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

All of the teachings of the Bible from the both the Old and New Testaments can be divided into two main categories: the Law and the Gospel.  The Law is God’s Word of command that tells what to do and how we’re supposed to live. The Gospel, on the other hand, is God’s Word of grace through which He teaches about what Christ has done for our salvation. Understanding the difference between the Law and the Gospel is so essential that without it, it’s actually impossible to read the Bible. If a person doesn’t know what parts of the Scriptures are Law and what parts are Gospel, he or she will become easily confused and think that God’s Word is full of all kinds of contradictions. In one place, for example, the Bible offers forgiveness for all sinners, and in another place, it condemns all sinners. In one place, the Holy Spirit tells us to do certain things if we want to be saved, and in another place, He tells us that salvation is a free and unmerited gift. This puzzle can only be solved if we know the difference between the Law and the Gospel.

And one place where we get to see this difference shown to us very clearly is in our Gospel lesson today from Matthew chapter 22. In Matthew chapter 22, we are presented with two different questions that get at the heart of these two main teachings. First, the Pharisees ask Jesus what the greatest commandment is, and then, Jesus asks them who the Christ is. So, on the basis of these two questions, allow me to explain to you all a little bit more about the differences between the Law and the Gospel and how these teachings go together.

Again, the first teaching of God’s Word that we get to see in our text this morning is the teaching of the Law. After our Lord silenced the Sadducees, who asked Him about the resurrection of the dead, the Pharisees sent one of their own representatives to ask Him a question too. But just the like Sadducees were trying to trap Jesus and prove that He was a false teacher, that’s what the Pharisees were up to as well. As we read, “And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question to test Him. ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law.’”

If you remember, the Pharisees loved to debate with one another about which one of God’s commandments was the most important. They had identified 613 different ones, and each Rabbi, and each school of theology, would identify themselves by which one they saw as the most significant. Are the Sabbath laws the most important or are the food laws? What about the cleansing laws and the laws about tithing? Some said this, and some said that. The Pharisees were not actually concerned with which commandment Jesus picked, but rather they simply wanted to draw Him into a debate in order to demonstrate that He was just like all the other Rabbis who each had their own opinion. But notice how quickly Jesus answered their question. Without any hesitation at all, He responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

As is always the case, our Lord’s answer was perfect. And the reason why it was perfect was because Jesus did not pick out one commandment over another, but rather He summarized all of the commandments at once. He got to the heart of what each commandment is really all about. What do the first 3 commandments, for example, in the Ten Commandments have to do with? They all have to do with loving God. That’s why God tells us not to worship other gods. That’s why He tells us not to take His Name in vain. And that is why He tells us to remember the Sabbath by keeping it holy. Those are the ways that we show Him love. And the same is true for commandments 4 through 10. Do you want to know what it looks like to actually love your neighbor? It looks like honoring your father and mother, not killing people, not cheating on your spouse, not stealing, lying, or coveting things that don’t belong to you. Just as no one wants any of those things to be done to them, God tells us not to do them to our neighbor. Jesus was exactly right.

But what made Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees so perfect, was not just that He summed up all of the Law at once, but also that in doing so He showed us what the main purpose of God’s Law even is. The main purpose of God’s Law is to uncover our sins and teach us that we need a Savior. As Saint Paul tells us so clearly in Romans chapter 3, “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”

Yes, knowing which one of God’s commandments is the greatest is a very important thing to know. But that knowledge by itself doesn’t actually save a person. In fact, that knowledge condemns a person. That knowledge reveals to us even more that we cannot save ourselves by the things that we do. The Law tells us what God wants from us, but it does not give us the ability to do it. On the contrary, it proves that we haven’t really done it at all.

Which one of us has loved God with his whole heart, soul, and mind? To love God with your heart means that you love Him with your will. It means that you always want the things that God wants and you never want anything different. To love God with your soul means that you love Him with your emotions. You always feel exactly the way God feels about everything. You despise the things that He despises. And you are happy with the things that make Him happy. And to love God with your mind, means that you love Him with your reason. In every situation, you always think the way that God thinks, and you never doubt His Word. Only the most delusion kind of person could possibly believe that he or she has loved God in that kind of way.

And that is only half of what it means to keep His law. The other half has to do with loving your neighbor. Who has truly loved his neighbor as himself? Loving your neighbor as yourself means putting the needs of other people always before your own. It means treating others with the exact same kind of respect that you want to be treated with by them. Whether it is your friend, or your enemy, or someone that you just met, it doesn’t matter. Anything that you wouldn’t want others to say about you, God says don’t say it about them. Anything you wouldn’t want others to think about you, God says don’t even think it about them. And anything that you would want others to help you with, if you were in the same situation as they were, God doesn’t just tell you to do it, He tells you to do willingly and gladly.

When a person examines himself according to this standard, that is, God’s standard, if he is being honest with himself, he must confess along with the Psalmist, “Enter not into judgment with Your servant, for no one living is righteous before You.” He must admit that he has not kept God’s Law. And again, that is the main purpose of the Law. God gave us His Law not so that we would try and save ourselves through it, but so that we would learn that we need salvation from it. We need the forgiveness of our sins.

And that leads us to the second question from our text today, the question that Jesus asked the Pharisees. After our Lord showed them how God’s Law demands perfect love toward Him and perfect love toward our neighbor, thereby proving that no one can be saved by keeping the Law because every one of us has broken it, Jesus said, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is he?” In response the Pharisees said, “the son of David.” Then Jesus added, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls Him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.”’

The reason why Jesus asked the Pharisees who the Christ is was because that question gets to the very heart of the Gospel. When you know who the Messiah is, and what He has come to do for you, then, and only then, will you know the real answer to how a sinner can be saved from his sins.

The problem with the Pharisees was not only that they had a completely false understanding of God’s Law, where they thought that God gave it to us so that we could be saved by keeping it, but they also had a completely false view of the Messiah. They thought that the Messiah would be someone just like them. He would be a man just like they were, except that He would finally deliver them from their earthly trouble. He would save them from the oppression of the Roman government and restore the Jewish nation to the same level of success that it had in the time of the Old Testament.

And yet, Jesus shows them from their own texts that they cherished, how the Messiah was much more than that. How could King David call the Messiah His Lord, even before the Messiah was born? How could God speak to the Christ, if the Christ didn’t already exist? And that is the point. He did already exist. And David could call Him his Lord even before He was born, because even though He had not yet been born in the flesh, He was begotten from all eternity. David’s Son and David’s Lord is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. He is the very Son of God Himself.

If the Pharisees would only recognize the true identity of the Messiah, then they should also have been able to recognize that He has come to do more than what any other man can do. In fact, He has come precisely to do what all men fail to do. He has come to fulfill the Law. He has come to keep all of God’s commandments on our behalf and then suffer the punishment for breaking those commandments as our substitute. The Christ puts all of our enemies under His feet, by allowing those enemies to kill Him. He takes His seat at the right hand of God, by first taking His seat on a cross, and dying for the sins of the whole world. That is how the Messiah ushers in His Kingdom. That is how He delivers us from our sad situation, we brought upon ourselves through our failure to keep God’s Law.

When you know the answer to the question, “what is the greatest commandment,” all that that does is bring you shame. You know what God wants from you, but you don’t have the ability to do it. But when you know the answer to the question, “who is the Christ,” then you can have true peace in your heart. Then you can have confidence in your salvation, even though you are still acutely aware of your sins.

That is the difference between the Law and the Gospel. That is the difference between these two distinct teachings of the Bible. The Law and the Gospel are not contradictory to each other, they are complimentary to each other. Through the Law, God shows us our sins, and through the Gospel, He shows us our Savior. Through the Law, God makes us realize that we need forgiveness, and through the Gospel, God gives us that forgiveness. Through the Law, God tells us how we are supposed to live, and through the Gospel, God tells us how Jesus has lived a perfect life in our place.

No, we have not loved the Lord our God with our whole heart, soul, and mind. And no, we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. Anyone who says otherwise is not telling the truth. But there is One who has. There is One who is like us in every way except that He is without sin. We have a Christ. He is David’s son and David’s Lord. And He is the answer to everything that we need. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.