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Sermon for Trinity 6
Romans 6:3-11 + Matthew 5:20-26
Early in His ministry, Jesus was not well understood by the Jews. He came preaching a message that the Gospel writers summarize with, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand! Repent and believe the Gospel!” The “Gospel”? What about “the Law”? What about Moses and the Prophets? What about the Ten Commandments, with which every single Jew was intimately familiar? Was Jesus abandoning them? Was He trying to replace them with a different message? That’s what the scribes and Pharisees were accusing Him of. But in the verses just before today’s Gospel from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus corrected His disciples’ understanding: Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.
Well, then, why were the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law still persecuting Jesus? They, too, were keenly interested in fulfilling the Law. So what was the problem? What was the difference between their teaching of the Law and Jesus’ teaching of it? The difference was that the Pharisees and teachers of the Law weren’t using the law lawfully, while Jesus was. St. Paul wrote to Timothy, We know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. Let’s dig into today’s Gospel and discover what it means to use the Law lawfully—and unlawfully.
How were the teachers of the Law using the Law unlawfully? We can point to two things. First, the Pharisees and teachers of the Law weren’t teaching the Law hard enough. They dumbed it down. They made it too easy to obey, because they made it all about outward obedience. What do I have to do to fulfill the Law? “Don’t curse your parents. Don’t murder anyone. Don’t sleep with another man’s wife. Don’t take someone else’s property. Give at least 10% of your income to the Lord. And do no work at all on the Sabbath Day.” That just about summed it up, for them. Yes, the Pharisees added more laws than that, a whole list of specific actions people were able to take, if they applied themselves. But essentially, if they were able to do those simple things, they thought they were fulfilling the Law.
But that’s not how Jesus explained the Law and how to fulfill it. He says in our text, I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. For all their reputation as the best and brightest within the Church, for all their infatuation with the Law, the Pharisees weren’t keeping the Law well enough to gain heaven by it.
Jesus goes on to explain, using a few examples from the Ten Commandments and from other laws embedded in the Old Testament. You have heard that it was said to the people of old, ‘You shall not murder,’ and, ‘Whoever murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ will be subject to the council; but whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be subject to hellfire. So Jesus agrees with the Law, You shall not murder. But, as He goes on to explain, the Law requires more than just not killing someone. It requires that you never become unjustly angry with your brother or hate your brother. It requires that that you never speak hurtful, harmful, nasty words to your brother.
He goes on, Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will by no means get out of there until you have paid the last penny. In other words, the Pharisees taught that offerings and sacrifices made up for a person’s sins against his brother. They thought that such “little” sins against their brother, like anger, like hurtful words, could be easily taken care by simply bringing a nice offering to God. But Jesus says, no, the Law requires more than that. It requires that, if you injure your brother in any way, you make it up to him, not just to God. And if you refuse to do that, don’t imagine that God will accept you. No, the Law continues to accuse you as unrighteous. There’s no way you can be saved by it.
After our text ends, Jesus goes on to talk about another Commandment, You shall not commit adultery. But, as He explains, the Law requires more than just not sleeping with another person’s husband or wife. It requires pure and chaste thoughts, in your heart, in your mind. I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. This is why God gave a Ninth and a Tenth Commandment, where the Law forbids coveting—desiring or lusting after anything that belongs to your neighbor. The Law commands, not only the hands, but the lips, and, above all, the heart.
So, even though the Pharisees and teachers of the Law sang the praises of the Law, they weren’t using it lawfully, because they weren’t teaching it with the full force of its scope and its condemnation. They made it too easy for themselves and for others to keep, when in reality, the demands of the Law are much broader and all-encompassing, demanding that a person’s whole life—words, deeds, and desires—be devoted to serving God and one’s neighbor. To teach the Law that way is to use it lawfully, to use it in its full force as a mirror that shows impenitent sinners how far they have strayed from the holiness that God requires.
Because the Pharisees and teachers of the Law didn’t understand just how much the Law required of them, they also used it unlawfully in another way: Because they thought they could keep it if they worked hard enough, they also used it, and pointed people to it, as the path to get into God’s kingdom. But that is an unlawful use of the Law. As St. Paul writes to the Romans, If there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the Law. But, he says, the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Contrary to popular opinion at the time of Jesus, the Law was never intended to give life to anyone. That is, no one was ever supposed to draw close to God by his careful keeping of the Law. The Pharisees viewed the Law as the ultimate goal. They preached the Law in such a way that the people would go running to the Law for salvation. Jesus, on the other hand, preached the Law in such a way that, once people realized how impossible it was to reach God through the Law, they would flee from the Law, toward Him, toward His Gospel, for salvation.
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.
In order to use the Law lawfully, you can’t use it to work your way into heaven. You can’t send people to it in order to save them. You use the Law lawfully when you use it to show impenitent sinners their sins, so that they might come to realize how much they need the Gospel, so that they might turn from their sins in repentance and turn toward Christ Jesus for the gift of the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation—the gift that’s promised in the Gospel.
Only then, only when the poor sinner has been brought to repentance, and has found salvation in Christ after hearing the Gospel promise, only then, when a person has been born again, through the Gospel, through faith, does the Law have another lawful use. For those who have been born again of water and the Spirit, baptized into the death of Christ, having their sins washed away, the Law no longer accuses, no longer condemns. For penitent believers, for Christians, the Law serves as a wonderful guide for serving God and our neighbor.
If you try to guide the impenitent with the Law, that’s an unlawful use of it. Telling an unbeliever who’s living in adultery, for example, to stop living in adultery, as if that would mend their relationship with God—that’s using the Law unlawfully. Telling a classroom of public school students to keep God’s commandment, “You shall not steal,” as if, by not stealing, they would be keeping God’s Law, as if, by not stealing, they would be pleasing to God, is to use the Law unlawfully. But telling a baptized believer to flee from adultery, to steal no longer, urging a believer to learn and to keep God’s commandments, yes, that’s a lawful use of the Law, one that Jesus uses often when talking to His disciples, one that His apostles use often in their Epistles when writing to baptized Christians, one that you’ll often hear me using among you, who have confessed Christ Jesus as your Lord.
The works of the Law can’t make anyone acceptable to God. First the person has to be made acceptable, through faith in Christ Jesus, by trusting in God’s promised mercy for Christ’s sake, and then he can begin to do works that are acceptable to God, works that are guided and informed by God’s commandments. It’s to such acceptable, baptized believers in Jesus that Paul writes in today’s Epistle, In the same way, you also, count yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Your faith-righteousness already exceeds the Law-righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, and by it you are already qualified for heaven. Now learn and study God’s holy Law, and be careful to put all God’s commandments into practice, so that your lives on earth may reflect the righteousness that is already yours by faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.
