Why the Commands? [Trinity 6]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Exodus 20:1-17
• Romans 6:3-11
• St. Matthew 5:20-26

To you who are called; to you who are beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ: mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.

Who 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.”

For us in this realm Earth, who retain our sin and yet are forgiven, there are only two principles given for a mental grasp of reality. Their college names are Causality and Teleology. Before you check out, know that you use these things every day to sort your life out, you just usually don’t give them their proper names.

Causality is simply the philosophical term to describe all relationships of cause and effect. Really, you are all causalists. As I said, you use cause and effect everyday. You take medicine, you get better. You apologize to your wife, she lets you back in the house. You work, you get paid. Every action, or cause, results in an effect and you adjust your life accordingly.

You look at the 10 Commandments in this light. If you don’t murder someone, they may decide to be friendly towards you. Jesus uses this same thinking when explaining the 5th Command, in the Gospel, today. Murder will cause you to be judged. Our problem as sinners is that Jesus doesn’t end His sermon with the physical act of murder. Anger, insults, or name calling will also cause you to be judged. And even if you’re not angry, but your brother is, that still causes judgement.

For the sinner, the causes that lead to the effect of judgement seem to go on and on to infinity and do not stop, even with a command from God. Our natural response to this apparent unfairness is to ask “why”. And that’s when our second fancy word comes into play.

Teleology is the philosophical term used for explaining the purpose, or end, of something. Whenever you are asked the “why” question, one of the reasonable ways to answer it would be to explain the good of what you are asked about. If someone asks you “why have a table”, you could answer, “because its good for eating on”. 

Causally, the 10 Commands are given to you because you commit the sins described. Sin caused the 10 commands. St. Paul says in Galatians 3:19, “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions”. So our sin is the cause of the Commandments and the purpose of the commandments is to restrain and reveal our sin. 

What you have just figured out is that there is no way out of your sin. You treat long lists the same way you treat long words: as trash. In sin, you cannot comprehend the goodness of God’s Law, because no matter what you do with it it always condemns you and your neighbor. No matter how much good you attempt to squeeze out of it, by your own actions, it always ends up badly in God’s eyes.

So, we come to the depressing conclusion that we sin because we are sinners and our purpose is to only sin more and more. No matter how many times we read Exodus 20, it always talks about us and it never changes. No matter how many times we read Matthew 5, it always talks about us and it never changes. You will never get out until you pay the last penny.

Rom. 10:4, Jesus is the teleology of the Law. The English usually reads as “end” as if after Jesus the law is going away, but Jesus promises the opposite in Matthew 5:18, so that can’t be true. What Jesus says in Romans is that He is the purpose of the Law, the completion, the perfection. He is also the end of your infinite cycle of sinning. 

Sin caused the Law. The Law caused and increased sin, in order that sin be revealed as deadly. A vicious circle. Jesus was born under the Law, with our sin, in order that it be revealed that Christ died for sinners, to die to sin, and to redeem those under the Law (Gal. 4:4-5). 

So, what do we say? Why the Law then? Why these Ten Commandments that hurt instead of help? Because of Jesus.

Jesus created the world out of love for you. He made a universe of life, light, and peace. Sin and death intruded through our sin, destroying everything and sending us on a fast track to eternal death. We couldn’t believe it, so Jesus gave the Commandments. Through the Commandments we see how pure towards God life should be, but they do not give us the necessary purity.

The prophets attempted to teach this purity, but each and every time it resulted in more sin and death. Jesus then creates salvation through faith in Him, by ending sin and death on the cross. Thus another purpose of the 10 Commands is to reveal Jesus to us.

The purpose of revealing our sin by the Holy Ghost, in the 10 Commands, is to turn us towards the cross. The purpose of showing us the endless cycle of death we put ourselves in, in the 10 Commands, is to show the rescue and redemption of Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection.

So it is that we find our pastor, St. Paul, preaching and teaching us our solution and our salvation. The solution is the death and resurrection of the giver of the Commandments Himself. The salvation is death to sin and life towards God, in baptism.

“One who has died has been set free from sin”. As in, once a death occurs, you are free. Now it may be your death that causes this freedom, but God’s Word says that its the death of the Son of God. Again, sin causes our destruction and its effect is eternal death. Christ alone causes sin and death to be defeated and gives us His credit for doing so and its effect is the free forgiveness of sins.

Love caused God’s incarnation. God’s love caused Him to give His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him would not die. Christ’s great love for His Father and for you caused Him to die and make full payment for your sins. 

This redemption causes us to be free from the guilt and condemnation of God’s Law, such that we begin to love it instead of loathe it. Now in faith, we discover the true purpose or end of the Law: love. Love God. Love your neighbor. God so loved the world…

Everything causes death and effects us fatally, both mentally and physically. Jesus causes life to sprout out of death. In faith, we live our lives in the face of death and uncertainty, because we don’t find or measure our certainty by worldly standards. 

Even if the world was ending tomorrow; even if we feel like we have nothing to do, nothing to stand on, and nothing to contribute, the Lord gives us a full life. The 10 Commands become that life to live in the midst of death. Not that following them gives you life, but you being able to hear them and love them, shows that faith and life are still on earth and still for you.

In faith, we love the 10 Commands, even though they only point out our sin and death, because in that sin and death we also see our God on the cross, defeating sin and death. No matter what the world throws at us, we find ourselves doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts, in faith. Not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about death. The world may break our bodies (a microbe or virus or bomb can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7).