In Christ, the Law is Satisfied

In Christ, the Law is Satisfied

Romans 6:1-11; Matthew 5:17-26 T Trinity 6

INI

Jesus isn’t satisfied with the way you are. Not according to your sins and sinful nature. Not according to the unrighteous deeds you find yourself enslaved to. In front of God’s Law, we all stand accused of sin. Look at the Ten Commandments given by God on Mount Sinai. God gave these commandments because He loves us, because these commandments describe who HE is and what HE desires as a holy, sinless God. And this is how the God who brought His people out of slavery from Egypt can be with His people – He can’t dwell with sinners. God isn’t satisfied with half-repentance or people who try their hardest to be Christian. Because sin is foreign to His nature. He can only dwell in perfect righteousness. Everyone outside of this righteousness will never dwell with God in eternity.

In God’s holy law, there’s a sort of tension that exists as we encounter it. If you remember from Catechism class, there are three uses of the Law – curb, mirror, and guide. First use, God gives His Law so that our actions are curbed from all sorts of unrighteousness. Second use, God uses His law as a mirror – so that when we look at the mirror of God’s Law, we see ourselves for who we truly are: sinners who fall short of God’s glory. And here’s where the tension lies, in the third use. The guiding function of the Law reveals to the converted Christian how they should lead a God pleasing life. A Christian doesn’t see God’s Law as something that should make us whine and groan. If we hate living God’s Law, we’ve certainly gotten something wrong. Because if you look at Psalm 119, that Psalm has 176 verses and it all speaks about how God’s people should love, and cherish God’s Law! If such a thought is repulsive to you, then you’re still bound to the threat of the law and not embraced the God who gives such laws. This isn’t to say that the Christian won’t struggle at times – because our sanctification in thought and deed is never perfect. But if you hate the commands of God and see Him as some sort of out-of-date bully, then you hate God.

Problem is, you can’t change your condition. A sinner isn’t able to change their ways to please God. Sinners can’t exchange their unrighteousness for righteousness. Sinners can’t change their desires away from god-lessness to god-liness. As much as we may try and scratch and crawl our way to godly living, it will never be enough. Because we’re enslaved. We’re enslaved to our sins. We’ll fall short of God’s 10 commandments. We can’t do anything to free ourselves. We can’t do anything to bring ourselves to forgive our neighbors who’ve wronged us. God hates this slavery that we find ourselves in due to our original sin inherited from Adam. We’re born with an innate desire to sin. That is to say, we’re born with a desire to hate God and God’s righteousness.

Yet, the grace of God is that He still wants to live with us. Jesus wants to destroy the lawlessness within you, so that He may dwell in you. Jesus is satisfied when your body of sin is brought to nothing, for He wants your righteousness to exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees. This righteousness doesn’t lie within us. This sort of saving righteousness isn’t something we can muster up. We’ve already proven our efforts to be unfruitful. This righteousness must come from outside of ourselves. It must come through the merits of Christ’s own righteousness. By His earthly life and ministry, and His innocent suffering and death, Jesus has won this for you. Jesus has come not to do away with God’s Law because it’s too hard for sinners to handle. Rather, Jesus has come to fulfill the Law. Jesus lived the 10 commandments perfectly. His life pleases the Father. He took on the flesh of Adam, because Adam must repay that debt of sin against God’s Law. So, God in Christ Jesus became one of us that He may be the substitute for all mankind and redeem mankind from the curse of the Law.

Jesus’ merciful actions show to all the world that He doesn’t want you to be enslaved to yourself. Rather, that you’d be enslaved to Him. That He would be your Master. That you would fear and love Him above all things. That you would honor his name and keep it holy upon your lips. That you would live in peace, forgiveness, and service to your community around you. That you would be God’s icon on earth as He lives through you, being a beacon of forgiveness to your brother. That He would change your bumbling, hate filled lips to lips of love, out of which spill absolution and mercy, just as Jesus, our Master does for us.

Now all this may seem easy for us – because it isn’t our activity by which we’re saved. This grace of God on our end may seem easy and free. But it was actually very costly. It cost the life of an innocent man. It cost the life of God – Jesus, the King of the universe. He didn’t have to take on flesh to save a wretched people, yet He did it anyway. Because His love for His creation is unfathomable. He’s like a husband who’s obsessed with His bride – He’d do anything to just be with her. Even if that meant sacrificing His own life.

Freed from our sins through the merits of Christ’s cross given in Word and Sacrament, Jesus becomes your Master. As your Master, Jesus empowers you to live the Law of God in great joy! Because the law no longer becomes your master, but Christ does! Ever since you’ve been united with Jesus’ own death and resurrection through the miracle of baptism, Jesus is your Lord. He Himself was baptized to fulfill all righteousness, so that His righteousness may be credited to your account. He’s washed you clean of your unrighteousness, so that God the Father may dwell with you in purity! For when the Father in heaven sees you, he doesn’t see the stains of your unrighteousness and sin. He sees His Son, who’s fulfilled the requirements of the Law in the place of sinners.

Jesus wants this for you – this is why He instituted the Holy waters of baptism to be a cleansing flood that drowns your old Adam and Christ rises up to live in you. Your baptism wasn’t something your parents made you do long ago to initiate your Christian life. Rather, it is your Christian life now. To live in your baptismal waters daily is what Luther urges us to do in the Catechism. To wake up, confess your sins, and let God talk to you through the Holy Scriptures – this activity of the Christian life seeks to run to the foot of the Savior and beg for mercy, because life isn’t worth living alone. The Christian life must be lived through whom God has called us to be – that is, His children. That’s a life worth living. Because we’re bound to a Master who truly loves us.

God isn’t satisfied with us in our sins. He’s satisfied when the righteousness of Christ covers our sins. For He is our substitute and our salvation. So, flee to the means of grace – one of which is given to you now in the Sacrament of Altar. For your substitute comes to meet you here, and give you His costly life. With faith strengthened by His blood, you’re united to Christ’s own life, through which you are able to live and love God’s law. And with that, God is pleased.

INI

Pastor Joshua Ralston