Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Quotes about God

“The Christian, however, must bear the burden of a brother. He must suffer and endure the brother. It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated. The burden of men was so heavy for God Himself that He had to endure the Cross. God verily bore the burden of men in the body of Jesus Christ. But He bore them as a mother carries her child, as a shepherd enfolds the lost lamb that has been found. God took men upon Himself and they weighted Him to the ground, but God remained with them and they with God. In bearing with men God maintained fellowship with them. It was the law of Christ that was fulfilled in the Cross. And Christians must share in this law.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

Men , God , Law , Suffering

“Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. 'The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared' (Luther).”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

Life , God , People , Peace

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God….. We must not….. assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by God.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God

“Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.
Costly grace is the sanctuary of God; it has to be protected from the world, and not thrown to the dogs.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Source: Costly Grace, p. 49.
Context: 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.
Costly grace is the sanctuary of God; it has to be protected from the world, and not thrown to the dogs. It is therefore the living word, the Word of God, which he speaks as it pleases him. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."

God , World , Dogs

“In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. 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.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Costly Grace, p 43.
Costly Grace
Context: Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian "conception" of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins. The church which holds the correct doctrine of grace has, it is supposed, ipso facto a part of that grace. In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. 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 grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.

God , World

“There is no abiding in and enjoying his visible glory here. Whoever recognizes the transfigured Jesus, whoever recognizes Jesus as God, must also immediately recognize Him as the crucified human being, and should hear him, obey him.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Source: Meditations on the Cross (1996), Back to the Cross, p. 3
Context: We want Jesus as the visibly resurrected one, as the splendid, transfigured Jesus. We want his visible power and glory, and we no longer want to return to the cross, to believing against all appearances, to suffering in faith … it is good here... let us make dwellings. …
The disciples are not allowed to do this. God's glory comes quite near in the radiant cloud of God's presence, and the Father's voice says: "This is my beloved son; listen to him!" … There is no abiding in and enjoying his visible glory here. Whoever recognizes the transfigured Jesus, whoever recognizes Jesus as God, must also immediately recognize Him as the crucified human being, and should hear him, obey him. Luther's vision of Christ: "the crucified Lord!" … Now the disciples are overcome by fear. Now they comprehend what is going on. They were, after all, still in the world, unable to bear such glory. They sinned against God's glory.

God

“Before Jesus leads His disciples into suffering, humiliation, disgrace, and disdain, He summons them and shows Himself to them as the Lord in God's glory.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Source: Meditations on the Cross (1996), Back to the Cross, p. 3.
Context: Before Jesus leads His disciples into suffering, humiliation, disgrace, and disdain, He summons them and shows Himself to them as the Lord in God's glory. Before the disciples must descend with Jesus into the abyss of human guilt, malice, and hatred, Jesus leads them to a high mountain from which they are to receive help. Before Jesus' face is beaten and spat upon, before his cloak is torn and splattered with blood, the disciples are to see Him in his divine glory. His face shines like the face of God and light is the garment he wears.

God , Suffering

“God honors some with great suffering and grants them the grace of martyrdom, while other are not tempted beyond their strength. But in every case it is one cross.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Source: Discipleship (1937), Discipleship and the Cross, p. 87.
Context: God honors some with great suffering and grants them the grace of martyrdom, while other are not tempted beyond their strength. But in every case it is one cross.
It is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering that everyone has to experience is the call which summons us away from our attachments to this world. It is the death of the old self in the encounter with Jesus Christ. Those who enter into discipleship enter into Jesus' death.

God , Suffering

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God

“A God who let us prove his existence would be an idol”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God

“Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God , Tear

“The will of God, to which the law gives expression, is that men should defeat their enemies by loving them.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer book The Cost of Discipleship

Source: Discipleship (1937), The Enemy, the "Extraordinary", p. 147.
Source: The Cost of Discipleship

Love , Men , God , Law

“God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

God , Truth

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Attributed to Bonhoeffer on the Internet, and supposedly from Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy http://books.google.com/books?id=aG0q3X8TVpsC&pg=PA486#v=onepage (2010) by Eric Metaxas; however, there is no actual reference in that book. However, in advertising the book Metaxas does state on his site that the quote is from Bonhoeffer. http://ericmetaxas.com/books/bonhoeffer-pastor-martyr-prophet-spy/ First attributed to Bonhoeffer in Explorations 12:1 (1998), p. 3, as referenced by James Cone (2004) Theology's Great Sin: Silence in the Face of White Supremacy, Black Theology, 2:2, 139-152, footnote 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/blth.2.2.139.36027
Compare "Not to Act, is to Act!" by Francis W. McPeek http://www.ergo-sum.net/pics/McPeek.jpg, The Missionary Herald at Home and Abroad, v.141-142 (1945-1946), "Missionary herald, 1945 - Congregational churches," pp.34-35 (We must realize that church inaction is a form of political action, and it is altogether negative. “Not to act, is to act.”)
Misattributed

God , Silence , Evil

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

God , People

“Anything I cannot thank God for for the sake of Christ, I may not thank God for at all; to do so would be sin…. We cannot rightly acknowledge the gifts of God unless we acknowledge the Mediator for whose sake alone they are given to us.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer book The Cost of Discipleship

Source: The Cost of Discipleship

God , Christ

“A pastor should never complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community