LESSON: ROMANS 7:7‒11

I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Romans 7:22‒23

Be quite sure of this, that reason can never understand the Law or fulfill it, even though it may actually know what the Law requires of man. When do you do to someone else what you would like him to do to you? Who really loves his enemy in his heart? Who is glad to die? Who suffers disgrace and shame gladly? Show me a man who would prefer to hear an evil report about himself or to live in poverty?

Nature and human reason avoid such misfortunes as much as possible. They shun them and are alarmed and dismayed by them. Human nature, moreover, will never be able to accomplish what God requires of us in this Law—namely, that we resign our will to God’s will, that we renounce our own understanding of matters, our own will, might, and powers, and say with all our heart, “Your will be done!”

You will certainly never find a single individual who loves God with his whole heart and his neighbor as himself. It may well happen that two people who are bosom friends manage to get along in a friendly manner. But there can also be hypocrisy in such relationships. They often last only as long as no injury intervenes to break up the relationship. Then you will see soon enough how much you love that special friend and whether you are flesh or spirit. The Law requires of us that we should always be really friendly towards someone who has injured us—but who keeps the Law to this extent?

SL.XI.1694,21

PRAYER: Lord God, heavenly Father, forgive us our many sins against Your holy Law, in Christ’s name and for His sake. Amen.

Editor’s note: No American Edition (AE) equivalent for today’s sermon excerpt exists at the time of this publication. For an alternate English translation of this sermon, see Lenker, Church Postil–Gospels, 5:169-183.

LESSON: GALATIANS 2:15‒16

It is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. Romans 2:13

How many are there who really understand the commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind”? Few, indeed, and there are fewer still who actually keep and observe this commandment. How are they to keep what they do not know? We are blind, and our nature is also completely blinded. Human reason hardly knows less about anything than it knows about what God wants in His Law.

Christ confers a benefit upon the Pharisees and lawyers in two respects. First, He removes their blindness and teaches them what the Law is. Secondly, He teaches them how impossible it is for them to fulfill the commandments. He removes their blindness and teaches them what the Law is by showing them that the Law is basically love.

Reason cannot understand this today, even as the Jews also failed in this respect. For if reason had been able to grasp this, then, to be sure, the Pharisees and the lawyers would have grasped it, for they were the best and cleverest men among the Jews of that time. They thought that the fulfillment of the Law depended solely upon the performance of the external works of the Law, whether they were performed willingly or unwillingly. They never really faced up to their inner blindness, greed, and wicked hardness of heart. They imagined themselves to be fully conversant with all the requirements of the Law and regarded themselves as very fine fellows, holy and godly. As Jesus says, “If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). No one can fulfill the Law unless he has been completely renewed.

SL.XI.1693,19‒20

PRAYER: O God, our transgressions of Your holy Law are many and grievous. Eternal praise and thanks be to You for the obedience our Savior rendered to Your Law on our behalf and in our stead, an obedience now reckoned to us for His sake and in His name. Amen.

Editor’s note: No American Edition (AE) equivalent for today’s sermon excerpt exists at the time of this publication. For an alternate English translation of this sermon, see Lenker, Church Postil–Gospels, 5:169-183.

THE WEEK OF TRINITY XVIII - TUESDAY

LESSON: PSALM 40:1-8

“Blessed are those who keep his (the Lord's) testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart.” Psalm 119:2

Man's unbelief has invented and set up countless substitutes for the two main commandments of the Law, resulting in forms of ungodliness which Scripture describes as "grieving" God and the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30; Isaiah 63:10). Should not God be angry with me when He commands me to show love to my neighbor and I proceed to follow my own dreams and those of other men? It is just as if a housefather orders his servant to do some plowing and the servant goes off and washes dishes. Would not a housefather be justified in becoming angry with such a servant?

This is also the case with God. He wants us to obey His commandments. We should regard them more highly than the commandments of men. He wants all commandments to relate to love so that they may all be comprised in the two commandments of which Jesus speaks in the Gospel, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind ... and your neighbor as yourself.” If you want to do something that pleases God, do it in such a way that it flows from a heart of love.

On the other hand, it is easy to conclude that all works are nothing which do not flow from love, or which are against love. No commandments or laws should ever be given any validity excepting such as put the law of love into practice.

SL.XI.1692,16-17

PRAYER: Give us grace, heavenly Father, to keep the greatest of all the commandments by loving you with our whole heart, and soul, and mind, and the second commandment which is like it, by loving one another for your sake, in the name of Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Editor’s note: No American Edition (AE) equivalent for today’s sermon excerpt exists at the time of this publication. For an alternate English translation of this sermon, see Lenker, Church Postil—Gospels, 5:169-183