As Thyself

This past Sunday’s Gospel reading is surely familiar to all who call themselves Christian. The reading is Matthew 22:31-46.

But how many people understand what this text teaches? Sandwiched into the middle of this text is the question: “Which is the great commandment of the law?” The Lord Jesus answers more than the lawyer realized that he was asking. For the lawyer, even with all of his study of the law, knew nothing of its true meaning. The Lord Jesus answers, quoting Moses:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40)

I’d like to examine this beginning in reverse, since this is where we usually begin in our daily lives. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” The reason for beginning in reverse is because this is how we generally function. We struggle to do for ourselves what is really the outflow of what needs to be done for us and in us. We struggle with our actions toward neighbor.

Why do we struggle in this way? Why do we find it difficult truly to love our neighbor? Is it not because of selfishness? And what really is selfishness? Why do we act selfishly? Is it not because we do not feel complete in ourselves and so we seek after and grasp after things as though they could somehow fulfill us? What is the result? Do we find ourselves feeling fulfilled? Do we find ourselves feeling satisfied? Or do we find ourselves struggling more and more to gain that which is beyond us? Don’t we find ourselves feeling empty and full of nothing but failure?

How often do we end up saying something like: “I hate myself!” and “I wish I were dead!”

But this is the exact opposite of what the Lord our God desires for us and commands as what should be for us.

Do you hear, first of all, how differently this is stated than how we often interpret it? God’s commandment is concerning what should be for us, not what we should do for ourselves. This will become more clear shortly.

The second great command is like the first. Both are concerning love. The second great command says “You will love your neighbor as yourself.” This is not an imperative but a future indicative. It indicates what will be, not what one must do. It begins saying how a child of God will live in connection with neighbor: “You will love your neighbor.” This is further defined by what absolutely must precede it: “You will love your neighbor in the same manner as you love yourself.”

Before we can love our neighbor, we must love ourselves. Thus self does come before neighbor. Because we do not rightly understand this, we end up acting selfishly. Because we do not understand the true meaning of loving self, we become selfish and unable to see beyond what we cannot make happen on our own. This is because love for self is not something that we do of our own accord but as that which naturally follows the first great command of God.

The first great command is: “You will love the Lord your God in all of your heart and in all of your soul and in all of your mind.”

Again this is future tense indicating what will be. God speaks His command in this way because He is the one who will make it happen in us. And this little word “in” carries a very big meaning, a very different meaning than the way our translations interpret this. For our translations choose to change this to “with” rather than what stands written as “in”.

This is why we struggle so terribly with love. We hear that we must love with all of our heart and soul and mind when the Lord promises that He will change us so that we love in all of our heart and soul and mind. Love is of God and God is Love. (1 John 4) When God fills our heart and soul and mind then His love fills our heart and soul and mind and drives out the emptiness that drives us to selfishness. Selfishness is not the result of loving oneself but of desperately desiring love for oneself. Since we cannot supply this love for ourselves we seek to steal it for ourselves.

But Love is of God for God is Love. Love for self comes from knowing God fully as He comes to us through His means of grace and fills us through and through with His gracious and loving presence. When the Lord has filled us in our heart and soul and mind, we love as He loves. We first know His love to us personally, and knowing His love moves us to respond in love toward Him. As we love ourselves with this love that fills us it overflows in our lives so that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves. This is not what we do as much as what we have been regenerated to be.

This is what we must learn regarding true love. Love is not a choice. Love is who we have been regenerated to be. In Baptism God gives to us the Holy Spirit who takes up residence in us and fills our heart and soul and mind. Through this holy union God sanctifies us and sets us apart, recreating us in His image again. Notice that God does not say that He created us with His image but in His image. (Genesis 1:26-27) This image of God is Christ. (Colossians 1:12-18)

Those who have been regenerated into Christ have been regenerated into the image of God and as they begin to understand this more and more their lives begin to reflect their newborn identity more and more fully. Since God is love, this is what begins to show more and more. For as we grow in understanding what God has done for us, we respond to His love in love. As we begin to love ourselves as God loves us, it is only natural that we will love our neighbors as ourselves.

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The Image of God

Included in discussions of Original Sin and the loss of original righteousness is an explanation of the image of God and what was lost to mankind with the loss of the image of God. Growing up with the LC-MS Synodical Catechism, the following explanations were taught to me:

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113. What was the image of God?

The image of God consisted in this —

A. That man knew God and was perfectly happy in such knowledge.
B. That man was perfectly holy and blessed.

114. Does man still bear the image of God?

Man lost the image of God when he fell into sin. In believers, a beginning of its renewal is made. Only in heaven, however, will this image be fully restored.

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A fuller explanation is given in Article II of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession translated in the Concordia Triglotta, pp. 110-11:

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15] Neither have we said anything new. The ancient definition understood aright expresses precisely the same thing when it says: “Original sin is the absence of original righteousness” [a lack of the first purity and righteousness in Paradise]. But what is righteousness? Here the scholastics wrangle about dialectic questions; they do not explain what original righteousness is. 16] Now in the Scriptures, righteousness comprises not only the second table of the Decalog [regarding good works in serving our fellow-man], but the first also, which teaches concerning 17] the fear of God, concerning faith, concerning the love of God. Therefore original righteousness was to embrace not only an even temperament of the bodily qualities [perfect health and, in all respects, pure blood, unimpaired powers of the body, as they contend], but also these gifts, namely, a quite certain knowledge of God, fear of God, confidence in God, or certainly 18] the rectitude and power to yield these affections [but the greatest feature in that noble first creature was a bright light in the heart to know God and His work, etc.]. And Scripture testifies to this, when it says, Gen. 1, 27, that man was fashioned in the image and likeness of God. What else is this than that there were embodied in man such wisdom and righteousness as apprehended God, and in which God was reflected, i.e., to man there were given the gifts of the knowledge of God, the fear of God, confidence in God, and the like? 19] For thus Irenaeus and Ambrose interpret the likeness to God, the latter of whom not only says many things to this effect, but especially declares: That soul is not, therefore, in the image of God, in which God is not at all times. 20] And Paul shows in the Epistles to the Ephesians, 5, 9, and Colossians, 3, 10, that the image of God is the knowledge of God, righteousness, and truth. 21] Nor does Longobard fear to say that original righteousness is the very likeness to God which God implanted in man. 22] We recount the opinions of the ancients, which in no way interfere with Augustine’s interpretation of the image.

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Since Melanchthon, on behalf of all of the Lutheran Confessors, was giving a response to the Papal attacks against them regarding their straightforward confession of the total depravity of man according to the fallen sinful nature, he either did not take the opportunity or did not see the opportunity to explain this in all of its glory. He does, however, quote Ambrose, who says it quite magnificently with these words:

That soul is not, therefore, in the image of God, in which God is not at all times.

This is a very rich and marvelous explanation, stated from the negative in response to the need to explain the sinful condition of man.

Today I wish to expound this same understanding from the positive.

The image of God is Christ. He is what was lost to mankind and is restored again through Baptism. In Baptism, the Word, that is, Christ, is given physically to the one who is baptized. With the gift of Christ, the Holy Spirit also is given. And where Christ and the Holy Spirit are, so is the Father. Thus the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is commanded to be used and given in Baptism.

With the restoration of Christ to the person, the person is restored in the image of God, that is, in Christ. Thus, since Christ is declared in the Scriptures to be the very righteousness of God, the perfect righteousness of God is restored to the baptized person who is regenerated in the Faith worked by the Holy Spirit. Communion with God is restored in Christ, the image of God.

This is the knowledge of God, knowing Christ. Through Baptism, God restores us to His knowledge, knowing Him as our loving God and Father.

Having been restored to God’s Holy Communion through the restoration of the image of God dwelling in the baptized believer, now the person can continue in this restored communion. Now the person can come to the Feast of Christ and eat and drink with God, again receiving Christ, the Word, bodily. Conjoined with Christ in His body, the person eats with the Word laden bread the body of the Holy Communion and drinks with the Word laden wine the blood of forgiveness given in the cup of the New Testament.

This is the restoration of the Image of God to man. This is the life that God causes us to be regenerated to enjoy.

At the Last Day, the Old sinful nature will be separated from us forever so that this restored image may be enjoyed fully. For now we constantly face the juxtaposition of simul iustus et peccator. This will continue for as long as God has reserved for the time of preaching the Gospel for the salvation of lost souls. When no more souls remain who will receive God’s restored image, then the end will come and the separation of the saint from the sinner shall be made complete. The saints will be gathered to the right hand and the sinners to the left. Those in whom Christ has been restored will never again face the juxtaposition. Nor more simul will exist. All that will remain is the unity that is restored in Christ.

Is this not a rich and wonderful message? Is this not cause for rejoicing and coming forward eagerly to partake of the Eucharist, that is, the Thanksgiving of our Lord’s Holy Communion? Is it not right that we sing with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven?

Is this not the perfect image to behold?

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