Sermon by Steven R. Key
L.D. 40
Scripture: Matthew 5:17-48; Exodus 20:13
What a powerful exposition of the sixth commandment we have just heard, beloved, in the words of our Heidelberg Catechism. Shall we now then live it? That certainly must be our question and that must be our goal as we consider God's law and the sixth commandment in a little more depth this morning. For if we are the children of God, we most certainly long to walk in obedience to His whole law, and make that our life's striving. With no more introduction, I call your attention to:
where we are:
I. FORBIDDEN TO MURDER
II. COMMANDED TO LOVE
SPECIFICALLY, IT FORBIDS KILLING THE NEIGHBOR.
When we remember that the whole law is governed by the single commandment to love God, and our neighbor as ourselves, then we will remember that also the sixth commandment has to do with our neighbor. That is significant, if we are properly to understand this command, "Thou shalt not kill." It isn't necessary for this commandment to be directed toward us concerning someone we have never met or who will never cross our pathway. But it is very necessary for me to be reminded concerning my calling toward my neighbor. That neighbor is one whose path crosses mine. That neighbor is my wife, my sons or daughters, my employer or employees, my father or mother, my business competitor, my customer, my teacher, my students, my milk hauler, my store owner. I rub elbows with him in every sphere of life, in the home, on the farm, in the office, on the job, and in church. Together we live in one little world. And together we are sinful, by nature even hateful and hating one another. Apart from Christ and according to our old man of sin, we are proud and self-centered, always seeking our own advantage. And very often we find ourselves at odds with the neighbor. It isn't the man in China or Zaire who bothers me. I don't know him. I have nothing to do with him. Our paths do not cross and our interests do not clash. But the neighbor!
That neighbor may give any number of reasons why we would want him or her out of the way. That wife may be an insubordinate woman, cantankerous and rebellious, with a mouth that won't quit. She may be a woman of whom Solomon warned his son, "It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with such a woman in a wide house." That husband may be a lazy and unreasonable tyrant, who knows nothing of showing the love that a wife might expect of her husband. He may be one who deceived his wife during their whole dating relationship, only to show himself entirely different once they were married. That son or daughter may be defiant and rebellious, a troubler of the home. That father may be domineering and provoking, who can do nothing but criticize, and who shows no interest whatsoever in the lives of his children. That mother may be an embarrassment to her children, one whose walk of life makes them want to leave home as quickly as possible.
That employer may be a man who doesn't know how to run his business, who ekes out a continued existence at the expense of his employees, provoking them to look to a union for support. The employee or fellow worker with whom you rub shoulders may be a lazy good-for-nothing, unreliable, unproductive, and aggravating. He keeps his job only because the laws of the land make it difficult to fire him, without his dismissal being more costly than that which is lost by keeping him on. Then there is that business competitor, who seems to seize every opportunity to block your path to success.
There is also that neighbor, even that fellow church member, who you find out through the grapevine has been spreading lies about you, in the attempt to discredit you with your other friends and even church members. There may be that neighbor who is constantly heaping reproach upon you, even reproach against Christ, something which you can only suffer as a believer who walks in godliness. But, you see, there are any number of ways in which that neighbor becomes a trouble to you and to me. And there are times when we would like above all else that the neighbor be taken out of the way. We hate him. He angers us. And we don't even hesitate to say so. And if only the consequences weren't in the way, we might even like to kill him.
"THOU SHALT NOT KILL" — SO SAYS GOD, THE LORD, WHO SEES US THROUGH AND THROUGH, WHO KNOWS OUR THOUGHTS AND THE INTENTS OF OUR HEARTS, AND FROM WHOM NOT A SINGLE ONE OF OUR SINS IS HID.
What is it to kill a fellow human being? To kill is literally to crush or to destroy someone. The act of murder is to deal the neighbor the blow that results in his spirit departing from him, so that his earthly life is terminated and his body returns to the dust. It is to destroy the life of one whom God placed on the earth and in our pathway, one who in fact was created after the image of God. Now we have spoken at length about that image of God in man. We have seen from Scripture that man entirely lost the image of God in the fall. That is, he lost all that makes up the contents of that image, that which Scripture specifies as true knowledge, righteousness and holiness. The natural man, apart from Christ, has none of that image any longer. But nevertheless, man remains a rational-moral creation of God's handiwork, and therefore a creature who is an image bearer, i.e., who is capable of bearing God's image, and who also therefore is different from any other creature. Man is no mere animal. That is also why the command of God given in Genesis 9:6 most certainly still applies today: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." More particularly, it is the obligation of the magistrate to execute that sentence. For he is the one who is appointed by God for the very purpose of punishing the evil-doer and so maintaining order in society. The execution of the death penalty by the magistrate is not murder. It is simply the execution of God's sentence upon the evil-doer.
But murder is for a man to take God's prerogative into his own hands, and to snuff out the life of a fellow human being. That death of the neighbor, as we realize, can be brought about by many different means. We hear only too much of it in news reports every day. It can take place by means of a shooting, a stabbing, a beating and other such acts of violence. It can take place by the automobile being driven by one who has had too much to drink, and therefore whose loss of the mental and physical capacities necessary to drive has made his vehicle a dangerous weapon. (As an aside, when I was doing ambulance work several years ago, the first 52 personal injury wrecks that I worked involved someone driving under the influence.)
BUT WHILE SOME ACTS OF KILLING COME AS A RESULT OF A MERE DISREGARD FOR THE VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE AS GOD'S HANDIWORK, IF WE ARE TRULY TO UNDERSTAND THE SERIOUSNESS OF THIS SIN, WE MUST UNDERSTAND THAT MOST ACTS OF MURDER COME AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE HEART'S INTENTION.
Whether the act of the moment, or a well thought out deed, the sin of killing someone springs from the desire to be rid of that person. The killer would desire above all else that the particular neighbor with whom he has to do be entirely out of his life! And when you think about it, you will soon see that his desire is not merely that his enemy be removed from his presence, but he wishes him to be damned. Certainly the murderer does not desire the spiritual welfare of his neighbor. He does not desire that his neighbor be in heaven. If so, he wouldn't beat him with his fists or fall on him with an instrument of murder, but he would pray for him and bless him. But the killer does not seek the blessing of the neighbor. Rather, he curses him. Under his breath or in his thoughts, he wishes the worst possible scenario upon that neighbor. He prays, as it were, that the greatest conceivable evil fall upon him. And in so doing, he gives expression to the very opposite of that to which God has called him, namely to love the neighbor. Instead, he hates.
And so the Catechism makes clear that sin of murder which is forbidden in the sixth commandment is far more comprehensive than just to restrict the physical destruction of that neighbor. Listen once again to questions and answers 105 and 106. "What doth God require in the sixth commandment? That neither in thoughts, nor words, nor gestures, much less in deeds, I dishonor, hate, wound, or kill my neighbor, by myself or by another; but that I lay aside all desire of revenge; also, that I hurt not myself, nor wilfully expose myself to any danger. Wherefore also the magistrate is armed with he sword to prevent murder." "But this commandment seems only to speak of murder. In forbidding murder, God teaches us that He abhors the causes thereof, such as envy, hatred, anger, and desire of revenge; and that He accounts all these as murder." Again, the truth of those statements is backed up from Scripture. It is striking when you study the Catechism's exposition of the sixth commandment that there are more Scripture references given in the footnotes than almost any other Lord's Day in the Catechism. Many passages are quoted to demonstrate the truth that murder is rooted in those various forms and expressions of hatred. That is also clear from what our Lord proclaimed in the words which we heard from Matthew 5:21,22, to which passage the Catechism itself points us: "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire."
When you examine these roots of murder, you find that the sin of murder is at bottom an expression of inordinate self-love. The murderer worships before the shrine of self, of his or her own ego. He kills his neighbor in order to satisfy himself and his own thoughts of hatred and his own desires to be rid of that neighbor. Because that neighbor is not serviceable to him, or because that neighbor stood in his way and perhaps opposed him in some matter, he would destroy him. That murder proceeds from the heart. So the Lord Himself taught us in Matthew 15:19: "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders," and so on. But as that murder proceeds from the heart, it takes root in the thoughts. "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts." And the idea is that of those evil thoughts, one is murder. Mind you, Jesus warns us that the very thought is already murder! That is also the teaching of I John 3:15: "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." Notice, to live in hatred toward a brother is not merely to commit murder. That it is. But the one who lives in such hatred gives expression to the fact that as to his very nature and the heart of his disposition, he or she is a murderer. That is what we are by nature, beloved. That is why God comes to us with His law, reminding us of our new life in Christ, and calling us to show our thankfulness to Him by walking in love. To hate is to murder.
Still more, that violation of God's law comes to expression. You can't hide hate in your heart. It becomes manifest. You may want to hide it. You may think you hide it. After all, you want to be known as a Christian, not a murderer. But when there is hatred in your heart, you cannot hide it. It becomes manifest.
As our Catechism points out, it becomes manifest in words, for one thing. Restrained by the consequences of the law from the act of actually killing the neighbor, the man whose heart is full of enmity will seek to destroy that neighbor by striking at his name and reputation. Arming himself with the weapon of slander, he begins to speak evil of his victim. He spreads stories about him, even false stories, anything to hurt his neighbor's reputation. He seeks to discredit his enemy, to dishonor him, to move others also to hatred against him. And because all men are liars by nature, and because Proverbs 17:4 is true — "A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips; and a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue" — the murderer who speaks such evil gains some followers in his murderous deeds.
In addition, our Catechism points us to the fact that the sin of killing the neighbor, that terrible expression of hatred, even comes to expression in gestures. Oh no, you can't hide the hatred of your heart. It comes to expression in the burning glare, the murderous look, the frigid politeness. The murder in a man's heart comes to expression in his wilful refusal to greet the hated one, the indifference shown toward one's spiritual welfare, the noticeable ignoring of the neighbor. Those too are signs of murder. Make no mistake. That also becomes a matter of emphasis in Matthew 5 where, immediately following Jesus' explanation that murder includes even unrighteous anger, and evil speaking, the Lord says, "Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hast ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." In other words, don't walk in violation against the sixth commandment. If you continue in enmity and bitterness toward your brother, your gift to God will not be received, and you perish. For "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." God abhors all the causes of murder, such as envy, hatred, anger and desire of revenge. All such evils He counts as murder. And fallen man, you and me included, are murderers by nature.
And if you should ask, "Well, what is to be said of the true believer," don't forget, Jesus spoke these words in Matthew 5 to those who are the citizens of the kingdom of heaven, and the Scriptures themselves are recorded for His Church. Even though, by the mercy of our God, we have the life of Christ within us, and are delivered from the dominion and power of sin according to our new life in Christ, nevertheless, we still live in an old nature, and show repeatedly that the instruction of our Catechism (which is to come in L.D. 44) is so true. We have but a small beginning of the obedience which God requires of us. That is why the Lord repeatedly calls us to repentance. That is why we read in the epistles such exhortations as this (Colossians 3:8): "But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice," and so on. Those are the root sins of murder. We are still inclined to all evil, also murder. And when anger, wrath, and malice begin to stir in our hearts, it soon stirs up riot in our mind and will. And the law of sin which is in our members begins to war against the life of love that is ours in Christ. So also you and I are called to put off all these sins, to mortify the deeds of the flesh. "Thou shalt not kill."
ONE CANNOT OBEY THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT, MERELY BY SUPPRESSING ALL DESIRE THAT THE NEIGHBOR BE DEAD.
It isn't even enough that we set aside all hatred, unrighteous anger, bitterness and desire for revenge, all of which are the very root sins of murder. But as our Heidelberg Catechism explains in Q & A 107, "when God forbids envy, hatred, and anger, He commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves; to show patience, peace, meekness, mercy, and all kindness towards him, and prevent his hurt as much as in us lies; and that we do good, even to our enemies." Instead of murder, we are to love. Love is the fulfilling of the law. Now this might seem evident. It might seem that it shouldn't even be necessary to spell out the positive calling of this commandment. For love is the fulfillment of the law. Even so, it is necessary that this calling be set before us, and it is even necessary that it be emphasized.
You see, beloved, in our sinfulness we like to imagine that we have fulfilled the law, if only we can treat the neighbor, and especially one who "rubs us the wrong way," with indifference. So we think, "If only I can ignore him, or show myself indifferent toward him, at least I am not hating him; so that the requirement of the law is being satisfied." So we like to imagine. But imagination is all that such reasoning is. It is the lie of our deceitful hearts, blinding our minds. Not only is such indifference toward the neighbor a species of hatred, it is in fact a most insufferable species of hatred! Our Lord teaches us that in a different connection in Revelation 3. To be indifferent is to be neither hot nor cold. You remember He spoke of the Church at Laodicea, which was characterized by spiritual lethargy and indifference. How did Christ warn them, when He said, "Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." Why would that indifference provoke Him so? Because such indifference is the most deceitful form of spiritual hatred. Love shows itself in action. Indifference is to claim to love, while hating in deed. What a horror when that is seen in the Church among those who call themselves the children of God!
It is impossible to be free from the sin of hatred, without loving the neighbor. And it is only through doing him well that we do him no evil. Only in seeking the neighbor's good, do we love him, and in doing so love our heavenly Father also. Let that be understood. That is true with all God's commandments. It is only through actively giving God glory, that we keep from before our face other gods. It is only through our worshiping Him in harmony with His Word, that we worship not the creature. It is only through our honoring His name and holding it in reverence, that we refrain from taking that Holy name in vain. It is only through our keeping the Sabbath day holy, that we do not desecrate it. It is only through children honoring their parents, that they do not dishonor them. And so the command, "Thou shalt not kill," is only fulfilled by positively loving the neighbor.
WHAT IS IT TO LOVE THE NEIGHBOR?
The outworking of that love will depend somewhat on who the neighbor is. If the neighbor is a believer, a brother or sister in Christ, a member with us of the same body of which Christ is the Head, then to love that neighbor will be to delight in fellowship with him or her and to seek that neighbor's spiritual welfare. The mark of true love is that it embraces and rejoices in truth, and seeks perfection and holiness. We speak of love now as a spiritual virtue, not merely a carnal feeling. Because love as to its very nature is holy, love delights in God. But delighting in God, love also delights in God's works in his children. When the wonder works of God's grace are reflected in our brothers and sisters in Christ, we are drawn to and rejoice in their fellowship. But then, on the other hand, he whose heart is filled with such a holy love cannot delight in sin and cannot enjoy that same fellowship when he is among the wicked. How then does this love come to expression with the wicked? After all, many of those neighbors, many of those men and women who cross my path, are unbelievers, outside of Christ, some of whom are downright ungodly in their walk of life. As Paul points out in I Corinthians 5, we live among those who are fornicators, idolaters, drunkards and all the rest. We do business with such, we work with such, we live next door to such in some instances. How is love to be manifested toward them?
The inspired Apostle points us to the answer, at least in part, in Romans 13. There in verses 9 and following, immediately after exhorting us to owe no man any thing, but to love one another, he writes, "For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Now notice, "Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." "Love worketh no ill to his neighbor." That is the mark of true love. Now again, that is put negatively. But that does not mean that love is a mere refraining from working ill toward that neighbor. You will understand that it is in the very nature of love to act. And that means that love, rather than working ill, works well. Love works that which is good for the neighbor, whether that neighbor be evil or good, a friend or an enemy. And as our Catechism points out, such love that works well, comes to expression in patience, peace, meekness, mercy and all kindness. Though it is impossible for love to have fellowship with the wicked in the sense of that delight with which we find fellowship with God's people, yet in crossing paths with them, we do them well. And doing them well, we seek their good. What is that good? Their salvation! We don't love the sinner when we wink at his sin. We don't do him well when we act as if we aren't bothered by his walk that is contrary to God's precepts. But it is possible, not only, but our calling, to show all kindness toward him, even while admonishing him for his sins. It is possible to show peace and meekness, even while seeking to prevent his hurt. And that is our calling. We are not only to refrain from killing, but we are to love our neighbor.
We are to love the neighbor as ourselves. We conclude with that thought this morning. All men love themselves. The trouble is, apart from Christ, our self-love is a most perverted thing. We love ourselves and our neighbor, only if holiness characterizes our love, only if the love of Christ is alive in us. That love of Christ, after all, seeks God above all. And if the object of our love is God first and foremost, and we as well as our neighbor, be those created after His image and likeness, why should we not love ourselves and our neighbor as ourselves? It is the man whose love is depraved, whose god is himself and his own pride and lusts, who has no room in his affections for the neighbor.
But then we must also remember that a holy love for ourselves can be rooted in only one thing, and that is the gospel, namely, that God has recreated us after the image of His own dear Son. He has taken us who were immeasurably unlovely, and formed us after the image of Him Who He loves without measure — His only begotten Son. He loved us so much that He gave up His only begotten Son as a sacrifice, to redeem us unto Himself. And by the Spirit of the exalted Christ, He now makes our bodies His dwelling place. When we recognize that, when we know ourselves and our bodies as the temples of the Holy Spirit, then we also have a renewed perspective of who we are in Christ Jesus. And so, as the Catechism says, the sixth commandment forbids me from hurting myself or wilfully exposing myself to any danger. When I have a proper biblical conception of who I am, I don't even need that warning. Not only do I recognize the heinous nature of suicide, but I realize as well that as the temple of the Holy Spirit, I have a calling to take care of this body, even though I know that the end of this earthly tabernacle is the grave. I have no right wilfully to do anything harmful to my body. For this very body is at all times to be offered up a sacrifice of praise to my Redeemer. It is the instrument of His service. Do you live in that consciousness, beloved? Thou shalt not kill; but love. Love God. From that love of God, love yourself in holiness, as God's creation in Christ Jesus. And love your neighbor as yourself. That is the life of the Christian. That is the way of living in thankfulness to the God of our salvation. Amen.
Preached: Randolph PRC 11/16/97 (am)
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