This is the final part of a four-part series on The Greatest Commandment. The entire series centers around three passages (Matthew 22:34-40, Mark 12:28-34 and Luke 10:25-37) where Jesus answers a scribe’s question with the commandment to love God with all your heart, soul and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself.
In these passages, we discover these two commandments are connected with eternal life and the Kingdom of God. Jesus is informing the scribe that to enter the Kingdom of God and have eternal life these two commandments must be carried out. The emphatic, yet implicit, message Jesus is conveying to the scribe and His future readers (you and I) is to believe that God is real, to love Him with every fiber in your soul, and to devote your entire life to fulfilling His desire to love all mankind. It is a simple message yet often ignored by many.
Now that we know what Jesus said, what He meant and what we heard, what is next? This fourth and final part is dedicated to answering the question, “What should we do?”
The first part of the 2-part commandment is to love God. That begs the question, “How does one go about loving God?” The apostle John provides us the answer in two of his books. In 1 John 5:3 he states,
“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.”
In John 14:15 Jesus says,
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments”
and in John 14:21,
“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”
These are clear instructions that if we obey His commandments, we express our love to the Father.
Now the question is, “What are His commandments?” The commandments Jesus is talking about in the Gospel of John are all the laws, statutes, decrees, etc. expressed in the Old Testament. They include the moral law (10 Commandments), the civil laws, and the ceremonial laws designed to fulfill God’s requirements of righteousness. To God, the Law is holy, pure and righteous (Psalm 19:7; Romans 7:12) and the one who obeys the Law is considered holy, pure and righteous.
The problem is that no one has ever been able to fulfill the Law and its requirements! So, how can we express our love for God if we cannot obey His commandments? We can’t! Because James says,
“For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” – James 2:10
We are all sinners, incapable of completely obeying the Law or fulfilling its requirements. So what shall we do for “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)?
This dilemma is perfectly explained by Paul in Romans 7. He wanted to do the will of God but found himself fighting against God in all his attempts. He struggles with his flesh and finally concludes that he is a wretched man incapable of pleasing the heart of God and in need of salvation. In the end he proclaims, “Who will set me free” from the bondage of the flesh?
Here comes the GOOD NEWS! Let me introduce to you the concept of GRACE … getting something one does not deserve! God provided Jesus Christ, His only beloved Son, to be our substitute for fulfilling the righteousness of the Law. He was the only person in the flesh to ever have obeyed and fulfilled all the requirements demanded by the Law.
In fulfilling the righteous requirements of the law Jesus “condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in US, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” – Romans 8:1-11
“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” – Ephesians 2:8-9
This is why Jesus told the scribe in Mark that although he knew the law, he was not far from the Kingdom of God. He did not admit, confess or believe by faith that Jesus, the man sitting right in front of him, was the answer to eternal life. He literally was not “far” from the source of eternal life! The irony is too rich to ignore!
The second part of the 2-part commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. As we discussed in part 2 of this series, that includes others that are similar to you, others that are very different from you, others that you like, and even others that are your enemy. It means everyone!
How do we love all these others as ourselves? Well, how do you show love to yourself? You eat when you are hungry, sleep when you are tired, and get medical attention when you are ill. We saw in the story of the Good Samaritan that loving your neighbor includes caring for physical needs. It also means reaching out to lend a helping hand, providing words of encouragement, and praying for one another. But like was stated previously, we can and will fall short.
So, let me sum up this 4-part series. Jesus stated that the two greatest commandments are to love God with all your heart, soul and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself. To love God is to obey His commandments which we are incapable of doing. Jesus is the only person in the flesh who was capable of obeying and fulfilling the requirements of the Law. He is our substitute that God graciously provided for the salvation of mankind. Salvation comes as we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9-10).
We should try our best to keep God’s commandments and to show love to our fellow mankind, understanding that only through grace by faith can we meet the holy and righteous requirements that God demands of us. Only through Jesus! Amen.
In case you missed any of the previous articles in this series, here are the links:
The Greatest Commandment (Part 1): What did He say?
The Greatest Commandment (Part 2): What did He mean?
The Greatest Commandment (Part 3): What do we hear?
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