Admiring Jesus Costs Nothing – Taking Him Seriously Costs Everything

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as quoted by Eric Metaxas in his biography Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, writes:

“One admires Christ according to aesthetic categories as an aesthetic genius, calls him the greatest ethicist. One admires his going to his death as a heroic sacrifice for his ideas. Only one thing one doesn’t do: one doesn’t take him seriously. That is, one doesn’t bring the center of one’s life into contact with the claim of Christ to speak the revelation of God and to be that revelation. One maintains a distance between oneself and the word of Christ and allows no serious encounter to take place.

One can doubtless live with or without Jesus as a religious genius, as an ethicist, as a gentleman, just as one can also live without Plato and Kant. Should, however, there be something in Christ that claims my life entirely, with the full seriousness that here God himself speaks, and if the Word of God once became present only in Christ, then Christ has not only relative but absolute, urgent significance for me. Understanding Christ means taking Christ seriously. Understanding this claim means taking seriously his absolute claim on our commitment.

It is therefore of decisive importance to clarify the seriousness of this matter and to extricate Christ from the secularization process in which he has been incorporated since the Enlightenment.”

Admiring Jesus costs nothing. Taking Him seriously costs everything. If Christ is the revelation of God, then He does not claim a place in our lives. He claims our lives.

People are comfortable praising Jesus as impressive. As beautiful. As morally insightful. As courageous. As long as He remains optional. As long as He can be placed on the shelf with Plato and Kant. Interesting. Influential. Non-binding.

But the moment Christ is taken seriously on His own terms, everything changes.

If Jesus is merely a religious genius, then He can be appreciated or ignored. If He is merely an ethicist, then His ideas can be adopted selectively. If He is merely heroic, then His death can be admired without consequence. But if Christ is who He claims to be, the revelation of God Himself, then neutrality is no longer possible. He does not make a suggestion. He makes a demand.

Bonhoeffer’s sharp edge is this:
You cannot understand Christ without letting Him confront the center of your life. To “understand” Him while keeping Him at a distance is not understanding at all.

And the Enlightenment move he criticizes is still with us: Christ flattened into a cultural symbol, domesticated into moral advice, stripped of authority, rendered safe. Bonhoeffer insists this is not respect for Jesus but a refusal to encounter Him.

From Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas:

“Bonhoeffer distinguished between Christianity as a religion like all the others, which attempts but fails to provide an ethical way for man to climb up to heaven on his own, and following Christ, who demands everything from those who would follow Him, including their very lives.”