Trinity 18 + Matthew 22:34-46 + October 15, 2017

Grace and Peace be unto you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

1)         A lawyer of the Pharisees proposes a question about the Law in order test Jesus. The Pharisees were always malicious toward Chris and always wanting to disprove and discredit Him. And though Christ knows what is in men’s hearts and perceives their malicious motivation, He is gentle and compassionate with them. He ever desires to teach sinners the way of repentance and faith, so Christ answers the Pharisee’s question. “Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Christ distills the entire Law of Moses down to two commandments. He says, “’You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Everything that has been written from Moses to Malachi fits under these two headings: Love for God and love for neighbor. Having answered satisfactorily, Jesus asks them a question. His question is far different from theirs. The Pharisees were always disputing about the Law, its nature and what it took to fulfill it. Jesus’ question takes them away from the Law into an entirely different subject. “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” Jesus asks. The question is simple enough, for everyone knew that the Messiah, or Christ as He is called in Greek, would be a descendant of David the King, as it was written in the Scripture. The Pharisees answer thus and Christ immediately follows their answer by asking, “How then does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying:  ‘The LORD said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, Till I make your enemies your footstool’?  If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his Son?” The Pharisees cannot answer and remain silent. Not only do they remain silent but they dared not to test Jesus anymore. He doesn’t ask them this question to “one-up” them. That is not Jesus’ nature or His purpose. He asks them this question about the Messiah as a response to their question.

2)         By asking them about the Messiah, “Whose Son is He?” Jesus tries to draw them away from their preoccupation with the Law and its works. He wants to direct their thoughts away from their works and to the Christ. The Pharisees and Scribes read the Law as if it were the way to salvation, so that “ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness” (Romans 10:3) through works of the Law. Thinking that salvation came through their fulfilling of the Law, they neglected the promises about the Messiah and the righteousness He would bring to those who believe His Gospel. They claimed to be the children of Abraham but failed to do what Abraham did, for Abraham “believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). They imagined that Abraham had earned His righteousness from the command to circumcise himself and the males of his household, or when he readily offered up His only son Isaac on the altar at Mt. Moriah. So they looked to the Law as a plan of self-justification and do-it-yourself righteousness, forgetting that the Law came 430 years later and did not annual the promises made to Abraham about the Messiah. The promise, that testament which God made with Abraham, came first long before the Law, and the Law could not supersede the promise.

3)         The Pharisees made the Law their “Gospel.” They imagined that they could fulfill the Law. They thought that if God commanded something, man must have the power to fulfill the commandment and that by doing the work he would inherit eternal life. But this was never the purpose of the Law. It’s clear that mankind doesn’t have the power to fulfill what the Law demands. The first and great commandment, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind,” isn’t something we are able to do perfectly. We do not always love God above all other things, but we easily become attached to possessions and people, loving them more than we do the Lord. We do not meditate on God’s wonderful works at all times. More often than not our thoughts are directed to the pleasures and enjoyments of this sinful world. We do not trust God for every good thing but often worry and rely on our own cunning and scheming. The same is true for the second commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” We love ourselves and our neighbors often get whatever’s left of our love. To imagine that righteousness and justification could be earned through working the works of the Law is ludicrous. Thinking of the Law in this way distorts the Law’s true purpose.

4)         St. Paul asks, “What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions” (Galatians 3:19). Sin was in the world before the Law was given to Moses. The Law was given to increase our knowledge of our sin so that we know the true depth of our sinful depravity. The Law shows us our sins as a mirror shows us our faces. The Law shows us that we have done what He has commanded us not to, but also that we have not done the good that He requires! The Law is spiritual, St. Paul says, so it is not only about acts of the body. It is chiefly about the heart, for if the heart is rightly disposed toward God in faith, external good works will follow. But if the heart is full of sin, then we will sin in our thoughts, words, and deeds. The Law shows us all of this so that we despair ourselves and seek a righteousness outside of ourselves. St. Paul rhetorically asks, “Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not, “He says. “For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” The Law was given to confine everyone under sin, so that all might seek righteousness and justification from Christ, the Seed promised to Abraham, the Seed in whom Abraham believed and looked forward to by faith. The Pharisees wanted to talk about the Law and not the Promise. So Jesus directs them back with His question about the Christ, to direct their attention away from their own works and instead to the promise.

5)         Christ still wishes to move people from their preoccupation with the Law and their imagined righteousness and goodness to the promise of the Christ. Like the Pharisees, humanity gets stuck with the Law. The Law is meant chiefly to condemn sinners and strike them dead because of their transgressions. Instead, sinners ignore the blows of the Law and try to refurbish the Law into a path to salvation. The Church faces this temptation always as well, to make Christianity about the Christian and his life of good works rather than about faith in the Christ, to make the Gospel into a self-betterment program rather than about the forgiveness of sins won on Calvary and offered to all in the Word and Sacraments. The sinful flesh still clings to each one of us, though we have been regenerated by the Holy Ghost working in the waters of Holy Baptism. Even though we are born from above and have received Christ’s robe of righteousness, the devil is ever-tempting us to focus upon the good works we do so that we place our trust in what we do, rather than on the promise of the Messiah. The Law is most certainly good! And as baptized Christians you should strive to “love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.” But you strive for these our of thanksgiving for the great blessings Christ offers you in the Gospel, not to earn your salvation, nor to please God so as to earn His favor or any blessing. That is still impossible, for our works are imperfect and our motivations are often tainted with sin. Yet faith covers them so that though imperfect, our works are pleasing in God’s sight on account of Christ.

6)         This is why we are ever and always talking about and pointing to Jesus, David’s Son and David’s Lord. Whereas we are unable to fulfill the Law internally or externally, Christ comes as David’s son according His human nature. He takes on the form of a slave and comes in the likeness of men. He lives a perfect life under the Law according the outward act and according the heart. Christ is the only man who has ever loved God the Father with all His heart, soul, and mind. He is the only man who has ever truly loved His neighbor as He loved Himself. His love for neighbors led Him to suffer and die for the sins His neighbors had committed against God and one another. Christ fulfills the Law because He is not only David’s Son, true man, but because He is David’s Lord, God Himself. Christ’s innocent, bitter sufferings and death atone for the sins of the entire world because it was not only a sinless man who died, but God Himself according to the flesh. Christ, who is true God and true man into all eternity, is our Lord and our God, who frees us from the burden of our sins and the condemnation and terrors of the Law.

7)         The Pharisees did not understand this, which is why they kept silence and could not answer Jesus’ question. They had so focused upon the Law as their life and salvation that they completely missed the righteousness and salvation which would be earned by the Son and Lord of David. May this not be among us. Let us strive to love our Triune God with all our hearts, souls, and minds. Let us be diligent to serve our neighbors in love as we would want to be treated. Love God because He has taken on your human flesh and redeemed it by forgiving your sins. Love your neighbor because Christ has taken on human flesh and is clothed as one of your neighbors, so that all your works of love for neighbor are done in gratitude for what He did for you in human flesh. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all human understanding guard your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.