a theology of cheap grace.—Standing in the Breach, page 502

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