Quotes About Grace

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.

But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you. He wants you as you are; He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone.

Repentance means turning away from one's own work to the mercy of God. The whole Bible calls to us and cheers us: Turn back, turn back! Return—where to? To the everlasting grace of God, who does not leave us…. God will be merciful—so come, judgment day! Lord Jesus, make us ready. We rejoice. Amen.7 Bonhoeffer's sermon for Repentance Sunday, November 19, 1933

The cross of Christ is the death which we undergo once and for all in our baptism, and it is a death full of grace.

Come now, let us argue it out,      says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet,       they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson,      they shall become like wool. Isaiah 1:18

The gospel belongs to all people because it belongs to sinners.

God alone judges, and God's judgment is helpful and healing. After all, we can only serve other Christians; we can never place ourselves above them.

Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God. Cheap

That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin departs.

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Costly

2 Corinthians 5:20: So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

When a preacher opens the Bible and interprets the word of God, a mystery takes place, a miracle: the grace of God, who comes down from heaven into our midst and speaks to us, knocks on our door, asks questions, warns us, puts pressure on us, alarms us, threatens us, and makes us joyful again and free and sure.

Once more the daylight shines abroad, O brethren let us praise the Lord, Whose grace and mercy thus have kept The nightly watch while we have slept. We offer up ourselves to thee, That heart and word and deed may be In all things guided by thy mind, And in thine eyes acceptance find.

This cheap grace has been no less disastrous to our own spiritual lives. Instead of opening up the way to Christ it has closed it. Instead of calling us to follow Christ, it has hardened us in our disobedience.

We can now continue to follow the Bible in answering the question "What is love?" Love is the reconciliation of man with God in Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ in his word must be our death and our life.

The Christian is the man who no longer seeks his salvation, his deliverance, his justification in himself, but in Jesus Christ alone. He knows that God's Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him guilty, even when he does not feel his guilt, and God's Word in Jesus Christ pronounces him not guilty and righteous, even when he does not feel that he is righteous at all.

For Christians the beginning of the day should not be burdened and oppressed with besetting concerns for the day's work. At the threshold of the new day stands the Lord who made it.

Forgiveness is the Christlike suffering which it is the Christian's duty to bear.

Wir gehören einander allein durch und in Jesus Christus. Was heißt das? Es heißt erstens, dass ein Christ den andern braucht um Jesu Christi willen. Es heißt zweitens, dass ein Christ zum andern nur durch Jesus Christus kommt. Es heißt drittens, dass wir in Jesus Christus von Ewigkeit her erwählt, in der Zeit angenommen und für die Ewigkeit vereinigt sind.

the gift of Christ is not the Christian religion but the grace and love of God, which culminate in the cross.

Jesus does not tell us what we ought to do but cannot; he tells us what God has given us and promises still to give.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.