Sermon on Lord’s Day 2

3.Q. From where do you know your sins and misery?
A. From the law of God.[1]
[1] Rom. 3: 20;

4. Q. What does God's law require of us? A. Christ teaches us this in a summary in Matthew 22: You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.[1] This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.[2]
[1] Deut. 6:5. [2] Lev. 19:18.

5. Q. Can you keep all this perfectly?
A. No,[1] I am inclined by nature to hate God and my neighbour.[2]
[1] Rom. 3:10, 23; I John 1:8, 10. [2] Gen. 6:5; 8:21; Jer. 17:9; Rom. 7:23; 8:7; Eph. 2:3; Tit. 3:3.

Scripture Reading:
Exodus 25:10-22
Matthew 22:34-40

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 123:1,2
Psalm 145:2
Psalm 32:1
Psalm 130:2,4
Psalm 103:4; Hymn 49:1

Beloved Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ!

We received today the privilege to sit at the table of the Lord. At this table the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ was set before us in pointed fashion; as surely as the bread was broken before our eyes and given to us, so surely was Christ’s body broken on the cross to pay for our sins. He received what I deserved – rich gospel!

Now that we’ve finished this celebration, we receive opportunity to listen to the word of our God. As it turns out, we need this afternoon to busy ourselves with LD 2 – about sins and misery. And we wonder: is this LD not completely out of step with the celebration of moments ago? Given that the celebration of the Lord’s supper was joyful and spoke of redemption, forgiveness and salvation, is the topic of sins and misery not totally out of place this afternoon?

There is, brothers and sisters, a line of thought which argues that the three parts of the Catechism are three stages that follow each other. The thought goes like this: a sinner first needs to know how terrible his sins are and how hopeless his misery is before He can appreciate the redemption God has provided in Jesus Christ. Similarly, one needs to appreciate how wonderful the redemption God gave might be before one can show one’s gratitude. So: the three sections of the Catechism become three stages, and what stage you’re in (whether you’re still trying to come to grips with how great your sins and misery are, or whether you’re grappling with the marvels of redemption, or whether you’re striving to live the thankful Christian life) what stage you’re in depends on your personal spiritual health. Those who could celebrate the Lord’s supper are obviously past the first stage; if one were still trying to discover how great his sins and misery are, he cannot, of course, sit at the table of the Lord. Well now, we just sat at the table of the Lord; that would lead to the conclusion that we’re past LD 2, we’ve come to grips with how great our sins and misery are, and so a sermon this afternoon on our sins and misery is out of place….

But the Catechism, my beloved, is not made up of three stages, along which the sinner progresses from stage to stage. The Catechism instead, in its entirety, is the treasure of the Christian. If I wish to live today, and tomorrow again, in the joy of the comfort spelled out to us at the table of the Lord today, I shall need today, and tomorrow again, to appreciate how great my sins and misery today are, to appreciate today, and tomorrow again, how I am today delivered from all my sins and misery, to appreciate also, today and tomorrow again, how I am now to be thankful to God for such deliverance. It is not true that ‘sins and misery’ is a stage that we ought by now to have passed; day by day we need to be aware of ‘how great my sins and misery are’ so that in turn I may rejoice at the redemption God in mercy has provided in Jesus Christ.

I summarise the sermon with this theme:

THROUGH THE LAW THE LORD TEACHES US HOW DESPARATELY MUCH WE NEED HIS SAVING WORK IN JESUS CHRIST.

1. the place of the law
2. the requirement of the law
3. the satisfaction of the law

The place of the law⤒🔗

To live and die in the joy of the comfort of LD 1, we need (said Q & A 2) to know "how great [our] sins and misery are." Well, if your misery is great, you will no doubt feel rather miserable. Hence my question to you: are you in fact miserable?? Do you feel miserable?

I suspect that most of us will answer that question with No. We’re miserable when we’re sick, we feel miserable when some disaster strikes. But on the whole, given the comforts of our society, given our general health and happiness, No, we’re not miserable.

It needs to be fixed in our minds, congregation, that our feelings are not an accurate indicator of whether in fact we’re miserable or not. Because of the fall into sin, we have become depraved from top to toe, so that we have no ability any more to judge rightly what our situation really is. If we were to place a hand on the red element of the kitchen stove, something would register in our brains that this is a miserable place to put your hand. But if the nerves do not function, no message comes to the brain to prompt the brain to think in terms of pain and misery. Through our fall into sin, our nerves on this point don’t work adequately any more; we’ve become so depraved that we’ve lost our ability to judge whether something in fact is comfortable or miserable. So we feel comfortable, whereas in fact we may have our hand on that element….

How can we know whether we have a hand on a hot element? The God who established His covenant of grace with us has told us so. Listen to God’s word in Dt 27. Says God to His covenant people Israel:

"Cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of this law" (vs 26).

That’s a loaded statement: God pronounces His curse upon any one who fails to keep every word of God’s law. That God in fact would have us keep every letter of the law is echoed by James:

"For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law" (2:10f).

"Cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of this law…." That, beloved in Jesus Christ, is a daunting thought…. God’s curse: that’s not something to thumb one’s nose at…. God’s curse: that’s miserable. And it’s the law that drives home to us God’s demands for us, the law that drives home to us how utterly we fail in doing what God requires….

The law. There’s something in that notion of ‘law’ that does not sit well with us. The law: it sounds so negative, so burdensome, so condemning; it places upon us impossible "have-to’s". And we’re right; it is condemning. I shall need to draw out with you just how very damning the law really is. But before I do that, brothers and sisters, I want to show you first the gospel of the law. I’ll do that by laying before you the place, the location of the law. To do that I need to ask your attention to passages from the book of Exodus.

Consider first Ex 20, where God gave the law to Israel. We know the opening words of the law so well:

"And God spoke all these words, saying:
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
You shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image…" (Ex 20:1-4),
and the rest of the commandments follow.

Notice: what comes first here, the law or the gospel?? We understand: the gospel comes first. That’s the opening line of the ten commandments: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." God does not say: obey these ten commandments, and then I’ll be your God and set you free from bondage to Egypt; He rather says: I am your God, I set you free from Egypt’s slavery, and that’s why I want you to keep these commandments. It’s not so, then, that Israel earned their deliverance from Egypt through their obedience to the law; rather, the law was given after God graciously took His people out of their bondage. It is because God made this people His own that He freely gave deliverance, it is because God made this people His own that He told them how they had to live before Him. Let it be fixed in our minds: the law comes after the gospel; the gospel comes first.

The same lesson is driven home by the Lord in the structure of the ark of the covenant. Ex 25 spells out God’s wish that "the Testimony that I will give you" (vss 16,21) had to receive a place inside the ark. That’s to say: the people had to place the two tables of the law that God wrote with His own hand (that’s the 10 commandments) in the ark. But –and here’s the point- to get at the 10 commandments inside the ark, one had to take the lid off the ark. But on the lid was … the mercy seat. That seat: that, as it were, was God’s throne, God’s chair. He was sovereignly pleased to dwell with His people, and stipulated that His place of dwelling was in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle, where the ark was – and on that ark of the covenant was specifically where God was presented as sitting.

Notice: this seat on the ark was called a ‘mercy seat’. That’s to say: this was a seat of mercy, a seat characterised by mercy. The people were sinful, God was holy, and so God and man could not dwell together as long as sin remained. So the altar had to be placed between the people and God, and God for Jesus’ sake forgave the sins of His people, dealt with them in mercy. That sins in fact were forgiven, that God could dwell with His people: that was the message of the mercy seat. This seat, then, proclaimed gospel, the good news of God dwelling with man – Immanuel.

Now, under this gospel, under the mercy seat, inside the ark of the covenant, the people had to place the Testimony, the two tables of the law. That location is not without significance; the law had a place under the gospel. What met the eye in the Holy of Holies was good news; that is, not the law stared them in the face (as in: you must do this and you must do that before God is really your God), but what stared them in the face was the gospel – as in: God has mercy on sinners. Then Yes, the law most certainly had a function, for it spelled out how the people of God were to live in their covenant relation with the God Who would give His Son to pay for their sins. But the law had its place after the gospel.

This relation between the gospel and the law is echoed in the Catechism. LD 2 asks, "from where do you know your sins and misery?" The answer is, "From the law of God." But tell me: who is the "you" that asks this question? "From where do you know your sins and misery:" is a heathen asked to explain where his knowledge of sin and misery comes? Is an unbeliever asked to explain how he knows about his sins and the extent of his misery? Let there be no mistake: if Q 3 were asked of the heathen or the unbeliever, this heathen or unbeliever would certainly not give the Answer of the Catechism; the heathen and the unbeliever will not confess that he knows his sins and misery "from the law of God".

No, brothers and sisters, the pronoun ‘you’ in LD 2 refers to the Christian, refers to the person who gave the answer of LD 1 about your only comfort. And we heard it with LD 1: God in heaven came to you and me with His gospel of free grace, told us in our baptism (when we could yet do not a thing to impress God) that He was our Father for Jesus’ sake, told us that He gave His Son to set us free from the power of the devil, told us that He gave His Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts. That’s to say: with LD 1 we responded, in faith, to the immeasurable wealth of the gospel God graciously prepared for us and gave to us. Now in LD 2 the believer gets asked the question: "from where do you know your sins and misery?" This believer is not above sin, this believer is not above misery either; instead, this believer possesses the wealth of the gospel, and now inquires about how much he needs the gospel God has already given to him. This believer: he’s so touched by the fall into sin that he does not himself fully perceive how great his sins are, he’s so touched by the fall into sin that he does not himself perceive either how his sins make his life impossible, miserable. And he certainly will not enjoy the wonders of God’s forgiving grace if he does not first know what God holds him guilty of. So, in order to enjoy the comfort God in mercy has given, the believer asks the Scriptures where one can find out about what he was delivered from, asks the Scriptures how great one’s sins and misery are. And this believer gives answer of Scripture: I know my sins and misery "from the law of God."

Then, Yes, beloved, we’ll find that the law condemns us; we’ll get to that shortly. But let it be fixed in our minds: the law does not come before the gospel, as if we by our efforts in obeying the law had to earn for ourselves the right to enjoy the gospel. Rather, the gospel comes first, comes to us freely. Now that God has given us redemption in Jesus Christ, we are allowed to look at the misery we’re saved from. That’s no longer horrifying; that instead moves us to deep gratitude.

The requirement of the law←⤒🔗

With that perspective in mind, we can move on now to our second point: what is the requirement of the law? It’s our second Q & A: "what does God’s law require of us?"

The answer is intriguing. The authors of the Catechism do not insert here the 10 commandments; they insert instead a summary. And yes, there’s a good reason for that. You see, if you look at each of God’s commandments by themselves, you could with a measure of justification conclude that you keep God’s commandments reasonably well. God says in the first commandment that we’re to have no other gods before Him. Well, I don’t know any of us who worships Bhuddha or Allah or some other god. The Lord tells us in the second commandment to make no graven images. I don’t suppose any of us have an idol standing in our houses. In the sixth commandment we’re told not to kill. Again, I like to think that none of us has actually killed. You see: if we take the commandments at their face value, we could even be forgiven for thinking that we’re pretty reasonable sort of people, that God couldn’t really have much against us.

Those may be our thoughts. As it turns out, the Lord teaches us something quite differently in His Word. Do we keep the law? A Pharisee once asked Jesus which of the 613 laws they counted up in the Old Testament was the most important. Was it the first commandment? Or the tenth? Or the law about sacrificing every morning? Or about paying tithes? "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus’ reply? The first and greatest is not the first or tenth commandment, or the one about making sacrifices; the first and greatest is the command to love, love God. And a second is on equal level: love your neighbour as yourself.

Love. That’s devotion, total devotion. Love involves self-emptying, involves denying the self for the benefit of the other. Love is never half-hearted in giving to the other, love doesn’t demand for the self. Love is what the Lord God did when He gave up His only Son; though He had but one Son, He sent Him from heaven to earth, to the anguish of the cross, in order to ransom the people of His choosing. Love is that Jesus did not mind to lay aside His heavenly glory to save the unworthy. That’s love: total, all encompassing. That, says Jesus, is the greatest of the commands God gave: love God, and love the neighbour as oneself. And love God with all one’s heart, with all one’s soul, with all one’s strength. Love is absolute, love is radical.

Now tell me: can any sinner obey this command? Tell me: how have you fared today?? Yesterday? Last month? Every action, every word, every thought, yes, every attitude: has each been directed only and completely to God’s glory and the neighbour’s benefit – without regard to self?? Has ever a word come out of your mouth that in some little way did not show love for God or for the neighbour? Has ever an action come from your hands that in some little way did not show love for God or for the neighbour? Has ever a thought passed through your mind that didn’t have God’s glory central? And what shall we say of our attitudes…??

You see the point, beloved: on the surface we might find reason to conclude that we’re pretty reasonable sort of people, not really ensnared in too much sin and misery. But through His law the Lord God would impress on us that we’ve got it so very wrong! Through His law God tells us to love, and we can’t love the way God wants us to; instead, "I am inclined by nature to hate God and my neighbour." That’s a lesson God sets before us in His word. Said God of the entire human race some years after the fall into sin:

"Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen 6:5).

How damning, how absolutely damning of the sinner’s heart! Every intent of the thoughts…, only evil continually…. O God, have mercy on me a sinner! Woe is me, for I can’t keep the law of God. And that’s a major problem simply because God has declared cursed every one who does not keep every word of God’s law. That’s what we’re up against: the horrid curse of holy God! Woe is me!! Talk about misery!!!

The satisfaction of the law←⤒🔗

Is this to get us down?? Is this message to lead us to despair, to a sense of condemnation? I say it again, beloved: No, for the gospel comes before the law. God has come to us with the gospel so many years ago in our baptism, has come to us with the same gospel in the preaching over the years, has come to us again with the same gospel today in the sacrament of Lord’s supper. Do you want to know how rich that gospel is, how wonderful God’s redeeming grace is? Then compare the blessings God gives in this gospel with the curses God gives on those who can’t keep the law! And true, we can’t keep the law; we fail so miserably, fail so much that we ought to receive the full load of God’s curse. But was this not the glorious message of the supper of the Lord today: Christ took on Himself the curse we deserved? Was the gospel of the Lord’s table not this that Christ died for us?

And see: that’s also what we confessed in LD 1 concerning Jesus Christ: "He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood." My circumstance today is not that I live under the curse of the law; were that the case, I’d truly perish under the burdens of the miseries of my daily life. God says: I’ve given My Son to take on Himself the curse you deserve, and on the cross My Son has taken that curse on Himself – that’s the whole message of the Lord’s supper. So the curse I deserve is lifted from me.

What, then, of the concrete miseries of my life? Sure, the miseries remain; it will not be until the day of Christ’s return that we are freed from the consequences of our sins. But the impossible wrath of God upon our sins rests upon our shoulders no more! Though God’s Word tells me of the divine curse I bring upon myself by my failure to love God and the neighbour as I ought, God’s Word tells me too of the redemption that He has obtained for me in Jesus Christ. And it’s exactly because I taste something of the damnation I deserve that I am the more thankful for the redemption God has given. It’s understanding how great my sins and misery are that moves me deep thankfulness for the redemption God worked.

Now we go back to our daily labours, or maybe our holidays. What stands central in our minds and thoughts? The miseries of this life, the brokenness, the frictions, the darkness? Let it not be so, dear brothers and sisters. O yes, be aware of how great your sins and misery are – and then delight that God has granted redemption to a sinners like you and me. Amen.

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