"The Ten Commandments: A New Commandment I Give to You" Ash Wednesday Commemoration of Martin Luther, Doctor and Confessor February 18, 2015 John 13:31–35
[The Catechesis of Our Lord in the Gospel According to John In John’s Gospel account we find our Lord teaching us, His Church. The Catechism lays out in a simple way the core teachings of the Bible. How does John in his Gospel account show us our Lord teaching us these core teachings? On the Wednesday evenings in Lent we will meditate on these core teachings as our Lord catechizes us.] "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another." During our midweek Lenten worship services we will meditate on the core teachings of the Bible as taught by our Lord in the Gospel According to John. In some instances, the other three Gospel writers give a more explicit account of these core teachings. In Matthew Jesus lays out an extensive examination of the Ten Commandments in the Sermon on the Mount. In that same Sermon, He gives us the most beloved prayer of all, which we often call the Lord’s Prayer. Luke also shows our Lord teaching us the Lord’s Prayer. At the end of his Gospel account Matthew gives us our Lord’s institution of Baptism. And Matthew, Mark, and Luke all give us the institution of our Lord’s Holy Supper. There is indeed much in those three Gospel accounts to teach us about these core teachings that are laid out nicely and succinctly in the Small Catechism. But in John’s Gospel account we see our Lord teaching us all six of the core teachings of Scripture: the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, Holy Baptism, Confession and Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper. If you read through John’s Gospel account you may not see it outright, because he doesn’t lay it out in a systematic way. Also, he doesn’t explicitly show most of those six teachings, as does Matthew. But having been written much later than the first three Gospel accounts, John did not need to treat these core teachings in the way that Matthew, Mark, and Luke did. John shows us these core teachings as inseparably bound up in the life of our Lord Himself. We begin, then, with the first one, the Ten Commandments. In John 13 Jesus tells His disciples, “A new commandment I give to you.” That Jesus is giving a new commandment might seem to imply that the ones previously given are the old ones. It might even seem to be that Jesus is saying that He is doing away with those old ones. What does Jesus mean by giving a new commandment? Let’s unpack it. What is this new commandment He gives to us? It is to love one another. That sounds pretty straightforward and very much what we would expect our Lord to command us. We certainly ought to love one another, right? Yes, indeed. But isn’t this really an old commandment? After all, in the Old Testament we find this very commandment stated, so what is new about it? The answer lies in His explanation of the commandment: love one another as I have loved you. We are not just to love one another, but love one another in a new way. This new way is the way of the Gospel, not the Law. If we were to turn this new commandment into a new law, we would find ourselves as we do with the Ten Commandments themselves—falling woefully short. If we use the commandments of God as simply laws that we must obey all we ultimately will see is that we do not obey them. At least not fully. We try. We even want to. But measured against God’s holiness, we find ourselves lacking in holiness. We don’t measure up. But that is one of the chief uses of the Law. God’s Law convicts us of our sin and condemns us of our sin. We see that Law fully at work in the Ten Commandments. As Christians, we daily see that we remain bound up in our sinful flesh. We continue to sin against God’s commandments rather than joyfully keeping them. The purpose of this condemning work of the Law isn’t to drive us to despair but to repentance. In repentance we see that we must despair of ourselves, that is, our own attempts at trying to keep God’s Law. We rather look to God Himself, the one who gave us His Law. The very Ten Commandments came out of the loving and saving action of God for His people. He rescued them from slavery in Egypt and now was giving them a new way to live. We call them the Ten Commandments, but the sense is more along the lines of, “This is how you shall live,” a description of what it looks like. Jesus’ giving a new commandment plays off the one given in the Old Testament, a summary of the Second Table of the Law, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus’ ‘new’ commandment is pretty much the same, “love one another.” What makes His commandment a new commandment? As with the giving of the Ten Commandments, the context of giving this new commandment, helps us understand. He tells them to love one another, “as I have loved you.” The new commandment He gives is not something we must do in order to be loved by God. It is precisely the opposite. It is love by us toward others because God has loved us in Christ. As Christ loved us, so we love one another. His love is love in perfect and harmonious keeping with the Ten Commandments. He not only loved His neighbor as Himself, He laid down His life for all people. This is the love that fulfills the Law. The Ten Commandments can only be kept through loving others as Christ has loved us. The context of Jesus giving us this new commandment is Jesus washing His disciples’ feet. There, the Lord became the servant, the Master the slave. As Christ loves and serves us, so we love and serve one another. This puts the Ten Commandments in a new light. They are not simply rules to be obeyed, they are the very descriptions of how we love as Christ has loved us. In Christ this new commandment He gives us is brought into clarity in the Gospel and is now one comprehensive law which fulfills all laws. When you love others as Christ has loved you there is no need to wonder what you ought to do to love them. You simply love them selflessly. You serve them as Christ has served you. That doesn’t mean there aren’t specifics. The Ten Commandments is a beautiful display of specific ways we love others. We do not bring harm to them, we honor marriage, we do not take advantage of others, we put the best construction on others’ words and actions rather than automatically assuming the worst, we remain content with the material blessings God has given us even if they seem to be lacking in comparison with others. The reason doing these things is the new commandment Jesus gives us is because living and acting these in ways serves our neighbor. When we serve our neighbor we serve Christ. If you want to know what you can do for God, look at the Ten Commandments. There He gives you the ways to love others, to live selflessly, to treat others not simply as you would like to be treated, but loving them as Christ has loved you. The Ten Commandments ultimately fail us if we seek to live by them. They ultimately hold up to us a mirror which shows us our sin. That is brought home particularly on this day, Ash Wednesday, where we recognize that it is from dust that we have come and it is to dust we will return. We were born in sin and we continue in sin. This way of beginning the Lenten season puts proper focus for us on our sin and our continual need for repentance. It is only by Christ’s love that we can live by the Ten Commandments and love others. Where we fail, we repent. When we repent, we look to the servant who has kneeled down to wash our feet by suffering and dying for all of our sins. He is the one who rose from the grave, having fulfilled every commandment of God, having forgiven us, and giving us new life to live. This will be shown in all its fullness as go from here to the coming weeks in our look at the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, Baptism, Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. [Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian] _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
