Know the Law! Fear the Law! But believe the Gospel!

Sermon for Trinity 18

1 Corinthians 1:4-9  +  Matthew 22:34-46

Let me draw your attention, as I often do on this Sunday of the Church Year, to the front cover of the service folder, to that somewhat strange picture you see there. It’s from a woodcut done by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1530 entitled, “Law and Grace.” In the middle is a tree, separating the Law on the left side from Grace on the right. Law and Grace, the two main teachings of the Bible. Or, as we usually refer to them, the Law and the Gospel. The Commands and the Gifts. The Threats and the Promises. Both are good. Both are necessary. Both are from God. And it’s only if you understand and believe both Law and Gospel that you can be saved. Know the Law! Fear the Law! But believe the Gospel!

Today’s Gospel—we also use that word to refer to the first four books of the New Testament and to the specific text we read from them every Sunday. Today’s Gospel highlights both the Law and the Gospel for us. It’s an account that took place during Holy Week as Jesus was teaching His final lessons in the Jerusalem temple before being put up on the cross on Friday of that Holy Week. The Sadducees and the Pharisees—two prominent groups of Jewish teachers—were trying to expose Jesus for the heretic they thought Him to be. We’re told in our text that Jesus had just silenced the Sadducees. They had tried to trip Him up on the question of the resurrection of the dead, which they denied, but He astutely pointed to their own Scriptures and proved that there must be a resurrection of the dead. Concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” So the Pharisees take their turn and put the question to Jesus, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?

Jesus said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ The whole Law depends on these two commandments, as do the Prophets.” This isn’t the first time Jesus gave this answer, or at least expressed approval for this answer. He approved of the answer given by the expert in the Law which prompted Jesus to tell the parable of the Good Samaritan. Here it’s Jesus giving the answer, which, He says, summarizes the whole Law—that is, the first five books of the Bible—and the Prophets. Love for God with one’s whole self, and love for the neighbor, as God defines love in His commandments (not as anyone and everyone chooses to define it). God’s entire revelation, from Genesis to Malachi, depends on those two commandments. It’s right there in Bible, in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 6 and in Leviticus 19. It was there all along.

And all of the Pharisees knew those commandments from the Old Testament. But they didn’t usually emphasize them as the greatest commandments, or as the hinge that the rest of the Scriptures hang from. Instead, they usually focused on their sacrifices, their offerings, their outward obedience to the Law, their displays of “religiosity.” Their religion became about doing things. But they were no longer doing them out of love for God, devotion to God, with the attitude expressed by the Psalmist, “I cried out to You, O LORD: I said, “You are my refuge, my portion—that is, the only thing I desire to have—in the land of the living.” No, they had turned God into a false image, the “Punisher of the wicked” and the “Rewarder of the good,” not the good and gracious Being whom they loved and wanted, above all things, to be with for eternity, because they loved Him. And so they had already broken the first and greatest commandment.

That affected how they treated their neighbor, too. Not with love, but with contempt. They saw their neighbors as their competitors, people they had to beat out, do better than in order to earn more of God’s favor for themselves. But, you see, when you view yourself that way, as more important than others, and when you view your neighbor that way, as someone who deserves less, you’re already breaking the second greatest commandment, love your neighbor as yourself.

No one could correct Jesus for this answer, though. They had to admit He was right. One of them even praised Jesus for His answer, according to Mark’s Gospel. Listen to what Mark adds: The scribe said to Him, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He. And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Now when Jesus saw that the scribe answered wisely, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

“Not far.” But not there yet, either. Why? What was he lacking? That man, unlike the other Pharisees, understood what God truly commanded in His Law. What he didn’t grasp, what none of them grasped, what only the tax collectors and prostitutes and public sinners seemed to grasp, for the most part, was that the Law didn’t only command. It also threatened. It threatened those who disobey with death and with eternal separation from God in hell. You see it there in the picture on your service folder. Moses just to left of the tree in the middle giving the Law to Israel, but then there’s that poor (naked) man being chased by the skeleton, by death, into the fires of hell, because he has disobeyed the Law that Moses gave.

That poor man represents all the children of Adam and Eve, because none of the children of Adam and Eve have loved the Lord their God with all their heart. None have loved their neighbor as themselves. So if the Law is God’s only teaching—His commands and His threats—then we’re all doomed.

But there was another teaching in the Old Testament. The Gospel was there, too, ever since the Garden of Eden when God promised to send the Seed of the woman (the Christ!) to crush the devil’s head. God’s good message centered on the Christ. And so Jesus brings up one of those Old Testament passages, from Psalm 110, and questions the Pharisees. Jesus asked them, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is he?” They said to him, “The Son of David.” He said to them, “How then does David, in the Spirit, call him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet?”’ Now, if David calls him Lord, how is he David’s Son?”

They knew that the Anointed One, the Christ, would be descended from King David. They had never considered, apparently, why David would call his descendant his “Lord.” Their vision of the Christ, what they wanted from the Christ, was an earthly ruler, like David, to sit as king on David’s throne and rule from Jerusalem and to reward those who have been good and obedient, to unite the kingdom of Israel and to bring them earthly peace and prosperity. In reality, though, God had something much, much bigger in mind for the Christ. He would be, not only David’s descendant, but David’s Lord, true God, who would come in the flesh. How could that be? And then, what does the LORD God say to the Lord Christ? “Sit,” not on David’s earthly throne in Jerusalem, but sit “at My right hand” at God’s right hand. God, sitting at the right hand of God and reigning, even as God put all His enemies under His feet.

The Pharisees were completely stumped. No one was able to answer him a word, nor did anyone from that day on dare to question him further. In fact, Jesus’ teaching about the Christ made them so angry that within a few days they called for His crucifixion and mocked Him as He hung dying from the cross. If only they had considered their own Law, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,” and then made the connection that Jesus was the very Lord whom they were commanded to love, but whom they hated instead.

And yet His death on the cross was part of God’s plan all along. It was the Gospel that was foreshadowed throughout the Old Testament: the Christ coming to make atonement for the sins of mankind by the sacrifice of Himself on the cross, as the One to whom all the Old Testament sacrifices were pointing; the Christ, the true King, rising from the dead and sitting down at the right hand of the Father and reigning invisibly for a time, while He still has enemies in the world who need to be put under His feet, ushering in His kingdom, not with armies, but with the forgiveness of sins that He earned for us with His obedience to the Law and with His death on the cross; and the Christ, coming again one day to reign visibly and openly, when all His enemies, including death, are finally put under His feet. To those who mourn over their inability to keep the Law, He cries out, Believe the Gospel! The good news! The promise of the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation to all who believe!

You see, in Christ, you have everything! You have the One who kept the Law in your place! You have rescue from the threats of the Law, because Christ suffered the punishment for you! Death can’t chase you to hell any longer, if you belong to Christ. In Him you have God’s favor, which means you also have God’s ear, so that you can go directly to God the Father will all your prayers and requests, for there is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus.

That Man, who is also God, now sits at the right hand of God the Father, just as the Psalm said. And God is making all His enemies a footstool for His feet. That’s tremendously good news for the believer, but very bad news for those who choose to remain His enemies. It means condemnation for all people who continue to live under the Law, who appeal to the Law, who fail to believe the Good News, God’s promise of free salvation through faith in His beloved Son.

Don’t be found among the enemies of the Christ. Know God’s Law. It tells you what is good and right. But know that you can never be saved by it. Its threats are directed against you and me and all people. Know that the Law will pursue you straight to hell, if you are judged by the Law. So repent and believe the Gospel, that God wishes to save you freely, through faith, for the sake of Christ alone, and that in Him you have everything you could possibly need for life and salvation. Holy Baptism, combined with faith, brought you over from the left side of the portrait to the right side, to your Savior Jesus who died in your place, who rose from the dead, who gives eternal life to all who believe, and who is, even now, putting all His enemies under His feet. Know the Law! Fear the Law! But believe the Gospel! Amen.