Matthew 22:34-40; Romans 13:8-10; Deuteronomy 11:8-9, 13-21, 26-28; Psalm 119:97-104
Washed in the Blood of the Lamb: The Ten Commandments and Confession & Absolution
The Second Table: Commandments 4-10 – How Then Shall We Live?
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
A lawyer asked Jesus, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” Jesus said to him, “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. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Love God; and love your neighbor. These are the Two Tables of the Law. We discussed the First Table last week: You shall have no other gods; You shall not misuse the Name of the Lord your God; Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. Today we turn to the Second Table: Honor your father and your mother; You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor; You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.
The First Table is rooted in love for God. The Second Table is rooted in the First. If you rightly love God, then you will rightly love your neighbor. And if you do not rightly love your neighbor, that is a sure sign that you do not rightly love God. The two cannot be torn apart.
We can think of the First Table as showing us who God is and who we are before Him: creatures, dependent, redeemed only by His mercy. The Second Table shows us how we are to live before God in relation to those He has placed around us. St. Paul summarizes the Ten Commandments this way: “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law… Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
But we must be clear: love is not a vague sentiment. It is not defined by our feelings, nor by the shifting winds of culture. Love is defined by God’s commandments. The Law does not oppose love; it gives love its shape.
As the First Commandment rules the First Table, so the Fourth Commandment rules the Second. “Honor your father and your mother.” Here God establishes the foundation of all authority and good order on earth. Your father and mother are as God to you, not because they are divine, but because God hides Himself behind them. Through them He gives you life. Through them He provides, protects, disciplines, and teaches. “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.”
Notice: other authorities are included. Parents delegate their authority to others to assist them in their vocation, teachers, pastors, magistrates. Authority flows from God through the estate of marriage and family into church and state. It does not run the other direction. Satan knows this. And so he rages against marriage, against fatherhood and motherhood, against children. He seeks confusion where God has given clarity; rebellion where God has given order. For where the Fourth Commandment collapses, society soon follows. Yet here too the Law searches us. Have we honored as we ought? Have we obeyed gladly? Have we spoken with respect? Or have we harbored resentment, bitterness, pride?
The Fifth Commandment turns us to our neighbor’s life: “You shall not murder.” This forbids more than shedding blood. It forbids anger, hatred, grudges. It forbids the cold indifference that says, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” We are not to hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and befriend him in every bodily need. Our Lord intensifies this commandment. To be angry without cause, to insult, to despise – these too fall under its judgment. The Law exposes how cheaply we value the lives of others when they inconvenience us, oppose us, or fail to serve our purposes.
The Sixth Commandment guards what is most precious in the estate of marriage. “You shall not commit adultery.” Here God protects husband and wife, and the one-flesh union He created from the beginning. We are to lead sexually pure and decent lives in what we say and do, and husband and wife are to love and honor each other in their bodies. This commandment confronts not only outward acts, but wandering eyes, lustful thoughts, crude speech, and the casual treatment of what God calls holy. In a world that treats sexuality as recreation, God declares it sacred.
The Seventh Commandment protects your neighbor’s possessions. “You shall not steal.” Not only burglary and fraud, but every scheme that seeks advantage at another’s expense. Even if the law of the land cannot prosecute it, the Law of God does. Rather than taking, we are to help our neighbor improve and protect what he has.
The Eighth Commandment guards your neighbor’s name. “You shall not bear false witness.” Lies, gossip, slander, half-truths –these destroy reputations and fracture communities. We are instead to defend our neighbor, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way. How different our homes, our congregations, our communities would be if this commandment were taken to heart.
And finally, the Ninth and Tenth Commandments go deeper still. They address not merely actions, but desires. “You shall not covet.” Be content with what God has given you. Rejoice in your neighbor’s blessings. Do not scheme to obtain what is not yours, whether possessions, relationships, or status.
Here the Law leaves no refuge. Who among us can say he has loved like this? Who has perfectly honored, protected, remained pure, spoken kindly, been content? The Second Table silences us. It reveals that our failure to love neighbor is, at its root, a failure to love God. And so Moses sets before the people blessing and curse. “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse.” The blessing for obedience; the curse for disobedience. Left to ourselves, we stand under the curse. For the Law demands, and we have not given.
But this Lenten season directs our eyes to the One who has. There is One who loved God with all His heart, soul, and mind. There is One who loved His neighbor perfectly. He honored His earthly parents and His heavenly Father. He did no violence, spoke no deceit. He was pure in heart. He stole nothing, though He owned all things. He bore false witness against no one, though false witness was borne against Him. He did not covet, but emptied Himself. And for loveless sinners, He went to the cross. There, the curse of the Law fell upon Him.
The condemnation we deserved for every failure of the Second Table was laid on Christ. As St. Paul says elsewhere, the commandments “are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’.” And where we have failed, Christ has fulfilled. Forgiven in Him, you are not left without direction. The Law that once accused you now instructs you. As the psalmist sings, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.” Not because it saves us, but because it shows us what love looks like.
“How then shall we live?” We live as those who have been shown mercy. We live in repentance, confessing where we have failed. We live in faith toward God and in fervent love toward one another. We live not to earn blessing, but because in Christ the blessing has already been given.
Love God. Love your neighbor. This is not a new program, not a new movement. It is the old path, the good way. And in Christ, by His Spirit, it is the way in which you now walk, until faith becomes sight, and love is perfected in the kingdom that has no end.
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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