Epistle Sermons, Vol. 2: Epiphany, Easter and PentecostLuther, Martin
ReligionChristian
Epistle Sermons, Vol. 2: Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost
Luther, Martin
Bible. Epistles -- Commentaries; Sermons
Of Love's higher authority we find many illustrations in the
Scriptures. Christ makes particular mention of the matter in Matthew
12, 3-4, where David and his companions ate the holy showbread. Though
a certain law prohibited all but the priests from partaking of this
holy food, Love was empress here, and free. Love was over the Law,
subjecting it to herself. The Law had to yield for the time being, had
to become invalid, when David suffered hunger. The Law had to submit
to the sentence: "David hungers and must be relieved, for Love
commands, Do good to your needy neighbor. Yield, therefore, thou Law.
Prevent not the accomplishment of this good. Rather accomplish it
thyself. Serve him in his need. Interpose not thy prohibitions." In
connection with this same incident, Christ teaches that we are to do
good to our neighbor on the Sabbath; to minister as necessity demands,
whatever the Sabbath restrictions of the Law. For when a brother's
need calls, Love is authority and the Law of the Sabbath is void.
8. Were laws conceived and administered in love, the number of laws
would matter little. Though one might not hear or learn all of them,
he would learn from the one or two he had knowledge of, the principle
of love taught in all. And though he were to know all laws, he might
not discover the principle of love any more readily than he would in
one. Paul teaches this method of understanding and mastering law when
he says: "Owe no man anything, but to love one another"; "He that
loveth another hath fulfilled the law"; "If there be any other
commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"; "Love worketh no ill to his
neighbor"; "Love is the fulfilling of the law." Every word in this
epistle lesson proves Love mistress of all law.
9. Further, no greater calamity, wrong and wretchedness is possible on
earth than the teaching and enforcing of laws without love. In such
case, laws are but a ruinous curse, making true the proverbs, "summum
jus, summa injustitia," "The most strenuous right is the most
strenuous wrong"; and again, Solomon's words (Ec 7, 17), "Noli nimium
esse justus," "Be not righteous overmuch." Here is where we leave
unperceived the beam in our own eye and proceed to remove the mote
from our neighbor's eye. Laws without love make the conscience timid
and fill it with unreasonable terror and despair, to the great injury
of body and soul. Thus, much trouble and labor are incurred all to no
purpose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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