And he said to him, Thou shalt love [the] Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy understanding.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
This is [the] great and first commandment.
The lawyer's question came from a long dispute among Jewish teachers about which rule in the law outranked the rest. The Lord's answer goes to the root of the law, and it shows what man owes God — and whether man has ever paid it.
The Lord did not argue over rankings. One writer explains how the Jews treated the commandments, and what the Lord did with the question instead.
Which, asks the lawyer, is the great commandment in the law? The Jews debated this question a great deal. For them each commandment had its own value, and keeping each one earned so many good marks from God, as in an examination. The Lord uses the moment to set out the basic principles of God's law. To love God with all the heart — that is the first commandment. It is the summary of what man ought to be, the root and the measure of human righteousness. It is in no way a revelation of divine love. It is not at all a question of grace, nor of an open way for the sinner to come to God. It is the perfect rule of what a man should be.
Some read the words as placing this commandment above all the others. Darby looks at the Greek and reads it differently. He says the words describe what kind of commandment it is, not where it ranks.
The Jews measured the commandments to work out righteousness. The Lord answers, not by formally comparing this one with the others, but by so characterising it. I do not think He means a first and great one, though the grammar would allow it, but an absolute characteristic.
The commandment asks for love. That tells us something about God, and it shows how much of a person the demand covers.
The law's demand was love. That very fact shows it was God's own nature which desired this, and that nature is love — "God is love." And the law does not simply demand love from the whole heart, as is sometimes said. It demands love from the whole being!
The commandment asks for what a sinner does not have. A command cannot create it.
Man is here commanded to love God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength, and with all his mind. The commandment is right. But it achieves nothing here, because man is a sinner and loveless. No law ever produced or drew out love. It may demand but cannot create love; it is not within the nature or power of law to do so. God knew this perfectly; and in the gospel He becomes Himself the great Agent. He is the One who loves. He gives according to the strength of that love: He sent His only begotten Son, with eternal life in Him — yes, and sent Him to die in expiation for sin.
The commandment did not stay unmet. The very One they were questioning answered it, and what is true of Him passes to those who belong to Him.
The Lord Jesus showed perfect love to God and to men. He was the only Man who ever loved the Lord His God with all His heart, soul and strength, and His neighbour as Himself. His holy life showed that God had a Man in reserve who could meet every demand of the law. The holy nature found in God's Son is given to all His children, who have been born of Him. They have God's nature and the Spirit of God living in them. So the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in them, "who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4).
There is another way to hear this demand. It means God wants our love.
Is it not a happy thing to know that our Lord claims our hearts and their affections? Have any of us ever read "the first and great commandment" and not rejoiced, at least sometimes, at the grace behind such a demand? Is it nothing to us that God Himself values our love, that He says to us, "My son, give Me your heart"?
- Demand. This is the root and measure of what man ought to be. It is not a revelation of God's love, but the perfect rule of what a man should be.
- Depth. It asks for love, and not from the heart only. The demand covers the whole being.
- Deadlock. Law can demand love but cannot produce it. To a loveless sinner, the commandment achieves nothing.
- Deliverance. One Man loved God with all His heart. God gives that same nature to those born of Him, so the law's righteous requirements are fulfilled in them.
- Delight. The same demand, seen from the side of grace, is God asking us for our hearts — and valuing what we give.