386. Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity. I.
Holy Spirit, write the law of love
in our hearts
by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Gospel Lesson, Matthew 22, 34-46. But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The Son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word; neither durst any man, from that day forth, ask him any more questions.
❦
“Thou shalt love.” What a beautiful commandment! What is better than love? It is the greatest thing of all; and there is no salvation but in it; as it is written: Love God above all things, and thy neighbor as thyself; this do, and thou shalt live (Luke 10, 27. 28). And what a just commandment this is! That which the Lord himself has given us, and which alone can make us happy, he must want us to have; and he gave us his love from the beginning, and without it we are unhappy men. In it is embraced everything that is good; and all his commandments are therefore but reflections of this one great, holy, and righteous law of love. But, alas, we have lost the love which he gave us; and the commandment cannot return it to us; but can only reveal our poverty, and condemn our unrighteousness. And there we stand, unhappy, with the holy commandment over us; it demands of us that which we have received, but have ourselves thrown away; that which we must have in order to be happy, but of which we have entirely stripped ourselves. There we stand, lost and condemned; and the commandment cannot help us. For it can only demand; and can give nothing whatever. We must have love, but there is none in us; we must love, but cannot! There is, then, nothing for us but to die and be lost on account of this beautiful and righteous commandment! Is there not after all some way in which my heart can be made to give up its resistance, and come again into agreement with the law; so that the holy commandment, the loving will of my God, can once more become my will and the desire of my heart? Is there no commandment of the law by way of which I might return to the great commandment? Is there no commandment which I could begin to keep, and thus by degrees reach the higher level of the great commandment of love? Foolish questions! Can one who is evil do that which is good? Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? (Jer. 13, 23). No; all the commandments of the law demand love, while not one of them can give us a spark of it. However, praise be to God; he has given us something more than the law: He has given us the gospel concerning his only Son; by which means the Holy Ghost can beget us anew, bring our hearts over onto the side of the divine law, and make this to become life and truth within us. The Son of David is the Lord of David; the man Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God, true God from everlasting to everlasting. In him love has returned to the world. He is himself the fulfillment of the great commandment; and he is this for us, in our stead. God has thus ordained. He counts that which Christ does as having been done by us; and it is finished. Christ has fulfilled the law for me, has loved with a perfect love, been obedient in all things, submitted to the will of the Father even unto the death of the cross; and thus I have received pardon for my transgressions, and that title to salvation which is contained in the proviso of the law: Keep the law, and thou shalt live. Christ has kept it for me; and thus I have kept it. The Holy Ghost gives me grace to believe this; so that I live and die trusting in the vicarious atonement of Jesus. Thus I am in Christ; and then he also is in me. His love has entered my heart; and now we may therefore speak of keeping the several commandments; — not in order that we may learn to fulfill the great commandment, but because this commandment now is in our hearts, and we in it. For now my heart has its being in the great commandment; and this is in my heart. Now we can and shall practice love by obedience to all the commands of the Lord; so that love of self, hate, covetousness, and all the lusts of the flesh, which still are in us, may die and be destroyed, in order that we may at last sit in the midst of the heaven of love. — We do not, then, in any sense make void the law through grace, but rather establish the law by the very means of the gospel. “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Love, the eternal and immovable, the heavenly and immutable law, truth itself, which shall and must be realized in us, confronts us in Moses as the law of works with its requirements and commands; but it thus never becomes truth in us; for it can only make us to see our unhappy condition, and be our “schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.” Through Jesus, on the other hand, love is become grace; and thus it enters our hearts. God’s loving purpose concerning the world, the truth itself, is in and through Christ from eternity; and through the gospel it becomes in us the truth of faith. — Have you, dear reader, had this experience? Is the law of love your great commandment, dear and sweet and blessed? Do you understand Saint John, who writes not a new commandment, but one old, and yet new, which is true in God and in us? (1 John 2, 7. 8.). Then you have begun to know the joy of love and the sorrow of love. Now, make diligent use of the power which God has given you; obey the Spirit of God; hear the voice of Christ, and he will take you to his heart. There your sin and distress and pain shall die. Amen. God grant us this mercy. Amen.*
Jesus, thy boundless love to me
No thought can reach, no tongue declare;
Unite my thankful heart to thee,
And reign without a rival there.
Thine wholly, thine alone I am;
Be thou alone my constant flame.
[TLH 349 (listen here), or LSB 683 (listen here), or ELH 372 (listen here)]
387. Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity. II.
Give us, O God, the living hope
of the humble hearts. Amen.
Epistle Lesson, 1 Corinthians 1, 4-8. I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; that in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
❦
Though Paul wrote this epistle to the Corinthians with a sad heart, because there was so much wickedness in the church, yet he begins this way: “I thank my God always on your behalf.” — In like manner we also will thank our God always for his mercy in Christ. The numerous infirmities of the church must never for one moment interrupt our thanksgiving. It is the most bitter fruit of your unbelief and pride that you do not give thanks all the time. Always, when I turn my eyes in that direction, I see through Jesus on the cross into the heart of God, full of mercy toward us. Nor do we at any time come behind in divine instruction; the word of God dwells in us richly. Through the enlightenment of his Spirit all scripture also is opened to me; I walk nowhere in darkness; Christ shines out everywhere in the Old and New Testaments. Though I do not understand clearly all the details, and though I feel that the whole is infinitely more deep than I am able to see; I yet have “all knowledge”; that is, the key to it all and the necessary light for my whole life. Others in our church have more light; and it is the common property of us all. — The testimony of Christ is not on our lips merely; the Holy Ghost has written it in our hearts. And he does not write faintly on the surface, but burns the truth into the soul. Wherein, then, do we come behind? “Alas,” you say, “how sad is the condition of the church!” It is true; and you have the right to make the complaint; — if it be love which burns in you by reason of the offenses given, and if you weep with Paul, moved by the mercy of Christ. In that case, however, you certainly also shall with Paul, in the fellowship of the same Lord, rejoice because of God’s great mercy toward us, and with longing and joy wait for the coming of our Lord. The pure eye looks upon that which is pure, and rejoices in every virtue which appears; but acquiesces in the arrangement that the tares and wheat are to grow together until the harvest. You are weighed down by the sin in yourself and in the church; you shall find deliverance; you shall become perfect in holiness, and the church shall be purified and stand an undefiled bride at the Lord’s side. This hope dwelt in the church at Corinth, in spite of all its imperfections; and it dwells in us also. The children of the world cling to that which is of earth; the children of God, to that which is of heaven. There is in truth a church of God among us, which waits and yearns for the second coming of Christ; and you may be as sure of his coming as though you already saw him; and you may be equally sure that he “shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” Is not this something to strengthen us and to humble us? Must you not hereafter thank and praise God always? Repent, all the ends of the earth, and be ye saved; but do ye also repent, ye believers. I say it with emphasis: Repent, ye believers, and become as children; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
Give us, O God, the humble and grateful spirit of faith; and confirm us in the truth unto the end, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.*
Abide, our Strength and Refuge,
With us till life’s last hour,
That world and Satan never
Our weakness overpower.
Abide, O faithful Savior,
Among us with thy love;
Grant steadfastness, and help us
To reach our home above.
[TLH 53, LSB 919; listen here]
* Here the head of the family says a short morning or evening prayer in his own words, and closes with the Lord’s Prayer and the Benediction. This is to be done every day. If the stanzas are not sung, they may be read in their proper place before the impromptu petition and the Lord’s Prayer.