Grace is a very important concept in Christianity. When the reformer Martin Luther in 1517 challenged the church practices of his time, he reminded Christians that according to the Gospel we can only be saved by grace: sola gratia (by grace alone), which means salvation comes by divine grace alone. The other principals of the Reformation were sola scriptura (by scripture alone), sola fide (by faith alone), and solo Christo (through Christ alone).

Grace actually comes from the world of law and courts. Those who are guilty can ask for grace so they do not have to face harsh punishment. It is an unmerited favour from a judge or ruler.

Those who are innocent in the sense of the law don’t want grace, but justice. However, according to the Christian faith, we are never innocent before God. When we claim to be righteous before God, all we get is self-righteousness.

It is our inclination as human beings to miss the mark, we hurt the relationships we are in. And the Law of God is all about relationship. Jesus quoted from the Old Testament that all the law and all the prophets are summed up in the double commandment of love (Mt 22:36-40, New International Version): “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

This is often illustrated as a triangle, with God, neighbour and self being the corners, and between these three corners there are double arrows. We are called to love God and our neighbour, our neighbour is called to love God and us, and God is loving both, us and our neighbour. While God’s love is perfect, we often lack love, both the love for God and definitely the love for others.

According to Jesus Christ, all attempts to be justified by the law, meaning by what we do, must fail. In his famous Sermon in the Mountain (Matthew 5-7), he laid out that the commandments are not only broken when we obviously overstep them, like committing adultery or murder, but having certain thoughts or fantasies, even if we don’t act on them physically, mean we break the law in God’s eyes.

The Apostle Paul puts it in Romans 3:20, 22 (NIV) into the words: “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin … for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Some may think that the good works they do should balance the bad or evil we do or lack of love out. Some non-Christian religions in fact teach such “balance-sheet justification”. Salvation is then the reward for doing the right things.

However, it portrays God as a tally counter, or a chandler, who will sell you salvation. If love (ie, doing good) is commanded though anyway as the highest commandment, how can fulfilling it in part, or fulfilling it only sometimes, make good for failing to fulfil it at other times?

Imagine you would tell a police officer: “Officer, yes I was speeding just now but half an hour ago I kept the speed limit and I even remember an incident when I was going less than the speed limit.” It won’t work.

The same is true for comparing our shortcomings with others. It will not get us off the hook either: “I might go faster than the speed limit, but have you seen those crazy guys who go much faster?” If we are lucky, a judge might take into consideration that we had a perfect record, but if she or he does so, it would already be grace called probation.

The good news is, that God actually loves us for who we are, not what we do. He hates the sin, but he loves the sinner. So, God is willing to let grace have the last word. But that grace is not cheap.

In two weeks the new Bonhoeffer movie, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin, will air in Bermuda at the BUEI. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a very courageous and brilliant theologian during the Nazi times (though he was hardly a spy and definitely not an assassin as the movie title implies).

One of his many brilliant ideas was the concept of cheap and expensive grace. According to his works, cheap grace is when we think we have the promise of grace anyway, so it does not matter what we do (a form of relativism). Cheap grace would be claiming forgiveness without even feeling remorse or guilt (a form of hypocrisy).

It would be grace for the sin, instead of grace for the sinner. It would make a mockery of God’s grace, which in reality is expensive, as it cost God a lot. Jesus Christ had to die for us to make this grace possible and our discipleship comes at a cost as well. Cheap grace is bestowed on us by ourselves rather than from God (a form of self-righteousness), Bonhoeffer said. It is grace without the Cross and without Jesus Christ as the saviour.

That is where the other “soli” from the Reformation come into play: while grace is God’s free gift, its goal is to re-establish the relationship that was damaged. In order to receive grace we have to have faith in God, which means, trust God with our heart (sola fide), even and especially when our heart feels crushed and hurting because we failed so miserably.

We need to cling to Jesus Christ (solo Christo) as our only chance of salvation, because this is what the Bible (sola scriptura) teaches us. In 1 John 1:8-9 (NIV), John explains: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

God is willing to forgive us in order to recreate the bond and friendship we can have with him. Baptism is the sign of this new covenant we have with God.

A covenant is different from a contract. In a covenant both sides promise to uphold their part of the agreement, even if the other one might fail at times. Thus our baptism calls us to try to sanctify our lives, to forgive others. Give them the same grace God gave us, just as God has forgiven us in Jesus Christ.

It reminds us that God washes away any sin, his love is perfect. He even loved us when we were still sinners and he will love us, even if we sin again (which we do and always will do in this life).

We don’t lose his blessings or his love because we made a mistake, or did not pay our full tithe, just like a good parent will love the child even if the child may rebel at times or act out.

In the Parable of the Lost Son (Luke 15:11-32) Jesus tells us how God will welcome us back into his house when we turn back to him. With the second brother it also tells us how easily we might get lost, when we are self righteous and forget to forgive others.

• Karsten Decker is a German theologian with a double degree equivalent to an MTheol and MDiv. He studied in Marburg (Germany), Knoxville (USA), and Toronto (Canada) and comes from a united church of Lutheran and Reformed Churches. He was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Bermuda from 2010 to 2017, and after returning from Germany is now the temporary pulpit supply at Centenary Untied Methodist Church in Smith’s