Trinity 18
Mt
22:34-46
10/4/26
In last Sunday’s Gospel lesson we saw that there was a
confrontation when Jesus went to the house of the ruler of the Pharisees for a
meal on the Sabbath. The conflict was
entirely predictable because the Pharisees were persistently opposed to Jesus
about issues that related to the Law of Moses and how it should be interpreted.
Last week Jesus asked the Pharisees about whether it was permitted
to heal on the Sabbath. At another time when Jesus was in the synagogue on the
Sabbath and a man with a withered hand was present, another group of Pharisees
asked our Lord that same question. On that occasion Jesus answered that it was
lawful to do good on the Sabbath and healed the man. Then Matthew tells us, “But the Pharisees
went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.”
Questions about keeping the law continued as we learn in Matthew’s
Gospel that the Pharisees and Scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked,
“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash
their hands when they eat?” The Pharisees were attacking Jesus because his
disciples were not following their interpretation of the law - what they called
the “tradition of the elders.”
This conflict reached a crescendo during Holy Week. The Pharisees
and the Sadducees – groups in Judaism who were opposed to each other – found a
common enemy in Jesus. First the Pharisees plotted how to entangle Jesus in his
words by asking him about whether it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. Then
the Sadducees asked Jesus a question about the resurrection.
Next we learn in our text, “But when the Pharisees heard that he
had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer,
asked him a question to test him.” There is no doubt about what is happening
here. The question by the Pharisee is not a request for information. It is an
attempt to set a trap for Jesus. It is a question asked in the hopes that Jesus
will say something that can be used against him.
At first glance, the question does not sound all that threatening.
The Pharisee asked, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
Judaism was indeed focused on the Law of Moses. We know that discussions about
how to rank the commandments occurred. But still, it seems difficult to
understand how the Pharisee thought this was going to generate an answer he
could use against Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount Christ had repeatedly stated,
“You have heard it was said … but I say to you” as he corrected common
interpretations of the law that were present in his day. So maybe the Pharisee
hoped that Jesus would pop off with some kind “but I say to you” statement they
could use against him.
If this was the intention of the Pharisee’s question, then he was
greatly disappointed. Jesus answered by saying, “You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is
the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your
neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the
Prophets.”
Jesus identified Deuteronomy 6:5 as the great and first
commandment. This was part of the Shema, the statement “Hear, O Israel: The
Lord our God, the Lord is one” that was spoken by faithful Jews every day. And
then our Lord added a second commandment, the statement from Leviticus 19 about
loving the neighbor as yourself. The pairing of these two thoughts can be found
elsewhere in Judaism and was hardly objectionable. But then Jesus added, “On
these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
First century Judaism was focused on the Law of Moses. How could it
not be? After all, this was the law God had given to Israel at Mt Sinai when he
brought them into his covenant. It was the law in which God told Israel how to
live in the covenant with him. Israel knew that all of this was a matter of
God’s grace. God had called Israel to be his people in fulfillment of his
promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He had rescued them from Egyptian slavery
in the exodus. The gift of the law was a matter of God’s grace, just as the
covenant of which it was a part. The law was a good thing. As the Psalm 119
says, “When I think on my ways I turn my feet to your testimonies; I hasten and
do not delay to keep your commandments.”
The Jews never forgot that salvation was based on God’s grace. Only
that made it possible. But over the centuries a shift occurred. There was an
increasing confidence in a person’s spiritual abilities. There was an ongoing
tendency to focus on the importance of what the person did in keeping the law
and the role this had in being saved.
You can hear it in the rich young man’s question to Jesus, “Teacher,
what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And then there was the fact
that although the law itself promised life, the history of Israel demonstrated
that their continuing failure to keep the law brought only judgment.
The Pharisees believed that the requirement to keep the law
included their interpretation of the law and the things that it had added – the
“tradition of the elders.” But in his answer Jesus casts all of that aside. For
that matter he says nothing about circumcision, or food laws, or the Sabbath.
He says it is very simple. Love God with
all that you are – the first table of the Ten Commandments. Love your neighbor
as yourself – the second table of the Ten Commandments. And the Lord says that this is what
everything the Old Testament says to do is really all about: “On these two
commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Jesus strips it down to the basics: Love God with all that you are.
Love your neighbor as yourself. He says that’s really what it is all about. And
in this we begin to recognize that if doing the law is going to be involved in
any way with why we are saved, then we have a huge problem. For there are
so many things that we put before God – our sports, our hobbies, our money and
wealth, our need to be approved by our culture.
These are the things we often value most. And we find so many ways to
put ourselves before our neighbor. I am going to focus on my needs and desires
before my spouse, children, parents, or friends because I come first. After
all, I deserve it.
St Paul tells us that in dealing with God, the way of the law – the
way of doing – is a non-starter. It is because as fallen people sin is a power
from which we cannot free ourselves. He told the Romans, “For we have already
charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.” And because this is so,
the way of doing the law can only bring God’s curse and judgment. Paul told the
Galatians, “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is
written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the
Book of the Law, and do them.’”
The Pharisee wanted to focus on the interpretation of the law. But
then Jesus asked them a question that shifted the center of the conversation.
He said, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” The answer
seemed simple. They said to him, “The son of David.” Everyone knew that the
Christ – Messiah promised by God – would be a descendant of King David.
Then Jesus asked, “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?” Jesus quoted the first verse of Psalm 110. The available evidence
indicates that the Jews of this time didn’t normally consider this to be a
Scripture that spoke about the Messiah. Jesus was taking this text and
interpreting it in a way they didn’t expect.
He was using it in his own way. Matthew tells us, “And no one was able
to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more
questions.”
Jesus shifts the focus away from the Law of Moses to himself. In
doing so, he shifts things from law to Gospel. And he points to himself as the
fulfillment of all the Old Testament says – both the law and the
prophets.
Jesus tells us that David was led by the Spirit of God to speak
about the Christ as his Lord. Jesus is the son of David because Joseph
took him to be his own son. But Jesus is
not only a man. He is also the Son of
God, the Creator of the universe. The angel said, “Joseph, son of David, do not
fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the
Holy Spirit. She will bear a
son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their
sins.” Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, Jesus is the
One whom David and all people must call Lord, for he is God himself.
The angel announced to Joseph that Jesus would save his people from
their sins. He did this because all people, Jew and Gentile alike fail to keep
God’s law. This law is God’s ordering of creation that expresses the will of
the Creator for everyone. Paul said about the Gentiles – about you, “For when
Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are
a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the
work of the law is written on their hearts.” It is this law that we all break
as we sin against God.
But the Son of God entered this world and took on humanity in order
to bear the wrath and judgment of God against your sin. As Isaiah said, “All we
like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the
Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” God condemned your sin in Christ
when he died on the cross.
Then God vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead and
defeating death. And what is more, he exalted Christ in the ascension as he was
seated at the right hand of God in fulfillment of Psalm 110. For as David wrote, “The Lord said to my
Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.”
Paul told the Romans, “Therefore, since we have been justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Through faith in
the crucified and risen Lord you are justified. You already know the verdict of
the Last Day. You know that when you appear before the judgment seat of God he
will declare you not guilty – free from sin and able to live in eternal fellowship
with him.
Since you are already justified now by faith in Christ, it means
that doing the law has nothing to do with your status before God. It simply
can’t. So what does this mean for about how we view the law as we live in
Christ?
Let us begin with the Law of Moses itself as we find it in the Old
Testament. You will notice that Jesus never talks about circumcision and foods
laws in the Gospels. He only talks about Sabbath keeping when attacked, and
then only to say that things can be done on the Sabbath. In our text today he
says that we are to love God with all that we are and love our neighbor as our
selves and then concludes, “On these two commandments depend all the Law and
the Prophets.” He says that this is what the Old Testament is really all about.
The specific details of the Law of Moses – its ceremonial aspect -
was the command for God’s people until the coming of Christ. But now that
Christ has come it no longer is. Christians are not in any way obligated to
keep the Sabbath or follow the food laws. So enjoy that bratwurst if you want
to. After all, we are going to have them at our upcoming Octoberfest.
Many Jews in Jesus’ day had fallen into the trap of thinking that
their actions were part of the reason they were saved. This is not surprising because it is
temptation that always confronts fallen man. We understand the way of the law.
You must do something to get something. It makes sense to us and that is the
reason that every religion in the world apart from Christianity works in this
way. This appeals to the old Adam because if I have some role to play, then I
also get some of the credit.
The history of Christian theology demonstrates how enticing this
is. It happened in the medieval period and continues to exist in Roman Catholic
theology where God’s grace enables a person to do their part in that work that
leads to salvation. Here it is not faith alone, but faith plus our works.
But it also continues to be found even in settings that confess
faith alone. It happens when faith is defined as my choice – the thing I
have done. Here the assurance of salvation is found in my choice –
my act of believing. So by giving one’s testimony, or of going up for another
altar call, or of being rebaptized the person recalls and renews the fact he
really did it.
It happens when a sanctified life becomes the proof of salvation.
How do I know I am a Christian and am saved? It is because of what I do – the
holy ways in which I live. The source of assurance then is what I do,
and so the true focus of the Christian seeking salvation becomes one of works.
Christ does not point us to the law. He points us to himself, for
he alone is the source of forgiveness and life. He is the One who gave us new
life as his Spirit was at work in baptism. He has called you to faith. And he
continues to sustain that faith through his Means of Grace. He draws you to his
Word and his Sacraments for through these means he gives forgiveness and
nourishes faith by the work of the Spirit.
The apostle Paul told the Galatians, “For in Christ Jesus neither
circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working
through love.” Faith acts in love, because that’s what faith does. It is the
fruit of the Spirit. It loves and cares for the neighbor in all the vocations
where God places me – for my spouse, child, parent, congregation member, and
friend.
Faith seeks to love God with all that we are. It seeks to love the
neighbor as oneself. It does so because we are in Christ. Or as Paul told the Galatians, “I have been
crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who
loved me and gave himself for me.”
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