Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (37)

 

 

From page 252 through page 257 Bonhoeffer addresses church discipline. This is a challenging section since it is so foreign to our experience, yet the fact that this should not be the case is demonstrated in Bonhoeffer’s use of Scripture throughout the passage. Church discipline is integral to church-community, yet it is so removed from our experience that it is difficult to think about it, talk about it, and pretty much impossible to practice it. Yet, Bonhoeffer considers church discipline so important that this section may be the longest sustained argument he makes in Discipleship.

 

I wrestled with how to approach this section, and I thought about giving it passing acknowledgment and then moving on to the next section. On the one hand it seems futile to explore deeply Bonhoeffer’s (and the Bible’s) teaching on church discipline because the likelihood of us practicing it is remote, on the other hand providing an outline of the section is in keeping with our journey through Part II of Discipleship.

 

As with the rest of Discipleship, there is no substitute for reading and pondering the text for yourself, what I write is not intended to take the place of the text, not with Bonhoeffer, not with the Bible; never, never, never.

 

While Bonhoeffer makes an extended argument for church discipline, grounded in Scripture, it may not seem long enough in that he raises questions that he does not answer. While they may not be questions in his mind, they are questions that most of us will have, we will ask, “Just what does he mean?” Yet, the section is long enough in that it gives us plenty to ponder, and the questions are such that there is likely no closure to them – there will always be facets to discover – after all, we are dealing with God, Scripture, and human experience…a never-ending journey.

 

“For the church-community to live a life worthy of the gospel, it must maintain the practice of church discipline” (page 252). If we keep in mind that this chapter is titled The Saints, then perhaps we will see that Bonhoeffer is saying that to live as saints in Christ, we must live within the visible church-community and that living in this community means that we practice church discipline.

 

Before we move into the text I want to make some observations as to why this subject can be so challenging.

 

A.      We seldom, if ever, see church discipline Biblically practiced. When it is practiced it is typically in a harsh and heartless manner or it is on the other extreme, without backbone and definition. As a rule, we avoid church discipline; it is too uncomfortable and unpleasant and we don’t want to be misunderstood or offend people.

B.      We don’t understand the Nature of the Church. The Church is the Temple of God, the Body of Christ, and God disciplines those He loves. He has given the responsibility of discipline, as Bonhoeffer demonstrates, to the Church – not as a option but as a command. The Church is not a social – service organization, it is not a civic club, its roots are not of the earth but in heaven, we are to live under the authority of Christ and His Word; we are accountable to Christ, to His Word, and to one another.

C.     The Church is to be holy as God is holy. This holiness is holistic, it begins in the depths of the soul and expresses itself in our hearts, minds, and bodies. We are called to holiness because we are called into intimacy with the Holy One, and we are called to His holiness for the blessing and sanctification of one another and the ultimate blessing of the world. We are no more to tolerate sin in our souls than we are to tolerate cancer in our bodies. I do not take offense if my dermatologist removes a cancerous cell from my body, why do I take offense when a brother helps me identify and remove (by God’s grace!) sin from my life?

D.     The Church is not a necessity in our lives. We are consumers, and if one local congregation doesn’t suit us, we will move on to another. If one congregation offends us, we will find one that caters to our desires. Church discipline doesn’t mean much if our relational bonds do not mean everything to us, by that I mean that unless our koinonia is such that the Body of Christ is our life, then it means little if we come under discipline…we will simply move on to another congregation; or we will go it alone.

E.       There is no unity in the professing church. That is, we have multiple franchises, each competing for attendees and members, each seeking greater market share. We ignore Christ’s words about unity in John 17, we think we know better. This means that we will typically receive someone into our fellowship who has been disciplined by another congregation with no questions asked. We will accept professing Christians as immediate members without looking into their backgrounds, without obtaining references from a previous congregation.

I recall interviewing a prospective member at a church (two deacons were with me) and asking her to tell me about not only coming to know Jesus, but about her church background. She said, “No one has ever asked me about this and I’ve belonged to a few churches."

 

I once pastored in an area in which most pastors required premarital counseling prior to officiating at a wedding. This united front was helpful to pastors, churches, and couples; though some couples sought to avoid it. If we were united in our service to Christ and others, we could at least attempt to honor church discipline, teach it, practice it, and cooperate in it.

F.       We don’t care about sin, we don’t name it, we tolerate it, accept it, and at times promote it. We tend to approach sin as a sickness that requires therapy rather than confession and repentance. We don’t dare deal with sin Biblically lest we lose members and alienate those attendees who are considering membership. Pastors can easily lose their jobs by preaching against sin and calling us to obedient discipleship. Sin is old fashioned and unenlightened, it makes us uncomfortable…Jesus wouldn’t want that…would He? (See Revelation chapters 2 – 3).

 

For sure the above raise their own questions; this seems simple, but it can be complex, and it seems complex, but it is also simple. Bonhoeffer insists on church discipline and bases his insistence on the Bible, not on our feelings. I don’t pretend to know all the answers, and as a pastor I have seldom done a good job in this area – the reasons for this are likely many.

 

However, in my friendships I am thankful that I have brothers who I can talk to and who can talk to me; who I can speak the truth to and who will speak the truth to me. Because of my age there are less and less of them (there have never been many), but as long as there is still one then I have the protection of such a relationship.

 

For protection it is. We are protected from ourselves, the world, the flesh, and the devil when we speak the truth to one another, when we do not hide from one another. (Much of what passes for “church” is a grown-up form of “hide and seek,” a game we play much of our lives.) If we must be concerned about what others think, let us hope they will think enough of us, care enough for us, to tell us the truth and to invite us to speak the truth into their own lives. Otherwise, what others think doesn’t matter.

 

We’ll return to Bonhoeffer’s text in our next post in this series, the Lord willing.

 

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (36)

 

 

On page 249 Bonhoeffer points out that while there are many works “of the flesh,” there is only one “fruit of the Spirit” (5:19ff; Eph. 5:9).

 

“Works are dead, but fruit is alive and the bearer of seeds which themselves produce new fruit… [fruit is] something that has grown organically…The fruit of the Spirit is a gift of which God is the sole source. Those bearing this fruit are…unaware of it…The only thing they are aware of is the power of the one from whom they receive their life” (page 249).

 

“The saints themselves are unaware of the fruit of sanctification they bear. The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing…if they decide to engage in self-contemplation, then they would have already torn themselves away from the root and their time of bearing fruit would have passed” (page 249).

 

On page 250 Bonhoeffer directs us to Galatians 5:22 – 24; 2:20; 1 Cor. 15:31, and 2 Cor. 4:16 with the following thoughts:

 

Galatians 5:22 – 24 speaks of both the sanctification of the individual and the holiness of the church-community; the source of both is community with Christ and in Christ and with one another in Christ.

 

The deeper our growth in sanctification, the more we recognize that we are dying according to the flesh, “Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24).

 

The fact that we still live in the flesh means that our entire lives must be “an act of faith in the Son of God who has begun His own life in them” (Gal. 2:20).

 

Christ is our “daily death and…daily life.”

 

The fruit of the Spirit cannot remain invisible to the world, indeed, it is such that from ancient times forward the world has said, “See how they love one another.” Here we might add John 13:34 – 35 to Bonhoeffer’s text.

 

On page 251, as Bonhoeffer considers that we are in fact saints in Christ, he writes, “These very same Christians, who embrace the truth that sin no longer rules over them, and that the believer no longer sins, will also confess that ‘if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.’”

 

He quotes 1 John 1:8 – 2:1 in helping us to see the “already – not yet” of our life in Christ, of us being complete in Him (Col. 2:10) while at the same time living in the process of sanctification. Those who do not live in the tension of 1 John 1:8 – 2:1, who cannot “see” this dynamic of our life in Christ, often live on one of two ends of the spectrum. On one end they insist that our identity is that of sinners, on the other end they insist that we no longer need to speak of sin, beware of sin, teach against sin, or seek the Holy Spirit’s conviction of sin.

 

I have known Jesus Christ, in some measure…it is a mystery to me…since 1966, and I will say that 1 John 1:9 is more precious to me today than ever before. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

 

We could ponder 1 John 1:8 – 2:1 every day for the rest of our lives and not exhaust its treasures.

 

Bonhoffer also makes the point that as Christ forgives us, so we ought to forgive one another “without ceasing” (Eph. 4:32; Matt. 18:21ff). Forgiveness is to be our way of life, both in the receiving and the giving.

 

“The community of saints is not the ‘ideal’ church-community of the sinless and perfect. It is not the church-community of those without blemish, which no longer provides room for the sinner to repent. Rather it is the church-community that shows itself worthy of the gospel of forgiveness of sins by truly proclaiming God’s forgiveness, which has nothing to do with forgiving oneself. It is the community of those who have truly experienced God’s costly grace, and who thereby live a life worthy of the gospel which they neither squander nor discard” (pages 251 – 252).

 

I would like to ask Bonhoeffer why he inserted “which has nothing to do with forgiving oneself.” Of course this is true, but I would like to know what he encountered that motivated him to make this point.

 

There is nothing in the Bible, not directly nor by extrapolation that supports the idea that we must forgive ourselves. In fact, the Scriptures are clear that only in Jesus can we find forgiveness. Yes, we find the forgiveness of Jesus Christ communicated to us through His Body, both at the Lord’s Table and in our daily lives, but there is no other source of forgiveness than the Lamb of God.

 

I was once part of a large audience who heard a well-known author and speaker preach on our need to forgive ourselves. At the end of the message the pastors were called to come up front to minister to those who desired prayer. As I stood facing the audience, I looked at the pastor who was standing beside me and said, “You know, this business of forgiving ourselves isn’t true.”

 

He said, “Yes, I know.”

 

When a man came up to us for prayer regarding things in his life for which he was seeking forgiveness, we explained to him that lasting forgiveness was only to be found in Jesus and received from Jesus. The man was relieved to hear this and we had a sweet time of ministry and prayer with him…all centered in Jesus Christ.

 

If we have “truly experienced God’s costly grace” then we can display that costly grace to others, both within and without the visible church-community. Saints are those who both receive and give God’s costly grace. Saints forgive one another without ceasing. Saints are those who have been sanctified and are being sanctified. This sanctification is both individual and communal, and there cannot truly be individual sanctification outside of the Body of Christ – O how we need one another!

 

Perhaps our congregations ought to always be asking, “How is Christ sanctifying us in this season of life?”

 

We ought not to lose sight of Galatians 5:16 – 24, while our focus is on the fruit of the Spirit, let us not be so foolish as to dismiss the deeds of the flesh – Jesus our Lord was tempted, we will be tempted, only the foolish dismiss the reality of temptation (1 Cor. 10:1 – 13). We are to run to Jesus in temptation, our Great and Merciful High Priest (Heb. 4:14 – 16; 7:25; 2:17 – 18).

 

Might it not be that much of our practice of “church” these days is in the form of accommodation to the world, the flesh, and the devil? That rather than calling the people of the world to know Jesus and to be conformed (as believers) to His image (Rom. 8:29), that we are conforming ourselves to the present age? That our salt is losing its flavor, that we are putting our light under a basket, and we are shutting off the light on the city on the hill (Matt. 5:13 – 15)?

 

These things can be subtle, especially when we have acclimated ourselves to them. Yes, they can also be blatant, but I think subtlety is our primary danger, the soothing siren song of the world, the music that takes us away from the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ. I imagine that this temptation exists in every life, in every congregational setting – it will usually look attractive, it will usually make sense – and it will always move our hearts away from Jesus and His Cross.

 

Galatians 2:20; 6:14.

 

Is this our testimony?

 

Is it the testimony of our congregations?

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (35)

 

Bonhoeffer writes that the community of saints “implies three things.” A clear separation from the world. Holy conduct. The hidden work of sanctification “waiting for the day of Jesus Christ” (page 243).

 

On pages 245 – 257 he explores “holy conduct” by considering, citing, and referring to approximately 89 Scriptures. Once again, we witness Bonhoeffer’s orientation to the Bible and his desire that our faith in Jesus Christ and relationships with one another be grounded in God’s Word.

 

We, the saints, are called to live lives worthy of our calling (Eph. 4:1; Phil. 1:27; Col. 1:10; 1 Thess. 2:12). We are to daily remind ourselves that we’ve been “washed, sanctified, and justified” (1 Cor. 6:11); this reminder facilitates the work of sanctification. We have been crucified and died with Christ on the Cross and the power of sin has been broken.

 

At the top of page 246 we read, “Christians must therefore no longer be called “sinners,” provided sinners are understood as those who live subject to the power of sin.”

 

“Rather, Christians were once sinners, godless, enemies of Christ (Rom. 5:8, 10; and Gal. 2:15, 17). But now they are saints for the sake of Christ. As saints, they are reminded and admonished to be what they are (page 246, italics mine).

 

Bonhoeffer makes a statement that some may find curious, “They [the saints] are not required in their sinful state to be holy. That would be an impossibility, a complete relapse into the attempt to earn salvation by works and thus be blasphemy against Christ. Instead, the saints are called to be holy. For they are sanctified in Christ Jesus through the Holy Spirit” (page 246).

 

As we will see, Bonhoeffer will deal deeply with sin in the life of the saint and in the holy church-community, so we ought not to misunderstand him by thinking for a moment that he ignores sin, in fact, by highlighting the fact that in Christ we are saints, he highlights the heinousness of sin in our lives.

 

Sin is what we expect in a sinner, it is not what we ought to expect in a saint. Sin is what we expect in the world, it is not what we ought to expect in God’s holy realm of the visible church-community.

 

Our identity as saints in Christ, and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, is all because of the work of Jesus Christ – we are called, justified, sanctified, and glorified in Him – we have nothing to boast of other than the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ. We must live by His Life and by no other life (John 15:1ff; Gal. 2:20).

 

“The dark works of the flesh are completely brought into the open by the bright light of life in the Spirit: “adultery, fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, hatred, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these” (Gal. 5:19 – 21). All these no longer have any place in the community Christ” (page 246).

 

Bonhoeffer notes that the lists of sins in the New Testament are similar, usually beginning with fornication, followed by greed (which is often combined with impurity and idolatry), followed by “the sins against love for brothers and sisters, and finally the sin of excessive self-indulgence” (pages 246 – 247).

 

Fornication “is the recurrence of Adam’s sin” (p. 247). It is the transgression of “the boundaries God has set for us, and in which we abuse God’s creatures” (p. 247).

 

“Fornication is first and foremost a sin against God the Creator. For a Christian, however, it is also a particularly flagrant way of sinning against the body of Christ. It belongs to Christ alone…Being in community with the tortured and transfigured body of Christ liberates Christians from disorderliness in matters of bodily life…With discipline and chastity Christians use their bodies exclusively to serve and to build up the body of Christ” (pages 247 – 248).

 

There is a sense in which fornication became a way of life for Israel, a way that was coupled with idolatry. Bonhoeffer points this out on page 247 as he cites 1 Cor. 10:7 – 8. Has fornication become a way of life for the professing church today?

 

We live in a society in which we view our bodies and minds as things we can do with as we please, alter as we please, and we have imported this thinking and behavior into the professing church. We cannot separate fornication from idolatry anymore than ancient Israel could, idolatry has many forms and one of them is promiscuity.

 

Jesus says to the church in Pergamum, “But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality” (Rev. 2:14).

 

To the church in Thyatira He says, “But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols” (Rev. 2:20).

 

Just as fornication has many forms, so does eating things sacrificed to idols. If we consider that greed, the lust for power, self-indulgence, hatred, and anger are idols, then when we eat these things, when we bring these things into our hearts and minds and souls, we are partaking of the food of demonic idols. We can either eat the flesh and drink the blood of our dear Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, or we can partake of idols. Which will it be?

 

Bonhoeffer tells us that “Greed is related to fornication. An insatiable desire is what they both have in common, and it is what lets the greedy person become enslaved to the world” (page 248).

 

O dear friends, our hearts and souls and minds and bodies are to belong to Jesus and to Jesus alone. “For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led away from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2 – 3).

 

Is not something amiss when we have popular “Christian” teachers who teach us the way of greed, with overt or covert prosperity gospels? Ought we not to pause and consider when “Christian” leaders entice us to align ourselves with political agendas permeated with uncleanness, profanity, injustice, vitriol, fornication, anger – no matter where on the political spectrum they are found?

 

A pastor friend recently asked me what I thought about pastors who use profanity in their writing and teaching and who encourage their congregations to do so. What bothered me about his question was that he would even ask me what I thought. What bothered me was that he hadn’t apparently decided what he thought. What bothered me was that he was wasting my time.

 

Now you may think me a bit harsh…but who has time for the evil in the world and the professing church? What I mean is that we called to have our eyes on Jesus and to proclaim Him, otherwise we will be engulfed in news and social media and in stupid religious practices that suck our energy and distract us from helping those who truly need help in Christ. We can spend the rest of our lives playing whack-a-mole with evil and in speculation when we ought to be about living lives faithful to our one spouse…Jesus Christ.

 

Another pastor recently recommended a book he is reading by a pastor. I downloaded a sample on my Kindle and deleted the sample after reading only a few pages – why the profanity? What is holy about this? How is Jesus being reverenced and exalted? How are God’s people being taught to be His holy People? This book is a bestseller. Have we lost our minds and our moral and ethical and spiritual compass? Yes, we have.

 

Dear friends, we ought not to be ashamed of refusing to watch or read filth. We ought not to be ashamed to be experientially uninformed about fornication, promiscuity, greed, hatred, and other ways of darkness and evil. When I download books from the library to read, I return more than I keep due to content – the content may include violence, foul language, fornication, or other subject matter. The point is that I am married to Jesus Christ, He has purchased me by His blood, and I am not going to pollute myself, His temple, with evil. Furthermore, if I pollute myself with evil, I will be polluting my marriage, my friendships, and the Body of Christ to which I belong.

 

Vickie and I enjoy sports, but we will turn a game off if the content of the advertisements is evil (yes, there is evil in some form in most advertising and we ought to be able to see it – it appeals to our greed, our self-indulgence, and it destroys language – a gift from God).

 

There is nothing worth polluting our souls with evil for, there is no justification for fornication…and let us make no mistake about this; unfaithfulness to Jesus Christ is fornication.

 

As Bonhoeffer writes, the church-community is to live within God’s sacred realm.

 

Are we?

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (34)

 

 

From page 241 through the first paragraph of page 245, Bonhoeffer explores the relationship between justification and sanctification. He begins with, “From now on, Christians in the New Testament are only named “the saints” (page 241).

 

After writing of baptism and justification, he writes of our preservation in God, “Living within this divine preservation is the process of sanctification” (page 241). We are placed in the Body of Christ through justification in Christ; we are preserved in the Body of Christ through sanctification in Christ.

 

“While justification incorporates the individuals into the church-community, sanctification preserves the church-community together with all the individuals” (page 242).

 

Bonhoeffer highlights the two elements of sanctification, being separated from the world and dedicated to Jesus Christ, and being made holy as our heavenly Father is holy. As he does this, he not only relates sanctification to the individual, but also to the church-community.

 

His confidence in God’s work of sanctification is expressed by the image of us being locked in a prison of the law and sin before coming to Christ, and of us now being “locked ‘in Christ,’ marked with God’s own seal, the Holy Spirit. No one may break this seal. It has been secured by God, and the key is in God’s hand” (page 242).

 

“This means that God has now taken possession of those whom God has gained in Christ” (page 242).

 

Bonhoeffer draws our attention to the sealing of Noah’s Ark, within and without with pitch for its preservation through the flood waters, so is the church-community sealed with redemption, deliverance, and salvation (pages 242-243).

 

Again, Bonhoeffer emphasizes that God’s People are “God’s earthly dwelling place, the place from which judgment and reconciliation go forth to all the world” (page 243).

 

Bonhoeffer does not limit sanctification to individual experience, as we may tend to, but contends that it is also the experience of the church-community. In fact, Bonhoeffer insists that if sanctification isn’t experienced within the church-community that it is “pious desires of religious flesh” and “mere self-proclaimed holiness” (page 244). His vehemence on this matter ought to give us pause to reconsider the highly individualized form of Christianity that many of us practice.

 

“Sanctification through the seal of the Holy Spirit always places the church in the midst of the struggle” (page 244). Bonhoeffer tells us that the struggle is to prevent the seal from being broken, from both within and without, it is the struggle for the earthly space that he has been writing about, it is the struggle for God’s holy realm on earth, it is the struggle for separation from the world (page 245).

 

On page 243 Bonhoeffer writes that the community of saints “implies three things.” A clear separation from the world. Holy conduct. The hidden work of sanctification “waiting for the day of Jesus Christ.”

 

The idea of separation from the world may be difficult to us to understand, so enmeshed are we in the world and its ways in our practice of what we term Christianity. Also, some of us have had the experience of equating separation from the world in terms of externals, of how we look on the outside – this was very much true of me in my early years.

 

Being separated from the world begins in our hearts and minds, it is a matter of the soul and spirit. We offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices so as not to be “conformed to the world,” but rather to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds” (Romans 12:1 – 2).

 

We come to realize that the temple of God (whether individual or corporate) has no agreement, no meeting of the minds, with false gods. We must “come out from their midst and be separate” “cleansing ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 6:14 – 7:1). Note the tandem emphasis here on separation and holiness, the two dimensions of sanctification.

 

Again, this may be difficult when we are rooted in the things of this world: its values, priorities, communications, affirmations. When our eyes are fixed on the world we cannot really see our dear Lord Jesus. We become what we focus upon, we ought not to be so foolish to think otherwise. We cannot serve two masters, no matter how foolishly we argue otherwise. We can’t have dual citizenship with the Kingdom of Christ and the kingdoms of this world.

 

I could give example after example of how the professing church has brought idols into the Temple, of how we profane the sacred ground of our individual and collective lives and teach others to do so, but what matters is that we follow the Lamb wherever He goes for if we learn to follow Him all other things will be manifested for what they are; lies and chaff and sin and false teaching.

 

The people of the world don’t need us to be like them; they need us to be a holy People with a holy love and holy grace and holy mercy and holy truth in Jesus Christ. They don’t need our gatherings to be entertainment venues. Our classmates and coworkers and neighbors don’t need us to be chameleons, changing color and blending in with our surroundings, they need us to be distinctly identified with Jesus Christ (with all our warts and blind spots) caring for them, praying for them, living lives of truth and integrity – being in the world but not of the world.

 

We have been on a binge of trying to sell Jesus, and what we have done is sold ourselves and others to darkness. Instead of selling Jesus, we ought to be giving our lives to Him and to Him alone. There is nothing about the Cross of Crucifixion that lends itself to sales and marketing and shame on us for making the Gospel a form of cotton candy guaranteed to rot our souls.

 

“By His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord’” (1 Cor. 1:30 – 31).

 

“May it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14).

 

 

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (33)

 

“How, out of sinful human beings, does God create a community of saints that is totally separated from sin? How can God be defended against the accusation of being unrighteousness, if God enters into a relationship with sinners?” (page 237).

 

Bonhoeffer tells us that we can be separated from sin only through our death. There must be a “killing of the sinner” (page 237). This may shock us. If we react by thinking, “I’ve never heard that!” we need only to look to Romans chapters 1 – 8 to see that Bonhoeffer’s message, his Gospel, is the Gospel of the Bible. Embedded within the Gospel is the truth and glorious news that “the sinner must die” to be free from sin.

 

If we ask, “How can this be?” we will be echoing Bonhoeffer, for this is also his question midway through page 237, “How can this come about?”

 

He tells us this comes about by God becoming human, weaving this in with the theme of “God’s self-justification” and of God being “justified before God” (page 237), working with this theme into page 241 where he will then weave sanctification into the tapestry and work with justification and sanctification together.

 

Since Bonhoeffer refers to Romans 3:21ff in this section, let’s read the entire passage. I have used bold print to demonstrate the emphasis on God’s righteousness and self-justification.

 

21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 but it is the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in God’s merciful restraint He let the sins previously committed go unpunished; 26 for the demonstration, that is, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

 

What questions do you have as you read this passage?

 

What challenges do you see to understanding it?

 

Now for sure the passage needs to be read in its context, that is it ought to be read in the context of Romans 1:1 through 5:11. We ought not to think that we can capture the passage on our first or second or tenth reading, but we can ask our Father that the passage might capture us, our hearts and our minds. I’ve been reading this passage for sixty years and it still has mystery and awe and wonder, I still bow before it…more now than ever before.

 

Bonhoeffer writes, “The death of Jesus Christ is the place where God has supplied the gracious proof of God’s own righteousness, the only place from that moment on where God’s righteousness dwells. Whoever could participate in this death would thereby also participate in God’s righteousness” (pages 237-238).

 

“What happened to him happened to all of us. He took part in our life and in our dying, and thus we came to take part in his life and his dying” (page 238).

 

Bonhoeffer wants to be clear that the Gospel insists that “God alone” is “the one who is righteous” (page 239). The Cross is both a place of judgment and of reconciliation, and it is God’s righteousness which brings about the reconciliation (Romans 3:25 – 26; 2 Cor. 5:19ff). We are to “find yourselves included in Jesus Christ’s death” (page 239).

 

Bonhoeffer refers to the following Scriptures on pages 239 – 240: 2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 10:3; Phil. 3:9; Isa. 54:7; 1 Cor. 1:30; Isa. 7:14; Jer. 33:16; Heb. 6:5ff; 10:26ff; Rom. 6:3; 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; Rom. 6:11. Once again we see Bonhoeffer’s thinking deeply grounded in the Bible. He concludes this survey of Scripture with these words:

 

“Everything has already taken place, not only on the cross of Jesus, but also as far as you are concerned. You have been separated from sin, you have died, you are justified. God has thus completed God’s work. Through righteousness, God has established God’s realm of holiness on earth. This realm of holiness is named Christ or the body of Christ.

 

“God has a community which has been justified, and thus freed from sin. It is the community of the disciples of Jesus, the communion of saints. They have been accepted into God’s holy realm, indeed they are God’s holy realm” (pages 240 – 241, italics mine).

 

I have not attempted to follow Bonhoeffer in the details of his presentation on pages 237 into 241, it is too tightly written and interconnected with various Scriptures to be able to do this in a blog. Indeed, one could possibly write a small book in response to Bonhoeffer’s teaching, especially since he assumes that the reader has a background in the Bible and the terms he is using, such a justification, sanctification, the righteousness of God, the self-justification of God.

 

The idea that God justifies Himself is a case in point, how often do we think of this idea? Do we not live in a world, including a religious world, in which we tend to think that forgiveness of sins can be arbitrary? That if God wants to forgive that He can forgive? Do we really, deep down inside, consider just why Jesus died for our sins? Why couldn’t God have just said, “I forgive you. I forgive all of you. Let’s just start all over”?

 

Do we think that the character of God really matters? O sure, we want Him to be love and mercy, but beyond that does the idea of holiness or justice or righteousness really matter to us? Would it matter to us if God were not holy? Does the Nature of the Divine matter, truly matter to us?

 

When Moses encountered God at the Burning Bush, God said, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

 

When God called His People unto Him after delivering them from Egypt, during the construction of the Tabernacle, in giving laws and ordinances for worship, for relationship with Him and neighbors, the overriding message was “You must be holy, for I am holy.” The Message of Leviticus is “Holiness,” the holiness of God and the holiness of His People.

 

The overriding Message of great Messianic Prophet Isaiah is holiness. Just as Israel’s call in the Wilderness was “holiness,” so was Isaiah’s. “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:3). Perhaps nowhere in Isaiah do we see the holiness of God as in chapters 52 and 53, when the LORD justifies Himself and us through the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Messiah.

 

The concluding book and prophet of the Old Testament, Malachi, carries the Message of God’s holiness and a warning not to continue profaning it, and a promise to those who honor it and live according to His Nature, His holiness.

 

Peter cries out to Jesus, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8). Later Peter will emphasize the holiness of God when he quotes from Leviticus, “You shall be holy for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16).

 

The consummation of our pilgrimage, of the Biblical narrative, of our homecoming, occurs in the “Holy City” (Rev. 21:2), a City that “nothing unclean” can enter (Rev. 21:27).

 

The chapter we are considering is titled The Saints, but we cannot know the meaning of the term saints unless we are rooted in the righteousness, self-justification, and holiness of God; for all justification, sanctification, and sainthood must be rooted in the holiness of God – the holiness expressed in the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ – there is no holiness for us outside of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.

 

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

 

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (32)

 

 

Part II of Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship (popularly known in America as The Cost of Discipleship) consists of six chapters, Preliminary Questions, Baptism, The Body of Christ, The Visible Church-Community, The Saints, and The Image of Christ. We’ve arrived at The Saints and Bonhoeffer begins the chapter by declaring that the saints are God’s holy ones on this earth (pages 235 – 237).

 

The first sentence of the chapter is a summation of the previous chapter, “The ‘ecclesia’ of Christ, the community of disciples, is no longer subject to the rule of this world. True, it still lives in the midst of the world. But it already has been made into one body. It is a territory with an authority of its own, a space set apart” (page 235).

 

I suppose I should state the obvious for the few that may read this quotation out of context; when Bonhoeffer writes that the church is “no longer subject to the rule of this world” he does not mean that we can do what we please and ignore the governments and authorities of the world, his treatment of Romans 13 in the previous chapter makes this clear.

 

Bonhoeffer follows his opening statement by referencing seven verses which speak of Christians (all Christians) being saints, holy ones, in Christ Jesus: Eph. 5:27; 1 Cor. 14:34; Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2; Eph. 1:4; Col. 1:22; Rom. 6:19 – 22.

 

Bonhoeffer twice reminds us that this call to holiness was given “before the foundation of the world.” He also writes that, “This is the reason why Christ surrendered his body unto death, so as to present those who are his own as holy, blameless, and irreproachable before him (Col. 1:22)” (pg. 235).

 

He then cites Romans 6:19 – 22 in support of the Good News that the “fruit of being freed from sin by Christ’s death” is that we can now live “in the service of righteousness” (pg. 235).

 

Then our author shifts our focus with the statement, “God alone is holy” (pg. 235). Bonhoeffer moves from his focus on “saints” [holy ones] to the One who alone is Holy. If God alone is holy, how can we be holy?

 

Bonhoeffer has introduced the answer is the seven verses listed above, and he will continue to explore the answer. On page 237 he asks, “How does this come about?...How…does God create a community of saints that is totally separated from sin?”

 

At the top of page 236 he tells us that God is laying the “foundation of a realm of holiness in the midst of the world.”

 

Then we read, “God’s holiness consists in establishing a divine dwelling place, God’s realm of holiness in the midst of the world…” (page 235).

 

In writing of the “community of God’s holy realm,” Bonhoeffer tells us that God has chosen us, made us “the community of the divine covenant,” reconciled us, purified us, and that “this place of holiness is the temple…the body of Christ thus is the fulfillment of God’s will to establish a holy community” (page 236).

 

This reminds us of Ephesians 2:21 in which we see that we are a living building and are being joined together, “growing into a holy temple in the Lord,” being “built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

 

Peter writes, “You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5).

 

In the chapter, The Visible Church-Community, Bonhoeffer writes of us taking up space in the world, being identifiable, being joined to one another in Jesus Christ, and of being faithful witnesses to the world and support to one another in this witness. We are to be a visible people, not because we have church buildings, but because of our community, our koinonia, in Jesus Christ.

 

Now, in the chapter titled The Saints, we see that we are to be holy as God is holy. We see this pattern in the Pentateuch, first Exodus and then Leviticus. First, in Exodus, we see the People of God called out of Egypt, then the Tabernacle and the orientation of the People to the Tabernacle; then in Leviticus we have the great distinguishing message of God, “You shall be holy for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44; 19:2; 20:7; 1 Peter 1:14 – 16; 2:9).

 

What are our challenges in understanding the Biblical message of which Bonhoeffer writes?  Two immediately come to my thinking.

 

The first is, do I “see” the Church, the Body, the Temple, the Bride as Scripture portrays them, as Christ Jesus sees them?

 

Do I see the Church as an organization (or a group of organizations), do I see it as a building, or do I see us as the Temple, God’s dwelling place in the Spirit (Eph. 2:19 – 22)?

 

The second challenge is, do I “see” the holiness of God (in some measure), and do I see the distinction between the holiness of God and the sin and uncleanness of the world, the flesh, and the devil? Do I distinguish between the clean and the unclean in my own life, and do we as the Church make this distinction? (See 2 Cor. 6:14 – 7:1). Are we living as God’s holy People? Do we even desire to live as God’s holy people?

 

Is our view and vision of the People of God that which is portrayed in the Bible? Are we “seeing” as Paul saw, as Bonhoeffer saw?

 

What other challenges can you think of?

 

Do we “see” that God is establishing a realm of holiness in the midst of the world?

 

Are we participating in that realm?

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (31)

 

 

In the final movement of his chapter on The Visible Church Community, Bonhoeffer reminds us that we are strangers in this world on our way to our heavenly Home. “The Christian community thus lives its own life in the midst of this world, continually bearing witness in all it is and does that the present form of this world is passing away (1 Cor. 7:31” (page 232).

 

“Here on earth, the church-community lives in a foreign land. It is a colony of strangers far away from home” (p. 232).

 

On page 233 Bonhoeffer writes that the church is to be “following only the voice of the one who has called it.” He says concerning the church, “They look only to their Lord. He is in heaven, and their life for which they are waiting is in him.”

 

From the middle of page 232 through the conclusion of the chapter on page 234, Bonhoeffer cites no less than twelve Bible verses that speak of our pilgrimage through the world to heaven, and to how our testimony of Jesus ought to appear.

 

“Christians are poor and suffering, hungry and thirsty, gentle, compassionate and peaceable, persecuted and scorned by the world. Yet it is for their sake alone that the world is still preserved. They shield the world from God’s judgment of wrath. They suffer so that the world can still live under God’s forbearance. They are strangers and sojourners on this earth (Heb. 11:13; 13:14; 1 Peter 1:1).”

 

Of course, the question is whether this describes us, the professing church in the United States, the professing church in the West.

 

Might we be like the Laodiceans in thinking, “‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked” (Rev. 3:17)?

 

Are we a cruciform people? When the world sees us, does it see a people marked by the Cross? Carrying the Cross? Suffering with Jesus for others?

 

Does the world see us at all? Do we matter? When the world does see us, does it see an appendage to a political party or a nationalistic agenda? Should the world notice us, does it see angry people, unmerciful people, people obsessed with worldviews and economic and political agendas, people aligning themselves with the economic, political, and religious forces of the antichrist and Babylon (Rev. chapters 13, 17, 18; 2 Thess. 2:1 – 12)? Are we living as the sheep or the goats of Matthew 25:31 – 46?

 

If Jesus is correct in teaching that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, then what can we say of ourselves? When we gather what do we talk about? If we are not speaking of Jesus to one another then we ought to tremble and call a fast and repent (Joel 1:14ff). If we are not serving “the least” of His people (see Matthew 25:31 – 46), then we ought to confess our sin and change our lives…serving the disenfranchised, the stranger in the land, the poor, the politically powerless, the hurting, the fearful, the hungry, the homeless, the sick.

 

When we stand before Jesus Christ, none of us will be wearing masks to conceal our identities – we will not be able to hide who we really are.

 

Following Jesus is not easy in the United States. We are bombarded with information, with hype and spin, with the peer pressure of agendas, with an Imperial Cult of nationalism, with various cults intent on wrecking our understanding of natural law, common grace, common sense, and human decency. We have been seduced by pleasure and comfort and affluence (or the illusion of these things). We worship at the altars of Wall Street, Hollywood, Nashville, Washington, D.C., Fox News, CNN, and other media outlets.[1] Our churches have imported idols into sacred spaces just as ancient Judah brought idols into the Holy Temple of God; political idols, national idols, economic idols, entertainment idols, idols of pleasure, religious idols.

 

It is not easy to follow Jesus in the United States, it is not easy for a congregation to keep focused on Jesus, the pressure to entertain, be attractive, to grow numerically, to grow financially, to measure ourselves by the standards of the world can be intense. It is difficult for pastors to be faithful when their churches are more attuned to the above idols than to God’s Word and Jesus Christ. How hard it is to serve people who have a consumer mentality, or who have a primarily economic and political mentality. We cannot serve more than one master (Matthew 6:24) – why do we think we can?

 

While we ought not minimize the obstacles to following Jesus as strangers and pilgrims, we should not fail to confess that if God is for us, who can be against us? (Rom. 8:31).

 

Let us not forget that greater is He who is in us, than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4). Nor that we have been given the Holy Spirit so that we might be Christ’s witnesses to the end of the age, and that He is always with us (Mt. 28:20; Acts 1:8).

 

Let us remind ourselves and one another that we are brothers and sisters in the communion of saints, joined to those who have gone before us and to one another across the globe this very day; we are not alone (Hebrews Chapter 11; 12:22 – 24).

 

Let us also realize the while all things around us may be shaking, that those things that cannot be shaken will remain; in fact, the great shaking that we see within and without the professing church is to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ and the City of God (Hebrews 11:25 – 29). We ought to soberly realize that “judgment begins with the house God” (1 Peter 4:17). In Revelation, the Holy City is fully manifested after great judgments and shakings, after God’s People have proven themselves faithful to the Lamb through incredible times and judgments and difficulties.

 

The book of the prophet Malachi portrays the people of God, the church after returning from Babylon, as failing to distinguish between the clean and unclean, as offering to God less than the best, as a covenant-breaking people toward God and in marriage, with an unfaithful priesthood.

 

The church was engaging in sorcery, in sexual promiscuity, they were liars, they did not pay employees a fair wage, nor did they care for the widow, the orphan, or the immigrant! They did not fear God. (Malachi 3:5). These people were not faithful stewards of the resources that God was giving them (Malachi 3:8 – 9).

 

There were even those who were saying, “It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge?” (Malachi 3:14). Doesn’t this remind us of our own approach to church life? We ask, “Where is the profit? Where is the return on investment? Where is the practical result of this action? What is it in for us?”

 

We ask these questions rather than ask, “How shall we follow Jesus? How shall we bear His Cross? How shall we deny ourselves and serve others?”

 

Yet we also read in Malachi:

 

“Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and esteem His name. ‘They will be Mine,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘on the day that I prepare My special treasure [jewels], and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him’” (Malachi 3:16 – 17).

 

“But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall” (Malachi 4:2).

 

God has always had a remnant faithful to Him and committed to each other.

 

Bonhoeffer wrote (as quoted above): “Yet it is for their sake alone that the world is still preserved. They shield the world from God’s judgment of wrath. They suffer so that the world can still live under God’s forbearance. They are strangers and sojourners on this earth (Heb. 11:13; 13:14; 1 Peter 1:1).”

 

Isaiah wrote, “Unless the LORD of hosts had left us a very small remnant, we would be like Sodom, we would be like Gomorrah” (Isaiah 1:9).

 

Shall we live as a remnant, following the Lamb wherever He goes? Shall our Father prepare us as His special treasures, His jewels? Shall we live in the Light of the Sun of Righteousness?

 

“He who overcomes will inherit all things, and I will be his God and he will be My son” (Revelation 21:7).

 

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[1] Lest you misunderstand me, this is not to say there are not faithful people serving in these centers of power and influence, but it is to say that the ethos and underlying power in these centers is opposed to the Lamb (Psalm 2). The powers of this world are often depicted in the Bible as beasts, even as a combination of beasts, bestial Frankensteins if you will. They devour those who ride them, who serve them, and who are in proximity to them.

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (30)

 

 

Bonhoeffer emphasizes that the visible church-community must not be conformed to the world, but to Christ. At the bottom of page 229 he quotes Romans 12:2:

 

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed into a new form by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God.”

 

Bonhoeffer writes that we have a “form” that is different form the world, and that “form” is Christ. We are “called to be ever increasingly transformed into the form…the form of Christ himself” (pp. 229 – 230).

 

“If it engages the world properly, the visible church-community will always more closely assume the form of its suffering Lord” (p. 230).

 

Is this true of the Western church? Of the professing church in the United States? Or have we embraced the culture of the world? Are we indistinguishable from American culture - from one of the cultures and movements now within American society? Are we colored red or blue or purple, rather than wearing the righteousness of Jesus Christ, white robes which can only be found at the Cross and in obedience and conformity to the Cross? Are we marked by the dollar sign of the American dream, or by the Cross of Jesus Christ?

 

With Paul, are we crucified with Christ? With Paul, have we been crucified to the world and has the world been crucified to us? (Galatians 2:20; 6:14).

 

Bonhoeffer teaches us that whatever we possess, we are to possess only through Christ…in Christ…and for the sake of Christ (p. 230). We are not to be prisoners of our possessions, we are to hold possessions in trust as stewards of Jesus Christ. Since we are free from possessions and from the world, we are “able to abandon the world whenever it prevents them from following their Lord" (p. 230).

 

On pages 230 – 231 Bonhoeffer references ten verses dealing with our relationship with money and possessions, including, “But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires” (1 Tim. 6:6 – 9).

 

As I read these pages I was reminded of the second chapter of Tozer’s The Pursuit of God. Its title is “The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing.” Tozer deemed our relationship to possessions so critical and foundational to our pursuit of God that he placed it right after Chapter One, it is something we need to deal with and settle, something we need to understand, we cannot serve God and also serve money and possessions (Mt. 6:24).

 

How do we reconcile the Bible’s treatment of possessions and our obsession with them? Do we live as a people who are not owned by money and materialism but rather by Jesus? Do we not measure our lives by what we have, by our investment accounts, by the opulence and attractiveness of our church buildings? Do we measure the lives of our children and grandchildren by their love for Jesus and others, or by their vocations and income?

 

Do we freely give to others – as families and as congregations? Are we placing the welfare of others before ourselves? Why do we raise funds for new building projects for our church campuses but not have the same (it should be a greater!) passion for raising funds to alleviate hardship and suffering in communities near and afar? Have we forgotten that we are to lay down our lives for others? (1 John 3:16; John 15:12 – 13).

 

Are we being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, or to the images of Wall Street, Hollywood, Nashville, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Silicon Valley, and the sports world?

 

Are we being formed into the image of the world, or of Jesus Christ?

Are we "assuming the life of our suffering Lord"?

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (29)

 

“But the older this world grows, and the more sharply the struggle between Christ and Antichrist grows, the more thorough also becomes the world’s efforts to rid itself of the Christians. To the first Christians the world still granted a space in which they were able to feed and clothe themselves from the fruits of their own labor. A world that has become entirely anti-Christian, however, can no longer grant Christians even this private sphere in which they pursue their professional work and earn their daily bread…In the end, Christians are thus left with no other choices but to escape from the world or to go to prison” (page 229).

 

Bonhoeffer writes as darkness descends over Germany, as he sees the church in Germany being swallowed up by the forces of nationalism, as pastors and their congregations capitulate to the demands of the state, aligning themselves with state agendas and abandoning Christ. Christianity and patriotism are becoming one in Germany. This is not the first time this has happened, religion has been used by the state throughout history to help the state achieve its ends, and the myth of Christian nationalism is a powerful seductive tool in both the East and the West. Democracies and totalitarian regimes both use the myth, constructing narratives which professing Christians accept and endorse, leading them away from Christ.

 

Bonhoeffer has forgotten that early Christians were not always able to work to support themselves. In some regions in ancient Rome Christians who belonged to trade guilds, which we might think of as union shops, were expelled from the guilds for refusing to pay homage to the guilds’ patron idols. If you were not a member of a guild you could not engage in that particular trade. Then we have the notable widespread persecution under the Emperor Decius (250 A.D.) in which everyone was required to offer an incense sacrifice to Roman gods in the presence of a magistrate, for which they received a certificate indicating their compliance with the edict. Those who refused were persecuted. Persecutions were often local, sometimes regional, and sometimes (as with Decius) they were across the Empire.

 

In our own day, earning a living as a faithful Christian can be difficult, there are professions and contexts in which Christians are marginalized, and countries in which being a Christian can mean the loss of employment and prison.

 

Whether in “open” or “closed” nations, if there is no conflict between the visible church – community and the world, it means that the visible church – community is abrogating its witness to Christ, for if we are faithful to Jesus Christ there will be conflict and persecution; the servant is not greater than his Master (John 15:18 – 16:4).

 

(When we engage in “marketplace ministry in the United States, are we equipping Christians with Biblical teaching on the Cross, obedience, and suffering for Christ?)

 

 “But the older this world grows, and the more sharply the struggle between Christ and Antichrist grows, the more thorough also becomes the world’s efforts to rid itself of the Christians.”

 

There are two ways to control others, one is through pain and the other is through pleasure. The first is straightforward, “If you don’t do what I want I will inflict pain on you.” In the West this pain may be the loss of employment, denied promotion, the withholding of an academic degree, ostracism, or legal penalties.  

 

The second can be subtle. The pleasure can be in the form of money, promotion, accolades, acceptance, perquisites, entertainment, and good food and drink. It can be open doors leading to proximity to power – the power can be corporate, academic, religious, political…proximity to power can be intoxicating and few people can resist its seduction.

 

Seduction is a greater threat to us in the West than pain. Once we have been seduced by pleasure, our resistance to pain crumbles, we are trapped in the good life, in the American Dream, and the professing church has descended into Babylon. The Cross then becomes an offense to us, even as it is to the world.

 

“Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and seducers will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:12 – 13).

 

Bonhoeffer adopts the Biblical teaching of two trajectories, that of those faithful to Christ and that of those under the domain of Antichrist. The visible – church community will overcome and prevail, the Stone cut without hands will indeed fill the entire earth, bringing an end to the kingdoms of this world. A tragedy is that those faithful to Christ not only face opposition from the world, but from a church that is falling away from the Lord Jesus.

 

“But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1).

 

“Let no one in any way deceive you, for it [the Day of the Lord] will not come unless the apostasy comes first” (2 Thess. 2:3).

 

Here is the thing dear friends, apostasy need not mean the explicit verbal denial of Jesus Christ and the Bible, apostasy can be syncretistic, it can be a blend of Christ and nationalism, Christ and economics, Christ and politics, Christ and a social agenda, Christ and materialism, Christ and religious success.

 

Which is the greater danger to the average professing Christian, a teaching which explicitly denies Jesus Christ and the Bible, or a teaching and movement which blends other elements into Christ and the Bible and thereby seduces our hearts away from Jesus? Which is the greater danger, a movement which appears evil, or one which appears good?

 

If a pastor would not (let us hope) take his people to a brothel, why would he take his people into teachings and movements which draw their hearts away from Jesus Christ?

 

Again, the chapter title is The Visible Church – Community. Bonhoeffer is saying that we must have our own space, for we, as the Body of Christ, are distinct from the world. We are to live and breathe in Christ, we are to be joined to one another in His Body. We are not to be subsumed and enveloped and find our identity in politics, economics, nationalism, materialism, hedonistic pleasure, racial identity, or even in religious tradition – we belong to Jesus and to Jesus alone, He is our Husband we are His Bride (2 Cor. 11:2  -3) and nothing is to come between Jesus and His Bride, nothing.

 

“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you” (Isaiah 60:1 – 2).

 

“Who will separate us form the love of Christ?” (Romans 8:35 – 39).