More on "cheap grace" in the Christian culture

It is far too common in today's churches to hear the forgiveness of sins proclaimed with no focus on new life in Christ, absolution without the requirement of absolute devotion, freedom from sin without slavery to Christ's foreign righteousness.  It is the cheap grace that Bonhoeffer preached against, a grace that is not worth living or dying for because it has been stripped of its power.

The prophet Jeremiah confronted this problem in his day, as well.  The people of Jerusalem and Judah were wicked, and God sent Jeremiah to preach against them.  In Jeremiah's commission, Yahweh says, "behold, I have put my words in your moth...to pluck up and break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant" (Jer 1:9-10).  In the context of this sin that the Lord sent Jeremiah to confront, though, false prophets and priests proclaim a contrary message of easy absolution.  Twice in the opening chapters of Jeremiah, in 6:14 and 8:11, Yahweh gives Jeremiah these words against such false men of God:

"They have healed the wound of my people lightly,

saying, 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace."

And here we have it: a message of "cheap grace" in the 7th century BC.  God's righteousness is eternal, man's inability to live up to it is as old as Adam, and yet so is humanity's attempts to bestow free forgiveness upon itself.  We should not think that the cheap grace seen in some parts of Christianity today is anything new.  It is an ancient mockery of God's holiness and needs to be eradicated with as much zeal as God commissioned Jeremiah to display in ancient times.