Quotes About Redemption

The cross is not the suffering tied to being natural existence, but the suffering tied to being Christians. The cross is never simply a matter of suffering, but a matter of suffering and rejection, and even, strictly speaking, rejection for the sake of Jesus Christ, not for the sake of some other arbitrary behavior or confession.

With the birth of Jesus, the great kingdom of peace has begun.

Just as Christ is Christ only in virtue of his suffering and rejection, so the disciple is a disciple only in so far as he shares his Lord's suffering and rejection and crucifixion.

We cannot approach the manger of the Christ child in the same way we approach the cradle of another child. Rather, when we go to his manger, something happens, and we cannot leave it again unless we have been judged or redeemed. Here we must either collapse or know the mercy of God directed toward us.

Justification is the new creation of the new man, and sanctification his preservation until the day of Jesus Christ.

Not the way to God but the way of God to humanity: that is the sum of Christianity.

Our salvation is 'external to ourselves'. I find no salvation in my life history, but only in the history of Jesus Christ. Only he who allows himself to be found in Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, his Cross, and his resurrection, is with God and God with him.

I am sure of God's hand and guidance... You must never doubt that I am thankful and glad to go the way which I am being led. My past life is abundantly full of God's mercy and, above all sin, stands the forgiving love of the Crucified.

Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner.

What is love?" Love is the reconciliation of man with God in Jesus Christ.

When we received forgiveness instead of judgment, we too were made ready to forgive each other. What God did to us, we then owed to others. The more we received, the more we were able to give; and the more meager our love for one another, the less we were living by God's mercy and love.

Only those who in following Christ leave everything they have can stand and say that they are justified solely by grace. They recognize the call to discipleship itself as grace and grace as that call. But those who want to use this grace to excuse themselves from discipleship are deceiving themselves.

Go to the child in the manger. Believe him to be the Son of God, and you will find in him wonder upon wonder, counsel upon counsel.

But because Jesus is the Christ, it has to be made clear from the beginning that his word is not a doctrine . Instead, it creates existence anew.

The word of the justifying grace of God never departs from its position as the final word; it never yields itself simply as a result that has been achieved. . . . The word remains irreversibly the last; for otherwise it would be reduced to the quality of what is calculable, a merchandise, and would thereby be robbed of its divine character. Grace would be venal and cheap. It would not be a gift.1 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics

It is the wonderful theme of the Bible, so frightening for many people, that the only visible sign of God in the world is the cross.

For Jesus what is at stake is not the exhibition and realization of new ethical ideals, and not some kind of goodness of his own, but solely God's love for human beings. Therefore, he can enter into their guilt; he can let himself be burdened with their guilt.

From this it follows that the Body of Christ is the place of acceptance, the place of atonement and peace between God and man. God finds man in the Body of Christ, and man finds himself accepted by God in that same body.

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.

The cross is the sign that stands in judgment on all the false security in our lives and restores faith in God alone.

Jesus does not want to be the only perfect human being at the expense of humankind. He does not want, as the only guiltless one, to ignore a humanity that is being destroyed by its guilt; he does not want some kind of human ideal to triumph over the ruins of a wrecked humanity.

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