Nathan E. Lewis

“The Two Mirrors” Romans 4: 13-16
(a sermon preached by Nathan E. Lewis on Reformation Sunday 2006)

We have been making our way through the Book of Deuteronomy, all 34 chapters, and I must say that the weight of the Law has been overwhelming for me. Moses convincingly presents God’s law as good for us. The Law does deter evil and it does promote right behavior. The Law also drives us to believe that Jesus Christ is our only hope for righteousness and favor before a holy God. While the Law serves all of this good work in our lives, it is nonetheless powerless to save us, to actually produce perfect obedience in our lives. God did not design the Law to be our Savior. Rather, God designed the Law to show us our great need for a Savior.
The Law is like a mirror. If I look into the mirror, I see myself, warts and all. The mirror renders the clearest, most honest reflection of me possible. I look into this mirror and there is no question that I am a member of the fallen human race in desperate need of a makeover.
On this Reformation Sunday, we celebrate the flourishing of the Gospel in the Church announcing to us that there is a second mirror, the Mirror of the Gospel.
Martin Luther, that Augustinian monk, who caused the uproar in Germany at the dawning of the 16th century, had been looking into the mirror of the Law dutifully and painfully. Since he had this one mirror only, he was driven to despair and self-mutilation, hating himself. He then stumbled across St. Paul’s statement in Romans, “the righteous shall live by faith,” and the Mirror of the Gospel stood before him for the first time, rendering an altogether different reflection of him.
Of Paul’s letter to the Church at Rome, Martin Luther wrote,
“This letter is truly the most important piece in the New Testament. It is purest Gospel. The more one deals with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.”
In the four short verses before us today, Paul offers to us the Gospel. Firstly, in (13) he teaches us that God’s promise precedes God’s Law. The promise of eternal and righteous life is God’s plan. God’s Law is a sharp instrument toward that end. Incidentally, Paul describes God’s promise as far greater than we usually think it is. Paul says that God’s promise to Abraham was that he and his offspring would inherit the world! Not the Promised Land, but the whole world! The promise was given 430 years before the Law! This chronology does not allow us to conclude that God’s law is unimportant and that it serves no purpose. But it does help us to properly place the Law of God as an instrument that serves the promise rather than a declaration that the promise of God is null and void.
Over the years, I have taken my children to the Oregon coast and we have built elaborate sand castles at low tide. We enjoy other recreations while we wait for the tide to rise and the surf to crash into our castle. With each onslaught of white water, we yell, “The castle still stands!” This past summer, Benjamin’s highest tower bearing a long stick with a flag stood for an entire 30 minutes, surrounded by water waste deep, before it finally crumbled into the surf. We are not to think of the Law of God as the crashing surf undermining the castle of God’s promise. The Law was given in its full covenantal form 430 years after God gave his promise to Abraham. The Law was given so that we might turn to Jesus, begging him to make God’s promise good for us.
Secondly, in (14) Paul teaches us that those who follow the Law as a means to gain the promise are not the ones who will inherit the world. The Gospel teaches us that Jesus Christ alone is the perfect adherent of the law. He has become the heir of the world. We become heirs of the promise through faith in Jesus Christ. Our faith is our belief in Jesus as the one who has won the promise, sharing it with us. Martin Luther wrote, “Faith is not only necessary, that thereby the ungodly may become justified and saved before God, and their hearts be settled in peace, but it is necessary in every other respect. St. Paul says: ‘Now that we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.’” The Law will not give you peace with God. Rather it will convince you that you are at enmity with God and that you desperately need someone to make peace for you.
Thirdly, in (15) Paul tells us that the law is an instrument of wrath throughout the entire world. If the Law is an instrument of wrath, how can it be good for us? The Law as an instrument of wrath drives us to Jesus Christ quickly and desperately. The law condemns every single one of us and so every single one of us is worthy to receive divine wrath. The law is a sharp instrument, but a most necessary one. It is the surgeon’s scalpel cutting deeply to save us. It is the mirror that clearly shows us our desperate need for Christ.
Paul insists that the Law brings wrath worldwide. This is what he means in writing, “but where there is no law there is no transgression.” God’s wrath justly falls upon every human transgression of his Law. There is no place in this world where the law has not been written on human hearts. Therefore, God’s wrath may justly fall upon everyone. Paul is not suggesting that there was a time when God had not yet written his law upon human hearts. It is true that we see the law unfolding from Adam and Eve’s day to Moses’ day. Each installment of the Law becomes more painfully complete and clear, condemning us all the more. But from the very beginning of time, God has clearly written his law upon our hearts.
Paul is not suggesting that there is some tribe in Papa New Guinea who does not have the Law and so they have not broken it, and so, they shall escape God’s wrath. Paul begins his letter to the Romans insisting that God has written his law upon every heart and so no one has an excuse for his behavior. Paul continues in the letter to make it quite clear that all members of the human race, except for the Man, Christ Jesus, has sinned and thus fallen short of the glory of God. As the Law of God is presented in fuller and clearer forms, it condemns humanity, making the case for God’s wrath to justly fall upon us all.
Fourthly, in (16) Paul teaches us that we receive the promise by faith. Faith is not our adding anything to the Gospel. Faith is simply our believing that the Gospel is true. The Gospel is concisely that Jesus Christ has perfectly obeyed the Law of God winning the promise and that he has willingly suffered the wrath of God in our place, by dying upon the cross. Our faith is our belief that this work of Jesus Christ is the only means by which we might gain the promise. We have nothing to offer to justify ourselves before God. The last written statement Luther scrawled before he died was, “We are all beggars, that is true.”
When Luther was at his best, around the supper table with his friends, he was known to pick up his favorite stein, which featured the Ten Commandments painted on the inside. He would fill his stein to the brim. He would drink until the First Commandment was visible and then he would recite it. Then he would drink until the Second Commandment appeared. He would then recite it. He continued until he had drained his stein reciting all Ten Commandments. He brilliantly mixed wit with wisdom. His friends would keep paper and pen at every meal to write down as much of his wit and wisdom as they could preserve. Their collected scribbles have been long and widely published under the title of Table Talk. He commented on nearly every topic of faith and life, yet he always returned to the Gospel. One evening he said, “’Tis a great blindness of people’s hearts that they cannot accept of the treasure of grace presented unto them. Such people are we, that though we are baptized, have faith in Christ, with all his precious gifts, faith, the sacraments, his Word, all which we confess to be holy, yet we can neither say nor think that we ourselves are holy; we deem it too much to say, we are holy; whereas the name Christian is far more glorious and greater than the name holy.”
Martin Luther had discovered a second mirror. What did Luther see when he gazed into the Mirror of the Gospel? He saw the visage of Jesus Christ. He did not smash the Mirror of the Law to shards. Luther clearly kept in balance the Law and Gospel. Every time he gazed into the Mirror of the Law, he would see himself for who he truly is apart from Jesus and then he would run to the Second Mirror of the Gospel and expectantly see the face of Jesus looking back at him.
When we wake up each morning, into which mirror do we gaze? Do we look into the first mirror reflecting all our imperfections and say, “I need a spiritual makeover. What can I do to clean myself up?” Now and then we must take this painful peak and ask the question, “What can I do to clean myself up?” But what will our next actions be? Will we try to perfectly obey the Law of God in our human strength and ingenuity? Or will we run to the second mirror and there see the face of Jesus smiling at us?