Bonhoeffer believes that love is something only God experiences and that loving God is the same thing as being loved by God. Moreover, the ultimate manifestation of God's love is when he judges the only innocent person, his son, in the cross. Bonheffer says that "Love is not what He does and what He suffers, but is what He does and what He suffers" (94). By this he means that true love is not found in Christ's passion to redeem us but in the Christ himself, which is the person that participates in this act. The fact that Jesus is the son of God is the relevant issue not the fact that he suffered unjustly for us.
             Jesus cross is the basis for Christian belief. According to Bonhoeffer, we find love in the cross of Christ and then we love God because of Christ. Paradoxically, we are saved from damnation and are forgiven, yet the cross in society is full of "rejection and shame" (60) as Bonhoeffer says. The most important question to be asked first is why would God judge his own son in the cross to forgive mankind? The ultimate answer to this question in which everything seems to make sense is Love. Love, because we have all been bought at a great price; God's price. Without love this entire act could not make sense. If this is true, then only God knows what love is. As a result, the human love we experience for material things and among ourselves is not real love; is just another activity of man. Therefore, real love must be the kind of love from God towards us. Bonhoeffer calls this love divine love and according to him it can only be experienced through Christ.
             The reason that the cross of Christ faces shame and rejection in this society is because there is an antagonism between the way of God and society. We are not perfect and we are full of sin. Therefore we tend to strive for power and always try to be like God. Luther would explain this hostility as the outer
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