Trinity
6 – July 27th and 28th, 2019 – Matthew
5:17-26
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
Do
not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have
come not to abolish them but to fulfill them.
This is how Jesus starts a long stretch of the sermon on the Mount,
the next 31 verses. For the rest of the chapter, Jesus focuses on
the depth of God's Law, how serious it is – and how we sinful human
beings here, have broken it, and how we continue to break it and
violate it. You, you right there, under the law, judged by its
standards, are a sinner. Period.
We
don't like that. We don't like being told that we are wrong, even
when we know we are wrong. And we certainly don't like finding out
we were actually wrong when we thought we were right. And the Good
and Perfect Law of God comes sweeping in, and in our sinfulness, we
panic. And sometimes that panic results in an attempt to abolish the
Law. This is a quite popular tact today. Think about how many
people try to write out, fuzz out things in the law that they don't
like. I mean, the obvious ones to us that come to mind quickly are
those dirty, rotten liberal churches that are going on lax on
sexuality and so on and so forth. Of course we think of that –
because as we heard a few weeks ago, it's a lot easier to spot the
speck in the neighbor's eye rather than the log in our own.
How
about it – how do you try to relax the law, abolish it – justify
your own ignoring of it? Because really what Jesus does the rest of
this chapter is point out how people have justified their own
weakening or abolishing of the law. He starts with the 5th
commandment and He builds on it. Let's think about the fifth
commandment for a bit –
You shall not murder. What does this mean? We should fear and love
God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help
and support him in every physical need.
Every. Physical. Need. So, did past week did you think of a
reason why you couldn't or didn't really need to help someone?
That's abolishing the law of God. And let's consider the 8th
Commandment as well, since Jesus ties it to the fifth, because Jesus
warns against speaking ill of your neighbor. -
You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. What does
this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies
about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation,
but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the
kindest way.
So, did you defend everyone this week. Did you explain everything
kindly – put the best construction on everything? Then you were
abolishing the law.
Okay,
if you are squirming a bit right now – I was squirming as I wrote
this Monday morning, because I knew what would happen. I'd write
this down, go about my week, and the time to preach it would come,
and while I'm preaching so many of the things I will have done in the
mean time will pop into my head and smack me upside the back of my
head. Because we here in this room are sinners. We abolish, we
destroy, we come up with every excuse in our own self-righteous book
to ignore the law of God. To find loopholes and work arounds –
that's our default approach as sinners. And it's lousy.
But
wait! There's more! There's a second way we utterly trash God's
Law. We hear what Jesus says – I have not come
to abolish them but to fulfill them –
and we think, “That's it, that's the ticket! Instead of doing bad,
how about I just start doing good.” Easy peasy – I'll just do
better. I will start fulfilling the law, I'll make myself a nice
righteous person. And we start playing this holy one-upsmanship game
– we start signaling virtue, showing everyone what a good little
Christian we are. Or maybe, maybe if we are really, really good –
we remember things like the parable of the pharisee and the tax
collector, and we remember to be humble and not brag about all of the
good we do, and we do it quietly and in secret – and we think, oh,
yeah, it is totally and completely the way I am to do stuff.
For
I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and
the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
It doesn't work. I mean, you can try – and yes, I'm going to
encourage you to strive to do good, and to be humble about it – I
mean that is really good for your neighbor. But for you, well, in
terms of the law, it doesn't really fix things. Doing the law,
breaking it less, doesn't fill anything. It doesn't fulfill the law.
This is the verse from Salvation Unto Us Has Come, which I'd be
happy singing every week, but I know y'all would get sick of it, so
we don't – but this is that third verse that we should all have
memorized - “It
was a false, misleading dream, that God His Law had given, that
sinners could themselves redeem, and by their works gain heaven. The
Law is but a mirror bright, to bring the inbred sin to light that
lurks within our nature.”
We hear this idea of fulfilling the law, and our sinful flesh jumps
– there's my way out. I can work my way to heaven – that's what
the Law says! No it doesn't. The Law must be fulfilled – and
fulfilling the law doesn't simply mean “doing” the law. The Law
is an if-then sort of statement. Suppose mom says, “If you don't
take out the trash, then you don't get to play video games tomorrow”
- and it's tomorrow and the trash has not been taken out... how is
that law fulfilled? It's not fulfilled by me whining at my mom and
promising to take the trash out all the better next week – the law
is fulfilled by its designated punishment being executed. If you get
a ticket for speeding, the law is fulfilled not by you promising the
officer to drive more slowly, but by paying the fine. Truly,
I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last
penny.
And
what is the if-then for God's law? But
I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be
liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the
council; and whoever says, 'You fool,' will be liable to the hell of
fire.
Oh. Or perhaps we should be a bit more blunt. For
in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
- The wages of sin is death.
You see, God's Law is not something we can casually avoid or change
on our whim. God's Law isn't something that we can placate or
bargain with. You know what God's Law is like? It's like a Bounty
Hunter – it's like Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. The hunter has
found the 4 villains and they ask,
“What are your intentions.” And Rooster says, “I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned. Or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker's convenience. Which'll it be?” If you understand that – then you understand what the Law of God says to sinners. You have transgressed, and you are going to die, and you aren't talking your way out of it. The wages of sin is death.
“What are your intentions.” And Rooster says, “I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned. Or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker's convenience. Which'll it be?” If you understand that – then you understand what the Law of God says to sinners. You have transgressed, and you are going to die, and you aren't talking your way out of it. The wages of sin is death.
Now
hear Jesus again – Do not
think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have
come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. Jesus
comes because the sinner needs to die. And He isn't going to change
that fact – the sinner needs to die. That law's not going to be
abolished or annulled or lessened in any single way – not a by an
iota or a dot. So Jesus comes to fulfill the law. He comes to die.
You do realize that Jesus here is announcing His death, that He will
be the One to die on account of sin? That is the entirety of the Law
and the Prophets – that is what the entire Old Testament points
towards and drives towards – that the Christ would come, that God
Himself would come and be the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of
the world, that it was necessary that the Christ be Crucified –
that His heel must be bruised to crush the head of the serpent. And
what Jesus does is He takes up the sin of the world – your sin, and
He carries it to the cross and He is killed. The law is fulfilled.
It is finished, it is completed. The sentence is carried out, now
and for all time. This is why we confess that all people, believer
and unbeliever alike will be raised again on the last day – Christ
died for all.
But
there is a second aspect to this that we need note. For
I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and
the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
This is another if-then sort of statement, a barrier statement. If
your righteousness isn't beyond that of the Scribes and Pharisees,
then you don't get to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again, this
is something you cannot do yourself. And again, this is something
that Christ comes to fulfill for you. He gives you His
righteousness. He declares, He officially states that His
righteousness is yours. Your righteousness exceeds that of the
Scribes and the Pharisees because your righteousness is Christ's
righteousness. You are not and will not be judged on the basis of
your own works – your works were judged upon the Cross when Christ
was put to death. No – you are baptized into Christ Jesus, you
have been declared righteous by Him – and so you are judged on the
basis of Christ Jesus. When the Father sees you, O Baptized
Christian, O Baptized “little Christ”, He sees Jesus. And this
is in reality what your life is. Even as your sinful flesh fights
tooth and nail against the Law of God and against your neighbor –
you are a new creation in Christ, and He dwells in you, and His
righteousness covers you, and He works in you and through you, and
the Father sees you and sees Jesus at the exact same time, for your
righteousness is Christ's righteousness now – you are united to
Christ – For if we have
been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be
united with Him in a resurrection like His.
And this is all what Christ has done. This is Christ coming to
fulfill the Law and the Prophets, and do to so for you, to rescue you
from sin and death, to see you forgiven, to give you life now and
forever. And it is what He has done for you, and what He pours out
upon you again today in His Word and in His Supper. Amen. In the
Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +