In Christ Alone

Who is Christ? What is Christianity? What is the Church? Who are its people? Many have contributed to the matters of spirituality, to the matters of faith. Many have pondered the community of the Church and its believers, their identity and belief. Many Christian theologians desired to communicate these subjects so that Christians may gain a better understanding of Christianity, and, in turn, gain a stronger spirituality. Among these theologians is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose writings greatly influenced Christian thought concerning Christ and his people.

It is impossible to not encounter Christ in one’s life, thus man is faced with the decision to accept or deny Christ. As human reason cannot ask “How?” when concerning Christ, as human reason does not have the capability in understanding anything that is beyond his own being, man is “strained to the limit by the question ‘Who?’” (49). Yet to ask “who” Christ is is a difficulty in itself. Christ, or the divine Logos, reveals himself to man and it is up to the man himself to answer his own question. Who Christ is is who he is to the individual. Yet if one desires to achieve an accurate identity of Christ, one must understand him. In order to understand him, one must “commit…to him in a stark ‘Either-Or’”: either Christ or the world (Bonhoeffer, 43). To commit to Christ is to allow him to take control. It is during this commitment that one learns of the “grace and love of God which [culminated] in the cross” (47). Yet what does it mean to follow Christ? Bonhoeffer stresses the importance of discipleship. Man cannot live by cheap grace, as it is the “grace we bestow on ourselves” (54), and his Christian faith will collapse. Real grace comes with a cost and that is a life to serve Chr...

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...t, our conscience, that is our will and reason, is set free and at the same time surrendered. Again, Christ should be the center of one’s life. Christ is to be our conscience our success. He brings the individual and community to guilt as “the responsibility [of the Christian] is bound by conscience” (104).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer has shed a light on many subjects concerning the Christian life. As Christ should be the center of the Christian and the church community, discipleship should be a key factor in the fellowship of Christ. Through Christ, one is united with God guide those that love him. However, no one is excluded from the sufferings, the evils, of the world. Yet the true Christian can come to love such sufferings as such trials strengthen the Christian faith. In Christ alone, man is successful. In Christ alone, man is victorious. In Christ alone, man is free.