{"id":4272,"date":"2021-09-11T16:32:38","date_gmt":"2021-09-11T16:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/?p=4272"},"modified":"2023-01-14T22:31:51","modified_gmt":"2023-01-14T22:31:51","slug":"the-law-and-the-gospel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/2021\/09\/11\/the-law-and-the-gospel\/","title":{"rendered":"The Law and the Gospel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity| <em>Rev. Rolf D. Preus<\/em>| October 19, 2003| Matthew 22:34-4\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>No Audio<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today\u2019s Gospel reading provides us with the summary of the two main teachings of the Holy Scriptures: the law and the gospel.&nbsp; The law teaches us how we must live.&nbsp; The gospel teaches us what we must believe.&nbsp; The law tells us about our obligations to God.&nbsp; The gospel tells us of God\u2019s gracious promises to us.&nbsp; The law promises us a good life here on earth if we only obey it.&nbsp; The gospel promises us eternal life in heaven if we only believe it.&nbsp; God gave the law through Moses in the Ten Commandments.&nbsp; Jesus Christ, David\u2019s son and David\u2019s Lord, has brought us the gospel.&nbsp; There is no more important knowledge in the world than the knowledge of the law and the gospel.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Law and gospel are constantly being confused.&nbsp; The most common way is to teach the law as the way to gain eternal life.&nbsp; This was the teaching of the Pharisees who tested Jesus.&nbsp; They resented Jesus because He had frequently criticized their legalistic teaching.&nbsp; A legalist is someone who thinks that outwardly obeying the rules is the same as obeying God.&nbsp; He also thinks that obeying God is how we get God to accept us and love us.&nbsp; Most religious people are legalists.&nbsp; In fact, all religions (except for Christianity) are essentially legalistic.&nbsp; They teach that the law is our guide to heaven.&nbsp; They teach that we become good by obeying the right rules. &nbsp; Religions have different rules and they argue over whose rules are better.&nbsp; It was that kind of argument into which the lawyer in our text wanted to draw Jesus.&nbsp; But Jesus did not pick one rule among several hundred as the greatest of them all.&nbsp; He summed up all the law in two simple commands:&nbsp; \u201cYou shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind,\u201d and, \u201cYou shall love your neighbor as yourself.\u201d&nbsp; Jesus concluded by saying that the entire law of the Old Testament depended on these two commandments.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus Himself exemplified the requirements of this law by the life He lived.&nbsp; He loved the Lord, His God, with all His heart, with all His soul, and with all His mind.&nbsp; This was obvious throughout His life.&nbsp; He devoted Himself to the study of God\u2019s word even as a young boy.&nbsp; He resisted the temptations of the devil.&nbsp; He submitted to the will of His Father, even when it required Him to suffer the shame of crucifixion and the guilt of bearing the sin of the whole world.&nbsp; He never flinched from loving God above all things, regardless of the price this would require Him to pay.&nbsp; And though He was slandered, mocked, and abused in the cruelest way by men, Jesus never responded to evil with evil.&nbsp; He did not curse anyone.&nbsp; He blessed them instead.&nbsp; He prayed for those who treated him viciously and maliciously.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No one ever loved as this man loved.&nbsp; He understood legalism for what it is.&nbsp; It is an evasion of the duty to love.&nbsp; That\u2019s all it\u2019s ever been.&nbsp; It is one thing to promote obeying rules as a means of keeping order, establishing peace, and enabling people to get along together.&nbsp; It is quite another thing to promote obeying the rules as the way of making a sinner into a saint.&nbsp; Even if we outwardly conformed to every rule it would not change what we are.&nbsp; Being a sinner isn\u2019t simply a matter of doing things.&nbsp; It\u2019s a matter of being something.&nbsp; You don\u2019t become a sinner when you sin.&nbsp; You sin because you\u2019re a sinner and you are doing what comes naturally to you.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why do people have other gods before the one and only God?&nbsp; Because they are idolaters.&nbsp; Why do people misuse God\u2019s name?&nbsp; Because they are blasphemers.&nbsp; Why do people neglect attending church?&nbsp; Because they despise God and His word.&nbsp; Why do people disobey their parents and others in authority?&nbsp; Because they are lawless.&nbsp; Why do people hurt neighbors?&nbsp; Because they are murderers.&nbsp; Why do people lust after those to whom they are not married?&nbsp; Because they are adulterers.&nbsp; Why do people covet and envy?&nbsp; Because they are thieves.&nbsp; Why do people repeat harmful stories that hurt the reputations of others?&nbsp; Because they are liars and slanderers.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But religious folks who worship at the altar of their own righteousness can\u2019t tolerate hearing news like this.&nbsp; What did you call me?&nbsp; Are you calling me an idolater, a blasphemer, a despiser of God, lawless, a murderer, an adulterer, a thief, and a liar?&nbsp; Who are you to call me such things?&nbsp; God is the One who makes this accusation, and He levels it against the whole world.&nbsp; The heart of the accusation is the simple and damning declaration that we have not loved God above all things and we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.&nbsp; Jesus shows us the life we must live and we haven\u2019t lived it.&nbsp; Regardless of how many rules we\u2019ve followed, we haven\u2019t loved as God\u2019s law requires and for that we have forfeited our lives.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When we look beyond obeying rules and consider what God\u2019s law really requires of us we are forced to confront this deep, unfathomable darkness in our souls, this wickedness inside of us, what the Bible calls sin.&nbsp; It is on the inside.&nbsp; It is in how we think and feel.&nbsp; It is on the outside.&nbsp; It is in how we talk and live.&nbsp; It permeates our entire being.&nbsp; It hates God.&nbsp; It loves self.&nbsp; It doesn\u2019t want to do anything for God; it wants only to live for self.&nbsp; This sinful being, what the Bible often calls the flesh, can obey rules.&nbsp; That\u2019s easy.&nbsp; But he cannot love.&nbsp; So he must be crushed and the law of perfect love must do the crushing.&nbsp; To learn that you don\u2019t even love the One to whom you owe everything good that you have or are or could ever hope to be is not a pleasant lesson.&nbsp; This is why so few ever learn it.&nbsp; The gate to heaven is very narrow.&nbsp; We must first learn to despair of ourselves.&nbsp; Only then will we care to learn about Jesus Christ.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The legalists wanted to talk about following rules, but such talk leads nowhere.&nbsp; This is why, after answering the lawyer\u2019s question, Jesus responded with one of His own:&nbsp; \u201cWhat do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?\u201d&nbsp; They wanted to talk about religious rules.&nbsp; Jesus wanted to talk about real theology.&nbsp; Theology is God-talk.&nbsp; What is God-talk talk about?&nbsp; Obeying the right rules?&nbsp; No, that\u2019s man-talk.&nbsp; Theology is always talk about Christ.&nbsp; If it isn\u2019t about Christ, it is beside the point and, in the end, useless.&nbsp; If you don\u2019t care about Christ \u2013 knowing who He is and what He has done and how He comes into your life \u2013 you don\u2019t really care about God.&nbsp; You only think you do.&nbsp; Dissecting rules in order to figure out who is better than who isn\u2019t engaging in theology at all.&nbsp; This isn\u2019t God-talk.&nbsp; This is running away from God talk.&nbsp; God is the topic of theology.&nbsp; If not, we are worshipping only ourselves.&nbsp; Jesus wants to talk theology with us.&nbsp; That means we must consider the question Jesus asked the lawyer: \u201cWhat do you think about the Christ?&nbsp; Whose Son is He?\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey said to Him, \u2018The Son of David.\u2019\u201d&nbsp; That was perfectly true.&nbsp; The Christ was of the royal line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Jesse, and David.&nbsp; But more than that, the Christ was David\u2019s Lord.&nbsp; Jesus said to them, \u201cHow then does David in the Spirit call Him \u2018Lord,\u2019 saying: \u2018The LORD said to my Lord, \u201cSit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool\u201d\u2019?&nbsp; If David then calls Him \u2018Lord,\u2019 how is He his Son?\u201d&nbsp; They could not answer such a question for the very simple reason that it could not be answered.&nbsp; You tell me.&nbsp; How can David\u2019s Son be David\u2019s Lord?&nbsp; How can a man born nearly a thousand years after David was born be David\u2019s Creator?&nbsp; The Lord God is born of a woman?&nbsp; How can this be?&nbsp; He alone, of all men ever born of a woman, loves with the purity that God\u2019s law required.&nbsp; He is the pure and holy man.&nbsp; He is the only perfectly good man.&nbsp; He loves in the face of hatred, and His love never yields to hatred.&nbsp; It never decreases.&nbsp; In fact, the more hatred heaped upon this man, the more His love is revealed.&nbsp; Who is this Son of David?&nbsp; Who is this Christ?&nbsp; He is the Lord God who loves us sinners with an undying and almighty love.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He came into the world to bring honor to the pure law of love that all of us dishonored.&nbsp; Only Christ, the Son of David, loved as the law required.&nbsp; The love God requires must be willing to suffer.&nbsp; It is never content merely to do.&nbsp; It must also be done to.&nbsp; It must put up with everything our intolerant flesh refuses to put up with.&nbsp; It must bear up under the sins of others.&nbsp; Jesus did more than bear up under them.&nbsp; He actually bore them.&nbsp; He didn\u2019t come into this world in order to give us rules by which we could evade the law of love.&nbsp; He came to live the life of love for us in every thought, every word, and every deed.&nbsp; He did what He required us to do but which we could not and would not do.&nbsp; All theology, all God-talk, must be talk about this Jesus, David\u2019s Son and David\u2019s Lord, because only Jesus brings us into fellowship with God\u2019s pure love.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God sees us for what we are.&nbsp; The very things the law reveals about our sinful hearts \u2013 the things we cannot tolerate hearing because we are so shamed by what we hear \u2013 God sees.&nbsp; He sees what is deeply offensive to Him, but He loves us in spite of what He sees.&nbsp; He takes the sin He sees in us, and he puts that same sin on the innocent head of His holy Son.&nbsp; He places all of our guilt firmly upon Jesus.&nbsp; Jesus, in filial love for His Father that is deeper than our feeble minds can understand, bears, endures, and suffers for that guilt until it is completely gone.&nbsp; His love swallows up our lovelessness and washes away all our sin.&nbsp; Then He sends His Holy Spirit into our hearts to kill our legalistic flesh every day, working in our hearts, souls, and minds that love which is from God alone.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Who is Christ, and what is he to you?&nbsp; This is the theological question that everyone must answer.&nbsp; The question is not who has the best rules for religious living.&nbsp; The only important theological question is always the question about Christ.&nbsp; He, who humbled himself to the death of the cross, although he was and remains the Creator and Judge of all people, loves you and brings God\u2019s love to you.&nbsp; This love enables you to love God and to love your neighbor.&nbsp; It turns selfishness into generosity and bitterness into mercy.&nbsp; It destroys daily the legalistic flesh inside of us all.&nbsp; It is a love that changes us, giving us the desire to do anything and everything we can for the One who has deigned to love us in our wretched, sinful, loveless, blindness and who has elevated us to heaven itself.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To the legalist, every theological discussion is essentially self centered as he seeks to gain God\u2019s favor by obeying man-made rules.&nbsp; To the Christian, every theological discussion is centered in Christ who has gained for us God\u2019s favor by obeying the law of love.&nbsp; The legalist stands over God\u2019s law to replace it with rules by which to show he has mastered it.&nbsp; The Christian stands under God&#8217;s law, crying out for mercy and forgiveness because he knows he stands condemned for his lovelessness.&nbsp; God, for Christ\u2019s sake, hears the cry of his child who admits his failure to love.&nbsp; God absolves him.&nbsp; God forgives him.&nbsp; God takes him out from under the burden of the law\u2019s judgment and gives him the treasure of Christ.&nbsp; This is why we want to hear this gospel more than we want anything else in all the world.&nbsp; And we know, as God\u2019s own children, that he will always give it to us.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Amen.<\/em><\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity| Rev. Rolf D. Preus| October 19, 2003| Matthew 22:34-4\u00a0\u00a0 No Audio Today\u2019s Gospel reading provides us with the summary of the two main teachings of the Holy Scriptures: the law and the gospel.&nbsp; The law teaches us how we must live.&nbsp; The gospel teaches us what we must believe.&nbsp;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/2021\/09\/11\/the-law-and-the-gospel\/\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17,4,78],"tags":[575,238,221],"class_list":["post-4272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-sermons","category-sermons-by-historical-lectionary","category-sermons-by-rolf-preus","category-trinity-18","tag-matthew-22","tag-rolf-preus","tag-trinity-18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4272"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4275,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4272\/revisions\/4275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}