Indicatives and Imperatives
St. Luke 6:36-42
June 23, 2024 anno Domini
I’m going to use two word pairs to help you understand Jesus’ words recorded by St. Luke
The first word pair comes from grammar or if you are younger language arts. The word pair is indicative and imperative.
Indicative statements are statements of fact. God created the world in six days. Jesus died on the cross for your sins. Those are indicatives.
Imperatives are commands. You shall have no other gods. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.
When it comes to the God of Holy Scripture remember this about indicatives and imperatives. The indicatives always precede the imperatives. For example, God created the world in six days. He made this beautiful garden and created male and female (and I always have to say, only those two genders, that’s the only marriage there is, because that’s what it takes to produce life). He gave Adam and Eve everything necessary for life, then, after all He did for them, after all those indicatives, He gave them an imperative. Don’t eat from the tree in the middle of the garden.
Another example is the Ten Commandments. The people of Israel were slaves in Egypt. God called Moses and sent him down to save the people. Through Moses and his brother Aaron God worked ten plagues and for a moment cracked Pharaoh’s hard heart so that he let Israel go. But almost immediately Pharaoh was again possessed by the Devil and set out to destroy the Israelites. God baptized His Israel in the Red Sea. He brought them through the water alive and drowned Pharaoh’s army. Then, after all those indicatives, after He sent Moses, destroyed Pharoah, baptized them in the Red Sea, raised them from the dead, then He brought them to Sinai and gave them the Ten Commandments.
How does indicative and imperative help with Jesus’ words in Luke 6? Jesus is speaking to His disciples, to believers, to Christians, to you. He says, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” Now the order of that sentence is imperative first, indicative second, but the meaning is the opposite. Your Father is merciful. That is indicative. That is how God has dealt with you. Instead of seeking vengeance upon you for your rebellion and disobedience, He has shown mercy. He hasn’t sent fire from heaven on the ball diamonds, lakes or fields which have taken you away from His house. He has not paralyzed your tongue for your gossip and slander. He hasn’t given you Alzheimer’s to dull your mind from all the evil you have thought. He shows you mercy. He sends His Son. He shows you compassion. He loves you by paying out of His own pocket, with His own flesh and blood, the cost of your sin. So be merciful (imperative), because Your Father is merciful (indicative).
He is your Father first, by being merciful first. God’s indicatives come first. His mercy is our only hope because we don’t have it in us to keep His imperatives, His commandments. We are by nature sinful, blind to God, dead to life, and we hate His Word. It is by God’s mercy that He declares us righteous, opens our eyes to see His ways, and creates in us a heart that loves Him and trusts Him. He becomes our Father by grace and then He says, “Act like my children. Walk in my ways. Trust me and do what I say.” To Adam and Eve he said, “Don’t eat that fruit.” To Israel He said, “Don’t have other Gods. Don’t give me a bad name. Show up at my house on the Sabbath for a family meal. Respect authority. Be pro-life. Be pro-family by one male and one female getting married. Be content with what I give you and don’t take your neighbor’s stuff.” In the words of Jesus, “Be merciful. Judge not. Condemn not. Forgive. Give.” Doing God’s imperatives indicate that God is your Father. That you’re not a dead and damned sinner, but a living and active human again. So, remember God’s indicatives before His imperatives.
The second word pair for this morning is a theological pair. Justification and Sanctification. Justification is what makes you Christian. Sanctification is what you do as a Christian. Justification is likened to being born to God your Father or being married to Christ your brother. When justification is compared to birth it means that God does all the creating and the labor. As you didn’t choose your mom and dad or when you were born, so Scripture says, He chose to create you and give you all that you have. Just like your mom and dad get all the credit for bringing you into the world, so God gets all the credit that you are His child. He sent His Son to die for you. He put all your sins on Jesus. He put you in a Christian family where you were baptized, where the Spirit brought you to faith, where the Spirit delivered Jesus and His gifts to you.
When justification is compared to marriage, then it is a marriage where Christ comes to the marriage with everything, and you the bride come with nothing. You’re ugly because of sin. You have nothing to contribute. Your behavior is disgusting, but Christ chooses you. He washes you in His blood. Clothes you in His righteousness. Makes you lovely by loving you. He loves you to death and back to life again. In the Biblical wedding the focus is not on the bride. In the Bible everyone stands for the groom, because He, the Christ does all things for you, His bride.
Justification is how you come to faith, how you come to believe, love, and trust in God. In justification you’re helpless and you look to God alone through His Son Jesus. In sanctification you ask, “How then shall I live as a child of God? How shall I act as Christ’s bride?” In sanctification you keep your eyes on Christ, but you also examine yourself.
That’s what Jesus exhorts you to do in today’s Gospel reading. Look at yourself. “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” Jesus does not want you to act like the unbelieving world. They judge by their own sense of right and wrong. They judge people who are pro-life as anti-women. They judge people who stand for marriage as homophobes and bigots. If you do not agree with them, you are judged and damned and it is open season to take from you whatever they want including freedom. Not so you. You know the log of your own sins. Your sins are as monstrous as one of those giant redwood trees. And Christ has felled that tree. He has taken your sins down to the grave. From that dark hole they will never grow and rise again.
Now this does not mean that you are never to speak to another person about his sin. Jesus gives his disciples and us two imperatives to end the text, “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.” Before you see that speck of sin in your brother, look at yourself. When I speak to my neighbor who is sinning, am I doing it in anger or am I worried about his salvation? Do I want to be mad, so I don’t have to talk to her or do I want her to have Christ as I have Christ? What measure are you using when you deal with your neighbor? Your measure of right and wrong, or God’s measure? Are you approaching your neighbor with a cup of wrath and anger, or with a cup of humility and concern? Do you just want to write people off when your Father has written no one off, including you? With the measure you use it will be measured to you.
Hear God’s indicatives before His imperatives. He gives you all things and asks you to act like it. Look to Christ for your justification before God and examine your own self in sanctification. Am I living like a child of my Father? Am I acting like Christ has loved me to death and life again? Hopefully those word pairs will help you keep straight what God has done and what you must do. In the name of Jesus. Amen.