And he said to him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?
Just before this, a lawyer asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus gives him no doctrine, but two questions that send him to the law and to his own reading of it.
By asking what he must do, the lawyer had put himself under law. The Lord takes him at his word.
The lawyer was not in earnest; he was a mere theorist. It was a subject for a discourse or argument. There was no real concern about his soul, no sense of his own condition or of what God is. The Lord answers him, "What is written in the law? How do you read it?" because, when he took this ground of doing something to inherit eternal life, he had really gone to the law... He says this because He is going to convict him of the complete futility of all efforts on that ground.
The man was a lawyer, at home in the books of Moses. His question implied that God had left the matter unanswered.
The Lord read his heart, and, no doubt to his surprise, made him answer his own question, and that from the book with which he claimed real acquaintance. "What shall I do?" asked the man, implying that, lawyer though he was, he did not know how to get that blessing. Claiming ignorance, he effectively took the ground that God had not supplied the information needed. For why ask the Lord about something that the lawgiver had answered ages before?
"How do you read it?" assumes the answer is already there in the text. The law's terms are not hidden; a man only has to meet them.
What we have to see is this: that the great law-question, "What must I do?" is here raised and answered. If a man is to get life by keeping the commandments, he must keep them. There is no mystery about this. It is so plain that the question is, "How do you read it?" A man has only to read Exodus 20 to know his duty toward God and his duty toward his neighbour.
The lawyer gave the right answer at once. That is the problem: quoting the words is not the same as feeling their weight on the conscience.
The lawyer's response showed that, like many today, he knew the letter of the law. But he knew nothing of its killing, condemning power, which lays the conscience bare and shows him the depravity of his own evil heart. He answered without hesitation, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart... and your neighbor as yourself," to which our Lord replied, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live."
The lawyer's answer set the law's own standard. The question is who has ever met it.
The lawyer's answer (from Deuteronomy 6:5) was the best the law could possibly give, for it is a most striking summing up of the whole law. But how strong and uncompromising are its demands! Who has loved the Lord God with his whole heart, his whole soul, his whole strength, his whole mind? It is impossible to think of this being true of anyone except the Lord Jesus Himself.
So where does eternal life come from?
The lawyer knew the law of Moses, and hoped to inherit eternal life by law-keeping. But he had to learn that the law had no power to give life... The life which we have is life in Christ, and the power of that life is in the Holy Spirit.
The moment in which the Lord spoke matters too.
Christ's hour was not yet come; as to the ways of God, the door was not yet shut; the Christ was not yet rejected. Jesus said to him, "Do this, and you will live." The lawyer had not asked, What must I do to be saved? but what to do to inherit eternal life. Had a man fulfilled the law (though we know man was incapable of it), he would have had eternal life. But now, if there is not the knowledge of the Father and the Son, there is no eternal life.
- Read the question. The lawyer asked what to do, so the Lord answered him on that ground and sent him to the law.
- Read the book. The man claimed ignorance. Moses had answered long before, so Christ made him answer himself.
- Read the letter. He quoted the words correctly. He never felt their condemning power on his own conscience.
- Read the standard. Loving God with the whole heart and the neighbour as oneself has been true of Christ alone.
- Read the outcome. Law never had power to give life. Life is in Christ, and it comes through knowing the Father and the Son.
But he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thine understanding; and thy neighbour as thyself.
A lawyer — an expert in the law of Moses — has just asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus sends him back to the law. The man answers by joining two commands into one sentence, but can he stand on the standard he states so well?
His answer states the law's duty perfectly. Commentators look past the answer to the man giving it:
The lawyer was not in earnest; he was a mere theorist. There was no real concern about his soul, no sense of his own condition or of what God is... This was excellent as a statement of duty: nothing could be better; but how had he done it? And what hope was there for his soul on any such footing as this?... He could not do it, and on that ground he could not live. He was dead, though he did not know it himself, morally dead while he lived.
Why does the law demand love at all — and how much of a person does it ask for?
The law demanded love. That very fact shows the demand came from God's own nature, and that nature is love — "God is love." And the law does not just ask for love from the whole heart, as people sometimes say. It asks for love from the whole being!
The command first came attached to a statement about who God is. That statement is the reason for the "all":
First, God is one and He never changes: "The LORD our God, the LORD is one." On this rests His claim to the undivided loyalty of man... If there is only one God, there is no other to share the heart with. The LORD claims the whole of it in the most absolute way. The words stand for the inner man, with all his affections, and in their full energy.
His two clauses fold the Ten Commandments in half:
In the first four commandments we have the claims of law in relation to God, and in the last six those claims in relation to man... If such a demand as that is made upon fallen man, he can no more meet it than create a world.
Writers warn against reading the second clause as a limit on how far kindness must go:
Some read the second part of the great commandment as a limit on how far love to our neighbour must go, as though we need not love him better than that. Weigh the obligation that way and we lose the very principle. Self-love becomes the judge of how far we go in kindness to our neighbour. What is meant instead is a holy urgency that joins another's interests to our own in unity of love, not setting his claims against ours... Love to our neighbour is different in nature from love to God.
The verse states what ought to be. It does not supply the power:
The law does not give life, and it does not give strength... Neither does the law give a motive to love. It tells me to love God with all my heart (and conscience admits I ought to do so), but why? Because I shall be cursed if I do not. But that will not produce love... Have you loved God with all your heart? Has there been no love of anything else?
The command shows its full worth only in one life:
All this love, this costly and needed love, we have in the Son of God, the Stranger from heaven, the True Good Samaritan. He kept the law of love to His neighbour — He alone. So we must learn the way from Him. We must do "likewise," and kindle our heart at His heart, if we hope in any way to answer that end of the law... We see nothing worthy of that word... until we trace the well-spent life of Jesus.
What threats could never produce, God's own love does:
The law says, "You shall love the Lord your God," and conscience approves this. It also says, Do this, or you shall die. But that terrible alternative can never bring my affections back to Him from whom they have wandered. "We love Him because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19). An apostle certifies this as the Christian experience of grace, and it fulfils in us the righteousness of the law.
- Love demanded. God asks for love because love is what He is. And He asks it from the whole being, not just the heart.
- Love owed. God is one, so no rival can divide the heart. The second clause ties your neighbour's interests to your own instead of capping them.
- Love exposed. The command tells you what you ought to be. It cannot change what you are. Conscience agrees with it, but fear of a curse has never produced love.
- Love embodied. One Man loved God and His neighbour like this. We learn love by tracing His life, not by measuring our own.
- Love returned. The law could only demand love. Grace produces it: we love because He first loved us. Only then is the law's righteousness fulfilled in us.
And he said to him, Thou hast answered right this do and thou shalt live.
The lawyer asked what he must do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus sent him back to the law he taught for a living. The man recited the two great commands, and the Lord told him he had answered correctly. Then He told him to go and do it. That raises the real question: can anyone?
The man framed his question around doing, so the Lord framed His answer around doing. Commentators note that He took up the ground the man had chosen, to expose where it leads.
The Lord answers him, "What is written in the law? how do you read it?" He asks this because the man, by taking the ground of doing something to inherit eternal life, had really taken himself to the law. So the Lord in His wisdom answers the fool according to his folly. A fool thinks he can keep the law, and that this is the way to inherit eternal life. The Lord asks His question because He is going to convict him of the utter futility of all efforts on that ground.
Notice what Jesus did not say. The man asked about inheriting eternal life; the answer speaks only of living.
The man answered rightly: the law's supreme demand was for love — first towards God, and then towards one's neighbour. Jesus had only to say, "do this, and you will live" — not, "have eternal life," but just, "live." There is no life on earth unless the law is kept.
The word "this" carries the weight. The law names a specific and complete standard, and offers nothing to those who fall short of it.
The principle of the law was, "Do this, and you will live." It was not, "Do your best," as people are so fond of saying, but "do THIS" — it was to be 100% or nothing. 99% would not do; it must be perfection or — condemnation.
Some assume that meeting the law's terms would open heaven. Commentators reject that reading of the law's purpose.
A sinless being, who had life, did not need a law of righteousness to gain it; a sinful creature with a law of righteousness could only be condemned. "Do this and live" is not written on the gate of heaven. It was written on Sinai, which is not the gate of heaven. It is the gate of death and condemnation.
The lawyer's problem ran deeper than performance.
But he was dead. The law never deals with man as dead... The Gospels and Epistles treat man as dead and as needing eternal life, which the Son of God alone can give; and He gives it, not by law but by grace — two totally opposite principles... He was dead, though he did not know it himself — morally dead while he lived.
Told to go and do it, the lawyer neither obeyed nor confessed failure. He negotiated the terms instead. Commentators see that reflex as the natural fruit of legal thinking.
The only answer the lawyer made when the Lord said "do this, and you will live" was an effort to justify himself... If we let our thoughts move in a legal sphere, we at once try to justify ourselves. The only way to be freed from the principle of self-justification is to get into the realm where grace is known.
The verse is not the end of the exchange. The parable that follows answers the question the lawyer never thought to ask.
The Lord does not go into why man cannot have life on the ground of law. Instead, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, He shows that the law could not help man in his natural condition. The priest and the Levite stand for that law. Only His own intervention in grace could recover man from his hopeless condition. Grace also cares for him until He comes to take us into the full joys of eternal life.
None of this makes obedience unimportant. It changes where obedience sits in the order.
Under the law, men had to do in order to live. Under the Gospel, God brings us into life so that we may do His will. It is easy to forget this, and treat Christianity as though it were simply an exalted philosophy to entertain our minds.
- Demand. The man asked what to do, so the Lord met him on that ground and quoted the law's own terms back to him.
- Measure. The demand is "do THIS" — not your best effort. It is perfection or condemnation.
- Limit. The promise is "live," not "have eternal life." The law offers continued life on earth to the one who keeps it. Sinai is not the gate of heaven.
- Exposure. Faced with the demand, the lawyer justified himself. That is the reflex of legal thinking, and only grace cures it.
- Supply. In the parable that follows, the priest and the Levite pass by. Help comes only through Christ's own intervention in grace. Then we live in order to do God's will, instead of doing in order to live.