LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.
Jesus speaks to us today, saying,
“This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it...”
In case you forgot, the word
“deuteronomy”, as in the book our Old Testament reading is from, literally
means the “second law”. From holy Scripture we know that this is not “second”
as in “new law” or “second best”, but simply the second time Moses had to
receive the Law of God from God Himself. Jesus saying that there is a “second”
greatest commandment will set us off on this trail.
When Moses first received the Law,
the Jews were fresh out of Egypt
having just strolled through the Red Sea . In
Exodus 24, God says that He gave Moses two tablets of stone with the written
testimony, from Him, on both sides of each tablet. This takes place in chapters
19-34 of Exodus.
The second giving of the Law
happens just as you heard it today from Deuteronomy 10, where again there are
two tablets, heard in v.1. God again is going to write on them, but this time
Moses, can we please make sure they get put in the Ark of the Covenant as I
commanded last time? Don’t go smashing them just because you’re upset about
golden calves again (Ex. 32:19).
However, it was not only these two
times that the Lord spoke to Moses and to His people through Moses. In reading
Exodus through Deuteronomy, we find Moses going up and down the mountain of God
and back and forth between God and His people, relaying God’s commands many
more times than twice. There were over 600 commands, after all.
The question becomes: which time
did the Law of God stick with the people so that they understood its
significance? Which time was the time that everyone finally got it? None of
them. In fact, for the next 1400+ years between Jesus and Moses, the Jews spent
that time hearing the Law over and over again and promptly forgetting it. Which
is why we are hearing Jesus today, still, speaking of God’s Law, for the
umpteenth time.
It seems that Jesus fudges a bit
in offering a second commandment, when He is only asked for one. Though there
is a perfectly good explanation for that, it first is worthwhile to go through
some significant “seconds” that occur elsewhere in Scripture.
Of course there was a second Day
of Creation, but in the second month after the rain stopped, Noah saw a
completely dried up earth and exited the Ark
“I
will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars
of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall
possess the gate of his enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations
of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” (Gen. 22:15-18)
More to the support of Jesus’
Second Greatest Command, that is towards neighbors, is the sacrifice of two
rams to ordain Aaron and the Levites to serve in the Tabernacle, Lev. 8. The
first ram was completely given to the altar, but the second ram was given to the
Altar and put on Aaron and his sons. The first ram for offering to God, the
second to offer for the neighbor.
Thus, the first significance of
Jesus giving more than one “greatest command” is to include His neighbor in all
things, meaning, you. Even the greatest of all Feasts, the Feast of Passover
has an exception to it for the neighbor. In Numbers 9, God declares that if you
are unclean because of a dead person, in the first month, which is when
Passover is celebrated, then you may be made clean and celebrate Passover in
the second month. All so that no one be left out.
And yet we know from holy
Scripture that God speaks ever so many more times than two. Jesus laments this
when He tells of two sons who are asked by their father to go work, in Matthew
21, and it is the second son who says, “I will” but never goes. So it is that
the Lord says in Job that “For God speaks in one way, and in a second way,
though man does not perceive it.” (Job 33:14)
In our sin, we hear the Lord once
and do not understand. We hear the Lord a second time, we pay lip service in
offering our devotion, but still we do not understand. And a third, and a
fourth, and a brazillionth. If you believe you understand better than Nicodemus
who thought God’s Word demanded that he enter into his mother’s womb a second
time to be born (Jn. 3:4), then I’m afraid the rooster will crow a second time
for you as it did for St. Peter (Mk. 14:72).
Does this all mean that its God’s
fault that He couldn’t make a law the first or second time that would fit us?
God forbid! In fact, it really has nothing to do with you and everything to do
with the covenant itself, as St. Paul
Not that the first one was
insufficient, but that there was greater and better things that God had planned
for you in the second. Not that 1, 2, 10, or 614 commands were lacking in God’s
power, but that the Command to fulfill all commands was the ultimate in things
to come. In that the first man, Adam, who received commands from the Lord’s
hand, was from earth, the Second Man, Who fulfilled the Lord’s commands, was
from heaven (1 Cor. 15:47).
The first is taken away in order
to establish the 2nd, Heb. 10:9. Hagar is the first covenant and bears children
for slavery, but Sarah is the second covenant and she bears the child of
promise. In fact, the Lord’s continued promises to Israel
Now we understand clearly. We are
not dealing with commandments or covenants and the lawyer’s question today really
is stupid in light of this. We are not dealing with ourselves and our position
in God’s Law, we are dealing with the God-man, Christ Jesus, and His
fulfillment of the Law for us: the Gospel.
In the Second Psalm, it is Jesus
Whom the Lord has begotten and even though the nations rage against His Laws
and commands, He still is a refuge for those who believe in His Son. Look again
at what Jesus’ answer is to this upstart lawyer. First, it is to reveal that
the Greatest Command is not a command at all, neither is it split in two. It is
one: that is to love.
And God’s love is always laying
down His own life for friends, neighbors, and enemies on the cross. That He not
just leave us with Law a first or a second time, but that He love us and send
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn. 4). So Jesus answers the
lawyer a second time, asking Him Whose Son the Christ will be.
More important than commands is
Jesus Christ who is the Son Who refuses His Father’s will to His face, in our
sin, yet goes to do the perfect work of fulfilling the Law. He is also the
second Son Who pays lip service to His Father, yet does not do holy work, but
redemptive work, calling sinners guiltless.
In Jesus’ second birth, from death
to life, He does not need a second command to complete His task. He simply
raises Himself from the dead, having been guiltless of all sin, even ours which
He took upon Himself.
In Jesus, god need only speak once
and all things are accomplished. In Jesus, there is no second time, because
everything is done perfectly the first time. Jesus, then, is the second ram of
offering for you, that you might be sprinkled with His Blood, binding you to
His Altar, His death, and His resurrection. All because Jesus is Love and love
gathers all things together.
Jesus loves God and His neighbor
and is able to reconcile them with His Body and Blood. David’s Son and David’s
Lord, able to fulfill the Law by being born under it, and able to live
perfectly by being born from above.
Being baptized into this second covenant,
we will be witnesses of another and final “second” that will take place, that
of the second coming of Christ. “…so
Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second
time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him”
(Heb. 9:28). “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
who believes” (Rom 10:4).
Now that God has done the work, we
are no longer under the Law, but saved by the Gospel. Now that David’s Son has
gone out to work the vineyard, we are no longer enemies of God, but neighbors.
Now that we have been baptized into the Righteousness of God, we look forward
to the second coming, where we will be raised from the dead, never to die
again.
The second Greatest Command, is
the same as the first. The second giving of the Law is the same as the first. In
Christ is the Love of God, the Father and the Holy Ghost, Who sustains you to
the end in His Church and in His Word and Sacrament, in the Second man, in the Second Covenant, but in the First Place.
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