Martin-Luther (Photo credit: Awaya Legends)

Of Martin Luther, Dietrich Bonhoeffer states, “Costly grace was given as a gift to Luther. It was grace, because it was water onto thirsty land, comfort for anxiety, liberation from the servitude of a self-chosen path, forgiveness of all sins. The grace was costly, because it did not excuse one from works. Instead, it endlessly sharpened the call to discipleship. But just wherein it was costly, that was wherein it was grace. And where it was grace, that was where it was costly. That was the secret of the Reformation gospel, the secret of the justification of the sinner.”

Bonhoeffer explains, “This grace had already cost Luther one life and daily continued to cost him, for he was not excused by grace from discipleship, but instead was all the more thrust into it.”

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