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Matthew 22:34-46
34 But when the Pharisees heard that He [Jesus] had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” 41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” They said to Him, “The Son of David.” 43 He said to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying: 44 ‘The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool”’? 45 If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his Son?” 46 And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore.
Lord, this is Your Word, and these are Your words, “Sanctify us by the truth; Your word is truth. Amen.”
In the name of Him who not only rightly understands the entire law, but who fulfilled it on your behalf, dear fellow redeemed.
In two phrases, Jesus summarized the entire law. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And likewise: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” To this group of Pharisees who were trying to catch Jesus violating God’s Word, it may have seemed like Jesus was taking the easy way out. In their categorization of the Laws of Moses, they numbered more than 600 commandments, 600-plus ways in which they could make sure they were pleasing God. Likely an example of piety digressing into pietism.
When we hear statements such as, “What does God require of us?” to what should we immediately be drawn? There is no better explanation of what God requires of us than the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments as most of us have learned them are as follows, “You shall have no other gods; You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; You shall keep the day of rest holy, Honor your father and mother, that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth; You shall not kill; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor; You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is his.”
The first 3 commandments tell us to love God with all our heart, all our soul, and with all our mind. Commandments 4-10 tell us to love our neighbor as we want to be loved. The commandments are divided into two tables. One governs our relationship with God, and the other governs our relationship with each other. The second table of the law is so summarized as “love your neighbor as yourself” because we need no help loving ourselves. We are already wired to look out for number one. This doesn’t need an extensive explanation. What it tells us is that the same love, courtesy, honor, respect, and goodwill that we show to ourselves, we must render unto others. What it tells us is that we must make self-love subservient to love towards others. What it tells us is that we must, even at cost to oneself, put others first. That is a high obligation, is it not? Place every other person in the world on the pedestal which you built for yourself. Give them the honor, love, respect, service and protection, and make yourself of no reputation in the process. If that were not enough, let us also look at what God requires of us in the first table of the law. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. In the first commandment, we are instructed to trust in no one or anything other than the true God.
The meaning of the First Commandment tells us how we keep the one true God as our God. We do so by fearing, loving, and trusting in Him above all things. We fear God above all things when we are afraid of His punishment and when we honor and respect Him so much that we will not want to sin against Him. We love God above all things by desiring him more than anything else in heaven or on earth, so that we cling to Him with our whole heart and gladly do His will. We trust in God above all things by relying on Him and His promises for salvation with our whole heart, and bringing all our troubles and needs to Him.
Our attempts at fulfilling the law will not make us right with God. Even if we achieve outward moral improvement, we cannot rid ourselves of the sinful thoughts that arise in our minds. In both tables of the law, we see how far we have fallen short of God’s requirements. When the law is preached, it shows us our sin and the anger of God. It shows us God’s anger because he threatens to punish all who transgress His commandments. The condemnation spoken through the law should keep us from becoming like the Pharisees and thinking too highly of ourselves.
When an individual thinks that he has kept God’s law or that he is not in need of repentance, the Gospel is not for him. He is a hardened sinner. If we say we have no sin or even if we downplay what God calls sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8)
Sin as a violation of God’s standard is not like a wrong answer on a test. Usually, we get enough of the other questions right on a test so a few wrong answers won’t prevent us from receiving a passing grade. This is how the Pharisees treated the law; they made so many of them as sort of a hedge to protect themselves from breaking too many. In the case of God’s law, though, when we break one commandment, it is as though we have broken them all. When we are graded according to God’s commandments, we are graded on a pass/fail scale. If we have failed even once, we are guilty of it all. Once we have violated God’s standard in thought, word, or deed, there is no making up for that sin; there is no extra credit in God’s classroom. Each of the ten commandments is like a link in a chain…it doesn’t matter which chain link breaks to render the chain useless.
These two tables of the law are the foundation upon which all the Law and the Prophets hang. The Law and the Prophets are the way in which the New Testament refers to the Old. Love God and love your neighbor. Scripture hangs on these two tables, because first and foremost the law shows us our idolatry, misuse of God’s name, and neglect of His word and Sacraments. His law shows us our disobedience to authority, our hatred towards others, our unchaste thoughts and actions, our thievery, our lying, and our scheming to lawfully take our neighbors’ possessions.
Now if God’s word were to stop there, the law would ultimately lead us to burnout and despair. How on earth can I please God when he requires so much of me? The truth is that we are unable to please God. The prophet Isaiah said that even our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. Your good works are just as bad as your sins in terms of earning something from God. They still aren’t good enough. Not only do we go against God when we sin, but not even our good works advance our status before God. There is nothing in us that makes Him love us. Like the Israelites who were strangers in the land of Egypt. God simply chooses to love you, and he does so through the person of His Son.
The law, as pointed out in our text, is a precursor to the Gospel. Jesus, in trying to break through to the Pharisees, took them from the law to the Savior. He said, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” The Pharisees rightfully answered that the Christ was indeed the Son of David. And Jesus asks, “How then does David, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, call him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.’”
Humanly speaking, it would be impossible for a king’s son to have authority over his father. This is why the Pharisees walked away in silence and were unwilling to dialogue with Jesus anymore. They could not see how it would be possible for David’s Son to be David’s Lord even though that is what Scripture said. Instead of inquiring any more of how this might be and learning from the Master, they simply walked away and gave up on trying to slander Jesus. They were not winning their arguments against Jesus, and even worse, they weren’t willing to learn from Jesus as he taught them.
At one point Jesus said to the Jews, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of me.” (John 5:39) The question then that the text poses to you is this, “Who do you say Jesus the Christ is?” The answer which one gives must be carefully weighed. The answer which one gives is potentially more fatal than one’s inability to fulfill the law. The answer which one gives means life or death.
When Jesus asked the Apostle Peter this question, “Who am I?” Peter responded and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” To which Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” He is, as Scripture says, the Son of God and the son of David. The Son of God took on human flesh as David’s son according to the Virgin Mary so that he would be born
under the law in order to fulfill it. He loved God with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength. He loved his neighbor, including his enemies, to the point that he was willing to undergo persecution, ridicule, mockery, and shame, even to the point of death. In spite of all the hatred shown to Him, He served those and prayed for those, including us, who did not deserve it. “In this is love,” scripture says, “not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins,” He lived a holy life in our place and died the death which we deserved. (1 John 4:10) St Paul writes, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8)
We began today with God’s laws which declare us guilty and only promise us threats, punishments, and condemnation. Yet God’s word does not end there for those who are willing to confess their sins and acknowledge their spiritual need. It does not leave us hanging to see if we’ll make the cut. The grades have been submitted and we have failed. Yet, God’s Word informs us of the Good News that through Christ the sinner’s sins have been forgiven. That means that you qualify for forgiveness, not because of your wickedness but because of God’s mercy. God’s mercy for sinners was precisely the reason that God’s Son came into the world. God’s mercy for sinners was precisely the reason why God uses the mouths of pastors to declare your sins forgiven and the mutual conversation of fellow believers to point you to Jesus. God’s mercy for sinners was precisely the reason that Jesus instituted baptism in order to wash sin away through the application of water and the word to enable you to daily die to sin and rise to new life in Him. God’s mercy for sinners was the reason Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, because it brings to guilty consciences the gift and promise of sins forgiven and the strength to lead a holier life. Our sin was the reason that Jesus had to intervene and provide for us a way to be at peace with God.
While the law does indeed provide for us the framework by which we must live, it in no way implies that we are able to do it. Our own lives are example enough of that. They are a failed attempt at pleasing God. But someone else has pleased God. Someone else has sacrificed himself in your place, and someone else has changed your failing grade to an A. This is the type of Lord that you have. He has redeemed you, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won you from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil: not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood, and with His innocent suffering and death; in order that you might be His own and live under Him in his kingdom. In Jesus, your Lord and Savior, you have been washed, cleansed, renewed, and sanctified, and made heirs of everlasting life. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and when you repent of trusting in yourself and trust only in Him, you have life in His name. This forgiveness and the freedom that comes through the Gospel also enable you to have your perspective changed so that as you grow in love toward God and toward your neighbor, the fear of failure is taken away, freeing you to love others in the ways in which He has prescribed, all to the glory of God. In Jesus’ name, Amen.