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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 22:34

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But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.

34. had put to silence ] Literally, gagged; hence silenced completely, not only for the moment. The same Greek work is used ( Mat 22:12) of the guest; Mar 1:25 and Luk 4:35, of silencing a demon; Mar 4:39, of silencing a storm; 1Co 9:9 and 1Ti 5:18, of muzzling an ox.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

34 40. The Greatest Commandment

Mar 12:28-34; Luk 10:25-28

In St Luke the question is asked at an earlier period of the ministry, after the return of the Seventy; and the meaning of “neighbour” is illustrated by the parable of the “Good Samaritan.”

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Jesus converses with a Pharisee respecting the law – See also Mar 12:28-34.

Mat 22:34

The Pharisees … were gathered together – That is, either to rejoice that their great rivals, the Sadducees, had been so completely silenced, or to lay a new plan for ensnaring him, or perhaps both. They would rejoice that the Sadducees had been confounded, but they would not be the less desirous to involve Jesus in difficulty. They therefore endeavored, probably, to find the most difficult question in dispute among themselves, and proposed it to him to perplex him.

Mat 22:35

A lawyer – This does nor mean one that practiced law, as among us, but one learned or skilled in the law of Moses.

Mark calls him one of the scribes. This means the same thing. The scribes were men of learning – particularly men skilled in the law of Moses. This lawyer had heard Jesus reasoning with the Sadducees, and perceived that he had put them to silence. He was evidently supposed by the Pharisees to be better qualified to hold a debate with him than the Sadducees were, and they had therefore put him forward for that purpose. This man was probably of a candid turn of mind; perhaps willing to know the truth, and not entering very fully into their malicious intentions, but acting as their agent, Mar 12:34.

Tempting him – Trying him. Proposing a question to test his knowledge of the law.

Mat 22:36

Which is the great commandment? – That is, the greatest commandment, or the one most important.

The Jews are said to have divided the law into greater and smaller commandments. Which was of the greatest importance they had not determined. Some held that it was the law respecting sacrifice; others, that respecting circumcision; others, that pertaining to washings and purifying, etc.

The law – The word law has a great variety of significations; it means, commonly, in the Bible, as it does here, the law given by Moses, recorded in the first five books of the Bible.

Mat 22:37

Jesus said unto him … – Mark says that he introduced this by referring to the doctrine of the unity of God Hear, O Israel! the Lord thy God is one Lord – taken from Deu 6:4. This was said, probably, because all true obedience depends on the correct knowledge of God. None can keep his commandments who are not acquainted with his nature, his perfections, and his right to command,

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart – The meaning of this is, thou shalt love him with all thy faculties or powers. Thou shalt love him supremely, more than all other beings and things, and with all the ardor possible. To love him with all the heart is to fix the affections supremely on him, more strongly than on anything else, and to be willing to give up all that we hold dear at his command,

With all thy soul – Or, with all thy life. This means, to be willing to give up the life to him, and to devote it all to his service; to live to him, and to be willing to die at his command,

With all thy mind – To submit the intellect to his will. To love his law and gospel more than we do the decisions of our own minds. To be willing to submit all our faculties to his teaching and guidance, and to devote to him all our intellectual attainments and all the results of our intellectual efforts.

With all thy strength (Mark). With all the faculties of soul and body. To labor and toil for his glory, and to make that the great object of all our efforts.

Mat 22:38

This the first tend great commandment – This commandment is found in Deu 6:5. It is the first and greatest of all; first, not in order of time, but of importance; greatest in dignity, in excellence, in extent, and duration. It is the fountain of all others. All beings are to be loved according to their excellence. As God is the most excellent and glorious of all beings, he is to be loved supremely. If he is loved aright, then our affections will be directed toward all created objects in a right manner.

Mat 22:39

The second is like unto it – Lev 19:18. That is, it resembles it in importance, dignity, purity, and usefulness. This had not been asked by the lawyer, but Jesus took occasion to acquaint him with the substance of the whole law. For its meaning, see the notes at Mat 19:19. Compare Rom 13:9. Mark adds, there is none other commandment greater than these. None respecting circumcision or sacrifice is greater. They are the fountain of all.

Mat 22:40

On these two commandments hang … – That is, these comprehend the substance of what Moses in the law and what the prophets have spoken.

What they have said has been to endeavor to win people to love God and to love each other. Love to God and man comprehends the whole of religion, and to produce this has been the design of Moses, the prophets, the Saviour, and the apostles.

Mark Mar 12:32-34 adds that the scribe said, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth; and that he assented to what Jesus had said, and admitted that to love God and man in this manner was more than all burnt-offerings and sacrifices; that is, was of more value or importance. Jesus, in reply, told him that he was not far from the kingdom of heaven; in other words, by his reply he had shown that he was almost prepared to receive the doctrines of the gospel. He had evinced such an acquaintance with the law as to prove that he was nearly prepared to receive the teachings of Jesus. See the notes at Mat 3:2.

Mark and Luke say that this had such an effect that no man after that durst ask him any question, Luk 20:40; Mar 12:34. This does not mean that none of his disciples durst ask him any question, but none of the Jews. He had confounded all their sects – the Herodians Mat 22:15-22; the Sadducees Mat 22:23-33; and, last, the Pharisees Mat 22:34-40. Finding themselves unable to confound him, everyone gave up the attempt at last.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 34. They were gathered together.] – they came together with one accord, or, for the same purpose; i.e. of ensnaring him in his discourse, as the Sadducees had done, Mt 22:23.

The Codex Bezae and several of the Itala have , against him. Camen togidre into oon. – Old MS. Eng, Bib.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Mark relates this history more fully, Mar 12:28-31. And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all thy strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask him any question. Luke omits this history, only subjoins to our Saviours answer to the Sadducees, Luk 20:39,40, Then certain of the scribes answering said, Master, thou hast well said. And after that they durst not ask him any question at all. There are different opinions of interpreters concerning the design of this scribe, called by Matthew a lawyer, in coming to Christ with this question. Some think that he came upon the same errand with the others, to entangle him in his speech. Others, that he came merely out of a desire to be more fully instructed by him, and that tempting here signifies no more than trying him, not for a bad end, but as the queen of Sheba came to prove Solomon with hard questions, to have an experiment of his wisdom. Our Saviours fair treating him, and the commendation he gave him, together with his fair speaking to our Saviour, and commending his answer, induce me to think that he came on no ill design. Besides that, the opinion of some, that he came hoping to hear our Saviour vilify their ritual precepts in comparison of the moral precepts, seemeth to me not probable; for himself consents to what our Saviour saith, and addeth, that to love the Lord our God, &c., is more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. His question was, Which is the first and greatest commandment? Matthew saith, the great; Mark saith, the first: they have both the same sense, and our Saviour puts them together, Mat 22:38. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Mark adds, with all thy strength. It is to be found Deu 6:5, only there is not with all thy mind. Luke puts it in, Mat 10:27. It is but the same thing expressed in divers terms, for with all thy soul is comprehensive of heart, mind, and strength. Mark adds a preface: Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord: thou shalt love, & c. Those words only;

1. Stirred up the peoples attention.

2. Showed the reason of the following precept, which is fully expressed in Matthew.

If any ask, To which of the ten commandments is this to be referred? It is easily answered, that it is the sum of the four first, which comprehend our duty toward God. Our Saviours expressing them by loving God, shows us that the law, of God was not fulfilled in the observation of the letter of those commandments, but doing these things which God commands out of a principle of love, the highest degrees of love to God. They idly interpret this precept, who interpret it only an obligation upon us to love God as much as we are able in our lapsed state; the fall of man lost God no right of commanding, and telling us our duty. The law doth undoubtedly require of us love to God in the highest degree, to be showed by the acts of the whole man, in obedience to all his commandments, and that constantly. It is our only happiness that the law is in the hands of a Mediator, who hath thus perfectly fulfilled it for all those who believe in him, Rom 8:3, and accepteth of us the will for the deed. Thus the moral law is a schoolmaster that leadeth us unto Christ. Our Saviour justly calls this the first and great commandment,

1. Because God is to be served before our neighbour.

2. Nor can love to our neighbour flow from any other true principle than that of love to God, nor is our neighbour to be loved but for Gods sake, and in subordination unto him.

And the second is like unto it, commanding love also; so that, as the apostle saith, love is the fulfilling of the law. Thy neighbour, that is, every man, as thyself; doing as much for him as thou wouldst have him do for thee, and doing no more against him than thou wouldst willingly he should do against thee: as truly and sincerely as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets: there is nothing commanded in all the Old Testament but may be reduced to these two heads. This is the whole duty of man there commanded. The whole book of God is our rule, and we are obliged to every precept in it. Moses summed up all in the ten commandments, to which, truly interpreted, all the precepts of Scripture are reducible. Christ here brings the ten to two. The apostle brings all to one, telling us love is the fulfilling of the law. There is nothing forbidden in Scripture but what offends the royal law of love, either to God or man; there is nothing commanded but what will fall under it. Mark addeth, that the scribe applauds our Saviour, as having said the truth, and confessing that the fulfilling these two precepts was more than all sacrifices and burnt offerings; in which he agreed with Samuel, who long since told Saul that to obey was better than sacrifice; and it needs must be so, seeing that all the true value of sacrifices lay in the obedience by them given to the will of God. Christ tells the scribe he was not far from the kingdom of God. He who once rightly understands the law of God, and hath cast off that silly fancy of thinking to please God with ritual things, hath made a great proficiency under that schoolmaster, who, if rightly understood, will show him the need of another righteousness than his own wherein to appear before God.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

But when the Pharisees had heard,…. Either with their own ears, they being some of them present: or rather from the relation of others, from the Scribes, who expressed their approbation of Christ’s answer to the Sadducees; for the Pharisees, with the Herodians, in a body, had left him, and were gone to their respective places of abode; or to them that sent them, being baffled and confounded by him: but now hearing

that he had put the Sadducees to silence, or stopped their mouths, having nothing to reply, which itself, was not disagreeable; for they were as opposite as could be to them in the doctrine of the resurrection, and in other things, and were their sworn and avowed enemies: and yet it sadly gravelled them, that Christ should be too hard for, and get the victory over all sects among them. Wherefore, considering that should he go on with success in this manner, his credit with the people would increase yet more and more; and therefore, though they had been so shamefully defeated in two late attempts, yet

they were gathered together in great hurry upon this occasion. The Ethiopic version reads it, “they were gathered to him”, that is, to Christ; and so reads the copy that Beza gave to the university of Cambridge: but the other reading, as it is general, so more suitable to the place: they gathered together at some certain house, where they consulted what to do, what methods to take, to put a stop to his growing interest with the people, and how they might bring him into disgrace with them; and they seemed to have fixed on this method, that one among them, who was the ablest doctor, and best skilled in the law, should put a question to him relating to the law, which was then agitated among them, the solution of which was very difficult; and they the rather chose to take this course by setting a single person upon him, that should he succeed, the victory would be the greater, and the whole sect would share in the honour of it; and should he be silenced, the public disgrace and confusion would only fall on himself, and not the whole body, as in the former instances. This being agreed to, they went unto him.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Substance of the Commandments.

34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. 35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Here is a discourse which Christ had with a Pharisee-lawyer, about the great commandment of the law. Observe,

I. The combination of the Pharisees against Christ, v. 34. They heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, had stopped their mouths, though their understandings were not opened; and they were gathered together, not to return him the thanks of their party, as they ought to have done, for his effectually asserting and confirming of the truth against the Sadducees, the common enemies of their religion, but to tempt him, in hopes to get the reputation of puzzling him who had puzzled the Sadducees. They were more vexed that Christ was honoured, than pleased that the Sadducees were silenced; being more concerned for their own tyranny and traditions, which Christ opposed, than for the doctrine of the resurrection and a future state, which the Sadducees opposed. Note, It is an instance of Pharisaical envy and malice, to be displeased at the maintaining of a confessed truth, when it is done by those we do not like; to sacrifice a public good to private piques and prejudices. Blessed Paul was otherwise minded, Phil. i. 18.

II. The lawyer’s question, which he put to Christ. The lawyers were students in, and teachers of, the law of Moses, as the scribes were; but some think that in this they differed, that they dealt more in practical questions than the scribes; they studied and professed casuistical divinity. This lawyer asked him a question, tempting him; not with any design to ensnare him, as appears by St. Mark’s relation of the story, where we find that this was he to whom Christ said, Thou are not far from the kingdom of God, Mark xii. 34, but only to see what he would say, and to draw on discourse with him, to satisfy his own and his friends’ curiosity.

1. The question was, Master, which is the greatest commandment of the law? A needless question, when all the things of God’s law are great things (Hos. viii. 12), and the wisdom from above is without partiality, partiality in the law (Mal. ii. 9), and hath respect to them all. Yet it is true, there are some commands that are the principles of the oracles of God, more extensive and inclusive than others. Our Saviour speaks of the weightier matters of the law, ch. xxiii. 23.

2. The design was to try him, or tempt him; to try, not so much his knowledge as his judgment. It was a question disputed among the critics in the law. Some would have the law of circumcision to be the great commandment, others the law of the sabbath, others the law of sacrifices, according as they severally stood affected, and spent their zeal; now they would try what Christ said to this question, hoping to incense the people against him, if he should not answer according to the vulgar opinion; and if he should magnify one commandment, they would reflect on him as vilifying the rest. The question was harmless enough; and it appears by comparing Luk 10:27; Luk 10:28, that it was an adjudged point among the lawyers, that the love of God and our neighbour is the great commandment, and the sum of all the rest, and Christ had there approved it; so the putting of it to him here seems rather a scornful design to catechise him as a child, than spiteful design to dispute with him as an adversary.

III. Christ’s answer to this question; it is well for us that such a question was asked him, that we might have his answer. It is no disparagement to great men to answer plain questions. Now Christ recommends to us those as the great commandments, not which are so exclusive of others, but which are therefore great because inclusive of others. Observe,

1. Which these great commandments are (v. 37-39); not the judicial laws, those could not be the greatest now that the people of the Jews, to whom they pertained, were so little; not the ceremonial laws, those could not be the greatest, now that they were waxen old, and were ready to vanish away; nor any particular moral precept; but the love of God and our neighbour, which are the spring and foundation of all the rest, which (these being supposed) will follow of course.

(1.) All the law is fulfilled in one word, and that is, love. See Rom. xiii. 10. All obedience begins in the affections, and nothing in religion is done right, that is not done there first. Love is the leading affection, which gives law, and gives ground, to the rest; and therefore that, as the main fort, is to be first secured and garrisoned for God. Man is a creature cut out for love; thus therefore is the law written in the heart, that it is a law of love. Love is a short and sweet word; and, if that be the fulfilling of the law, surely the yoke of the command is very easy. Love is the rest and satisfaction of the soul; if we walk in this good old way, we shall find rest.

(2.) The love of God is the first and great commandment of all, and the summary of all the commands of the first table. The proper act of love being complacency, good is the proper object of it. Now God, being good infinitely, originally, and eternally, is to be loved in the first place, and nothing loved beside him, but what is loved for him. Love is the first and great thing that God demands from us, and therefore the first and great thing that we should devote to him.

Now here we are directed,

[1.] To love God as ours; Thou shalt love the Lord they God as thine. The first commandment is, Thou shalt have no other God; which implies that we must have him for our God, and that will engage our love to him. Those that made the sun and moon their gods, loved them, Jer 8:2; Jdg 18:24. To love God as ours is to love him because he is ours, our Creator, Owner, and Ruler, and to conduct ourselves to him as ours, with obedience to him, and dependence on him. We must love God as reconciled to us, and made ours by covenant; that is the foundation of this, Thy God.

[2.] To love him with all our heart, and soul, and mind. Some make these to signify one and the same thing, to love him with all our powers; others distinguish them; the heart, soul, and mind, are the will, affections, and understanding; or the vital, sensitive, and intellectual faculties. Our love of God must be a sincere love, and not in word and tongue only, as theirs is who say they love him, but their hearts are not with him. It must be a strong love, we must love him in the most intense degree; as we must praise him, so we must love him, with all that is within us, Ps. ciii. 1. It must be a singular and superlative love, we must love him more than any thing else; this way the stream of our affections must entirely run. The heart must be united to love God, in opposition to a divided heart. All our love is too little to bestow upon him, and therefore all the powers of the soul must be engaged for him, and carried out toward him. This is the first and great commandment; for obedience to this is the spring of obedience to all the rest; which is then only acceptable, when it flows from love.

(3.) To love our neighbour as ourselves is the second great commandment (v. 39); It is like unto that first; it is inclusive of all the precepts of the second table, as that is of the first. It is like it, for it is founded upon it, and flows from it; and a right love to our brother, whom we have seen, is both an instance and an evidence of our love to God, whom we have not seen, 1 John iv. 20.

[1.] It is implied, that we do, and should, love ourselves. There is a self-love which is corrupt, and the root of the greatest sins, and it must be put off and mortified: but there is a self-love which is natural, and the rule of the greatest duty, and it must be preserved and sanctified. We must love ourselves, that is, we must have a due regard to the dignity of our own natures, and a due concern for the welfare of our own souls and bodies.

[2.] It is prescribed, that we love our neighbour as ourselves. We must honour and esteem all men, and must wrong and injure none; must have a good will to all, and good wishes for all, and, as we have opportunity, must do good to all. We must love our neighbour as ourselves, as truly and sincerely as we love ourselves, and in the same instances; nay, in many cases we must deny ourselves for the good of our neighbour, and must make ourselves servants to the true welfare of others, and be willing to spend and be spent for them, to lay down our lives for the brethren.

2. Observe what the weight and greatness of these commandments is (v. 40); On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets; that is, This is the sum and substance of all those precepts relating to practical religion which were written in men’s hearts by nature, revived by Moses, and backed and enforced by the preaching and writing of the prophets. All hang upon the law of love; take away this, and all falls to the ground, and comes to nothing. Rituals and ceremonials must give way to these, as must all spiritual gifts, for love is the more excellent way. This is the spirit of the law, which animates it, the cement of the law, which joins it; it is the root and spring of all other duties, the compendium of the whole Bible, not only of the law and the prophets, but of the gospel too, only supposing this love to be the fruit of faith, and that we love God in Christ, and our neighbour for his sake. All hangs on these two commandments, as the effect doth both on its efficient and on its final cause; for the fulfilling of the law is love (Rom. xiii. 10) and the end of the law is love, 1 Tim. i. 5. The law of love is the nail, is the nail in the sure place, fastened by the masters of assemblies (Eccl. xii. 11), on which is hung all the glory of the law and the prophets (Isa. xxii. 24), a nail that shall never be drawn; for on this nail all the glory of the new Jerusalem shall eternally hang. Love never faileth. Into these two great commandments therefore let our hearts be delivered as into a mould; in the defence and evidence of these let us spend our zeal, and not in notions, names, and strifes of words, as if those were the mighty things on which the law and the prophets hung, and to them the love of God and our neighbour must be sacrificed; but to the commanding power of these let every thing else be made to bow.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

He had put the Sadducees to silence ( ). Muzzled the Sadducees. The Pharisees could not restrain their glee though they were joining with the Sadducees in trying to entrap Jesus.

Gathered themselves together ( ). First aorist passive, were gathered together. explains more fully –. See also Ac 2:47. “Mustered their forces” (Moffatt).

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Put to silence [] . There is a kind of grim humor in the use of this word : he had muzzled the Sadducees. Compare ver. 12.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

Although I think that this narrative has nothing more than a resemblance to what is related by Matthew in the 22 nd, and by Mark in the 12 th chapter, of his Gospel, and that they are not the same; I have chosen to collect them into one place, because, while Matthew and Mark affirm that this was the last question by which our Lord was tempted, Luke makes no mention of that circumstance, and seems intentionally to leave it out, because he had stated it in another passage. And yet I do not dispute that it may be the same narrative, though Luke has some things different from the other two. They all agree in this, that the scribe put a question for the sake of tempting Christ; but he who is described by Matthew and Mark goes away with no bad disposition; for he acquiesces in Christ’s reply, and shows a sign of a teachable and gentle mind: to which must be added, that Christ, on the other hand, declares that he is not far from the kingdom of God. Luke, on the other hand, introduces a man who was obstinate and swelled with pride, in whom no evidence of repentance is discovered. Now there would be no absurdity in saying that Christ was repeatedly tempted on the subject of true righteousness, and of keeping the Law, and of the rule of a good life. But whether Luke has related this out of its proper place, or whether he has now passed by the other question — because that former narrative relating to doctrine was sufficient — the similarity of the doctrine seemed to require me to compare the three Evangelists with each other.

Let us now see what was the occasion that led this scribe to put a question to Christ. It is because, being an expounder of the Law, he is offended at the doctrine of the gospel, by which he supposes the authority of Moses to be diminished. At the same time, he is not so much influenced by zeal for the Law, as by displeasure at losing some part of the honor of his teaching. He therefore inquires at Christ, if he wishes to profess any thing more perfect than the Law; for, though he does not say this in words, yet his question is ensnaring, for the purpose of exposing Christ to the hatred of the people. Matthew and Mark do not attribute this stratagem to one man only, but show that it was done by mutual arrangement, and that out of the whole sect one person was chosen who was thought to excel the rest in ability and learning. In the form of the question, too, Luke differs somewhat from Matthew and Mark; for, according to him, the scribe inquires what men must do to obtain eternal life, but according to the other two Evangelists, he inquires what is the chief commandment in the law. But the design is the same, for he makes a deceitful attack on Christ, that, if he can draw any thing from his lips that is at variance with the law, he may exclaim against him as an apostate and a promoter of ungodly revolt.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL NOTES

Mat. 22:35. A lawyer.The precise distinction between the lawyer and the other scribes rested, probably, on technicalities that have left little or no trace behind them. The word suggests the thought of a section of the scribes who confined their attention to the law, while the others included in their studies the writings of the prophets or the traditions of the elders also (Plumptre). Tempting Him.We are not to impute the same sinister motives as actuated those who sent him. He also was, in a certain sense, tempting Jesus, i.e. putting Him to the test, but with no sinister motive (Gibson). (See Mar. 12:34).

Mat. 22:36. Which?The original term is qualitative. It draws attention to the distinctive quality, nature, or essence of the great commandment. Of what nature is the great commandment in the law? What is the essence of the great commandment in the law? (Morison).

Mat. 22:37. Heart soul mind.St. Mark and St. Luke add strength. In Deu. 6:5, the words are heart, soul, might. The words represent different aspects of one substantive entity (Morison). This great commandment was written on the phylactery which the lawyer was probably wearing (Carr).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Mat. 22:34-40

A legal snare.Once more we find the Pharisees laying a word-trap for the Saviour. They appear to have been stimulated to this fresh effort by hearing that the Sadducees have been silenced (Mat. 22:34). How sweet the hope of at once confounding Him and distancing them! They appear also to have learned wisdom by their previous experience. Not now about the rule of the Romans (Mat. 22:17), but about the law of God do they ask. Not this time in the doubtful company of the Herodians, but by the lips of one of themselvesand he, apparently (Mar. 12:32; Mar. 12:34), a man of well-deserved repute as an interpreter of that lawdo they speak. Very profound, accordingly, and unusually difficult is the question they ask. Equally complete, however, for all this, the reply they receive.

I. The special difficulty of the question asked seems to have lain in more matters than one. It lay, first, in the extreme width of its scope. Which is the great commandment in the law? How exceedingly ample the field surveyed by that question! Who can take it all in at one time? It is like asking a man to point out off-hand the most important star in the midnight sky. If he is looking to the north, he is turning his back on the south. If he is giving special attention to this portion he is giving none at all to all others. Who but God can count the number of the stars? (Psa. 147:4; see also Num. 23:10). Not less, next, is the difficulty involved in the exceeding variety of this field. One star differeth from another star in glory (1Co. 15:41). So also do the different groups of enactments to be found in Gods law. On how many sides, and in how many ways, do they affect the duty of man? Political and ecclesiastical, ceremonial and moral, domestic and foreign, private and public, social and civilthese are only some of the aspects under which they look at our life. Who can arrange them so that they can all of them be, as it were, looked at at once? And who, without doing that, shall be sure of being able to distinguish and sever from amongst the whole manifold multitude, the very greatest of all? The bewilderment, in short, is hardly less than the magnitude of the task. Lastly, the question is difficultmost difficult of all indeedbecause of the peculiar sanctity of this field. However varied these many enactments in some respects, there was one vital point in regard to which they were all exactly alike. By the pious Israelite they were all rightly regarded as having the same supreme majesty behind them. Whether greater or less in mans fallible judgment, they were all spoken by God. Thus saith the Lord, I am the Lord, are declarations to be found repeatedly in the letter, and always in spirit, in every page of that law. Who, therefore, can undertake safely to point out differences between its enactments? And who, above all, shall so do this as to put his finger on that which is greatest of all? The very attempt to do it involves peril of the direst possible kind. Hence, not improbably, indeed, one principal reason of proposing it to the Saviour. With His pretensions He ought to be able to settle even such a difficulty as this.

II. The Saviours reply to this insidious and perilous question consisted of two principal steps. In the first of these He, practically, narrowed the field of inquiry. And did so, most wisely, by showing simply how God Himself had done so already. As the lawyer who had asked this question very well knew, God had put one portion of that multitudinous and manifold collection of statutes and ordinances known by the name of the law, as it were by itself. He had done so, partly, by the special place and manner of its original promulgation (Exo. 20:1-18); partly by the special care taken by Him on that occasion to restrain His utterance to that portion alone (Deu. 5:22); and partly by the fact that He Himself had then written that portion alone with His own finger on two tables of stone (ibid.). This being so, the Saviour will now, as it were, follow this lead. What God Himself has thus visibly exalted above the rest of His law, He will treat as so being. And will confine Himself, therefore, to searching in it for that which is greatest of all. In the next place, the Saviour, taking up this portion alone, proceeds to explain its structure and force. Briefly, its structure is this: that it consists of two groups. That the first group teaches man as a creature to love his Creator; and teaches him also that he cannot do this too much. That the second group is also a commandment to love, and, therefore, like to the first. That it differs from it, however, in teaching man, as Gods creature, to love his brother man as being the same; and to do so, therefore, with just the same degree of love as he bears to himself. The force of this analysis, it will be seen, therefore, is of a two-fold description. On the one hand it shows us that one of these tables or groups of commandments does necessarily and from its very nature come before the other, both as to order and importance; and is, consequently, so far the greater. On the other hand, it shows us that the second of these is so essentially a sequel of, as to be almost a part of, the former; and, therefore, is, so far, not to be regarded as less. And so, on the whole, therefore, that in these two in combination, we have the greatest of all. And this is the true teaching, moreoverso the Saviour adds in conclusionof all teachers who have ever been sent from God to teach on this point. Judge for yourselves if either Moses or the prophets have taught other or more! (Mat. 22:40).

See therefore here, in conclusion:

1. The wisdom of Moses as a teacher.Was there over such a summary of duty as that given through him?

2. The wisdom of Christ as a Teacher.Was there ever any one who fathomed that summary as it was fathomed by Him?

3. The perfection of Christ as a Saviour.By the obedience of One many were made righteous (Rom. 5:19). See here how well that One understood what He undertook to obey. We may well believe, therefore, that He honoured it in practice to an equal degree. Could He, indeed, have understood it so perfectly if He had not obeyed it in full?

HOMILIES ON THE VERSES

Mat. 22:36. The law of love a natural force of humanity.It will help us to understand this principle if we first distinguish it from some other principles of our nature.

I. It is to be distinguished from the principle of will, and in some regards is indeed to be opposed to it. All human lives that are following the law of will, of self, of individualism, are breaking lifes true law, and missing lifes true aim.

II. The law of love is to be distinguished from the principle of knowledge. Knowledge is not a primary fact, and can never become an ultimate law, of life. Knowledge shall vanish away, but love never faileth.

III. The law of love is wholly opposed to the spirit of fear. Fear is not natural to man. Fear only came to man when tempted by knowledge. He transgressed the obedience of love, and having transgressed he hid himself from the presence of God. And Adam represents us all. We hide from God because we have sinned. When we kneel at the foot of the cross, and feel that because God loves us we must love God, we learn again the law of life, the law of being: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, etc. God has made you to love Him, to have communion with Him. And in that perfect communion the law of God is not broken. And that law is, that with all your heart, with all your being, with all the powers that you have, shall you love God. Then reason shall be linked to heaven, and affection linked to heaven, and conscience linked to heaven, and idea and imagination and all the powers of mind and soul linked to heaven by the eternal principle of love.Archdeacon Watkins.

Mat. 22:37-40. Love to God and man.

I. These two principles from which our Lord tells us all religion flows, must be consistent with one another; otherwise they could not both be principles of the same religion.

II. Nothing is, or ought to be, esteemed religion that is not reducible to one or other of these principles.Bishop Sherlock.

Mat. 22:37-38. The first and great commandment.Our Lord having to do with a proud hypocrite, puffed up with a conceit of his own righteousness, doth so answer him, as He layeth out the spiritual meaning of the law, that the man might see how short he came in the obedience thereof, and so doth teach us:

1. That the commandments are not obeyed except the obedience spring from love.
2. The commandments are not satisfied except the whole man, wholly, in all things, obey with his whole mind, affections, and the strength of all the powers of soul and body.
3. To love God is the greatest commandment, because it is the fountain of the obedience of all the commands, and also because all the commands of the first table are but branches, and evidences in part of our love to God.
4. The great commandment is not fulfilled except a man in the sense of his shortcoming in love to God, seek for reconciliation with Him, enter into a covenant of grace with Him, and make use of His friendship, as of a reconciled God.

5. The commandment of loving God with all our might and adhering to Him as reconciled unto us and made ours by covenant, is first to be looked unto, as being of greatest consequence (Mat. 22:38).David Dickson.

Why men do not love God.There are two reasons why men do not love God. For one of them there are great excuses; for the other there is no excuse whatsoever.

I. In the first place, too many find it difficult to love God because they have not been taught that God is lovable, and worthy of their love.They have been taught dark and hard doctrines, which have made them afraid of God. Our love must be called out by Gods love.

II. If we do not wish to do what God commands we shall never love God.It must be so. There can be no real love of God which is not based upon the love of virtue and goodness, upon what our Lord calls a hunger and thirst after righteousness.C. Kingsley, M.A.

Mat. 22:37. The great commandment.

I. Who is the Christians God?We must know God before we can love Him.

II. Our duty towards God.We must not only love Him, but our love must be

1. Supreme.

2. Abiding.

3. Operative.

III. Why that duty is called the first and great commandment.

1. It is the noblest exercise of our faculties.
2. It is the foundation of all other duties.C. Simeon, M.A.

The minds love for God.I. Is it not manifestly true that besides the love of the senses, and the love of the heart, and the love of the soul, and the love of the strength, there is also a love of the mind, without whose entrance into the completeness of the loving mans relation to the object of his love, his love is not complete? Is your greatest friend contented with your love before you have come to love him with all your mind? Everywhere we find our assurances that the mind has its affections and enthusiasms, that the intellect is no cold-hearted monster who only thinks and judges, but that it glows with love, not merely perceiving, but delighted to perceive, the beauty of the things with which it has to do.

II. Christ bids His disciples to love God with all their minds.Understand Me, He seems to cry, I am not wholly loved by you unless your understanding is searching out after My truth, and with all your powers of thoughtfulness and study you are trying to find out all you can about My nature and My ways.

III. There are ignorant saints who come very near to God, and live in the rich sunlight of His love, but none the less for that is their ignorance a detraction from their sainthood.There are mystics who, seeing how God outgoes human knowledge, choose to assume that God is not a subject of human knowledge at all. Such mystics may mount to sublime heights of unreasoning contemplation, but there is an uncompleteness in their love, because they rob one part of their nature of all share in their approach to God. Love God with all your mind, because your mind, like all the rest of you, belongs to Him; and it is not right that you should give Him only a part to whom belongs the whole. Give your intelligence to God. Know all that you can about Him.Phillips Brooks.

Love to God.The measure of loving God is to love Him without measure.W. Burkitt.

A comprehensive law.When Thomas Paine resided in Bordentown, in the state of New Jersey, he was one day passing the residence of Dr. Staughton, when the latter was sitting at the door. Paine stopped, and after some remarks of a general character, observed, Mr. Staughton, what a pity it is that a man has not some comprehensive and perfect rule for the government of his life. The doctor replied, Mr. Paine, there is such a rule. What is that? Paine inquired. Dr. S. repeated the passage, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself. Abashed and confounded, Paine replied, Oh, thats in your Bible, and immediately walked away.Biblical Museum.

Mat. 22:38. The great and first commandment.Love is the great and first commandment:

I. In antiquity.Being as old as the world, and engraven in our nature.

II. In dignity.As directly respecting God.

III. In excellence.Being the commandment of the new covenant.

IV. In justice.As preferring God above all things, and rendering to Him His due.

V. In sufficiency.In making of itself man holy in this life, and blessed in that which is to come.

VI. In fruitfulness.In being the root of all other commandments.

VII. In virtue and efficacy.

VIII. In extent.
IX. In necessity.

X. In duration.As continuing for ever in heaven.Quesnel.

Mat. 22:39. The second great commandment.

1. So many as profess love to God must set themselves to love their neighbour also, at His command; for he cannot love God who will not love his neighbour.
2. It is lawful to love ourselves, yea, it is a commanded duty after our love to God, and with our love to God, and from our love to God; that is to say, so as our love to ourselves be not in the first room, which belongeth to God, so as our love of ourselves be subordinate unto the love of God, and may make us forthcoming to the honour of God, and doth not prejudge our love to God, but further the same; for the command which saith, Love thy neighbour as thyself, saith Love thyself, by a second and like command, depending on, and flowing from, the first.
3. A right ordered and measured love to ourselves is the rule and measure of our love to our neighbour; the love of God must be preferred both to ourselves and neighbour, so as we must not please ourselves or our neighbour by displeasing God; but our love to God being fixed in its own place, then, in reason, as we would have others do unto us, do we also unto them; for Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, that is, sincerely and constantly.David Dickson.

Mat. 22:39. Love to our neighbour.In canvassing the duty here enjoined, I shall consider:

I. Its nature.An attendant of regeneration. Disinterested. As thyself.

II. Its extent.

1. It extends to our families, friends and countrymen.

2. To our enemies.

3. To all mankind.

4. It extends in its operations to all the good offices which we are capable of rendering to others.

(1) The love required in this precept will prevent us from voluntarily injuring others.
(2) Among the positive acts of beneficence dictated by the love of the gospel, the contribution of our property forms an interesting part.
(3) Love to our neighbour dictates also every other office of kindness which may promote his present welfare.
(4) Love to our neighbour is especially directed to the good of his soul.

Conclusion.

1. From these observations it is evident that the second great commandment of the moral law is like the first.

2. Piety and morality are here shown to be inseparable.

3. The religion of the Scriptures is the true and only source of all the duties of life.T. Dwight, LL.D.

Self love.There is no express command in Scripture for a man to love himself, because the light of nature directs, and the law of nature binds and moves every man so to do. God has put a principle of self-love and of self-preservation into all His creatures, but especially in man.W. Burkitt.

Mat. 22:40. What is religion?The answers to the question are various, some of them wide enough of the mark, and others hitting it more or less nearly. Even where the answers are within sight of the truth there is a tendency to overlook the kernel of religion, and lay undue stress upon its husk. It was Christs function to remind a generation, blighted by formalism, where true religion lay. He pierced beneath all outward forms, laid bare the essence of religion, and sot it forth before mens eyes in the clear light of His own Divine wisdom: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. That is an account of religion worth meditating upon.

I. How simple it is!There is no mistaking what it means. Religion is in many ways a perplexing, complicated phenomenon. It touches us at so many points, it is so interwoven with the whole world of thought and feeling and conduct; it has so many different ways of expressing itself; it is so many-sided, and on some of its sides so profoundly mysterious, that it is natural enough to find variety and confusion and bewilderment in the conceptions men have entertained of it. Here, as elsewhere in human affairs, it is only those who have mastered a subject who can show us its simplicity. It was the genius of Newton that discovered the simplicity of the one all-pervading law of gravitation, which accounts at once for the falling of an apple and the movements of sun and planets. So the Divine insight of Christ into human life, and its relations with the life of God, has issued in the simplicity of His account of religion as love to God and love to man. Thought is a great element in human life, and belief has a large part to play in religion. Conduct, we are told, constitutes three-fourths of human life, and there can be no right religion without right conduct. Emotion is the source of much of the interest of life, and is deeply inwrought with religion. But Christ goes behind all that, behind thought and conduct and emotion, and fixes upon the moral will, expressing itself in love to God and man, as the deepest seat of religion.

II. Notice also, in Christs answer, how He has seized upon and emphasised the permanent element in religion.The accidents of religion may change. But amid all changes in religious activity, or worship, or creed, there is one thing at least which is unchangeablethat on which Christ has laid the chief stress. The inner pith of religion can never be elsewhere than where He has put itin love to God and love to man. It is a simple account of religion Christ gives; but if we are in earnest with His answer, and honestly strive to work it out in our daily life, its simplicity will seem to us to be something else than we often take it to be. Simplicity does not mean easiness. No. To love God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourself, that is a demand than which none else can be harder, which penetrates into the deepest deep of our being, and embraces the widest reaches of our thought and activity. To give God the supreme devotion of our hearts, to merge our wills in His, to yield to Him the complete mastery of our life, to let the current of our affection go out towards Himthat is not easy. To love our neighbour as Christ loved, to go about the world with sympathy ready to take upon itself others burdens, so to identify ourselves with others that we learn to regard their welfare as one with our own, to keep down all envy and jealousy and narrow-hearted-ness, and to be willing to deny ourselves for the good of our neighbourthat is not easy.

III. Christ links the two together.Devotion to our Heavenly Father and devotion to our fellows. They were linked together in that life of His which He lived beneath the Syrian skies, and where Christs religion is truly grasped they cannot be divorced. Love is a unity where it exists; it must go forth at once to God above us and to our fellows around us. Now notice that the demand is for love, not for mere awe, or zeal, or outward homage. You can test whether your relation to God is founded in love or in some less noble sentiment. You can test that by the effect it produces on your relation to your fellows. Love to God will show itself in love to man. On the other hand, you can reverse the process and test your love to man by your love to God. You cannot rightly love your brother without loving his Father and your Father. I do not say that there is no such thing as philanthropy, which is supposed to be dissociated from all reference to Godthough even that kind of philanthropy is more closely linked with God than is sometimes thought. But this I say, that you have not elevated your philanthropy to a worthy enough level till you love your brother as a man who is linked with God, and destined for life in God.

IV. These words of Christ form a noble guide for the religious life.Forget not what religion according to Christ means. Take heed lest you be so engrossed with its mere accidents that you lose sight of its substance. Strive that you may grow in love to God and man.D. M. Ross, M.A.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

TEXT: 22:3440

34 But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, gathered themselves together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, trying him: 36 Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 And he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 40 On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

Where do you think the Pharisees had been before this (cf. Mat. 22:15; Mat. 22:22)?

What do you think is the motive behind this lawyers desire to try Jesus? If he really had the proper understanding of Gods revelations as Mark shows him to have, from what point of view would he have formed this question so as to try Him?

In your opinion why did he choose precisely this question from among the many he could have brought before Jesus? Was this a question commonly discussed among the Jews? What, if anything, does this choice of questions reveal about the lawyer himself?

What could the Pharisean party hope to gain by submitting specifically this question?

In what sense is love for God rightly the first and greatest commandment?

In what sense is love for ones neighbor rightly the second commandment? Why should it be second? In what sense does it depend upon the first commandment?

In what sense is it true that all the law and the prophets depend upon these two commandments? If they are themselves part of the Mosaic Law, in what sense can the Law itself depend upon them? Even if everyone in our texts call these commandments, are they really legal requirements? How would you describe them, if you think they are not legal requirements?

In what sense should we understand the various terms listed with which we should love God: heart, soul, mind and strength (added from Mark)? Do you think these refer to different parts of mans makeup? If so, how would you define each one?

If Jesus did not furnish the scribe unique or original information in answer to his question, but rather cited him some texts out of his own Bible,

(1)

what should we conclude about the texts cited and about the Bible that included them?

(2)

what should we conclude about Jesus? Is He a true prophet or not? Are not prophets supposed to reveal fresh, new material? How do we know Jesus is Gods true Prophet precisely because He cited that ancient material?

(3)

what may we learn about the psychological advantage to be gained by an appropriate use of appeals to sources held to be authoritative by people whom we seek to persuade? Did the Apostles ever cite pagan sources for the same purpose?

How would you describe the character of the lawyer as this character appears in the mans final answer to Jesus given by Mark?

According to Mark, the scribes reaction was: You are right, Teacher, you have truly said that . . . Do you think he was standing up for Jesus in the midst of the fiery opposition the Lord had encountered in the previous skirmishes? Since he was a Pharisee (Matthew), what does this tell you about (1) this man, and (2) about Pharisees in general?

Mark reports Jesus reaction to the lawyers approval: You are not far from the Kingdom of God. To what phase or expression of the Kingdom does Jesus refer?

If Jesus answer could have been known through appropriate study of the Old Testament, why is it that, according to Mark and Luke, after that no one dared to ask Him any question?

What steps should one take to apply Jesus teaching given in this section to his own life? What questions should we ask about every issue or problem we face in order correctly to practice what Jesus requires here?

Do I really love God with the reality and fervency Jesus is talking about?

Do I really care about my neighbor the way I care about my own needs, problems, interests and desires?

According to Jesus, all of Gods religion is based on these two commands. Go through the New Testament listing all its commands and prohibitions. Do you find any that cannot be subsumed under one or the other of these two heads?

What do you think would happen if everyone were to practice these two commandments as Jesus means them?

What would the pragmatic success of practicing these two rules prove about the validity of the Christian faith?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had reduced the Sadducees to silence, they got together. One of them, an expert in Mosaic Law, who had been listening to the debate between Jesus and the Sadducees, approached Him. Recognizing how well He had answered His opponents, this Mosaic jurist proposed the following question to put Jesus to the test: Teacher, what sort of command qualifies as the most important in the Law?
Jesus answered, The most important is, Listen, Israel: the Lord our God is the only God there is! So, you must love Him with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind and with all the strength you have! This is the great, foremost precept. There is a second one similar to it and here it is: You must love your neighbor as you do yourself. The commandment does not exist that is more important than these two. In fact, these two commandments are the ultimate principles behind the entire Law and everything the prophets taught, their very essence.
Exactly, Teacher! the theologian said to Him. You are so right to say that the Lord is the only God there is. Furthermore, to love Him with all ones heart, all ones understanding and all ones strength, and to love ones neighbor as one loves himself, this is of far greater importance than the whole sacrificial system.
Recognizing the intellectual freedom with which the man answered, Jesus said to him, You are not far from Gods Kingdom.
After this, no one risked asking Him any more questions,

SUMMARY

One Pharisean legal expert, impressed by Jesus debating skill, tested Him with a question concerning the most important commandment in all Mosaic legislation. Jesus pointed to those commands which required whole-souled concern for God and ones neighbor. These, according to Jesus, summarize the Old Testaments message. To this the theologian could but echo his assent that this morality really surpassed mere ritual without it. Jesus openly praised this Pharisees discernment. However, no one else signed up for the debate: they did not dare!

NOTES
I. SITUATION

Mat. 22:34 But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, gathered themselves together. Unexpectedly, someone broke away from the circle around Jesus to carry the exciting news that the Nazarene had just now muzzled their old foes, the Sadducees. So Sadducean wit too had dried up: their thrashing attempt to expose the Galilean rabbi as an unprincipled incompetent had back-fired too! The Pharisees convened all their forces at the same place (sunchthsan ep t ep aut) to discuss the next step. But, if but recently they had been blistered by Jesus intelligent answers, Why should they desire to get burnt again?

1. Jesus victory over the rationalistic Sadducees on the great question of the resurrection brought mixed reactions: lets try to imagine their frame of mind in this situation.

The Pharisees were in an expansive mood because someone had finally answered the skepticism and doubts that had so long frustrated their own efforts to settle the crucial doctrine of the resurrection.

But their rejoicing soured because it was not a Pharisee that had soundly disposed of the Sadducees. Rather it had been that upstart rabbi from Galilee! So they could not rejoice even if He had confirmed this truth so dear to their party.

Rather than assemble to communicate to Him their partys gratitude for devastating that skeptical position so effectively, they regroup to attack Him! They do not care about the victory of truth, because they cannot rejoice that Jesus had overcome. In their malicious envy and party spirit they seek to crush Him who had caused truth to triumph. (Contrast Pauls attitude: Php. 1:15-18.)

The Sadducees had proved their incompetence as guardians of the nation. But their liberalism could not be expected to hold the line against someone who genuinely respected the Scriptures but rejected traditional orthodoxy. Surely a shrewd Pharisean mind could be trusted to state truth correctly where the best of Saddu-cean scholarship wilted before the Galilean prophet.

But if Jesus could be tempted to commit Himself on another question that would also embarrass the Sadducean hierarchy sufficiently to goad them into disposing of Jesus, the Pharisees hands would be clean, the Sadducees would do the dirty work, and Jesus would be gone. If He damned ceremonial law and Levitical ritual with the same vehemence He attacked rabbinical decisions (Mat. 15:1 ff.), the embittered Sadducean hierarchy would have ample cause to indict Him, because their political power depended upon the prestige and importance of the Temple and their monopoly of its liturgy.

Perhaps one or all of these considerations prodded the Traditionalists to renew their earlier, ill-starred assault. This time duplicity must be excluded: He could unmask it too quickly! (Cf. Mat. 22:18; Luk. 20:20; Luk. 20:23.) Now Jesus must be examined with sincerity and fairness to determine the breadth and depth of His real mastery of Gods revelation and human nature.

Mat. 22:35 One of them, a lawyer: The Pharisee chosen to represent these highly agitated, frustrated heads of orthodox religion was an expert in theological law (nomiks, Mark calls him a scribe grammates), hopefully well-qualified to present the test question and judge the correctness of its answer.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MATTHEWS ACCOUNT?

Some commentators, seeing that Matthew omitted to present this lawyer in a favorable light by not mentioning his positive reaction to Jesus answer and the Lords commendation of the man, consider Marks version preferable because it presents the good side of the world of the Pharisees. (Cf. Bruce, Expositors Greek Testament, I, 276). Again,

The accounts vary in regard to the motive of the questioner. In Matthew he comes to tempt, in Mark in hope of getting confirmation in a new way of thinking on the subject, similar to that of the man in quest of eternal lifethat which put the ethical above the ritual. No anxious attempt should be made to remove the discrepancy (ibid., 424).

To describe Marks as the strictly accurate account (so Alford, 401) is to disparage Matthews less detailed report and declass it for weak believers as less strictly accurate. These scholars fail to observe that it is Mark who is less circumstantial in creating the setting, because, without Matthews information, we would surmise that the scribe simply wandered up and, hearing how well Jesus handled His antagonists, asked a question of his own. Further, it is Mark who omits the true relation of this scribe to his partys intention to try Jesus. Thank God, we can have BOTH Matthew and Mark to get the larger picture! Even so, we need not suppose that both Gospels record all that happened that day.

A cursory reading of Matthew alone would lead to the conclusion that the lawyer was an enemy like the party he represented. HOWEVER MATTHEW DID NOT AFFIRM THE LAWYERS PERSONAL HOSTILITY. This is merely a surmise based on his being a Pharisee (a group of bad repute elsewhere in Matthew). But with Marks information, we can arrive at what even Matthew knew but did not state: the scribe was actually personally open to Jesus. So, Matthews information is correct so far as it goes and does not contradict Mark when interpreted in light of ALL the available facts. By what right does the modern scholar demand that Matthew register all he knew about this or any other event? But that Matthew correctly represents this event as a trial is evident from the consideration of what Marks scribes reaction would have been, had Jesus NOT answered his question as well as He did! Those commentators that downgrade Matthew are simply unwilling to let all the witnesses testify to what happened that day. Is this true objectivity?
Do the following points include all the facts to form a good hypothesis?

Jesus beat the Sadducees fairly in debate and at least one Pharisee heard Him and reported His victory to his party (cf. Luk. 20:39).

The Pharisees gathered to discuss this event but could not decide the best course of action.

Another Pharisee, a lawyer, who too had heard Jesus, because he had a personal desire to talk to Him, volunteered to propound the test question. Because of his intellectual stature, he is chosen to represent the party in this next attack.

The lawyer then honestly presented Jesus his test question to which he had given much personal thought and really sought confirmation of his own conclusions. This explains his sincere admiration of Jesus ability.

Jesus, accordingly, dealt with the man as an individual, ignoring his party interests and connections. This explains His commendation.

In the process Jesus really and definitively passed the Pharisees examination.

In the lawyers question, therefore, there could well have been the confluence of two separate sets of motives: his own, apparently good (as pictured by Mark) and those of his party, apparently bad (as Matthew depicts them). Trying him (peirzn autn), then is Matthews wise selection of a word whose meaning-potential covers both motivations: to try, make trial of, put to the test, to discover what kind of a person someone is, either in a good sense; to put men to the test so that they may prove themselves true [or in this case, competent, HEF], or in a bad sense, to bring out something to be used against the one who is being tried, or to entice to sin. (Cf. Arndt-Gingrich, 646.)

Trying him, on the part of the Pharisees, must be interpreted as their endeavor to expose and destroy Him. From their partys standpoint the question was but an intellectual exercise, not a spiritual quest for truth.

Trying him, for the lawyer, meant something else. He was one of the crowd who saw Jesus best His adversaries (Mar. 12:28). Notice this incidental result of Jesus debating tactics: not only were His answers good, but His spirit inspired confidence and invited further investigation of the truth He taught. With no sinister motive, the scribe is trying him with a seriously intended question to see if He, who could so brilliantly muzzle the willfully treacherous, would be just as prepared with an appropriate response for an honest, sincere questioner. Trying him, his intention is to use this vexed question to test the depth of this rabbis understanding, if we may discern this intention from his reaction to Jesus answer and the Lords commendation (Mar. 12:32 ff.).

Mat. 22:36 Teacher. His opening words do not drip with honeyed sarcasm (cf. Mat. 22:16). This address is spoken in the quiet reserve of a dignified scholar intent on getting to the bottom of this entire question once and for all. In fact, if his goal is to sound Jesus depth, he could not have selected a more appropriate question! The choice of questions reveals his own breadth and depth. He does not choose some obscure, trifling issue, but goes to the heart of true religion: What is the great commandment in the law?

To appreciate this theologians question, we must understand something of the current debate in Judaism out of which it comes, as well as the practical problem behind the debate: are all of Gods commands equally important?

The scribes were agreed that the Law contained heavy and light precepts. (Cf. Pal. Talmud, Ber. 1:4; Yeb. 1:6.) But they differed on which commandments belonged to each category. Some considered circumcision as conferring the most merit; others held for tithing, fasting, sacrifices, washings or phylacteries as preeminent. Edersheim (Life, II, 404 cites Ab. Mat. 2:1; Mat. 4:2; Sanh. Mat. 11:3; Deb. Mat. 4:6) doubts that these rabbinic distinctions between light and heavy commands were in the lawyers mind, since rabbinism had decreed them of equal merit and equal validity.

But is this question appropriate? Is not anything God commands of importance equal to anything else He commands, just because HE says it?

Jesus did not reject the lawyers question as inappropriate. He answered it as it stood. To ask for the most important command of God does not necessarily imply that the questioned intends to dismiss those of lesser importance. Such a question may only intend to establish right priorities, especially in the presence of a conflict of duty where, of course, the more important duty must have priority.

Even Jesus speaks of the more important matters of the lawjustice, mercy and faithfulness (Mat. 23:23) in contrast to the law of tithing. (See Mat. 5:19 notes.) Our Lord is in perfect harmony with many marvelous Old Testament texts that summarize basic religion. Check them out for your own enrichment: Deu. 10:12-22; 1Sa. 15:22 f.; Psalms 15; Psa. 40:6-8; Psa. 50:7-23; Psa. 51:16-19; Psa. 69:30 f.; Isa. 1:11-17; Isa. 33:14-16; Jer. 7:21-23; Hos. 4:1; Hos. 6:6; Amo. 5:14 f., Amo. 5:21-24; Mic. 6:6-8; Hab. 2:4.

But this debate over most important commandments is productive of two widely differing points of view:

One position seeks to find the one law which may be kept in place of observing the whole law. This is a bare minimum approach that seeks one supreme command that excludes the others. This view misses the fundamental principle that the intentional omission, or ignoring of even one commandment is tantamount to violation of the entire law (Jas. 2:10), whereas the purpose of Gods whole system was to create a spirit of willing submission to God its giver and of readiness to do the whole thing.

The other seeks to find the one law that gives sense, direction, purpose and strength for keeping the whole system. This view seeks to understand the heart of the question in order to obey the whole law cheerfully, completely and intelligently. This seeks the one law which is great because it includes the others. This is probably the lawyers intent.

The lawyers question would be better translated: What kind of command is great in the law? (poa entol megl en t nm). Plummer (Matthew, 308) expands this question thus:

What sort of characteristics must a commandment have in order to be accounted great? Or is there any commandment which has these characteristics in a very marked degree? . . . What principle ought to guide one in making such distinctions?

He wisely seeks that fundamental principle necessary to measure the greatness of any commandment. He is not distinguishing moral and ceremonial laws as such, nor light from heavy precepts. He asks the right question: which of the 613 laws stands at the heart and foundation of Gods will?

How could the lawyers Pharisean brethren have permitted such a question? What could they have hoped to have gained by his proposing specifically this test? If this represents the peak of their ingenuity in this crisis, how did they suppose it could have helped their cause?

It was a real, debated issue. It could be asked sincerely as for information, hopefully without raising the suspicion of its intended Victim. Let Him expose himself on this hotly contested issue where they felt they had room to argue. With 613 commandments to choose from, in a battlefield already scarred with positions previously taken and abandoned, regardless of what he picks, we can always argue the relative importance of others in that bewilderingly wide field of laws both religious and civil, moral and ritual, home and foreign, public and private! At any rate, we can discredit his wisdom.

By focusing the issue on the Law, perhaps Jesus might be drawn into some misguided or otherwise objectionable declaration of His own authority in contradiction to the Law. Perhaps He would even abolish certain parts of the legislation in favor of others, inciting the Pharisees to scream for the high holiness and validity of the whole Law.

They could sound the depth of His knowledge and grasp of the Law. Anyone well-versed in legal questions could easily expose another who had not done his homework. So, it was a Pharisean expert in theological law who was chosen to launch this test-question.

In this setting it becomes clearer why this question would satisfy both the evil-intentioned legalists and their more fair-minded spokesman: it tested Jesus rabbinical credentials to the core. He had pushed them into an uncomfortable but just compromise regarding Roman legislation (Mat. 22:17), but this time He must answer concerning the holy law of God! How little these Pharisees understood the truly great commandment in the law is measured by their hatred of this Nazarene, their Neighbor, and consequently, by their rejection of the God whose message Jesus bore. However, God makes even mens malice to praise Him, for although it was Pharisean envy that posed Him this question, we too needed to know what principles lie at the heart of fundamental religion. So, what was intended as a dangerous trap for Jesus, God made to be a good thing for us: now we have His answer! Further, when asked about a point of law, Jesus turned everyones attention upon GOD, the Author of the Law, and upon OTHERS for whose benefit the Law was made.

II. JESUS RESPONSE

A. The First Table of Law: Duty to God (Deu. 6:4-5)

Mat. 22:37 And he said unto him. Although Mark (Mar. 12:29 f.) accurately remembers that Jesus quoted Deu. 6:4-5, thus prefacing the first great commandment with that solemn declaration of the unity of God, Matthew focuses on the second verse which presupposes it and proceeds at once to the only answer universally recognizable for the Pharisees question.

1. What we must do: Love

You shall love (agapseis: future used as an imperative). This is an order! (Cf. note on agap on Mat. 5:44, Vol. I, 312ff.) The kind of love commanded here is that intelligent good-will toward God that always seeks to do what He considers to be in His best interest, to please Him. This is, however, more than a sentiment however deeply felt. It is a motive to action, fundamental to everything Gods people are to do. Israel was taught to love God. (Study Deu. 10:12 f; Deu. 11:1; Deu. 11:13; Deu. 11:22; Deu. 13:3 f; Deu. 30:6; Deu. 30:16; Deu. 30:20.) He orders this love, because, where love is the governing attitude of the individual, the readiness to do anything He requires will be there too. Where this high motive is missing, a person will not do what is right. If he tries to do the right without this love, he will do it for the wrong motives, and it will not be accepted by God. Or if he attempts to do the right without love, his initial enthusiasm will have no staying power and he will not do what is right for very long. Israels historic failures illustrate the failure to love God.

To love God means to long for His fellowship, to delight in Him, to appreciate all His attributes, His justice, love, patience, mercy, power and plans, to show zeal for His honor. It is an unlimited, constant readiness to obey anything He says and to imitate His character. To love God completely means to love what He loves, to love what is His, especially to love the man God made in His own image (cf. 1Jn. 4:20). To love God truly means to fear Him above all else, trust Him no matter what, esteem Him for all that He does, adore Him and depend upon Him.

2. Whom we are to love: God

The Lord your God is not an Infinite Number or a mere Supreme Being, but the Lord, or the great Jahv, the self-existent, unchanging, eternal One whose very names assure us of His reality in contrast to all other objective non-existent deities men may choose. He is ever able to affirm: I am He who IS! (Exo. 3:14 f. LXX: eg eimi ho n . . . Krios ho thes; Hebrew: ehyeh asher ehyeh . . . yehovah elohey.) No one needs ever to fear that this Lord will go out of business! Although krios (Lord) is but a Septuagint substitution for the Divine Name (JHVH), Jesus did not retranslate the text as He quoted it (much to the chagrin of Jehovahs Witnesses who would wish He had inserted the Divine Name in Hebrew). This leaves Gods Lordship ever as one of the nuances involved in His Name. So He is the Lord whose sovereignty rightfully commands your love. He is your God, the object of your worship, service and praise, your Creator, Owner and Ruler whose covenant relation to you guarantees His faithful mercies and nearness to you. By signing His full Name to this command, God gently reminds His people who it is that earned the right to demand this unselfish, limitless love.

3. How we are to love Him: Whole-heartedly

What does it mean to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, with all your mind? Are these phases of our being to be thought of as distinct areas?

Heart (Karda = Heb. leb). The Biblical concept of heart concerns the basis and center of our personality. (Cf. Psa. 104:15; Act. 14:17; 1Sa. 16:7; 1Pe. 3:4; 1Pe. 1:22; Eph. 4:18; Mat. 13:15; 1Co. 4:5; 1Co. 7:37; Heb. 8:10; 1Jn. 3:20 f.; Rom. 1:24; Eph. 6:22; Mat. 11:29.) These texts use the word heart to refer to what we really are spiritually, sometimes even physically. It is the center of our thoughts, feelings, conscience, will and disposition. If deep-rooted sentiment is meant here, we must love God supremely, ardently, with all we have and are.

Soul (psuch = Heb. nephesh). Usually, but not always, soul in Scripture refers to that combination of spirit and body that we call life. (Cf. Mat. 20:28; Joh. 10:11; Joh. 10:15; Joh. 10:17.) But because we see life wholistically, we speak of our soul in the way we speak of our whole being. (Cf. Joh. 12:27; Act. 2:43; Act. 14:22; Act. 4:32; Joh. 10:24 in Greek; Mat. 10:28; Mat. 10:39; Mat. 16:25 f.) Soul, then, emphasizes our readiness to surrender our life to Him, living it out in devoted service and being ready to die for Him, if faithfulness to Him requires it.

Mind (dianoia). No Hebrew equivalent here, because Jesus added this concept. Loving God with our intellect or reason, or our understanding involves various things:

Deep sincere beliefs held about God, not blind, unthinking devotion nor unreasoning, mystic contemplation. Our faith must be intelligent, based on evidence reasonably evaluated.

Dedicating all our intellectual abilities and efforts to Him. In Gods Kingdom there are no prizes for intellectual shoddiness or lack of preparation. We are to use our critical faculties to study to learn everything we can about God and His will. This dedication of mind to Gods service is the only justifiable reason for Christian scholarship. But where pride in ones own intellectual accomplishments becomes supreme, one no longer uses his mind to love God.

Intelligent understanding of all we do, whether in worship or service, not mindless religious motion. A mind disconnected whether in prayer or praise supposedly prompted by the Spirit, is condemned by this great commandment to love God with the mind. (Cf. 1Co. 14:14-19 in the context of 1 Corinthians 13.)

Strength (ischs = Heb. me od, Mar. 12:29). This refers to both our physical strength and the spiritual vitality of our inner man, in short, to all the energy of our being, our force of character, the command we have over our circumstances and environment, our will and purpose.

None of these concepts are very far apart. In fact, it may be that there is deliberate overlapping in the meaning of the four words used, so that, by piling up these inextricably linked spheres of human personality, God could lead us to grasp the totality of our commitment to Him. (Note the cumulative force in the threefold repetition of the phrase with all your. . . .) This leaves no room for divided loyalties or partial affections. This entire, intricate inter-relation of our emotions, understanding, reasoning and will must participate together in our service to God. (Cf. Psa. 103:1.)

Lenski (Matthew, 880) is right to recognize this commandment, coming as it does from God Himself, as speaking to the subject of human psychology: If our Creator, who unquestionably understands us better than we could ever know ourselves, used every term He knew we would grasp to indicate our complex, spiritual and physical nature, one must pronounce false and misleading all simplistic theories of man that see him as a mere animal, a mere machine or a mere anything. What a high view of man God holds! We are not computer cards deterministically programmed nor mere numbers, but MEN fearfully and wonderfully made (Psa. 139:14).

This commandment is Gods demand that we give Him everything we have and arethe whole thing!

Mat. 22:38 This is the great and first commandment, because it underlies the first table of the Decalogue, forbidding all sins against God, such as polytheism, atheism and idolatry. Because it underlies Gods unity and absolute uniqueness, it also bans syncretism which reduces the unique, living God to a local deity of Jews and Christians, but not of the whole world. It further damns every type of philosophic concept that functions as a god in the mind of its adherents. It is also first, even indirectly suggested in the Second Commandment: showing love to thousands who love me and keep my commandments (Exo. 20:6; Deu. 5:10). It is unquestionably first and great, because out of it will flow everything else, even the second great commandment.

In the final analysis, however, we cannot serve God directly. He has no necessities we could supply. We could never increase His glory nor confer on Him something He had not already given us. But He does have needy human beings here on earth to whom we may offer useful service in His name. So He recommends these in His place:

B. The Second Table of Law: Duty to Ones Neighbor (Lev. 19:18)

Mat. 22:39 And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. (See notes on Mat. 5:43-48; Mat. 7:12 and Mat. 19:16-20.) The legal expert had requested that Jesus select that single law which was greatest. The Lord, however, must indicate also a second which is a necessary companion to the first.

It is a second like unto the first in that loving ones neighbor refers to the same category of moral law. He selects no third commandment. Only these two, taken together, form the ethical foundation for all the rest. It is this shared function that exhibits their similarity.

Both command love that motivates one to do what the law directs (Rom. 13:8-10; Gal. 5:14; Jas. 2:8 ff.)

This precept follows naturally as the corollary to the first, because love for ones fellows is the only concrete way any of us can demonstrate the reality and depth of his love for God in whose image all men are created (Mat. 25:31-46; 1Jn. 3:10; 1Jn. 3:17 f.; 1Jn. 4:20; Heb. 6:10; Pro. 19:17).

In fact, our love for God must be the precondition and inspiration for love for our fellows. It is only when we love Gods view of man that we can learn to love man too. Only when we see in man what God sees in him can we begin to love him. Thus, the definitive foundation of true humanity (humanness and humaneness) is our appreciation of God. Remove this, and our idealism degenerates into cynicism because mans resistance to change will frustrate us. Human ingratitude will make us pessimistic about mans perfectibility and quench the enthusiasm of our ideals. So, the true foundation of a broad, unrelenting, indomitable love for man must be deeply rooted in the staying power we derive from a loving God who renews our vision of what man can become and furnishes us the power of His Spirit through the Gospel to effect this.

1. What we are to do: Love

You shall love (agapseis, future used as an imperative, the same form used to order us to love God). This love can be ordered. It is no sweet sentiment touching only the affections or simply a question of tastes or inclinations, likes or dislikes. Rather, it is an intelligent concern for our fellows that puts us at the service of their true welfare to seek their highest good. Sin is impossible for the person who loves another the way God means it, because love prompts him to want to bless, not injure, the other (Rom. 13:8-10). Stealing, killing, committing adultery and exploiting others become unthinkable. Such love prompts us, not simply to feel right about our neighbor, but to do right with him and for him, according to Gods ethical standard. This love causes us to teach him, correct, reprove and exhort him. Not to do so becomes, by definition, evidence of lack of love.

2. Whom we are to love: Our neighbor

That this love for ones neighbor must include more than ones own fellow citizens, his private family circle or coreligionists, is amply proven by the chapter from which this text is taken, Leviticus 19, esp. Lev. 19:34. (Cf. Deu. 10:18 f.: God loves the aliens, so you love them too!) Jesus chose a Samaritan to display the meaning potential of the word, neighbor (Luk. 10:25-37). Study also Jesus rejection of love limited to local associations (Mat. 5:43-48). Such love requires us to act benevolently toward our enemies even to the point of helping them in their distress, by acting neighborly toward them (Rom. 12:14-21).

3. How we are to love Him: As we love ourselves

As thyself: Jesus assumes that normal people rightly love themselves. So, He appropriates this psychological reality to serve as the standard for determining the depth and warmth of our love for others.

There is a proper self-love that is at the same time Scripturally correct and psychologically sound. (Study Eph. 5:28 f., Eph. 5:33.) He did not say, Love your neighbor instead of yourself, but Love him as you do yourself. What is this appropriate self-love? It is that genuine appreciation of our own dignity and worth as human beings, based on what the Bible considers man to be.

The opposite of this kind of self-love is self-hate, a despising of what one is or has. This self-depreciation leaves a person insecure about his worth and struggling for some other identity he hopes will make him confident and someone he himself can look up to. It is this self-hate that arrogantly exalts self at the expense of others and tramples on them to get ahead.
But if a person could just accept himself, he would have inside information on how to accept others. In fact, the degree to which we genuinely accept ourselvesour abilities, our limitations, our economic situation, our parents, our age, health and sexin short, our true identityis the measure of our ability to love and accept others. But it is also useless to tell a sinner to accept and love himself when he hates himself. His bad conscience relentlessly pursues and accuses him.

Therefore, this proper kind of self-acceptance must be acquired. Unrepentant sinners cannot really love themselves, unless they can arrive at a satisfactory solution of the very problems that make them hate their own self-image. Only God has that kind of a solution: He loves them. When sinners find out that the God who made them also loved them enough to send Jesus to die for them, and believe it, then this realization that they are loved gives them a dignity, a sense of worth and a concern for their own self-preservation. And the sinner will not rest satisfied to remain as he is, because he has hated what he is and was. Rather, he can let Jesus make him over in His own likeness, and in this new self he can rejoice (Rom. 6:1-11; 2Co. 3:18; 2Co. 5:17-21; Eph. 4:22-24; Php. 3:20 f.; Col. 3:10-17). So, this proper love for ourselves must originate in in our embracing Gods love for us: If He loves me despite all He knows about me, surely I can accept myself. Thus it becomes much easier to love my neighbor.

The new creature in Christ can now view his gifts and limitations, his wealth or poverty, his slavery or freedom, his nationality, sex, age or health, with unaccustomed equanimity (1Co. 7:17-24; Gal. 3:28). Whereas before he was an outsider, now he belongs (1Pe. 2:9 f.), now he is important (1Co. 12:12-27), now he is secure (Joh. 10:28 f.). This kind of person knows and accepts his own worth and does not have to prove himself by trampling the rights of others. Rather, his new-found self-respect gives him insight into what it means to have appropriate respect for others. But God taught him to love himself, live with himself and gave him courage to face himself in the mirror. Sensing what this means to himself, he can now appreciate what it means to bring others to this same joy. He can now love others as himself.

This self-love does not contradict other divine demands that we deny ourselves, crucify our pride or otherwise mortify what is earthly in us. (Cf. Mat. 16:24; Rom. 6:6; Col. 3:5.) In fact, the very inducement to sacrifice ourselves in order to be all that God desires so we can bask in the glory of His blessing, is the fact that WE WANT IT FOR OURSELVES. (Paradoxically, self-denial is robbed of its priceless, sacrificial character, if the self we sacrifice was not loved anyway. Therefore, even self-denial presupposes self-acceptance without pride, self-love without smugness.) And because His blessing is offered to those who look not only to their own interests, but also to the interests of others, in humility considering others better than themselves, doing nothing from selfishness or conceit (cf. Php. 2:3 f.), He is really rewarding the unselfish, the uncalculating, the generous. His rewards are nothing that would even interest self-seeking, pushy people. Rather, the rewards of self-denial and self-sacrifice are so deeply satisfying, so highly desirable and so perennially refreshing, that the person who really loves himself will seek these above all else. This is the only individual who, in his own best interest, really loves and serves others (2Co. 12:15; 1Jn. 3:16). For Jesus there is no necessary conflict between serving ones own interests and that of others: one can have both (Php. 2:4).

Mat. 22:40 On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets. Law and prophets is a circumlocution for the entire Old Testament (cf. notes on Mat. 5:17 f.; Mat. 7:12), i.e. whatever God revealed of His will, whether by law or prophet, is suspended from these two nails. Take away this love for God and man, and the law and prophets fall to the ground, meaningless. In so saying, Jesus underscores these truths:

No mere formalism or external ritual has any value apart from the spirit in which it is done, or divorced from the great, underlying principle which it is intended to exalt and exemplify. The Law has not obeyed nor the prophets respected, unless obedience be prompted by whole-hearted love. Jesus condemns the heresy of elevating ceremonies over morality and principles.

Everything God commands is important, however seemingly external or ceremonial, because even the apparently insignificant duties are not properly done without reference to the high purpose of God for requiring them. What God has revealed is not a series of unconnected commandments, but one united, all-embracing design for a life-style that has a solid basis in love for God and man.

These two commandments hang together in combination. Contrary to moderns who would put the accent on the second commandment and glorify humanistic philanthropy or some other religion-less love for ones fellows, while at the same time forgetting love for God and His will, Jesus associates these two concepts and actually gives priority to the first! Human life is shallow and incomplete without both. Neither mere social action nor passive piety can be enough. Brotherly love and philanthropy cannot be substituted for true religion, but should be produced by it.

However, it is simply not true that if a man truly loves God with all his being and his fellowman as himself, he will not need any further commandments. Jesus implies that the law and the prophets are those revelations God considered NECESSARY TO RENDER EXPLICIT WHAT IT MEANS IN PRACTICE TO LOVE PROPERLY. Otherwise, why did not God simply dictate these two ordinances from Sinai and skip the rest? To paraphrase McGarvey (Fourfold Gospel, 604), Love without guidance is insufficient: the whole law and the prophets were given to furnish this leadership for love to follow. Love without law is power without direction, and law without love is machinery without a motor. (Study 1Co. 9:21; Joh. 14:15; Joh. 14:21; Jas. 1:25; Jas. 2:8; Jas. 2:12.)

So, even though these commandments are written into the Law as individual precepts in it and are explained by the prophets, nevertheless these two regulations are the basic theory behind the entire Mosaic system. They are the moral principles which, in the given moment of Hebrew history called for the Pentateuchal legislation and comments thereon by the prophets. Although an integral part of that now antiquated Law, they rise above it and are permanent, because eternally right. They are the goal to which the Law was conducting people (cf. 1Ti. 1:5). This explains why the Gospel era will glorify and expand them.

Nor is it true that Jesus replaced the law and the prophets with love. Rather, He fulfilled them by love. The law and the prophets dictated the right actions, but love furnished the right motive for doing them. Now, under Jesus program, we are not required to observe the externals of Mosaic Law, not even the Ten Commandments as such. But we are required to observe the principles and spirit that inspired the Old Testament system: love for God and neighbor. These unchanging rules had as their purpose that we learn to glorify God and do good to our fellows. Jesus has altered the details considerably, but He holds us responsible for faithful obedience to these same ethical principles that were the foundation of the law and the prophets. To put it another way, we are essentially under the same system of religion and ethics known to the Jews. The great differencesand they are tremendousare a question of specifics, not principles.

These are the two principles which will give us light and direction not merely in all our life here on earth, but will also prove to be excellent guidance forever! Can we ever outgrow our need to love God or the saints? This is the permanent element in religion and morals. Baptism, the Lords supper, even evangelism will all pass away at the Lords return. But not these two commandments. With them we are onto something eternal!

These two rules are the key to understanding not only all God was saying in the law and the prophets, but also everything He has now said in the Gospel too. Any New Testament precept that seems dark or difficult will find its explanation and motivation in one of these two master-principles of true religion and morality. Our concept of duty to the Lord must not consist in blind obedience to a series of segmented, isolated rules. Everything we do for Him must find its ultimate origin in, or be reducible to, one or the other of these two rules.

WAS THERE NOTHING UNIQUE ABOUT THIS ANSWER?

Scholars are fond of pointing out that this was not the first time a Jew ever selected these two commandments for candidacy for expressing the Laws essence. (Cf. Luk. 10:27 which is a separate event.) Nor would it necessarily have been original with that other lawyer who recited them together for Jesus then.

The conjunction of these two commandments in one unitary concept has been noticed in The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, ed. Charles, Pseudepigrapha, 326, 328, 334): Dan. 5:3 : Love the Lord through all your life, and one another with a true heart. Issachar Mat. 5:2 : But love the Lord and your neighbor, have compassion on the poor and weak. Issachar Mat. 7:6 : I loved the Lord; likewise also every man with all my heart. Another version of this text: The Lord I loved with all my strength: likewise also every man I loved more than my own children. (Cf. Zebulon Mat. 5:1.) However, the Jewish author of that book, as also Philo (De Septen quoted by Plummer, Matthew, 309) was just as dependent upon Moses and the Pentateuch as was Jesus who was quoting Deuteronomy and Leviticus. So they were not really unique wisdom either. HOWEVER, THESE JEWISH WRITINGS DO NOT EXPLICITLY AFFIRM THAT THESE TWO COMMANDS TAKEN TOGETHER ARE THE LAWS GREATEST.

But must we suppose that Jesus always tried for originality in His teaching and answers? Why SHOULD He attempt to be original, when asked to cite the Mosaic Laws greatest commandment? He had been asked to comment on the Torah, drawing forth its essential element expressed in a single commandment. This He did. His originality does not depend on this. There are times when one must NOT be an innovative theologian, as some moderns love to be considered. This was a time when Jesus must be the faithful ambassador of the One who sent Him, loyally delivering the message intrusted to Him. If Moses had already revealed these commandments, we should not expect Jesus to hope for absolute originality in this case.

But was there nothing original in His answer?

Could it be that the uniqueness of Jesus answer lies in His refusal to annihilate human personality? Many religionists have promoted self-hatred as their only solution, demanding various forms of self-punishment and endless penance. Jesus, on the other hand, launches His ethic from a solid base of each individuals self-respect defined by Gods estimate of mans true worth. However, Moses had said it first.

Would it be that the unique feature of this answer lies in the perception that true religion and ethics do not arise out of mere conformity to some external code? The man who is righteous merely because he fears not to be, is not really good by Jesus definition. But so say also the Old Testament prophets.

Could it be that Jesus alone expressly underscored the profound connection and similarity between these two commandments, summing up in these two alone the entire meaning of religion and ethics, and by so doing, placed them over against every other rule or precept? Who else did this?

WHAT DOES THIS INCIDENT REVEAL ABOUT JESUS?

He knew His Bible well and trusted its teaching. The Pharisean test intended to probe His grasp of Mosaic Law. But He reached confidently into that vast library of legal prescriptions and quickly returned with the two concepts that furnish the basis of everything else.

Jesus was not prejudiced against the Pharisees per se, as a cursory reading of chapter 23 would perhaps lead one to think. When even a Pharisee asked a worthwhile question, regardless of his partys motives, Jesus could answer him civilly and helpfully and commend his insight and encourage his progress toward the Kingdom.

Jesus perfect balance is also obvious: rather than reject ritual in favor of moral law, He pointed to those principles that made both necessary and gave sense to both. He saw no false dichotomy between the moral and ceremonial laws, because both grew out of the same principles.

Let it not be thought that, because Jesus reduces all of religion and morality to these two simple rules, this simplicity means that our practice of His teaching is going to be easy. Nothing could be more difficult than responding consistently to the far-reaching demands these principles make upon our entire being. To surrender unconditionally to God the sovereignty of our will, to accord Him unlimited command over our mind, and to fix our attention and affection solely on Him is to accept a life-long, life-changing mission. And to accept our neighbor as Jesus loved him, sympathetically prepared to lift and bear his load, to place ourselves in his place so completely as to consider his success our own responsibility, thus renouncing our own rights so we can promote his well-being, is not going to be easy. Anyone who thinks Jesus has somehow made things easy has simply not begun to ponder His meaning nor practice His answer!

MUTUAL ADMIRATION RESULTED

Characteristically, Matthew did not record the lawyers response. Sometimes after penning Jesus final punchline, the Apostle simply drops any further narration, to let the reader meditate on Jesus words, be challenged or corrected by them, rather than distract him with further details about what others did. (Cf. Mat. 8:4; Mat. 8:12 f., Mat. 8:22; Mat. 12:8; Mat. 12:50; Mat. 15:20; Mat. 16:4; Mat. 16:12; Mat. 16:28; Mat. 17:21; Mat. 17:27, etc.) To Matthew it seems to matter, not so much how others reacted, as how his readers would. Mark, however, documented the lawyers admiring rejoinder and Jesus commendation of his grasp. (See the PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY for details.)

How considerably this lawyer differs from the scribe in Luke 10! The other, upon facing this same self-evidently true answer, wanted to justify himself and, not unlikely, limit the scope of his love. This man, instead, willingly dismissed his purpose for being there to ensnare Jesus and unashamedly embraced His truth. The mans voice rings with genuine conviction as he spontaneously rephrases the Scriptures in Jesus answer, independently thinking it through and daringly concluding, The ethical principles of love for God and man are superior to the entire Levitical sacrificial system. His instant enthusiasm for Jesus answer is psychologically predictable, if we see his language as that of a man who had already pondered this question, reached a sounder conclusion than most of his peers, even if not generally accepted by them, but who finally heard his views confirmed by Jesus.

You are not far from the Kingdom of God, is Jesus assessment. Not far, because he understood the high, ethical character of the Kingdom, and because he shared its spirit as a serious inquirer. Here is one Pharisee who can see that external forms and empty rituals amount to nothing unless motivated by a real love for God and man! Here is one unprejudiced Pharisee open to truth wherever he finds it, able to think for himself, independently of party lines and approval. Jesus saw that he had a mind of his own (Mar. 12:34 : nounechs, having a mind). No wonder this man arrested Jesus attention! His approval of this Pharisees progress is founded on the mans critical discernment blended with a meek, devout spirit, especially since this man was the Pharisean Head Inquisitor sent to test Jesus. However, not far from the Kingdom does not mean in it.

Jesus warns us indirectly that there can be non-Christians within the influence of true religion, who are able to give the right answers and even understand the spirit of Christianity better than legalists within the Church itself. But nearness is not possession. One is not in Gods Kingdom merely because he is a diligent seeker or sensible enough to recognize truth when faced with it or because of his orthodox views. One must LOVE enough to pay the price of entrance and go on in!

Jesus encourages us to believe that a correct grasp of the message of the Old Testament really does fit the mind for understanding Christianity and readies one to grasp it when proclaimed. This man was not far from the Kingdom, because to understand these two commands could lead to self-evaluation and recognition of his need to repent and seek Gods forgiveness. To grasp this could lead him to ask Jesus the way, and to do this would open the Kingdom to him.

By saying, not far, Jesus invited all such people to come all the rest of the way.

Even Mark did not finish the story: did this prospective convert go on in earnest conversation to ask Jesus those questions that would have taken him all the way into the Kingdom? To know that does not matter. What are YOU going to do?

FACT QUESTIONS

In what general context did this event occur? In what week of Jesus ministry?

What had taken place not long before this event? What is the local context? Had the Pharisees attacked Jesus before this? When? With what approach?

What had the Pharisees heard of the conversation between Jesus and the Sadducees?

According to Mark, what had a certain Pharisee noticed about the discussion between Jesus and the Sadducees?

What question is posed to Jesus?

Who is the questioner who asked it? What was his professional qualification?

What is stated about the mans motives?

Was Jesus answer unique in the sense of being new revelation never before heard on earth? If not, who had given this answer before? Where, fundamentally, did the answer come from? Where are these two precepts found?

What, according to Jesus, is the first commandment? What text did Jesus cite to establish His point? (Give book, chapter and verse.)

10.

What is the second commandment? What is the textual origin of this answer? (Give book, chapter and verse.) In what sense is the second commandment like the first?

11.

To what is allusion made in the expression: all the law and the prophets? Discuss various ways love fulfills all that the Law and prophets intended to convey.

12.

Explain how on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

13.

In what terms does Mark describe the Pharisees reaction to Jesus answer? What did he say?

14.

According to Mark, what judgment did Jesus pronounce upon the Pharisee?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(34) Had put the Sadducees to silence.The primary meaning of the Greek verb is to stop a mans power of speaking with a gag, and even in its wider use it retains the sense of putting men to a coerced and unwilling silence. (Comp. 1Pe. 2:15.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

QUESTION WITH THE LAWYER, Mat 22:34-40.

34. Put the Sadducees to silence He had first silenced the Pharisees, then the Herodians, and last of all the Sadducees. See note preceding Mat 22:15. A candid lawyer from their own company now ventures to question him, with the purpose, indeed, to tempt, that is, to try him, but also with the purpose of yielding, where truth required. They were gathered together They collect into a consulting group.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, gathered themselves together.’

The Pharisees had no doubt heard with approval that Jesus had confuted the Sadducees on their favourite topic, but it only stirred them up the more to try to show Him up. So they came together again for that purpose (compare for ‘testing’ Jesus Mat 16:1; Mat 19:3).

‘Gathered themselves together.’ Compare Act 4:26 citing Psa 2:2. The idea is of gathering together in patent hostility.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Question As To What Is The Greatest Commandment (22:34-40).

Jesus’ success over the Sadducees was seen as sufficiently impressive to cause rumours concerning it to spread around which came to the ears of the Pharisees. They also had failed to trap Him, but it gave them the idea that perhaps they could at least get Him involved in controversy. Then at least, in a nation which was full of people with fervent and fixed but differing views, some people would be disillusioned with Him. And they recognised that they had to hand such a question, a question which was hotly debated, and that was as to which law out of the over six hundred laws that they had identified from the Law of Moses was the most important to fulfil. This in itself could be a minefield. For whichever law He chose they would be able to suggest His lack of sympathy with other very important laws. And if He refrained from agreeing that one was more important than the other then they could accuse Him of folly in suggesting that looking after a mother bird when its eggs were taken (Deu 22:7) was of equal importance to preventing murder or adultery.

So they came to Him, and through one of their Scribes, put the question to Him. And in reply He referred them to Deu 6:5 and Lev 19:18 which He saw as covering them all, for it revealed that Jesus saw love for God and love for man as lying at the root of all the commandments. This would certainly not be the only time when He was faced with a question similar to this, for it was such a popular one that it was no doubt put to Him time and again. Indeed we learn of another example in Luk 10:25-28, which was when He was in Galilee, and there is no reason for not seeing that as a different incident. But Matthew puts it here as a kind of inclusio along with the Sermon on the Mount, which between them encompassed His ministry and revealed what lay at the very heart of it.

Analysis.

a But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, gathered themselves together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him out. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” (Mat 22:34-36).

b 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” (Mat 22:37).

c “This is the great and first commandment” (Mat 22:38).

b “And a second like to it is this, You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Mat 22:39).

a “On these two commandments the whole law hangs, and the prophets” (Mat 22:40).

Note that in ‘a’ the crunch question is as to which is the greatest commandment in the Law, and in the parallel are two commandments on which the whole of the Law and the prophets hang. In ‘b’ the first great commandment is stated, and in the parallel the second great commandment. Centrally in ‘c’ is the declaration of what is the first and great commandment.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Silencing of the Pharisees.

Information asked and given:

v. 34. But when the Pharisees had heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.

v. 35. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked Him a question, tempting Him, and saying,

v. 36. Master, which is the great commandment in the Law?

v. 37. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.

v. 38. This is the first and great commandment.

v. 39. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

v. 40. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets.

The Sadducees had been most effectually silenced, so that they had nothing more to say. Now the ancient rivalry between the two sects came into play. Should the members of the one succeed in conquering Jesus in an argument, it would be a feather in the cap of the entire party. So the Pharisees determined to find a point in which they could triumph over the Lord. They came together and finally agreed upon a certain question, whose answer would be sure to compromise Him. In a very earnest manner, as though they were most sincere in their longing after truth, their spokesman, one well versed in the Law, put the question; Which is the great commandment, the most important, the one upon which everything depends? His purpose is evident. If Jesus should select some single precept of the Law and place it above the rest, He might be accused of giving to the other commandments a correspondingly low position and denying their validity. But Christ avoids the pitfall by giving a summary of the entire Law, placing that of the first table first and that of the second table immediately beside it. The love toward God is the fulfillment of the Law. But the entire heart, the entire soul, the entire mind must be His, Deu 6:5. Reason and intellect, sentiment and passion, thought and will, must be given into His service. “Take, then, before thee this commandment: Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart, and think upon that, seek after it, and try to understand it, what kind of a law it is, how far thou still art from fulfilling this commandment; yea, that thou hast not really begun to fulfill it rightly, namely, to suffer and to do from thy heart what God wants of thee. It is pure hypocrisy if one will crawl into a corner and think: Aye, I want to love God! Oh, how dearly I love God: He is my Father! Oh, how well-intentioned I feel toward Him! and similar things. Indeed, when He does according to our pleasure, we can say many such words, but when once He sends us misfortune and adversity, we no longer consider Him to be a God or a Father. A true love toward God does not act thus, but feels it in the heart and says it with the mouth: Lord God, I am Thy creature, do with me as Thou wilt, it is all the same to me; for I am Thine, that I know; and if it should be Thy will that I should die this hour or suffer some great misfortune, I should suffer it with all my heart; I shall never consider my life, honor, and goods, and whatever I have, higher and greater than Thy will, which shall be well-pleasing to me all my life. ” (Luther.) This is the first commandment, the one with which sanctification begins. And it is great, since it includes all the other commandments. But the second is like it, Lev 19:18-34, since it brings the love to God, in the fulfillment of His Law, into a visible, tangible form, in the relation toward one’s neighbor. As every person by nature has the wish to have only the good and pleasant fall to his lot, so he should endeavor, in all his relations toward His neighbor, to yield and provide for him the same pleasant and agreeable things wherever he can. In these two commandments hang the whole Law and the prophets. The faith of the heart finds its expression in the doing of the will of God, and the sanctification of life begins and ends in love toward God and man. Love is the fulfilling of the Law, Rom 13:10.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Mat 22:34 . The following conversation respecting the great commandment is given in Mar 12:28 ff. with such characteristic detail, that Matthew’s account cannot fail to have the appearance of being incomplete , and, considering the bias of the incident (see note on Mat 22:35 ), to look as if it represented a corrupt tradition. In Luk 10:25 ff. there is a similar conversation, which, however, is not given as another version of that now before us, but as connected with a different incident that took place some time before.

.] Comp. Mat 22:15 . They had already been baffled, and had withdrawn into the background (Mat 22:22 ); but the victory of Jesus over the Sadducees provoked them to make one more attempt, not to avenge the defeat of those Sadducees (Strauss), nor to display their own superiority over them (Ebrard, Lange), neither view being hinted at in the text, or favoured by anything analogous elsewhere, but, as was the object in every such challenge, to tempt Jesus, if that were at all possible, to give such an answer as might be used against Him, see Mat 22:35 .

] whether while present (among the multitude), or when absent, through the medium, perhaps, of their spies, cannot be determined.

] for the purpose of concerting measures for a new attack. Consequently the of Mat 22:35 had to be put forward, and, while the conversation between Jesus and him is going on, the parties who had deputed him gather round the speakers, Mat 22:41 . There is, accordingly, no reason to apprehend any discrepancy (Kstlin) between the present verse and Mat 22:41 .

] locally , not said with reference to their sentiments . See on Act 1:15 ; Psa 2:2 .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

D. The Attack of the Pharisees, and the Victory of the Lord. Mat 22:34-46

(Mar 12:28-37; Luk 20:41-44.The Gospel for the 18th Sunday after Trinity.)

34But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together [collected in the same place, ]. 35Then one of them, which [who] was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,29 36Master, which is the great commandment [what kind of commandment is great] in the 37law? 30 Jesus31 said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind (Deu 6:5). 38This is the first and great [the great and first]32 commandment. 39And the second [But a second, ] is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Lev 19:18). 40On these two commandments hang all the law [hangs the whole law, and [also] the prophets.33 41, While the Pharisees were gathered [collected] together, Jesus asked them, 42Saying, What think ye of [concerning the, ] Christ? whose son is he [of whom is he the son? ]? They say unto him, The son34 of David. 43He saith unto 44them, How then doth David in spirit [by the Spirit]35 call him Lord, saying, The Lord [in Hebrew: Jehovah] said unto my Lord [Adonai], Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool [till I put thine enemies under thy feet]?36 (Psa 10:5.) 45, If David then call37 him Lord, how is he his son? 46And no man [no one] was able to answer him a word, neither [nor] durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Mat 22:34-40. The Question of the Great Commandment, General Remarks.Mark gives it in an enlarged form; the narrative of Luk 10:28-37 has a kindred element. De Wette: Probably the three accounts are different forms of the evangelical tradition, derived from the same historical materials; although there are traces in Luke of some dependence on Matthew. Strauss: Three free variations of the same primitive Christian tradition. Meyer: The difference of time and place in Lukes account shows that the accounts of Matthew and Mark only may be considered As variations of the same tradition. We may add, that the occasion and the whole transaction are different in Luke. There, Jesus puts the question: here, the scribe. The account of Mark refers to the same fact, but under a different point of view. Matthew has in his eye the tempting assault which the sect of the Pharisees made upon Christ by one of their agents, without regard to the person of this agent. Mark, on the contrary, has taken pains to describe this latter in full, showing that his spirit was better than that of his party. There is nothing improbable in this; and in Matthews account also, the rich young man separates himself from the mass of Christs enemies, as having a nobler disposition than they. Those overpowering influences which Christ exerted upon some individuals in the ranks of the enemy, detaching them from the midst of their party, are among His greatest triumphs, and are anticipations of the power which converted Saul on the way to Damascus.

Mat 22:34. But when the Pharisees bad heard.What was the motive of the new assault? Strauss: In order to avenge the Sadduceesagainst all probability. The Pharisees were rather rejoiced that Jews had reduced their enemies to silence; and this Matthew intimates in his . (Luther: That He had stopped the mouths of the Sadducees.) Ebrard: In order to make evident their superiority to the Sadducees; which, although Meyer objects, seem very obvious. But they must have had, besides that, another and independent design. Meyer: They would extort from Jesus an answer to a question of their own which would compromise Him. But what answer? De Wette: We cannot see the embarrassing nature of their question. The Rabbins distinguished between great and small, weighty and light, commandments (Wetstein on Mat 5:19; Mat 23:28); such a distinction is the basis of all casuistry in morals. Probably, it was very customary at that time; and even if Jesus had declared Himself very freely on the question, it would not have involved Him in any danger. Meyer: The temptation of the question lay in the Rabbins distinctions of weighty and light commandments. If Jesus had mentioned any particular of a great commandment, His answer would have been measured by the standard of particular distinctions in schools of casuistry; and somehow He would have been compromised. Olshausen understands the of an honest desire to search out the views of Jesus.38Thus exegesis leaves us in the dark here.

But the tempting element of the question is explained by the answer and the counter-question of Jesus. The Pharisees doubtless took it for granted that Jesus would answer them: Thou shalt love God above all, or: Thou shalt have no other gods before Me; certainly He would mention the sanctity of monotheism. But their monotheism was altogether deistical in its bias, and had in it no christological principle. They argued from the unity of God, like Mohammed afterward (compare also the history of Ebionitism and Socinianism), that God could have no son. But they knew that Christ made Himself the Son of God; for this they had charged Him somewhat before (John 10) with blasphemy, asserting that He thereby made Himself equal with God. They intended, therefore, to found upon His expected answer, to love God above all, a charge of blasphemy, in making Himself equal to that supreme God by pretending to be His Son. But Jesus disturbed this tempting design by adding to the statement of the great and first commandment, to love God supremely, the declaration that the second was equal to it, to love our neighbor as ourselves. This elevated the human nature into a higher relation to the Divinity; and He said in effect: As the second commandment is subordinate to the first, and yet like unto it, so the Son of Man is subordinate to the Father, and yet like unto Him. The Pharisees felt at once the t His addition of the love to man had traversed their whole design. But that the argument referred to was really prepared by them, is plain from the question which the Redeemer based upon theirs; that is, the question how David could call the Messiah, his Son (therefore man), his Lord (therefore God, or Gods Son). The correctness of our exposition is shown also by the following consideration. The two charges under which the council placed Jesus before Pilates judgment-seat were these: 1. That He had made Himself the Son of God; 2. that He had made Himself king of the Jews in a political sense. This accusation was derived by them, in their embarrassment and affected daring, from that preliminary single but ambiguous charge, that He had made Himself the king of the Jews, that is, the Messiah (see the process in Joh 18:19). The same ambiguous word: king of the Jews, they first construed into a religious crime, and then, since that availed nothing, they construed it into a political crime. On this day of temptations, they strove to extract from Him a confession of both these charges. The temptation of making Him a political Messiah had come to nought. They then thought that at least they would involve Him in another, and more perilous condemnation, that of blasphemously impugning monotheism, or undermining the fundamental idea of the Jewish religion: this charge, though not quite so serviceable before Pilate, would serve them better before the people. We are warranted in this supposition by the questioning before Caiaphas, Mat 26:63, and the condemnation to death winch ensued upon the answer of Jesus.

They were collected on the same spot.We may ascribe to a wide diversity of motives the excitement which caused the Pharisees to flock to the spot in masses: delight at the humiliation of the Sadducees; the desire to do bettor than they had done; despair that all means had failed to extort from Jesus any ground of accusation; among some of them, a nobler complacency in the victory won for the doctrine of the resurrection; probably, also, the wish to induce Him to give up His extravagant pretensions to be the Messiah and the Son of God, and, as an orthodox teacher of the people (in an Ebionite sense), would make Himself useful to them against the Sadducees. , as in Act 1:15, referring to place, not sentiment.

Mat 22:35. A lawyer, .A word often used by Luke; by Matthew only here. Paulus understands it, one who acknowledged only the Pentateuch and Scripture, rejecting tradition; that is, a Sadducee (or Scripturist, Karaite;though these last did not yet exist, they were germinally present in the Sadducees). But this, as de Wette objects, is contradicted by the , which necessarily must be referred to the Pharisees. Meyer: He was a Mosaic jurist: designates the same as teacher; . is only an enlargement of the idea of one versed in Scripture, a Biblical scholar, whose calling was the study and exposition of Holy Writ. Comp. Gfrrer in the Thinger Zeitschrift for 1838, 1:146.

Mat 22:36. Which is the great commandment?Meyer lays stress39 upon the , and explains: How must a commandment be, or what character must it have, in order to be called great? But the answer of Jesus does not suit this. Yet certainly the indicates the quality of the commandment. The great, , says more than the greatest. The greatest might be brought into comparison with the less great; but the great must, strictly viewed as a principle, include them all.

Mat 22:37. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.The passage, Deu 6:5, freely after the Septuagint. Fritzsche: God as thy Lord. But it would be better to invert itthe Lord as thy God: in the original, Jehovah thy God. And this introduces a new significance in relation to Christ. Jehovah, God of the Revelation, the God of the incarnation, was to be Israels God, and not the God of a deistical perversion.

With all thy heart.The follows the original Hebrew , and not the Septuagint . The heart is the entire inner nature of man; the soul is then rather the vitality of the heart animating the body; the mind, its spiritual and intellectus part (inlellectus, mens). Meyer, following Beck (Biblische Seelenlehre, p. 109), makes the whole energy of the reason and the intellect; , the whole energy of sentiment and passion; and , the whole energy of thought and will in its manifestation.40

Mat 22:39. But a second is like unto it, .This refers to the preceding declaration of Jesus, The great and the first (according to the true reading). Hence the article may be omitted. The commandment of the love of God is regarded in two lights: 1. As the great, which embraces in their unity all commandments, including that of love to our neighbor; 2. as the first, inasmuch as it is a special commandment, which precedes the commandment of love to man.Is like unto it.Compare 1Jn 4:20-21 : Rom 13:9. Even the love of God itself is to manifest and actualize itself by love to man,more generally by love to all men, more particularly by brotherly love.41 The commandment is according to the Septuagint of Lev 19:18. Meyer: signifies a tender regard, and conduct in harmony with it; this, therefore, may be commanded, but not , which is the love of affection or sentiment. Compare Tittmanns Synonyms. By this answer, Jesus not only penetrated and convicted the wicked design of the Pharisees, but also reproved the error which lurked in their question. He acknowledged a distinction between the great commandment and the rest, so far as the former is the principle, and all others derived from it. But in another sense, He acknowledged no distinction: the derived commandment of love to man is equal to the first in its absolute value, and as representing the first.

[As thyself.W. Burkitt: Every man may, yea, ought to love himself, not his sinful self, but his natural self, and especially his spiritual self, the new nature in him. This it ought to be his particular care to increase and strengthen. Indeed there is no express command in Scripture for a man to love himself, because the light of nature directs, and the law of nature binds and moves every man so to do. God has put a principle of self love and of self-preservation into all His creatures, but especially in man. Man ought to love his neighbor, 1. not as le docs love himself, but as he ought to love himself; 2. no; in the same degree, but after the same manner, i. e., freely and readily, sincerely and unfeignedly, tenderly and compassionately, constantly and perseveringly.There are cases, however, where man ought to love his neighbor more than himself, and sacrifice his life for his fellows, his country, and the church, in imitation of the example of Christ and the martyrs.P. S.]

Mat 22:40. Hangs, (according to the true reading).The figure is taken from the door on its hinges, or from the nail on the wall; and aptly indicates dependence upon one common principle, and development from it; and hence it follows that the two great commandments have a higher unity in the one great commandment, that we love Jehovah, the incarnate God of revelation, as our God.And also the prophets.By the position of after the prophets are made especially prominent. And the sense is this: Even the prophets who predicted the Messiah, the Son of God, do not contradict the great commandment of monotheism; they rather proceed from that law,that is, from the word of the God of revelation flow the prophetical words concerning His revelation.

Mat 22:41-46. The counter-question of Jesus. Its object.Paulus; Jesus aimed to lead His opponents to the point, that the Psalm was not of David, and not Messianic. (!) De Wette: He thereby intimated that He was not a political Messiah. Weisse: He wished to give a bint that He did not spring from David. (?) Meyer: He thus convicted them of their own ignorance and helplessness concerning the nature of the Messiah. But, connecting the Lords question with the tempting question that preceded it, it appears plain that Jesus would prove by a Messianic utterance of the Psalm, that the Messiah might be at once the Son of David, i.e., a Son of Man, and at the same time the Lord of David, i.e., the Son of God.42

Mat 22:41. While the Pharisees.A significant circumstance. The whole body of Pharisaism is convicted and confuted by an Old Testament word, showing the consistency of the doctrine concerning the Son of God with Scripture.

Mat 22:43. How then doth David by the Spirit call Him Lord?Here is not: With what propriety, how is it possible? but: In what sense? or: What can he mean by it?Doth call:in the sense of formal designation, solemn title.

Mat 22:44. The Lord said unto my Lord.Quotation from Psalms 110. There are different views on its authorship and Messianic bearing. De Wette: The poet (who is not David) calls the king, of whom the Psalm speaks, his Lord. The difficulty is thus taken away by the historical exposition. Jesus assumes the authorship of David, and its Messianic interpretation, simply as being prevalent in His time. But it is not necessary to suppose that Jesus agreed with the common notion. If stress is laid upon the words , it must be remembered that we cannot rely upon the genuineness of these words sufficiently to build anything upon them. See Luk 20:42. But here it is not Luke, but Matthew who speaks. Meyer agrees with de Wette, but while the latter assumes an accommodation of Jesus to the popular opinion, the former supposes that Jesus shared in the prevailing view as to the historical origin of the Psalm. But in our opinion, the correctness of the application of the word in the Psalm does not depend upon the question, whether David himself composed it or not. That Psalm is manifestly a poetical reproduction of the historical promise of Jehovah, which David received from the lips of the prophet Nathan, according to 2 Samuel 12, and of the last words of David referring to it, 2Sa 23:3 sqq. David is introduced as speaking on that basis of what Jehovah had promised the Messiah his offspring.43 That the Psalm is Messianic, and in the stricter sense prophetically Messianic, is evident from the tenor of its whole connection. Similarly, in the prophet Daniel we must first distinguish the historical basis and the composition, and then again identify them; since both are combined in the of Scripture. Compare Mat 24:15.

By the SpiritLuk 2:27; 1Co 12:3; Rom 8:15. Not indeed impulsu Spiritus; but in the element of the Spirit, of the Spirit of God, which is the principle of unity in the Scripture.

Him.The Son of David as the Messiah. The Rabbins saw in this Psalm one of the most clear and decisive Messianic prophecies. It was not till a later period that they retracted this interpretation. See Hengstenberg, Christologie, on this Psalm [vol. 1 p. 140 sqq.].

Mat 22:45. How is He then his Son?The answer is Rom 1:3-4; Act 2:25. It was not the ignorance, but the unbelief, of the Pharisees which declined the answer.

Mat 22:46. And no one could answer Him a word.Decisive mandatum de supersedendo.Nor durst any one from that day question Him any more.The great point of severance between the rabbinical, deistic Judaism, and Christian and believing Judaism. Bengel: Nova dehinc quasi Scena Me pandit.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

See the preceding remarks. They will, we think, have shown that the question about the great commandment, and the Lords counter-question concerning Davids Son, the Greater than David, have a much higher significance than exegesis has hitherto discerned in them. It is the spiritual process of severance between the deistical apostasy of Judaism, and the true Messianic faith of Judaismthat is, Christianity itself. The silence of the Pharisees, after Christs question, marks the crisis of their hardening. Hence the decisive and final rebuke of Jesus, and the departure from the temple: symbol of their desolation and judgment.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The last assault of His enemies upon the Lord in the temple.The last question of the Pharisees, and the last counter-question of the Lord.The inquiry about the great commandment meant as a temptation of Christ: 1. He will either lay aside His own majesty in presence of the majesty of God; or, 2. asserting His own majesty, He will dishonor the majesty of , God.How the Pharisees misunderstood the great commandment, to love God with all the heart: 1. In opposition to the love of man: 2. in opposition to the dignity of Christ.The one great commandment in its all-comprehensive significance: 1. It unfolds itself into the gospel, as a prophecy of salvation in the doctrine that the Lord, the incarnate Jehovah, was to be loved as God (the supreme Personality must reveal Himself); 2. it unfolds itself into the law of the Spirit, in the two commandments, the ten, and all other subordinate ones.To love God with all our life: 1. With all our heart; 2. with all our soul; 3. with all our mind.The commandment of the love to God a strong testimony for His sacred and mysterious personality,a witness also of His own glorious love.Since God is love, love to Him must at once be kindled by the contemplation of Him.How can the first commandment be the greatest, and yet the second be like unto it? 1. The first is the greatest, because it is the ground of the second, and embraces it; 2. the second is equal to it, because it is the copy of the first, and love to God is to be demonstrated by love to man.The measure of the love of God: nothing is sufficient, neither our life nor all things.44 The measure of love to man: our love to ourselves.In love to our neighbor we are to prove our love to God.The two commandments are inseparable: 1. We cannot love God without loving our neighbor (against superstition); we cannot love our neighbor without the love of God (against unbelief).Self-love has two conditions and guarantees: the love of God, and the love of man.How far is self-love not commanded, and how far commanded? 1. It is not directly commanded, because it is a natural impulse of life; 2. it is indirectly commanded in the whole law and gospel; since this natural impulse is diseased, and has become selfishness,45But a second is like unto it; or, how one word of our Lord cuts through the wicked motive and the wicked error of the Pharisees.How far are the commandments different, and how far alike?The empire of love is an empire of personal life.Love is the fulfilling of the law, Rom 13:10The counter-question of the Lord; or, the proof of the divinity of Christ from the Old Testament.As the commandment of love to man is related to the commandment of love to God, so Christ is related to the Father: subordinate, yet equal.The severance between Christianity and apostate Judaism in the temple.They asked no more questions: no Jew dares ask a Christian any question, or commence an attack upon him; the missionary impulse, to work among the Gentiles, also gradually died away among the Jews since the time of Christ.

Starke:Zeisius: However the wicked hate one another, they unite against Christ, His kingdom and members.If you would ask, cultivate a sincere heart.Hypocrites inquire about the greatest commandment, but they do not keep the least.Osiander: As no man is able thus perfectly to love God, no man can be justified by the law.The question concerning Christ the most important and the most necessary.A correct knowledge of Christ necessary to salvation,It is not enough to acknowledge Christ as the Son of Man.Christ is God and Man in one undivided person.

Heubner:The Rabbins were fond of discussing the relative greatness of commandments. The Jews counted 613 precepts: 365 prohibitions, and 248 commands.It is dangerous to make a distinction between great and little commandments.The nature of the love to God which Christianity requires.Aristotle: There is no love to God (connection between this word and the heathen denial of the supreme Personality).Consult the representations of Fenelon and the earlier mystics concerning the stages of the lore to God.Piety toward God should be kind to man; and the love of men should be religious.All commandments centre in love.The whole ethical doctrine of Christianity very simple.What think ye of Christ? always the question which finds out the genuine Christian.Christ the Lord.The dominion of Christ a dominion of love.Faith and love closely connected in Christianity. Bachmann:What think ye of Christ f 1. Manifold answers; 2. how important the right one!Lisco: The supreme command, and the supreme article of faith.

[Quesnel:On the great and first commandment, Mat 22:38 : Love is the great and first commandment: 1. In antiquity, being as old as the world and engraven in our nature; 2. in dignity, as directly respecting God; 3. in excellence, being the commandment of the new covenant; 4. in justice, as preferring God above all things, and rendering to Him His due; 5. in sufficiency, in making of itself man holy in this life, and blessed in that which is to come; 6. in fruitfulness, in being the root of all other commandments; 7. in virtue and efficacy; 8. in extent; 9. in necessity; 10. in duration, as continuing for ever in heaven.The same, on Mat 22:46 :Truth at length triumphs, but the defender of it will notwithstanding be oppressed by men. Hence we should not judge the truth by the sufferings of its defenders. The more triumphant it is, the more they must expect to suffer, that they may be made more conformable to Christ and capable of greater reward.P. S.]

Footnotes:

[29] Mat 22:35.The words: (and saying), are omitted by Lachmann and Tischendorf [also by Tregelles, but not by Alford] on the authority of B., L., etc Meyer: An insertion from Mar 12:28, and contrary to the uniform style of Matthew ( Mat 12:10; Mat 17:10, etc.).

[30] Mat 22:36.[ ; literally: What kind of commandment, or: What commandment is great in the low? Meyer: Was fr ein Gebot ist gross im Gesetze? (Wie muse ein Gebot beschaffen sein. um ein grosses Gebot su seint?). is qualitative, qualis, what kind (comp. Mat 19:12), and the article before is omitted. But the Authorized Version agrees better with the answer, and Dr. Lange likewise translates: Welches ist das grosse Gebot im Gesetz? The Lat. Vulg.: Quid est mandatum magnum, in lege? See Exeg. Notes.P. S.]

[31] Mat 22:37.B., L., al., Lachmann, Tischendorf: .

[32] Mat 22:38.L., Z.: [for ]. Cod. D. likewise, yet without . So Cod. Z. with a second before . The sense of the text is in favor of this reading. The transposition arose from the idea that was the principal predicate. [Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Alford unanimously adopt , which is now sustained also by Cod. Sinalt.P. S.]

[33] Mat 22:40.[The true reading of the best ancient authorities, including Cod. Sinait, recommended by Griesbach, and adopted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Alford, is: , instead of the text, rec.: . Dr. Lange follows the former in his German Version: In. diesen zweien Geboten hngt das gante Gesetz und auch die Propheten. It is also preferable on internal reasons. The lawyer had asked what commandment was great in the law; the Saviour answers to this question by naming the great law of love on which hangs the whole law, and the prophets besides.P. S.]

[34] Mat 22:42.[The Interpolation: The son, must be omitted, if the question is translated: Of whom is he the son?P. S]

[35] Mat 22:43.[ is here not opposed to , but refers to the Holy Spirit as the inspirer of the Scriptures. See Exeg. Notes.P. S.]

[36] Mat 22:44.The Recepta reads: (footstool), from the Septnagint. But most MSS. and the critical editions: ( ), under. [So also Cod. Sinait As to the sense, Bengel remarks: The warlike kingdom will come to an end; but the peaceful kingdom will have no end, comp. 1Co 15:25.P. S.]

[37] Mat 22:45.[Codd. D., K.M., al., insert , by the Spirit, before , and Lange puts it in the text, but in small type. But Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford reject it as insufficiently supported, and superfluous.P. S.]

[38][So also Alford in loc., referring to the more detailed account in Mar 12:28-44. Bui Nast regards Langes interpretation as the only Intelligible one. It is certainly very Ingenious.P. S.]

[39][Not: Less stress, as the Edirib. trsl. has It, In direct opposition to the original: Meyer betont und er kldrt, etc. Comp. my critical note above.P. S.]

[40][Olshausen: The Lord by culling the commandment to love God supremely the first and great commandment, does evidently not de sign to represent it as one out of many, though greater in decree than others. On the contrary, the love of God is the commandment, and the whole law, with all its injunctions and prohibitions, is only a development of this one commandment: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. By this love we have to understand the unqualified surrender of our whole being to God. Of such a love man Js capable, though not by his own strength, but by Divine grace, because he finds in God alone all his wants fully and everlastingly satisfied.P. S]

[41][The original reads: Christusliebe (Edinb. trsl.: lore of Christ; or, better: to Christ); but this is probably a printing error for Christensliebe; for we love Christ not as our neighbor, but as the God-Man.P. S.]

[42][Quesnel: Jesus here asks a question in His turn, not to tempt, but to instruct His disciples; to confound the obstinate; to point out the source of all their captious questions, namely, their ignorance of the prophecies which foretold the Messiah; to furnish His church with weapon against the Jews in all ages; and, by His last public instruction, to establish the truth of His divinity. Incarnation, power, and kingdom, as the foundation of all religion.P. S.]

[43][This sentence, so necessary to give Langes view, is enthely omitted in the Edinb. trsl. For other expositions on the Messianic character of the Psalm, see especially Hengstenberg (Christology of the O. T., and his Com. on the Psalms), also Stier and Nast in loc. Alford and Wordsworth do not touch the difficulty at all.P. S.]

[44][Burkitt in loc.: The measure of loving God, is to love Him without measure.P. S.]

[45][Comp. the practical remarks of Burkitt inserted in the Exeg. Note on Mat 22:39, p. 404.P. S.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

“But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. (35) Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, (36) Master, which is the great commandment in the law? (37) Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. (38) This is the first and great commandment. (39) And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. (40) On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (41) While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, (42) Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The son of David. (43) He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, (44) The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? (45) If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? (46) And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him anymore questions.”

It is very blessed to discover, that let Jesus be attacked by Pharisees or Sadducees, everything tends to the Lord’s glory, the promotion of his people’s happiness, and the confusion of his enemies. Our Lord’s conference with the Pharisees is of this kind, and so plain as to need no comment. But I would rather take occasion, from the Lord’s question to the Pharisees, to propose the same, both to myself and Reader. What think ye of Christ, is the grand question of the whole subject contained in the word of God. And I beg the Reader to observe, Jesus doth not say, what think ye of me, but what think ye of Christ; that is, as God’s Christ, the anointed, the sent, the sealed of the Father. For unless we have proper apprehension, both of his person and offices, in his double nature, and in his commission, our views of him will not be suitably formed. So that in this one question is involved a thousand others. What think ye of Christ? What think ye of his person, of his offices, characters, relations? What think ye of the completeness, fulness, suitableness, all-sufficiency of his salvation? What think ye of Christ as to his worth, preciousness, beauty, glory? What, as to his value, importance, his absolute necessity, and the living without knowing him, and the dying without enjoying him? Oh! for the proper apprehension of Jesus! Oh for the absolute and certain union with him, and interest in him! The soul that hath so learned Christ, will best know how to enter into the full sense of our Lord’s question; and will best appreciate the being found in him, so as to render all other knowledge of no value, but the knowledge of Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God, for salvation to everyone that believeth.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

XVIII

ANOTHER QUESTION AND ITS ANSWER; HIS LAST PUBLIC DISCOURSE; OVER AGAINST THE TREASURY

Harmony, pages 155-159 and Mat 22:34-23:39 ; Mar 12:38-44 ; Luk 20:41-21:4 .

This section commences on page 155 of the Harmony and consists of the last question of Christ’s enemies, differing bitterly among themselves, yet led by a common interest, conspired to test, tempt, and ensnare him by hard questions. He had answered the question concerning his authority, the question concerning paying tribute to Caesar, and the resurrection question. The Pharisees, seeing that he had muzzled the Sadducees, rapidly held a council, selected with great care the form of a final question and a representative to propound it. It will be understood that this representative is a better man than those he represents, but he speaks representatively. And the word “tempt” is used in its usual bad sense. They consulted first as to what question should be propounded. Second, who should propound it. The querist was a lawyer. The word “lawyer” in the Bible does not mean altogether what our word “lawyer” means. A lawyer in the time of Moses and after, and especially in mediaeval ages, was one who was an expert in both civil and canon law, or ecclesiastical law. The first business of a scribe was to copy the text, then expound it. And after a while they became authorities both on text and exposition, and from them originated the meaning of the degree LL. D., the word “laws” being plural, that is, one being skilled in both civil and canon law. In all countries where there is a union of church and state there are two forms of law, one applying to ecclesiastical matters and the other to civil matters. Oftentimes the two blend. A matter can be both civil and ecclesiastical.

It is quite important here to note the precise form of the question they propound. Following the Greek literally this is the question: “What sort of commandment is great?” We usually understand that the question seeks to find a distinction between the various commandments of the moral law, as to relative importance. This seems not to have been their idea. There would not have been a snare in such a question. Let us see if we can find just what was the snare. They themselves continually distinguished between a commandment that was written and a commandment that was oral or traditional. And they were accustomed to put the traditional law above the written law. One of themselves had said, “The commandments of the written law are sometimes weighty, and sometimes little, but the commandments of the scribes are always weighty.” So when they put the question in this form, “What sort of commandment is great?” they want to commit him either for or against the oral law. If he decides against the oral or traditional law they hope to make capital out of it before the people, who were very much devoted to the traditional law. Now, from the very beginning there had been a marked difference between them and him on the meaning of law. When he says law he means only the written law. When they say law they mean both the written and the oral law. All through the Sermon on the Mount we see how he magnifies the written law, and throws contempt upon their traditional law. He shows that in their construction of traditional law they oftentimes set aside the written law entirely. We have considered a case already where they set aside the commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother,” by following the traditional law, to the effect that if a man said to himself that the money with which he ought to help the aged, feeble parents was in his mind consecrated to something else, that would exclude him from piety toward his father and mother, that is, relieve him from the burden of taking care of them. All along he has been setting aside their conception of law. Now their hope is that if he takes his old ground, that only written law is great, it would turn away from him the people who believed in the oral law. We have a passage in Mark often quoted in baptismal controversies showing how punctilious they were in their observance of their traditional law, the diligent washing of their hands and, when they returned from the market, the dipping of themselves lest they had contracted ceremonial defilement by touch with unclean people. And even the dipping of their tables and beds, and anything that might by a possibility have become ceremonially defiled. Hence the form of this question: “What sort of commandment is great?” In other words, “Do you say that only the written law is great, or do you agree with us that the traditional law is even greater?” He replies by a quotation from the Pentateuch. The first part of his answer is from Deu 6:4 , the second part from Lev 19:18 . He says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the great and first commandment. The second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Here he accepts the condensation of all the first table of the law by Moses into one commandment and his condemnation of the second table of the law into another commandment.

Spurgeon, while seeming to misapprehend the precise point of this question propounded to Christ, has a great sermon on the text, “The first and the great commandment.” To love God supremely is first in order of position in the Ten Commandments. It is first in order of importance. It is first and greatest because it includes the second. That is to say, unless we love God supremely we can never obey the second commandment to love our neighbor as ourself. Some magnify the first table of the law and disregard the second. They think that if they pray and pay tithes to God, and do not worship images) and keep the sabbath day, it makes little difference how they do toward their neighbors. They may refuse to honor their parents, steal, lie, commit adultery, if only they comply with what they think is the .First Commandment. On the other hand it is the custom of the world to utterly disregard the First Commandment and magnify the Second. Businessmen on the streets conceive of law simply as it relates to our fellow man. They think if we kill nobody, do not wrong our neighbor in any respect, we are all right. Their stress is on morality, but our Lord shows an indissoluble connection between the two commandments: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself. He conceives of no sound morality apart from supreme love of God.

This representative LLD who propounded this question was much interested in our Lord’s answer. It becomes evident that he is a better man than those who loaded him with the question. He expresses hearty approval of Christ’s answer, and our Lord said that he was not far from the kingdom.

As usual, our Lord follows up his victory. He puts a question before the Pharisees are scattered. They still stand grouped where they had consulted to determine what question should be propounded to him. So he propounds a counter question. “What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he?” They readily answered as any Jew would have answered, “The Son of David.” Then he puts a question with a barb on it: “If he is only the Son of David, how is it that David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, calls him Lord, in Psa 110 , to wit: The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand?” The object of his question is to correct their limited conception of the Messiah. They were disposed to look at him as a mere human Jewish king establishing an earthly government and raising the throne of David so as to bear reign over the whole Gentile world. His object is to convince them that the Messiah foretold in their Old Testament was not merely a man, and to prove it by David: “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand.” He wants to bring out the thought which he himself later expressed to John in Revelation: “I am the root as well as the offspring of David.” In the divine sense he is the source of David; in the flesh he is the offspring of David. This statement of our Lord is of incalculable value in its bearing on the radical criticism. They do not hesitate to say that David never wrote Psa 110 . Jesus says that he did. He explicitly ascribed that psalm to David. They say the psalms are not inspired. Jesus says that David wrote that psalm in the Spirit. They deny any reference to a coming One in that psalm. Jesus shows that there is a reference to himself, the coming Messiah. It is a little remarkable that this particular psalm is quoted oftener in the New Testament as messianic than any other passage in the Old Testament. Our Lord himself quotes it more than once. Peter quotes it in his great address recorded in Act 2 , and yet again in his first letter. Paul quotes it expressly in his first letter to the Corinthians, and again in the letter to the Ephesians and four times in the letter to the Hebrews, and all of them say that David wrote it; that David wrote it by inspiration; and that David wrote it with reference to the coming Messiah. And so we come to the end of the great catechism. It has been a duel to the death.

THE LAST PUBLIC DISCOURSE OF OUR LORD

We do not mean to intimate that Christ will not hereafter speak to his disciples. We mean that this discourse that we are now to consider ends his public ministry to the Jews. He considers the battle ended. They have rejected him, and now he makes the most serious indictment against the nation and its rulers known in the annals of time. It is the sharpest arraignment and the deepest denunciation to be found in the whole Bible.

This discourse consists, first, of a great indictment; second, the denunciation of a great penalty; third, the suggestion of a great hope. Let us see then what is the indictment.

We have already learned from the preceding discussion that the chief item of the indictment is their rejection of the Messiah and their purpose to murder him. Then follows the other items of the indictment relating particularly to the leaders: First, sitting in the seat of authority, they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne upon the people, which they themselves will not move with their finger. Second, all their works are done to be seen of men, hence they make broad their phylacteries, enlarge the borders of their garments, love the chief places at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the marketplaces to be called rabbi. Third, they shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, themselves not entering nor suffering those to enter who would enter. Fourth, they compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is become so, he is made twofold more a son of hell than themselves. Fifth, they swear by the lesser things, disregarding the greater, swearing by the gift on the altar as more than the altar which sanctifies the gift, swearing by the gold of the Temple as more than the Temple itself. Sixth, they tithe mint and anise and cummin and ignore the weightier matters of the law judgment, mercy, and faith strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. Seventh, they cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within are full of extortion and excess, as whited sepulchres, outwardly appearing beautiful, while inwardly they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness, so they outwardly appear righteous unto men, but inwardly are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Eighth, they are as monument-builders garnishing the tombs of the righteous, as if they thus said, “We would never have been partakers in the blood of the prophets.” All the time they are sons in spirit, as well as in flesh, of them that slew the prophets. In this way they fill up the measure of their fathers. And now comes

THE PENALTY

“Upon you shall come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel, the righteous, unto the blood of Zachariah, son of Barachiah. . . . Your house is left unto you desolate.” It has long been a puzzle to the thinker how the blood of Abel should came on the Jewish people, who, in their father Abraham, originated so many years subsequent to Abel. The answer to the puzzle is this: Abel and all subsequent martyrs believed in salvation by a coming Messiah. This doctrine was the hope of the whole world. And when the Jewish nation was established they were made the custodians of this doctrine. To them were committed the oracles of God. If, therefore, when the Messiah comes, to whom Abel and every martyr had looked forward, and the Jews rejected and killed that Messiah, they sin, not only against the Messiah, and not only against themselves, but they sin against the whole world. They sin against the hope of the world. If their attitude toward the Messiah is true, then Abel died in vain. If they alone of all the nations were entrusted with the doctrine of Abel’s saving faith, and they repudiate that doctrine, on them comes the blood of Abel. The penalty denounced is not merely the destruction of the Holy City and the sacred Temple, and the dispersion of the Jewish nation, but it is a desolation a tribulation that shall last through all the ages until the coming of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Therefore, as we learn later, it is called a trouble such as the world had never known before and would never know again. It is surprising that commentators, in discussing “the great tribulation” set forth in our Lord’s great prophecy, make it a general tribulation bearing upon Gentile nations. It is exclusively a Jewish tribulation, which has already lasted about 1900 years. Nor is the end yet in sight. They were on probation twenty centuries as the bearers of the oracles of God. Their tribulation has already lasted nearly twenty centuries.

THE GREAT HOPE The great hope is suggested in this final word of his discourse, “Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” (Mat 23:39 ). So, that the last word to the Jews, the last public message, touches the second advent of our Lord.

Following this discourse we have an account of Jesus seated over against the treasury and beholding how men put money into the treasury. What a lesson is here! Christ watching the contributions, noting the amount, noting the motive, measuring the relative importance of the contributions, not by the amount, but by the unselfish sacrifice in the donation.

In my young days I preached a sermon to the Waco Association on this text, on the theme, “The Treasury of God’s People, and Christ’s Observation of the Contributions to This Fund.” The association called for its publication. The discussion was an epoch in the history of the association. From that time on enlargements in both spirituality and gifts, and broader fields came to Waco Association. Always before God’s people should be this picture of Christ sitting over against the treasury watching how men put money into the treasury. (The author’s sermon to which references are here made will be found in his first book of sermons.)

QUESTIONS

1. What was the Pharisees’ last effort to entangle Christ by questioning him, how did they proceed and what two points upon which they consulted?

2. What is the meaning and usage of the words “lawyer” and “doctor”?

3. What was the form of the question they propounded to Christ and why important to note its form?

4. What difference between the Pharisees’ use of the word “law,” and Christ’s use of it and in what did the trap here set for our Lord consist?

5. What was Christ’s attitude toward their oral law, what example of their setting aside the written commandment cited, and what example of their punctiliousness in the observance of their oral law given?

6. State clearly the question as they propounded it to him and give his answer verbatim.

7. What sermon cited on this passage, what is the substance of it, and what application of this interpretation to our own generation?

8. What evidence here that this lawyer was better than those whom he represented?

9. How does Christ follow up his victory in this instance?

10. What was their answer to his question, what his second question and what the purpose of our Lord in these last questions?

11. What is the value of this statement of Christ in its bearing on radical criticism and what is the fallacy of the position of the radical critics in this case?

12. Of what does our Lord’s last public discourse consist?

13. What items of the indictment?

14. What penalty denounced and its meaning and application?

15. What great hope suggested and its far-reaching meaning?

16. What great lesson of Christ and the treasury?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.

Ver. 34. But when the Pharisees ] Nunquam bella bonis, nunquam certamina desunt. Truth never lacks an adversary. Christ had many conflicts all his life long, but most and sharpest at last cast. At death, Satan will muster up all his forces against a Christian; that last encounter is like to be the sharpest; as Israel in the wilderness met with much hardship: but when they entered the land, all the kings of Canaan combined against them.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

34 40. ] REPLY CONCERNING THE GREAT COMMANDMENT. Mar 12:28-34 . In the more detailed account of Mark (Luke has a similar incident in another place, Luk 10:25 ), this question does not appear as that of one maliciously tempting our Lord: and his seems to me the view to be taken, as there could not be any evil consequences to our Lord, whichever way He had answered the question. See the notes there.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

34. ] is local ; not of their purpose .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mat 22:34-40 . The great commandment (Mar 12:28-34 ). In a still more marked degree than in the case of the man in quest of eternal life, Mk.’s account presents the subject of this incident in a more favourable light than that of Mt. The difference must be allowed to stand. Mk.’s version is welcome as showing a good side even in the scribe or Pharisee world.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Mat 22:34 . , hearing; not without pleasure, if also with annoyance, at the uniform success of Jesus. : silenced, muzzled, from , a muzzle (Mat 22:12 , used in literal sense in Deu 25:4 ).

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Matthew

THE TABLES TURNED: THE QUESTIONERS QUESTIONED

Mat 22:34 .

Herodians, Sadducees, Pharisees, who were at daggers drawn with each other, patched up an alliance against Jesus, whom they all hated. Their questions were cunningly contrived to entangle Him in the cobwebs of casuistry and theological hair-splitting, but He walked through the fine-spun snares as a lion might stalk away with the nooses set for him dangling behind him. The last of the three questions put to Jesus, and the one question with which He turned the tables and silenced His questioners, are our subject. In the former, Jesus declares the essence of the law or of religion; in the latter, He brings to light the essential loftiness of the Messiah.

I. The two preceding questions are represented to have been asked by deputations; this is specially noted as emanating from an individual.

The ‘lawyer’ seems to have anticipated his colleagues, and possibly his question was not that which they had meant to put. His motive in asking it was that of ‘tempting’ Jesus, but we must not give that word too hostile a sense, for it may mean no more than ‘testing’ or trying. The legal expert wished to find out the attainments and standpoint of this would-be teacher, and so he proposed a question which would bring out the whereabouts of Jesus, and give opportunity for a theological wrangle. He did not ask the question for guidance, but as an inquisitor cross-examining a suspected heretic. Probably the question was a stereotyped one, and there are traces in the Gospels that the answer recognised as orthodox was that which Jesus gave Luk 10:27. The two commandments are quoted from Deu 6:5 and Lev 19:18 respectively. The lawyer probably only desired to raise a discussion as to the relative worth of isolated precepts. Jesus goes deep down below isolated precepts, and unifies, as well as transforms, the law. Supreme and undivided love to God is not only the great, but also the first, commandment. In more modern phrase, it is the sum of man’s duty and the germ of all goodness. Note that Jesus shifts the centre from conduct to character, from deeds to affections. ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,’ said the sage of old; Christ says, ‘As a man loves, so is he.’ Two loves we have,-either the dark love of self and sense, or the white love of God, and all character and conduct are determined by which of these sways us. Note, further, that love to God must needs be undivided. God is one and all; man is one and finite. To love such an object with half a heart is not to love. True, our weakness leads astray, but the only real love corresponding to the natures of the lover and the loved is whole-hearted, whole-souled, whole-minded. It must be ‘all in all, or not at all.’

‘A second is like unto it,’-love to man is the under side, as it were, of love to God. The two commandments are alike, for both call for love, and the second is second because it is a consequence of the first. Each sets up a lofty standard; ‘with all thy heart’ and ‘as thyself’ sound equally impossible, but both result necessarily from the nature of the case. Religion is the parent of all morality, and especially of benevolent love to men. Innate self-regard will yield to no force but that of love to God. It is vain to try to create brotherhood among men unless the sense of God’s fatherhood is its foundation. Love of neighbours is the second commandment, and to make it the first, as some do now, is to end all hope of fulfilling it. Still further, Jesus hangs law and prophets on these two precepts, which, at bottom, are one. Not only will all other duties be done in doing these, since ‘love is the fulfilling of the law,’ but all other precepts, and all the prophets’ appeals and exhortations, are but deductions from, or helps to the attainment of, these. All our forms of worship, creeds, and the like, are of worth in so far as they are outcomes of love to God, or aid us in loving Him and our neighbours. Without love, they are ‘as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.’

II. The Pharisees remained ‘gathered together,’ and may have been preparing another question, but Jesus had been long enough interrogated.

It was not fitting that He should be catechised only. His questions teach. He does not seek to ‘entangle’ the Pharisees ‘in their speech,’ nor to make them contradict themselves, but brings them full up against a difficulty, that they may open their eyes to the great truth which is its only solution. His first question, ‘What think ye of the Christ?’ is simply preparatory to the second. The answer which He anticipated was given,-as, of course, it would be, for the Davidic descent of the Messiah was a commonplace universally accepted. One can fancy that the Pharisees smiled complacently at the attempt to puzzle them with such an elementary question, but the smile vanished when the next one came. They interpreted Psa 110:1 – Psa 110:7 as Messianic, and David in it called Messiah ‘my Lord.’ How can He be both? Jesus’ question is in two forms,-’If He is son, how does David call Him Lord?’ or, if He is Lord, ‘how then is He his son?’ Take either designation, and the other lands you in inextricable difficulties.

Now what was our Lord’s purpose in thus driving the Pharisees into a corner? Not merely to ‘muzzle’ them, as the word in Mat 22:34 , rendered ‘put to silence,’ literally means, but to bring to light the inadequate conceptions of the Messiah and of the nature of His kingdom, to which exclusive recognition of his Davidic descent necessarily led. David’s son would be but a king after the type of the Herods and Crs, and his kingdom as ‘carnal’ as the wildest zealot expected, but David’s Lord, sitting at God’s right hand, and having His foes made His footstool by Jehovah Himself,-what sort of a Messiah King would that be? The majestic image, that shapes itself dimly here, was a revelation that took the Pharisees’ breath away, and made them dumb. Nor are the words without a half-disclosed claim on Christ’s part to be that which He was so soon to avow Himself before the high priest as being. The first hearers of them probably caught that meaning partly, and were horrified; we hear it clearly in the words, and answer, ‘Thou art the King of glory, O Christ! Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.’

Jesus here says that Psa 110:1 – Psa 110:7 is Messianic, that David was the author, and that he wrote it by divine inspiration. The present writer cannot see how our Lord’s argument can be saved from collapse if the psalm is not David’s.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat 22:34-40

34But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. 35One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, 36″Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37*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.’38This is the great and foremost commandment. 39The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’40On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

Mat 22:35 “a lawyer” Matthew usually called these legal experts “scribes.” He never used this term “lawyer” anywhere else in his Gospel. This term may have been an assimilation by a copyist from Luk 10:25. Luke used the term often (cf. Luk 7:30; Luk 10:25; Luk 11:45-46; Luk 11:52; Luk 14:3). It is not found in the parallel in Mar 12:28. However it is present in almost all ancient Greek manuscripts. Jewish religious lawyers developed during the Babylonian exile. Ezra typified this group (cf. Ezr 7:10). In many ways they took the place of the local Levites. Basically they answered practical questions related to the written Law and the oral law (Talmud) as they applied to common life.

“testing Him” This verb (peiraze), rendered alternately “tempt,” ” try,” ” test” or “prove,” has the connotation of “to test with a view toward destruction” (see Special Topic at Mat 4:1, cf. Mat 4:1; Mat 16:1; Mat 19:3; Mat 22:18; Mat 22:35; the noun in Mat 6:13; Mat 26:41).

Mat 22:36 “which is the great commandment in the Law” The rabbis had asserted that there were 248 positive and 365 negative commandments in the writings of Moses (Genesis – Deuteronomy) for a total of 613 commands.

Mat 22:37-38 The greatest commandment is stated in Deu 6:5. There is a slight difference between the Masoretic Hebrew text and Jesus’ quote, but the essence is the same. This verse is not concerned with the dichotomous (cf. Heb 4:12) or trichotomous (cf. 1Th 5:23) nature of man but rather deals with a person as a unity (cf. Gen 2:7; 1Co 15:45): a thinking and feeling, physical and spiritual being. It is true that because humans are earthly animals they depend upon this planet for food, water, air, and all the other things animal life needs to survive. Humans are also spiritual beings who relate to God and the spiritual realms. However, it is a false interpretation to build theology on these different descriptions of human nature. The key to this verse is the thrice-repeated “all,” not the supposed distinctions between “heart,” ” soul,” and “mind.”

By quoting this central affirmation of the oneness of God, Jesus is inseparably linking the OT and NT understanding of God. The NT is the fulfillment of the OT. YHWH is now revealed as a Triune Unity. Oneness has been redefined! NT believers fully assert monotheism, but with a footnote. Apparently the NT writers did not see the implication of Psa 110:1 as a contradiction (cf. 1Co 8:6; Eph 4:5; Php 2:11). There is surely mystery here! See the Special Topic: The Trinity at Mat 3:17.

Mat 22:39 The second commandment was not requested by the scribe, but it does show that a balance between believers’love for God and their love for their fellow human must be maintained. It is impossible to love God and hate people (cf. 1Jn 2:9; 1Jn 2:11; 1Jn 3:15; 1Jn 4:20). This is a quote from Lev 19:18.

Mat 22:40 Jesus was asserting that the OT has an integrating center (i.e., covenant love, cf. Mat 7:12; Mar 12:31; Rom 13:8-10; Gal 5:14). These two OT commands are obviously applicable to NT believers. Love for God expresses itself in being like God, because God is love (cf. 1Jn 4:7-21).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

34-40.] REPLY CONCERNING THE GREAT COMMANDMENT. Mar 12:28-34. In the more detailed account of Mark (Luke has a similar incident in another place, Luk 10:25), this question does not appear as that of one maliciously tempting our Lord: and his seems to me the view to be taken,-as there could not be any evil consequences to our Lord, whichever way He had answered the question. See the notes there.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

the Summary of the Law

Mat 22:34-46

Our Lord seemed to say: Here is all Scripture in a nutshell; the whole range of human duty in a portable pocket form. We are reminded of Ecc 12:13. But what a magnificent definition is here given of pure and undefiled religion! The whole Law is gathered up in that one word love! See Rom 13:8-10.

In Mar 12:33 the word strength is added. There are four channels of love. The heart stands for our emotions; the soul for our will and general individuality; the mind for our intellect; and strength for the activities and energies of our service. Often we cannot feel love, but we can always use our strength for God and show our love by doing things which we would never do except for His sake.

The question which the Master propounded to the scribes can be solved only by the admission of His two natures-divine and human-as existing in His one person. As Davids Lord He is divine; as his son, He was born of the Virgin. See Mat 1:1.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

The King Tested by a Lawyer

Mat 22:34. But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.

The multitude that had listened to Christ, and had been “astonished “at his answers to the Sadducees, would soon publish the tidings of their defeat. When the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they doubtless felt pleased that their natural enemies had been routed, but grieved that Jesus had again proved victorious in argument. He had, in one day, baffled the chief priests and elders of the people, Pharisees and their disciples, Herodians and Sadducees. If he continued to prevail, all the people would be won over to his side. So once more they met in consultation: they were gathered together. They must think of some fresh device, some new plan for his overthrow. How persevering wicked men are in their evil courses! While we deplore their wickedness, let us imitate their persistency.

Mat 22:35. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, ashed him a question, tempting him, and saying,

Apparently, the result of their conference was that they selected one of their number to put to Jesus another enquiry: one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question. Mark says that this man was one of the scribes, one of those constantly engaged in copying the Law, and also one who explained its meaning to the people. He was a gentleman “learned in the Law.” He came, either as the representative of the Pharisees, or on his own account, and asked Jesus a question, tempting him. Putting the mildest meaning on the word “tempting “, it conveys the idea of testing and trying in an unfriendly sense. Probably he was a man of clearer light and greater discernment than his associates; for he was evidently only half-hearted in the work of “tempting “Christ. Mark says that he had heard our Lord’s words to the Sadducees, “and perceiving that he had answered them well,” he put his own question to Jesus. He was evidently a man of candour, possessing a considerable amount of spiritual knowledge. This may help to explain the reason for his question:-

Mat 22:36. Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

According to the Rabbis, there were many commandments which were secondary, and others which were of the first importance. They often put commands, which really were comparatively small, on a par with those which were greatest. One of them even ventured to say that the commands of the Rabbis were more important than the commands of the Law, because the commands of the Law were little and great, but all the commands of the Rabbis were great. Some of them regarded eating with unwashen hands as being as great a crime as murder; and they would classify the rubbing of ears of corn together on the Sabbath-day with adultery; so that they caused great confusion as to the real order of moral precepts. It was, therefore, most desirable to get from this wise Teacher, whom the scribe addressed as “Master”, an authoritative answer to the question, “Which is the great commandment in the law? ” The enquiry was one which would be sure to entangle the Saviour if he did not answer it wisely; and therein the lawyer tempted, tested, tried, and proved him.

Blessed be his dear name, he can stand any test to which he may be put! Satan tempted, tested, and tried him to the uttermost of his power; but even he never found any flaw, or fault, or failing in him.

Mat 22:37-38. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.

These were very familiar words to our Lord’s hearers, for all devout Jews were in the habit of repeating them every morning and evening. Deu 6:4-9, from which our Saviour quoted, was one of the four passages which were worn as “phylacteries” (Mat 23:5). Jesus said unto him, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart” Because he is our God, Jehovah claims our heart’s love. As our Creator, Preserver, Provider, and Judge, he commands us to yield to him all our heart’s affection; to love him first, best, heartiest; out of all comparison to the love we have to any fellow-creature, or to ourselves.

“And with all thy soul.” We are to love God with all our life, to love him more than our life; so that, if necessary, we would give up our life rather than give up our love to God.

“And with all thy mind.” We are to love God with our intellect, with all the powers of our mind, bringing memory, thought, imagination, reason, judgment, and all our mental powers, as willing subjects to bow at God’s feet in adoration and love.

“This is the first and great commandment.” It is “first” in point of time, for it was binding upon the angels before man was created; it was binding upon Adam from the hour of his creation in the image of God. It is “first” in importance, for there is no love to a creature worthy of comparison with love to the Creator. This commandment is also “great”, because it comprehends all others, and because its demands are so great, namely, the whole love of our heart, and soul, and mind.

Who can render to God this perfect love? None of our fallen race. Salvation by the works of the Law is clearly an impossibility, for we cannot obey even the first commandment. There is One who has obeyed it, and the obedience of Christ is reckoned as the obedience of all who trust him. Being free from legal condemnation, they seek ever after to obey this “great and first commandment” (R. V.) by the power of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within them.

Mat 22:39. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

The answer is wider than the question. The lawyer asked about “the great commandment”; Christ answered his enquiry, and then added, “and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” Who of us has really loved his neighbour as himself? Under the Gospel this commandment is certainly not less binding than under the Law.

Mat 22:40. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

The teaching of Moses and all the prophets might be summarized in “these two commandments.” The duty of loving God and loving our neighbour as we love ourselves is the supreme subject of the divine revelation. On this, as on a great peg, “hang all the law and the prophets.” Remove the peg, and what have you left as a support for the teaching given by the Lord through the holy men of old who wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost?

Fuente: Spurgeon’s The Gospel of the Kingdom

when: Mar 12:28

they: Mat 12:14, Mat 25:3-5, Isa 41:5-7, Joh 11:47-50, Act 5:24-28, Act 19:23-28, Act 21:28-30

Reciprocal: 1Ki 18:21 – answered Job 32:15 – amazed Psa 62:4 – consult Mat 3:7 – the Pharisees Mat 16:1 – Pharisees Mat 22:41 – General Mar 8:11 – Pharisees Luk 20:26 – and they marvelled Luk 20:39 – thou

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

2:34

The Pharisees were gathered together for the purpose of consultation as in verse 15. Their object was to plot some way of entrapping Jesus in his talk.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

IN the beginning of this passage we find our Lord replying to the question of a certain lawyer, who asked him which was “the greatest commandment of the law?” That question was asked in no friendly spirit. But we have reason to be thankful that it was asked at all. It drew from our Lord an answer full of precious instruction. Thus we see how good may come out of evil.

Let us mark what an admirable summary these verses contain of our duty towards God and our neighbor. Jesus says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” He says again, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” And He adds, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

How simple are these two rules, and yet how comprehensive! How soon the words are repeated, and yet how much they contain! How humbling and condemning they are! How much they prove our daily need of mercy and the precious blood of atonement! Happy would it be for the world, if these rules were more known and more practiced!

Love is the grand secret of true obedience to God. When we feel towards Him as children feel towards a dear father, we shall delight to do His will. We shall not find His commandments grievous, and work for Him like slaves under fear of the lash. We shall take pleasure in trying to keep His laws, and mourn when we transgress them. None work so well as they who work for love. The fear of punishment, or the desire of reward, are principles of far less power. They do the will of God best, who do it from the heart. Would we train children right? Let us teach them to love God.

Love is the grand secret of right behavior towards our fellow men. He who loves his neighbor will scorn to do him any willful injury, either in person, property, or character.-But he will not rest there. He will desire in every way to do him good. He will strive to promote his comfort and happiness in every way. He will endeavor to lighten his sorrows, and increase his joys. When a man loves us, we feel confidence in him. We know that he will never intentionally do us harm, and that in every time of need he will be our friend. Would we teach children to behave aright towards others? Let us teach them to love everybody as themselves, and do to others as they would have others do to them.

But how shall we obtain this love towards God? It is no natural feeling. We are born in sin, and, as sinners, are afraid of God. How then can we love Him? We can never really love Him till we are at peace with Him through Christ. When we feel our sins forgiven, and ourselves reconciled to our holy Maker, then, and not till then, we shall love Him and have the spirit of adoption. Faith in Christ is the true spring of love to God. They love most who feel most forgiven. “We love him because he first loved us.” (1Jn 4:19.)

And how shall we obtain this love towards our neighbor? This is also no natural feeling. We are born selfish, hateful, and hating one another. (Tit 3:3.) We shall never love our fellow man aright till our hearts are changed by the Holy Ghost. We must be born again. We must put off the old man, and put on the new, and receive the mind that was in Christ Jesus. Then, and not till then, our cold hearts will know true God-like love towards all. “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” (Gal 5:22.)

Let these things sink down into our hearts. There is much vague talk in these latter days about love and charity. Men profess to admire them and desire to see them increased, and yet hate the principles which alone can produce them. Let us stand fast in the old paths. We cannot have fruits and flowers without roots. We cannot have love to God and man without faith in Christ, and without regeneration. The way to spread true love in the world, is to teach the atonement of Christ, and the work of the Holy Ghost.

The concluding portion of the passage, contains a question put to the Pharisees by our Lord. After answering with perfect wisdom the inquiries of His adversaries, He at last asks them, “What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He?” They reply at once, “the son of David.” He then asks them to explain, why David in the book of Psalms calls Him Lord. (Psa 110:1.) “If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?” At once His enemies were put to silence. “No man was able to answer him a word.” The Scribes and Pharisees no doubt were familiar with the Psalm He quoted, but they could not explain its application. It could only be explained by conceding the pre-existence and divinity of the Messiah. This the Pharisees would not concede. Their only idea of Messiah was, that He was to be a man like one of themselves. Their ignorance of the Scriptures, of which they pretended to know more than others, and their low, carnal view of the true nature of Christ, were thus exposed at one and the same time. Well may Matthew say, by the Holy Ghost, “From that day forth durst no man ask him any more questions”!

Let us not leave these verses without making a practical use of our Lord’s solemn question, “What think ye of Christ?” What do we think of His person, and His offices? What do we think of His life, and what of His death for us on the cross? What do we think of His resurrection, ascension, and intercession at the right hand of God? Have we tasted that He is gracious? Have we laid hold on Him by faith? Have we found by experience that He is precious to our souls? Can we truly say He is my Redeemer, and my Savior, my Shepherd, and my Friend?

These are serious inquiries. May we never rest till we can give a satisfactory answer to them. It will not profit us to read about Christ, if we are not joined to Him by living faith. Once more then let us test our religion by this question; “What think ye of Christ?”

Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Mat 22:34. But the Pharisees hearing. Even their gratification at the defeat of their usual opponents, the Sadducees (Mar 12:28; Luke 20, did not diminish their enmity. Hence a renewal of the assault.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

The Sadducees being put by Christ to silence, the Pharisees again encounter him; they send to him a lawyer, that is, one of their interpreters and expounders of the law of Moses, who propounds this question to him, Which is the great commandment of the law? Our Saviour tells them, It is to love the Lord with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the mind. That is, with all the powers, faculties, and abilities of the soul, with the greatest measure and highest degrees of love. This is the sum and substance of the duties of the first table.

And the second is like unto it, not equal with it, but like unto it. The duties of the second table are of the same authority, and of the same necessity with the first. As a man cannot be saved without the love of God, so neither without the love of his neighbour.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets: that is, the whole duty of man, required by Moses and the prophets, is comprehended in, and may be reduced to, these two heads, namely, the love of God and our neighbour.

From the whole, Note, 1. That the fervency of all our affections, and particularly the supremacy of our love, is required by God as his right and due. Love must pass through and possess all the powers and faculties of the soul; the mind must mediated upon God, the will must choose and embrace him, and the affections must take complacency and delight in him; the measure of loving God, is to love him without measure. God reckons that we love him not at all, if we love him not above all.

1. We must love him above all, appreciative, so as to prize him in our judgment and esteem above all, and before all things.

2. We are to love God above all things, comparative, preferring his favours above all things, comparatively hating whatever stands in competition with him.

3. We are to love God above all things intensive. That is, our longing desires must run out after him, we must pant and thirst for the enjoyment of him.

4. We must love everything in subordination to God, and nothing co-ordinately, or equal with God.

Note, 2. That thus to love God is the first and great commandment. Great, in regard of the object, which is God the first cause and the chief good. Great, in regard of the obligation of it. To love God is so indispensible a command, that God himself cannot free us from the obligation of it; for so long as he is God, and we his creatures, we shal lie under a natural and necessary obligation to love and serve him. Great, in regard of the duration of it, when faith shall be swallowed up in vision, and hope in fruition; love will then be perfected in a full enjoyment.

Note, 3. That every man may, yea, ought to love himself, not his sinful self, but his natural self, and especially his spiritual self, the new nature in him. This it ought to be his particular care to increase and strengthen. Indeed there is no express command in scripture for a man to love himself, because the light of nature directs, and the law of nature binds and moves every man so to do. God has put a principle of self-love and of self-preservation into all his creatures, but especially into man.

Note, 4. As every man ought to love himself, so it is every man’s duty to love his neighbour as himself.

1. Not as he does love himself, but as he ought to love himself.

2. Not in the same degree and measure that he loves himself, but after the same manner, and with the same kind of love that he loves himself. As we love ourselves freely and readily, sincerely and unfeignedly, tenderly and compassionately, constantly and perseveringly; so should we love our neighbour. Though we are not commanded to love our neighbour as much as we love ourselves, yet we are to love him like as we love ourselves.

Note, lastly, That the duties of the first and second table are inseparable. The love of God and our neighbour, must no be parted. He that loveth not his neighbour whom he hath seen, never loved God whom he hath not seen. A conscientious regard to the duties of both tables, will be an argument of our sincerity, and an ornament to our profession. Let it then be our prayer and daily endeavour, that we love the Lord our God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourselves. For this is the sum of the law and the substance of the gospel.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Mat 22:34-36. When the Pharisees heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence Gr. , that he had stopped their mouths, or so confuted that he had confounded them, and rendered them unable to make any reply; they were gathered together It is not said with what design: but it is probable from Mat 22:15-16, with a malicious one, namely, to try, though the Sadducees had been baffled in their attempt upon him, as they themselves had also been, when they united with the Herodians, if they could yet any way expose him to the people. Then one of them, a lawyer Or teacher of the law, (namely, of Moses,) as the word always means in the New Testament, that is, a scribe, asked him a question, tempting, or trying him Not, it seems, with any ill design, but barely to make further trial of that wisdom which he had shown in silencing the Sadducees. For, according to Mark, it was in consequence of his perceiving that our Lord had answered the Sadducees well, that this person asked the question here mentioned. Master, which is the great commandment in the law? This was a famous question among the Jews. Some of their doctors declared that the law of sacrifices was the great commandment, because sacrifices were both the expiations of sin and thanksgivings for mercies; others bestowed this honour on the law of circumcision, because it was the sign of the covenant established between God and the nation; a third sort yielded to the law of the sabbath, because, by that appointment, both the knowledge and practice of the institutions of Moses were preserved; and to name no more, there were some who affirmed the law of meats and washings to be of the greatest importance, because thereby the people of God were effectually separated from the company and conversations of the heathen. But Jesus, with much better reason, decided in favour of a command inclusive of the whole of piety, and leading to every holy temper, word, and work.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

CIX.

JEWISH RULERS SEEK TO ENSNARE JESUS.

(Court of the Temple. Tuesday, April 4, A. D. 30.)

Subdivision C.

A LAWYER ASKS ABOUT THE GREAT COMMANDMENT.

aMATT. XXII. 34-40; bMARK XII. 28-34; cLUKE XX. 40.

a34 But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, gathered themselves together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, bone of the scribes came, and heard them questioning together, and knowing that he had answered them well, aasked him a question, trying him [he was evidently deputed by those who counseled to ask this question]: 36 Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? bWhat commandment is the first of all? [According to the statement of Jewish writers, there had been an old and interminable dispute among the rabbis as to which was the greatest commandment. Some held that it was the law which commanded sacrifices; others, that which commanded the wearing of phylacteries; others contended for those about purification; others, for those about the great feasts. But as they reckoned the commandments of Moses as numbering over six hundred, there was plenty of room for argument. On this memorable day the answers of Jesus had hitherto been of such a nature as to put his questioners to silence. Therefore, in asking this question, they hoped to get an answer about which they could at least find room to wrangle, and thus discredit the wisdom of Jesus.] 29 Jesus answered, a37 And said unto him, bThe first is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is one: 30 And aThou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. band with all thy strength. a38 This is the great and first commandment. [ Deu 6:4-9. This command is first because it is the foundation of the entire law of God. It is greatest, because, in a sense, it includes all the other laws. Polytheism, atheism, idolatry, and all sins against God are forbidden by it. All sins against man are likewise, in [603] a sense, prohibited by it; for sin against man is sin against God’s image, and against the objects of God’s love. Those who truly love God can not consistently sin against man ( 1Jo 4:20). The curious may make metaphysical distinctions in the analysis of this required fourfold love, but the sum of it is that we are to love God with our whole being.] 39 And a {b31 The} second alike unto it bis this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. [Love is the cure for sin, for we can not sin against those whom we truly love. Where we love, we desire to bless. But sin always carries with it a willingness to injure or to curse.] There is none other commandment greater than these. a40 On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets. [The generic nature of the law of love is also noted by Paul ( Rom 13:8-10); but love without law is not sufficient. Love begets a desire to bless, but the law guides to the accomplishment of that desire. Perfect righteousness is the result of wisdom as well as affection. Love without law is power without direction, and law without love is machinery without a motor– 1Co 13:1-3.] b32 And the scribe said unto him, Of a truth, Teacher, thou hast well said that he is one; and there is none other but he: 33 and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is much more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices. [Here, as in the preceding subdivision, the answer of Jesus was so clearly right that it enforced admiration.] 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. [Prejudice is the great obstacle to entering the kingdom. In proportion as we overcome it we draw near to God.] And no man after that durst {c40 For they durst not any more} ask him any question. [They found it expedient to keep silence when their questions only exposed their own shallowness, and made more conspicuous the supreme wisdom of Jesus.] [604]

[FFG 603-604]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

THE THEOLOGIAN AND THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS

Mat 22:34-40; Mar 12:28-34. And one of the scribes coming to Him, and having them interrogating Him, knowing that He answered them beautifully, asks Him, What is the first commandment of all? And Jesus responded to him, The first commandment of all is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these. [Deu 6:4; Lev 19:18.] And the scribes said to Him, Beautifully, Teacher, You spoke the truth, that He is one and no other beside Him; and to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the mind, and with all the strength, and to love the neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices. Jesus seeing him, that he answered intelligently, said to him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no one dared to interrogate Him any more. This theologian so meekly and intelligently corroborated and endorsed Jesus on the great plan of salvation, as He showed from the Scriptures the pre-eminence of love into God supreme, with all the heart, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves, that Jesus, reading his heart like a book, saw his sincerity and candor, and notified him that he was not far from the kingdom of God. You see, the attitude of this theologian, when he exalted Divine love to God supreme and to the neighbor as ourselves and so frankly confessed that this love was infinitely more important than all the sacrifices of the Levitical law, clearly demonstrated that he was on the fight line, recognizing the pure spirituality of the redemptive scheme, while sacrifices and oblations are merely subordinate and symbolic. This man clearly evinces that the light of the Holy Ghost was already shining in on his mind, and revealing to him the true way of salvation. What a beautiful exception to the hypocrites, legalists, and ritualists, who so constantly thronged about Jesus with their captious questions and occult intrigue!

Mat 22:40. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Hence you see that even the Old Testament teaches a religion of perfect love, its burdensome ritual constituting a symbolic school, in which the people were constantly and vividly reminded of the vicarious atonement of the Son and the Pentecostal baptism of the Spirit.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Mat 22:34-40. The Greatest Commandment (Mar 12:28-34*, Luk 10:25-28).Mt. puts the questioner, whom he calls a Pharisee, in much less favourable light than Mk. He tempts Jesusto what is not clear (Lk.s ekpeirazn, testing, is better)and he omits the pleasing outcome of Jesus answer recorded in Mar 12:32 f. Mt. is leading up to the attack on the Pharisees in ch. 23. The lawyers question is really, What kind of commandment is great in the law? He is seeking a principle of distinction, and Jesus gives him two by which to test particular precepts. In Mat 22:37 Mt., like the original precept (Deu 6:5), enumerates three powers with which God is to be loved (Mk. and Lk. have four), but not the right threeheart and mind represent the same Heb. term, and so strength is omitted.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

22:34 {7} But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.

(7) The gospel does not abolish the precepts of the law, but rather it confirms them.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

5. Rejection by the Pharisees 22:34-46

This pericope contains two parts. First, a representative of the Pharisees asked Jesus a question (Mat 22:34-40). Then Jesus asked the Pharisees a question (Mat 22:41-46).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

A Pharisee’s question of Jesus 22:34-40 (cf. Mar 12:28-34)

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The Pharisees learned that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees. In other words, they learned that the Sadducees would no longer oppose Him publicly. Consequently the Pharisees decided to renew their attack against Him.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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