Costly Grace

In a devotional at BYU, Elder Jörg Klebingat spoke about the atonement of Jesus Christ. He said this, “Let’s not forget, my dear friends, that the Savior is less upset over our sins and shortcomings than He is over our seeming indifference to do something about them in the right way. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and anti-Nazi dissident, taught: ‘Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, . . . [forgiveness] without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.’ Bonhoeffer described ‘cheap grace’ as ‘grace without price; grace without cost!’ Next, he contrasted cheap grace with costly grace’: ‘Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow . . . Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. 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.’ This good man was hanged in April 1945 by the Gestapo. ‘What has cost God [so] much cannot be cheap for us’! My dear friends, the Savior’s Atonement must not be cheap; instead, it should mean everything to us.” This man certainly lived what he preached as he paid the ultimate price to stay true to Jesus Christ. We must be careful not to expect cheap grace in our lives when the Lord asks us to offer our whole souls.   

These words remind me of what President Jeffrey R. Holland said about missionary work. I think these words apply to our mortal experience in general: “I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary.” These are certainly sobering words for those of us who would prefer the way to be a little easier! Elder Donald Hallstrom once related, “Many of us want the simple way—the process that will not require serious work and sacrifice. Well, I once thought I found it. Driving in the back of a verdant valley above the city of Honolulu, I looked up, and there it was—Easy Street! As I was dreaming of the life-changing benefits of my discovery, I took out my camera to record the blissful moment. As I looked through the viewfinder, however, my focus literally and figuratively became clear. A large yellow sign returned me to reality—Easy Street was a dead end!”  For reasons we don’t always understand, this life was not meant to be without stress or carefree. The Lord made that clear to the early Saints even amidst great trials and persecutions they did not fully understand: “Therefore, they must needs be chastened and tried, even as Abraham, who was commanded to offer up his only son. For all those who will not endure chastening, but deny me, cannot be sanctified” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:4-5). He said again not long thereafter, “And my people must needs be chastened until they learn obedience, if it must needs be, by the things which they suffer” (Doctrine and Covenants 105:6). Our suffering and chastening and trials provide an education that apparently we can get no other way. There was no option for an online mortality course that we could just audit from heaven—no, we had to come here for experience we could get no other way. Perhaps remembering the purpose of this life helps us to keep the difficulties we go through in perspective: “And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them” (Abraham 3:25). We are here to be proved, not to be pampered.

And yet, we are not weak to wonder why it has to be so hard sometimes. In our community we have perhaps all been wondering this as we search for a brother in my ward who went missing on Sunday. He went for a walk without a phone or wallet and simply disappeared. I can’t imagine the anguish his family feel, even after endless hours of searching by armies of people has turned up very little. There are literally hundreds of people praying and searching and putting up flyers and knocking doors, desperately trying to find any clue as to what happened to him. My wife and I have spent multiple hours bushwacking through neighboring areas and so have countless other people. We have prayed and fasted and prayed more, and yet we have somehow turned up nothing. At this point I too wonder, “Does it need to be this hard? How much more is required until we find him?” I do not know the answer to that but can only hope and keep praying that Lord will bring Him home soon. And we say humbly with Isaiah, “But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand. Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people” (Isaiah 64:8-9). We pray that the Savior’s costly grace will, when we have sufficiently sacrificed and been tried, bring this good brother home.