Love Covers a Multitude of Sins

Trinity 18| Matthew 22:34-46| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| October 19, 2025

This Gospel lesson answers two questions, the first, the Pharisees ask about the Law. Second, Jesus asks about the Gospel, specifically about the Christ. These two questions are the most fundamental questions in the Christian religion. If you do not know the answer to these two questions, then you do not understand the Christian faith. The entire Bible is divided into these two doctrines: the Law and the Gospel. You cannot do with one without the other. If you have the Gospel without the Law, the Gospel loses its urgency and comfort. If you have the Law without the Gospel, you are led into either despair or delusional self-righteousness.  And if you do not properly distinguish between these doctrines, you lose the Gospel, just as mixing salt with pure water changes it from fresh to salty.

The Law scholar from the Pharisees asked Jesus what the greatest commandment in the Law was to test Jesus. He didn’t expect Jesus to be able to give a real answer to the question, because the Pharisees counted 613 commandments in Scripture, so choosing one as the greatest would undermine the other 612. But there is a correct answer to this question. The greatest commandment in the Law is, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind.” And the second is like it, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  All Scripture depends on these two commandments.

The Law is the love that God commands of us, first that we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind; second, that we love our neighbor as ourselves. These two commandments underpin all Ten Commandments, and indeed every commandment in Scripture. If you do not understand that love is the goal of every commandment, then you will be a legalist, who tries to obey the rule for the sake of the rule, without any care for God or your neighbor.

Yet, we must use God’s definition of love, not the world’s perverted view of it. St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13 that love does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth (v.6). Love means to put others before yourself. We must put God first. This means that we fear, love, and trust in Him above all things, more than money, more than the government, more than our health, more than our wants, cares, and fears. Second, we put our neighbor’s needs and cares before our own, as Jesus says, “Whatever you wish others to do to you, do also to them.” And so, you should not hurt or harm your neighbor in his body or seek to get his property but seek to protect these things as you would your own. You should speak well of your neighbor and defend his reputation, just as you would want others to protect your good name. You should recognize that satisfying your sexual lusts is not love, but causes great harm to others, so you should seek to protect marriage and keep yourself from sexual immorality of every kind. Sex belongs within marriage between a husband and a wife. This not only protects the bodies and souls of men and women, but it protects children from great harm, from abortion, from fatherlessness, from abuse. And it is not hateful to call sexual sin, sin, but it is loving, just as it is loving to warn someone who is walking into danger.

When you recognize that the Ten Commandments are teaching you how to love God and your neighbor, you realize how good they are. The Law of God is good. And we would be so blessed if everyone would live according to God’s Law by loving God and one another. If people trusted in God instead of money, they would not cheat one another and steal. We could trust our neighbors and not be suspicious of one another. If we called upon God’s name in prayer instead of worrying, we would make fewer stupid decisions which cause more anxiety. If our leaders gladly heard God’s Word and preaching, they would make more godly decisions in government. If we sacrificed our own wants for the needs of others, there would be no want. If we defended our neighbor’s reputation as our own, then there would not be enmity among us.

In 1 Peter 4, St Peter writes that love covers a multitude of sins. This does not mean that we can earn forgiveness of our sins by loving others, but rather, when we love one another, we seek to cover up their sins by forgiving them and seeking reconciliation rather than broadcasting their sins far and wide and ruining their reputations. But our love leaves many sins uncovered. First, because of the multitude of our sins, and second, because of the inadequacy of our love.  It is our lack of love that causes us to ignore God’s Word, to put ourselves before our neighbor, and to fail to forgive.

And so, while it was a fine question to ask concerning the Law, that the Pharisee asks only about the Law shows the inadequacy of his religion. The Pharisee’s religion was solely about the Law. The Law demands our love. Yet, our love is lacking and leaves many sins uncovered. No one can be saved by the Law, because the Law condemns us all for our lack of love.

So, Jesus asks a much better question than what is the greatest commandment in the Law. Jesus asks who the Christ is. This is a Gospel question. The Law tell us what we are supposed to do. But we don’t do it. That is why it condemns us. The Gospel tells us what God does for us through Christ. Who Christ is and what He does is significantly more important than what we fail to do. So, who is Christ? The Pharisees answer correctly, “The Son of David.” As Scripture makes clear. This is why the Chief priests and scribes were so bent out of shape when Jesus earlier that week entered Jerusalem on a donkey with men, women, and children singing, “Hosanna to the Son of David.” By calling Jesus the Son of David, they were calling Him the Christ, that is, the Lord’s anointed Savior.

Yet, David’s Son is only half of the Christ’s identity. Jesus asks a follow up question, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls Him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, until I put Your enemies under Your feet’”? If then David calls him Lord, how is He his son?” (Matthew 22:43-45) The Pharisees couldn’t or wouldn’t answer Jesus’ question. But you can, can’t you? How is it that David calls the Christ, who is his son, his Lord? Because the Christ is not only David’s Son, a descendent of David according to the flesh, but He is also the only begotten Son of God, which means that He is the one and only true God, as St. Paul writes in Romans 9, “from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.” And Paul begins his letter to the Romans writing that Christ was, “descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 1:3-4)

Yet, why is this Good News that the Christ is both God and man? How does this comfort us? Because it is necessary for our salvation that the Christ be true God and true man. By being David’s Son and David’s Lord, Jesus is the perfectly prepared Christ and only suitable Redeemer of the world. But why must the Christ be true God and true man to be our Savior?

Because Christ has not come to abolish the Law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. Jesus has not come to abolish the greatest commandment nor the second that is like it, but He has come to love so perfectly that He covers every sin of the world. And for Him to do this, He must be both God and man.

Christ had to be a man, first, so that He could place Himself under the Law of love and fulfill it in our place. This is what St. Paul writes in Galatians 4, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” God is not under the Law. But every man born of woman is born under the Law. So, God became man, so that He could fulfill our obligation for us. In human flesh, Christ perfectly loved the Lord His God with His whole heart, soul, and mind, and He loved His neighbor as Himself, even laying down His own life for our sake, the greatest expression of love.

Second, God cannot die. Yet, to make atonement for the sins of the whole world, God became a man, so that He could suffer and die in human flesh for our sins. This is why He had to be the Son of David, a perfect man.

Christ had to be true God, so that His obedience to the Law would be a sufficient replacement for all people. St. Paul writes in Romans 5, “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” (vs 19) But one man’s obedience could not count for the many unless He also were God. Ezekiel writes in chapter 14, “even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it [that is, the city set to be destroyed for her sins], as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither son nor daughter. They would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness.” But since Christ is not only a man, but God, His obedience under the Law is greater than the disobedience of all mankind.

Likewise, Christ had to be true God so that His suffering and death would be a sufficient price for the sins of all people. Scripture says that Jesus’ blood makes atonement for all sins (Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:2; Matthew 20:28). But a mere man could not make atonement for the sins of the whole world, as Psalm 49 states, “Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly.” Yet, because Jesus Christ is true God, His death more than pays for the sins of the whole world.

Finally, Christ needed to be God, so that He could defeat sin, death, and Satan, as St. Peter preached, “God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it. (Acts 2:24) By nailing our debt of sin to the cross, Christ triumphed over our enemies, putting them to open shame (Colossians 2:15). That is why Christ, David’s Son, sits at the right hand of God as David’s Lord, because God has put sin, death, and hell under His feet, so that they can no longer harm us.

Loving God and neighbor is the fulfillment of the Law, but we have failed to fulfill it. Our love leaves our sins exposed. Yet, Christ, David’s Son and David’s Lord has fulfilled the Law of love so completely and has paid for our sins so sufficiently, that His love covers the sins of the whole world, as St. John writes, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10) And so, your sins too are covered by the blood of David’s Son and David’s Lord. And since Jesus’ love has rescued us from the threats of God’s Law, we may with boldness love God and one another, confident that God’s love in Christ Jesus will cover all our sins. Amen.