The Greatest Commandment

Matthew 22:34-40

We are told each of us has a DNA that is unique to us only, and your saliva or a hair from your body has exclusive DNA in it to identify you from anyone else in the world.  I’m an uneducated guy who should have failed the first grade, but it amazes me that some educated people that we know, those with doctor in front of their name, can believe you and I happen by chance.  

We need to be clear, the Sadducees and the Pharisees were not in that group listed above, these were the elite of Israel, these were religious men who believed in God, but much like today, wanted a god of their choosing.  When Jesus did not line up with what they believed about God, they set out to trap Him, and neither group was being successful so they came together, and a lawyer came up with a question to test Jesus.

Beginning in verse 36 through 40, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”  Now stop, read it once more, read it again and give thought to what you have read.  Before moving on shall we look at Dr. Luke’s account of this happening, for it takes you and me into the story?  The gospel of Luke 10:25-28, “And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

Did you stop and ponder what is being said, and if you did you must have ask the question, do I love God in that way, do I love my neighbor in that way?   While your putting more thought into your answer, it may be helpful to revisit the book of Deuteronomy 6:4-9, for Moses has just handed down the Ten Commandments, and now he is telling the people the greatest Commandment.  Shall we begin in verse four; “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

And guess what, many of them tried, some of them did better than others, those like Moses and Joshua who the Holy Spirit came on for a season, but all came to one conclusion they were law breakers, they were sinners.  The Laws handed down from God seem to be a mirror to reflect their shortcomings, and especially in the area of the Greatest Commandment.  So God set up a short-term plan where each year the high priest would go into the Holy of Holy’s with the blood of a pure lamb, and on the alter its life would be taken and its blood would cover the sins of all who had come confessing or agreeing with God that they had not met His standards.

Now before God formed the earth, or man, He knew mankind was going to choose to live independent from Him, that is what God calls sin, but God loves you so much that He told His Son, you are the pure Lamb, Your blood will set men, women, and children free from the control of sin, so at the time chosen by the Father, Jesus humbled Himself and took on the form of a man.  John’s gospel tells the story, and chapter 3, verse 16, gives the answer to eternal life.  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” 

And it is only when we are abiding in Christ that we come close to fulfilling the greatest Commandment.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice