The Hidden Righteousness

At a glance

The chapter heading text (KJV)

“Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them… That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.”

Matthew 6:1–4 KJV

Summary

Bonhoeffer opens Matthew 6 by naming the tension his readers will already have felt: the disciples have just been told their good works must be seen so that God is glorified, and now they are warned in the same breath against doing good works to be seen. He resolves it by locating the danger not in visibility itself but in the disciple's own awareness of their visibility — the moment attention curves back onto one's own righteousness, admired even privately, the deed has already become corrupted, regardless of whether anyone else notices.

This is what he means by hiddenness: not literal secrecy for its own sake, which could just as easily become another form of spiritual self-congratulation, but a kind of self-forgetfulness in which the disciple's left hand genuinely does not track what the right hand is doing. The good work remains visible to others exactly as chapter 5 required; what disappears is the doer's own self-satisfied awareness of having done it.

Bonhoeffer traces this back, as he does throughout the Sermon, to the cross: the disciple who has been crucified with Christ, whose old self-regarding nature has already been put to death, is free to act rightly without needing to watch themselves acting rightly, the way an unconverted person still watching their own performance inevitably does. Only a righteousness this thoroughly separated from self-awareness escapes the trap of becoming, in effect, applause sought from God instead of from men, which is no real improvement.

He closes by noting that this hidden righteousness cannot ultimately stay hidden from God, who sees in secret and rewards openly — but that promised reward is explicitly not the disciple's motive, only its eventual, unplanned outcome. The whole chapter, in other words, is protecting the same thing chapter 5 protected: that God alone, not the disciple's own image of themselves, remains the object toward which every act of righteousness is actually directed.

Key points

• Matthew 5 demands visible good works; Matthew 6 forbids doing good works to be seen — Bonhoeffer resolves the tension by locating the danger in self-awareness, not visibility itself.
• Hiddenness does not mean literal secrecy, which could become its own form of spiritual pride, but genuine self-forgetfulness in the act of obedience.
• This self-forgetfulness is possible because the disciple's old, self-regarding nature has already been crucified with Christ.
• A righteousness still watching itself perform is seeking a kind of applause — from God instead of from men — which is no real improvement on hypocrisy.
• God's reward for hidden righteousness is real but is explicitly not the disciple's motive for acting — only its unplanned, eventual outcome.

Related Scripture

• Matthew 6:16–18
• Colossians 3:3
• Galatians 2:20
• Matthew 25:37–40

For reflection and discussion

1. Can you recall a good deed where your own awareness of doing it well quietly became more satisfying to you than the deed itself?
2. Bonhoeffer distinguishes hiddenness from literal secrecy. Where might a habit of publicly hiding your good works actually be its own form of self-display?
3. What would it look like, practically, for your ‘left hand’ not to know what your ‘right hand’ is doing in one specific area of service this week?