Fifth
Sunday after the Epiphany (A)
February
8, 2026
Text: Matt. 5:13-20
Righteousness
imputed brings forth righteousness enacted.
That is to say, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and His
atoning death for your unrighteousness, and His resurrection, by which the
Father declares the whole world, including you, righteous… justified… objective
justification, we call it; that which is subjectively received by the
individual by faith… that righteousness, credited to your account,
given to you by God as a free gift… now works in you, so that you begin
to do righteous things. You begin to
love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You begin to love your neighbor as
yourself. You exterminate your
idols. You hold God’s Word and Name
sacred. You pray. You worship.
You receive the gifts in the Divine Service. You submit to authority. You are obedient. You seek your neighbor’s welfare and
prosperity. You are generous. You are merciful. You are forgiving. You are humble, patient, and kind.
Now,
you know it is only a beginning.
Imperfect, to be sure. Plenty of
faults and falls along the way. But it is
a beginning. You don’t trust in it. Least of all for salvation, or as your
righteous standing before God. That
would never work. For that, you trust in
the righteousness of Christ alone. But
you do foster it, this beginning of enacted righteousness. You do seek to do it. And that, itself, is a gift of the Holy
Spirit. As long as you have the
righteousness from outside of you, from Christ, you ever seek to
have righteousness within, manifested in good works. This is all just another way of saying that justification
results in sanctification. That,
though we are saved by faith alone, faith is never alone. Our Confessions put it this way: “after man
has been justified through faith, then a true living faith works by love
(Galatians 5:6). Good works always follow justifying faith and are surely found
with it—if it is true and living faith [James 2:26]. Faith is never alone, but
always has love and hope with it [1 Corinthians 13:13].”[1]
This
is the key to understanding our Holy Gospel.
Jesus says, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes
and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20;
ESV). Well, how are you going to
accomplish that, a righteousness exceeding that of those meticulous
keepers of the Law, the scribes and Pharisees? It isn’t by your outward keeping of the
Commandments. That comes later down the
line. Your righteousness is Christ’s
perfect and complete keeping of the Law, for you and in your place,
credited to your account, imputed to you.
That is your justification, your righteousness (justification and
righteousness are synonyms). And that
infinitely exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, who don’t
trust in Christ at all. They reject
Him completely, and hold to their own righteous works as sufficient. See, they don’t believe Isaiah, who tells
them that that kind of righteousness is only filthy rags (Is. 64:6). The only righteousness that avails before God
is the righteousness of Jesus Christ, received by faith in Him alone.
But
if that is the case (and this is the age-old question)… if it is true that
works have no place in justification, then… what? Why do good works? This is the charge Martin Luther and the
Lutherans faced at every turn. No one
will do good works if you preach faith alone. This is the charge St. Paul himself had to
endure. You Lutherans… You Pauline
Christians… teach that nobody has to do any good works, period. Not true.
Not true. Paul says, “Are we
to continue in sin that grace may abound?
By no means! How can we who died
to sin still live in it?” (Rom. 6:2).
Saved apart from works, yes.
But then, works. They will
follow. And, again, our Confessions clearly
teach that, while good works are not necessary for salvation,
they are necessary. They are the
fruits of faith. Living faith will always
produce the fruit of good works.
But
again, why do them? Jesus tells
us here. To be salt and light
in the world. Salt, which
preserves and flavors. Light,
which obliterates darkness wherever it shines, exposing danger and evil,
showing the way, and revealing all that is good and true and beautiful, which
is to say, all that is from God. “You
are the salt of the earth,” Jesus says (Matt. 5:13). God preserves the world for the sake of His
Christians, including future Christians yet to be born or converted. And His Christians act as a preserving and
purifying agent in what would otherwise be the rotting carcass of the world
(it’s like salting a side of beef before refrigeration). Furthermore, Christians flavor the world with
the goodness of God, speaking His truth, doing His works, loving with His
love.
Again,
“You are the light of the world,” Jesus says (v. 14). Like the moon reflecting the light of the
sun, Christians reflect the true Light, Jesus Christ. He is the Source of their light, and they
reflect Him as they speak Him forth in His Word, and live in Him by their
works. Why do good works, if you
aren’t saved by them? Because those
works are a witness to the world of God’s love for them. They are the tangible enacting of
God’s love for the world. Beloved, God
loves the world through you. And
God loves your neighbor, including your fellow Christians, through
you. God loves you through
your neighbor. This all happens
as you live your Christian life in your vocations, your callings. The old cliché, I think, still holds true: God
doesn’t need your good works, but your neighbor does. And so, what does Jesus say? “In the same way, let your light shine
before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your
Father who is in heaven” (v. 16).
Let Christ’s righteousness, imputed to you, shine through in
righteousness enacted.
Now,
be warned. Though your works do not, in
any way, contribute to your salvation, they are the evidence of living
faith. And that means the absence of
works is evidence of a dead faith.
Do you remember what St. James says?
“(F)aith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). So, “if salt has lost its taste, how shall
its saltiness be restored? It is no
longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s
feet” (Matt. 5:13). And no one
lights a lamp, only to put it under a basket (v. 15). What would be the good of that? These are warnings not to become secure
and neglect works. You should
never confuse them with your justification. But you should always look for them as a fruit
of your justification.
And
if you have justification in Christ, you have the fruit. Where there is justification, there, necessarily,
is sanctification. So, do you want more
sanctification? Do you want to do more
good works? Love more truly, and
purely? Forsake your sins? Live for God?
Do all things for His glory?
Wonderful. Thank God for those
desires. God grant them all. What do you do, if that is what you
want? You stay close to Christ and His
grace. You bury yourself in His
gifts. You won’t do it by more Law. Though it is good and wise, not only does the
Law not justify you, it has no power to sanctify you. More Gospel. More Jesus for you. More forgiveness of sins. More grace.
More mercy. Because when you have
Jesus, you have it all.
And apart from Jesus, you have nothing. Jesus is everything. And faith receives Jesus.
And
then faith gets to work. Here is what
Luther says: “O, it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith. It is impossible for it not to be doing good
works incessantly. It does not ask
whether good works are to be done, but before the question is asked, it has
already done them, and is constantly doing them.”[2] Why?
How? Faith receives the
righteousness of Christ. And that righteousness
imputed brings forth righteousness enacted. Salt made salty. Light reflected. God glorified in all things. That is how it is. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] FC Epitome III:11, https://bookofconcord.cph.org.
[2] Preface to St. Paul’s
Epistle to the Romans, quoted in FC SD IV:10-11, https://bookofconcord.cph.org.
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