10/19/2025

18th Sunday after Trinity

Text: Matt. 22:34-46

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

The bible is a lot to take in. When people read the scriptures, they have many questions. Here’s what often puzzles people: why does the bible say that God wants us to do good and not sin, but also teaches that we can’t please God by our works and must be saved by grace? Some might conclude the bible contradicts itself. Others might say we should ignore what the bible says about works and focus only on grace. Others still might conclude that we should focus only on its message about good works and ignore the passages about grace. But none of those positions are correct. The bible’s teachings about works and grace are neither contradictory nor mutually exclusive. They are complementary.

This becomes apparent in our gospel reading. The Pharisees ask a question about works of the law—what’s the greatest commandment? Jesus asks them a question about the Messiah—whose Son is He? There you see the division between these two topics in Scripture. Some passages of Scripture talk about what we ought to do and others about what Jesus, the Messiah, does for us. The bible calls the teaching about works the law and the teaching about Jesus’ work for us the gospel. These two doctrines are not contradictory, but they are distinct. To understand the Scriptures, you need to distinguish between law and gospel. Today we will consider this distinction between law and gospel in two ways. The law and gospel are distinct, first, in their content, and second, in their application.

I

First, law and gospel are distinct in content. God’s law reveals who He wants us to be and what He wants us to do. The law is found in the ten commandments. In His conversation with the Pharisees, Jesus summarizes the law thus: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” God’s requirement for us is that we love Him and one another. And He doesn’t want a half-hearted attempt. Just as a wife doesn’t want her husband to kind of love her and sort of love her kids but to love with all he’s got, so God requires that you love Him with all you have, and your neighbor as yourself. The Ten Commandments show us what that looks like. What does it mean to love God? It means you worship no false god nor take His name in vain but worship as He commands. What does it mean to love your neighbor? It means to love and respect your parents. It means you don’t hurt your neighbor in any way. You don’t draw your neighbor’s spouse away from him. You don’t steal his stuff. You don’t slander him or covet what’s his. But you help him in any way you can, and you honor everyone and everything God has given him.

The law speaks to your conscience. Your conscience bears witness that you are duty bound to love, and it protests when you transgress the commandments. Your conscience’s accusation makes you feel guilt and shame when you fail to love God with all you’ve got and your neighbor as yourself. That happens a lot because, with the fall into sin, we are incapable of fulfilling our obligation to God’s law. But God doesn’t give us His law because we will be saved by keeping it. God gives the law, first, to keep our sins in check. The law’s demand in our conscience makes us think twice about doing all sorts of evil things. Second, the law reveals our sins to us. Its demand for perfection shows us just how sinful we are. The law shows us that we cannot attain to its standard but are guilty before God. Third, the law also gives us a knowledge of what is truly good and God-pleasing. We cannot define what God calls good and love. God defines which works are truly loving and really pleasing to Him. Those are the ten commandments.

After giving His summary, Jesus tells the Pharisees that the entire law and the prophets hang on this understanding of the law. The Old Testament reveals what God truly demands of us, and teaches that we cannot meet our obligation, but stand sinful and condemned before Him. But the Old Testament also promises that God in His mercy pardons us through the work of an advocate chosen for us, His Messiah, or Christ, which means anointed one.

That promise of the Messiah is the message of the Gospel. Gospel means good news or proclamation. The Gospel does not teach us what we must do, but the Gospel teaches about who the Messiah is and what He has done for us. To teach about the Gospel, Jesus asks the Pharisees whose son the promised Messiah would be. They reply, “The son of David.” That means the Messiah is a man descended from David. Jesus then quotes Psalm 110, written by David. David says, “The Lord said to My Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” Lord is a title for God. Jesus poses this question—“If David calls Him [the Messiah] Lord, how is He his Son?” They don’t want to answer that question, because they would have to confess that Jesus, the descendant of David, is also true God. That is the heart of the Gospel. Jesus, the promised Messiah, is true man and true God. God the Father has seated Jesus at His right hand and has appointed a day when all the Christ’s enemies will be publicly placed under His feet because He has defeated them.

Who are those enemies the Messiah has destroyed? God’s anointed servant has destroyed sin, death, and Satan by His death on the cross for us. Jesus the Christ died for our sins. God has accepted His death for sin and raised Him up and exalted Him. The Gospel proclaims that the Christ has paid our debts, defeated our enemies, and delivered us. Forgiveness and life are ours. Christ’s rule is proclaimed in the Gospel and will be revealed on the Last Day when God judges all evil and delivers the saints.

To summarize, the law teaches us what we ought to do, while the gospel proclaims what Christ has done for us. That makes them distinct.

II

Law and gospel are also distinct in their application. God’s word is always applied to us. That means the law and the gospel apply to us. The law is preached to awaken knowledge of our sin within us. But the gospel is preached to comfort us when we confess our sins. If you think of it, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul” is not a very comforting word of Scripture. It’s true and good but its demand convicts. On the other hand, the proclamation that Jesus really forgives you your sins because He was crucified and is risen for you is very comforting. At least it is if you believe you’re a sinner.

But if you do not, then the gospel is not for you. The gospel’s comfort is not for secure sinners. When you do something sinful, your conscience accuses you. You want to silence its accusation against you. You either make excuses for yourself, or you deny that God’s law applies to you. If you don’t believe the law’s accusation in your conscience, then you will see the gospel as an invitation to ignore the law and continue sinning. That’s why secure sinners do not need to hear the gospel but the law to awaken a knowledge of their sins within them.

This is also the main reason Jesus speaks differently to different people in the gospels. He forgives some and rebukes others depending on whether or not they know their sins. Take the story of the woman caught in adultery. That woman sinned. She deserved judgement. But she was repentant. She knew she had transgressed the commandment and was sorry. In that case, Jesus forgave her and told her to go and sin no more. But to other people like the Pharisees who were proud, Jesus doesn’t preach forgiveness but takes them to task. He doesn’t preach differently to different people because He shows favoritism but because some people He deals with like the Pharisees needed to repent of their own sins. They were secure sinners who needed to be convicted by the law.

But when you believe the law’s condemnation, the gospel’s comfort is for you. In the gospels, you’ll see that when people feel the guilt and shame of their sins deeply and are terrified of God’s judgement and come to Jesus for help, Jesus doesn’t say to them, “What’s the greatest commandment? Work on that.” But He forgives them. The gospel is applied to terrified sinners.

When you believe that the law’s accusation is true and you want to stop the sin you’re caught up in, then God’s word for you is that you are forgiven. You are at peace with God because Jesus, God’s own Son, died for your sin and is risen. He sits at the right hand of God not as your judge but as your Lord and advocate. He has fulfilled the demand of the law for you and suffered your condemnation. He has freed you from sin to live in His service and follow Him willingly.

To summarize, the law’s condemnation is applied to unrepentant, secure sinners, and the gospel’s comfort to terrified, repentant sinners. In that they are distinct.

Here’s the last point to consider. God’s word, both the law and the gospel, are preached to us as long as we live. We don’t repent once and then ignore the law because we think we’ve been forgiven. But we still live in the flesh. We still face temptation to sin. We must daily repent. For that, we need the preaching of the law. Further, we need to hear the law’s preaching to know what the true standard is for our life. God teaches us what love looks like from the ten commandments. As Christians, we live lives of love—love toward God and love to those around us. Our love isn’t shaped by human ideas but by God’s law.

On the other hand, we don’t repent once and then ignore the gospel because we’ve been forgiven once. We live in great weakness. We sin daily. And the gospel is preached to us daily. As Christians, we live by the gospel. Our strength to fight against sin, to suffer patiently, to serve cheerfully, to live in joy and contentment is found in this—Jesus died for us and lives for us and sits at God’s right hand. In Him we have forgiveness, life, and peace.

We’ll always have questions about scripture. There’s much to study and much to learn. But when you keep the distinction between law and gospel in mind, then a lot of scripture ceases to be a puzzle, and by distinguishing law and gospel, you learn that all of scripture fits together into a harmonious whole.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.