Jesus speaks to you all today saying,
“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes
and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
You would think that the Ten
Commands, which we heard in our Old Testament, would be coupled with the Gospel
where Jesus is asked what the greatest command from God is. Then you would
expect Jesus to tell us to love God and love our neighbor. That would make more
sense to me.
You would also think that God
would keep His own commands that He gives to us. You would think that there
would be no other gods in the universe, if He’s the only one, so that He
wouldn’t say things like, “I have said, Ye are gods.” (Psalm 82:6) If we
were not supposed to make graven images, why would He say, “And the Lord
said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole.” (Numbers
21:8)
It even seems as if the Sabbath
day is of no great importance for, “...therefore did the Jews persecute
Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath
day.” (John 5:16)
Should we respect or disrespect
our parents? Jesus says to call no man on earth “father” (Mt. 23:9). He also
tells a young man who wants to follow Him to leave his dead father to bury
himself (Mt. 8:22).
To kill or not to kill? God is
infamous for ordering the deaths of so many people in the Old Testament, even
causing the prophet in Ecclesiastes to famously say, “A time to kill and a
time to heal” (Ecc 3:3).
What are we to do with the book of
Hosea and adultery? God says, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and
have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the
Lord.” (Hos. 1:2)
Is stealing ok? “Israel
Is lying ok? “[Jesus said] Go
ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast. ... But when his
brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as
it were in secret.” (John 7:8-10)
Though it says not to covet, Jesus
says, “And he said to them, “I have earnestly coveted to eat this Passover
with you before I suffer.” (Lk. 22:15)
If this has shaken you, then you
don’t know your Bible as well as you thought. Or maybe you do and have just
glossed over these parts and filed them under, “No one will ever ask me these
questions”. And yet, these places are exactly the parts of the Bible that have
turned people away from church and why the pews are so empty today, because no
one was there to give a proper answer.
We take the ten commandments up to
such a high level, wanting them in schools and courthouses, that we think that
if everyone knew about them, could just see them, and follow them then the
world would be so much better. We would place them in front of everyone, or
else.
And yet even before this, we have
to deal with how the Jews dealt with these commands, because they would know
better since they received them first right? For the Jews, the ten commandments
were not ten commands, but 10 words., This is the literal translation of both
the Old Testament Hebrew and Greek of Exodus 20.
Thus they have 10 words, but only
9 commands, for the first word is God declaring Who He is and what He has and
will continue to do. So they have the same numbering as we do, but instead make
the focus of the commands God, instead of what we do or don’t do.
And yet this is still only
half-way to actually understanding what these commands and words are trying to
get across to us. But this is as far as sin will allow us to come, for to
understand these words as anything other than the demands of an angry god is
far beyond our frail tools of comprehension.
If the world does not teach us
this by its endless war and raging, then we who call ourselves Christian,
certainly do. For when these commands enter our hands, they become sword, mace,
and cudgel. We take them up as our own personal crusade from God and swing them
around, assailing ourselves and those around us, forcing them to submit, or
else.
For that is all there is to these
commands on the surface: a command and an implied threat. You shall have no
other gods, or else. You shall not murder, or else. You shall not covet, or
else. In wielding this sword of God’s words we become even more barbaric than
those religions of war that we say we hate.
So what do we say about these most
holy words from our Lord? That they are evil? That it is sin to obey the Law?
No the Word of God is holy. It is the only weapon we have against the devil,
the world, our sinful nature, and all evil thoughts. It needs to be our main
occupation, what we talk about, and meditate on. Anyone who knows the Ten
Commandments perfectly knows all of Scripture. Never stop until you have taught
the devil to death and become wiser than God and all His saints.
The Law is good. You are not. You
are not worthy of being conformed to the image of the living God and yet here
it is that the first word of God is, “I am the LORD your God, who brought
you out of the land
of Egypt Egypt
And not just somehow or someway,
but through this righteousness that exceeds the scribes and the Pharisees. And
just what is this righteousness? Well Abraham believed the Lord and He counted
it to him as righteousness. Jesus allowed Himself to be baptized in order to
fulfill all righteousness. So we see now that, since “...one trespass led to
condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification
and life for all men.” (Rom. 5:18)
This means, quite simply, that the
same Law that is very holy also condemns Jesus to hell. Yes, the Lord your God
who has brought your forefathers out of Egypt and of slavery can also bring you
out of the slavery of your own Egypt of sin and death and the inability to
follow the Ten Commandments.
Much less understand them! You
think God can’t follow His own Law, yet in Jesus we see the perfect fulfilling
of this strict, demanding lifestyle handed down by God’s own hand. Which leads
directly to the Son of God also being given to us by God’s own hand.
And it is this Son Who does not
just come to tell us to worship the true God, but shows us exactly what that
means by becoming obedient to Him, even to death on a cross. In not taking the
Lord’s Name in vain, not only does Jesus get charges for blasphemy, but comes
to fulfill God’s word, not just do away with it.
He fulfills the Sabbath day by
giving mercy. He honors His Father and mother by winning salvation through His
Body and Blood. He does not murder, but allows Himself to be murdered. He does
not commit adultery, but has one wife, the Church. He does not steal, but pays
for His own Creation in blood. He does not give false testimony, but bears all
false testimony against Himself. He does not covet, but creates that which He
desires, that is faith.
Thus, this exceeding righteousness
and perfection that Jesus demands is Jesus Himself. It was always the plan to
crucify Jesus. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him, to put Him to grief (Is.
53:10). It was even always Jesus’ plan to be crucified, who for the joy set
before Him endured the cross, despising its shame. (Heb. 12:2)
And here is the second point: it
is not you up on the cross. It is not you who are being brought up on charges
of not following God’s Word. It is not you suffering and dying for your faith.
It is not you being liable to hell fire for your anger, because you are not
worthy to bear that image. You are not worthy of being crucified, but you are
being conformed to this image.
Such is the force of the small
church phrase, “In Christ”. In Christ does not simply mean the power boost you
get from God to push through any given situation. In Christ is taken in the
Church to be literal. In the Epistle reading today, St. Paul
We have already seen that God’s
Righteousness is Jesus Himself and therefore the righteousness that exceeds the
scribes and Pharisees is only found in Christ. So in order for us to enter the
kingdom of heaven, we must have that righteousness. And the only way to get
that righteousness is to be in Christ and the only way to get “in Christ”, is
to be baptized.
And baptism is not a work of men,
but a work of God. The suffering and crucifixion is not a work of men, but a
work of Christ. Therefore you are buried in Jesus’ tomb and have died Jesus’
death all because of your baptism. In Christ, you are dead to sin and since the
strength of sin is the Law, you are also dead to the law.
Yet, in this gift of faith and
salvation you also have new life in Christ’s resurrection. You have been raised
from the death of your own struggles against God’s Law and also those in your
own life. Your body of sin has been brought to nothing. Trial and tribulation
are now a sign that God is with us, not against us.
Because now, having been found in
Christ, we add “In Christ” in front of each commandment. They then become not
something we must do, but something Christ has done for us.
So we hear Exodus 20 in Christ’s
light:
In Christ, God spoke all these
words, saying,
“In Christ, I am the LORD your
God, who brought you out of the land
of Egypt
“In Christ, You shall have no
other gods before me.
“In Christ, You shall not make for
yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above,
or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
In Christ, I the LORD your God am
a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the
third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast
love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
In Christ, You shall not take the
name of the LORD your God in vain.
In Christ, you Remember the
Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
In Christ, you Honor your father
and your mother.
In Christ, You shall not murder.
In Christ, You shall not commit
adultery.
In Christ, You shall not steal.
In Christ, You shall not bear
false witness against your neighbor.
In Christ, You shall not covet
your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male
servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is
your neighbor's.”
In Christ you have found the
narrow gate that leads to life. In Christ you have found the fruit that leads
to your sanctification. In Christ, you have found the peace that passes all
understanding even in a world full of struggles and sufferings that we don’t
understand. But only as much as we don’t understand the reason for God having
to hang on a cross. Yet this He does, all for you.
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