Jesus was sure of the greatest commandments

JESUS WAS SURE OF THE GREATEST COMMANDMENTS
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Matthew 22:36-40 36"Teacher, which is the greatest
commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied:"'Love
the LORD your God with all your heart and with all
your soul and with all your mind.' 38This is the first
and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like
it: 'Loveyour neighbor as yourself.' 40All the Law and
the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
BIBLEHUB RESOURCES
The Two Commandments
Matthew 22:34-40
W.F. Adeney
Originality of mind may be as much apparent in a wise selectionfrom what is
old as in the creationof what is new. Some of the most striking teaching of our
Lord is of this character. Jesus Christdid not repudiate the Old Testament,
nor did he despise its truths because his ownwent further, but he pointed out
what was most important in the ancient revelation, and rescuedthis from the
oblivion into which it had fallen with many people in their scrupulous
attention to the petty details of external observances. Thus he met the

tempting question of the Pharisees by weighty words from their own Law, the
very solution of which was a revelation and a rebuke of Pharisaic formalism.
I. CHRIST CALLS US BACK TO FUNDAMENTALPRINCIPLES.The
error of the rabbis lay in a tendency to confuse the minds of their scholars and
to obscure the essentialtruths of revelation by directing too much attention to
minute questions of casuistry. A similar mistake was made by the Schoolmen
in the Middle Ages, although these masters of hair splitting delighted in the
discussionof less practicalsubjects. We are always in danger of missing the
essentialtruths of our faith in the considerationof distracting details. But
Christianity is a religion of principles. This is most characteristic ofthe New
Testament.
1. These principles are fundamental.
2. They admit of wide and varied application.
3. They must be obeyed internally - in thought and heart.
II. THE ROOT PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN CONDUCT IS LOVE. This
was found in the old Law; it belongedto Judaism, because it is always the
source of the best life. But it is most prominent and powerful in Christianity.
The gospelreveals the love of God, and it instils a spirit of love in man. So
essentialis this that no one can be accounteda Christian who is hard-hearted
and utterly selfish, howeversaintly he may be in other respects. Love is shown
in two principal relations.
1. It seeksthe welfare of those who are loved - the honour of God and the good
of fellow men.

2. It delights in fellowship with those who are loved. Christian love draws us
nearer to God and nearer to one another.
III. GOD IS THE FIRST OBJECTOF CHRISTIAN LOVE.
1. He deserves love.
(1) Because he is goodand glorious in the beauty of holiness. There is no other
objectof affectionso supremely worthy of our heart's devotion.
(2) Because he first loved us. Love is the child of love. Our love to God is a
reflectionof God's love to us; it is our response to his goodness andkindness.
2. He claims love. God is not indifferent to our attitude towards him. He
cannot be if he loves us. In his own wonderful fatherly love he seeksthe
affectionof his children. Therefore a cold morality, or a philanthropy that
ignores God, is not sufficient.
IV. MAN IS THE SECOND OBJECTOF CHRISTIAN LOVE. In practice we
cannot separate the secondcommandment from the first. St. John tells us that
we cannot love God if we do not love our brother (1 John 4:20). In loving what
is goodin man we love God. Therefore neither commandment can be taken
without the other. If it were possible to seek Godalone, that would not please
him. He does not desire us to be so absorbedin heavenly contemplation as to
forgetearthly duties. The Christian ritual is the ministry of brotherly charity
(James 1:27). To all this it may be objectedthat we cannotlove on command.
True. But

(1) we can remove the selfishhindrances to the love of God and man.
(2) We can direct our thoughts to those considerations out of which love
springs. Thus we can cultivate the affections. - W.F.A.
Biblical Illustrator
Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Matthew 22:30-40
How may we attain to love God with all our hearts
? —
I. WHAT IS IT TO LOVE GOD WITH ALL THE HEART, SOUL, AND
MIND?

1. What is love? It is not a carnal love. It is not a natural love. It is not a
merely moral love.
2. What is love to God? Metaphors to illustrate what it is to love God.
(1)The soul's love to God may be a little shadowedforth by the love of the iron
to the loadstone.
(2)Our love to God is like the love of the flowerof the sun to the sun.
(3)Our love to God is like the love of the turtle to her mate.
(4)Our love to God should be like, though exceed, Jacob's love to
Benjamin.We must not love God only with the heart, but with the whole
heart. The whole heart is opposedeither to a divided and dispersedheart, or
to a remiss and a sluggishheart. As the whole heart is opposedto a remiss and
sluggishheart, the meaning is this — the care of our heart should be set upon
nothing so much as upon the loving and pleasing God.
II. IT IS OUR INDISPENSABLE DUTY THUS TO LOVE GOD. To love God
is our greatnatural duty. Man would more naturally love God than himself,
were it not for sin. Christ's reasonin the following verse — "This is the first
and the greatcommandment." Not that any command of Godis small. The
commands in Scripture are like the stars in the firmament, which though to
ignorant persons they are but like twinkling candles, yet are greaterthan the
whole earth; so these commands, that careless persons overlook as

inconsiderable, are such as without respectunto them there is no salvation.
But this upon a manifold accountis " the greatcommand."
1. In respectof the object.
2. In respectof order and dignity.
3. In respectof obligation.
4. In respectof the matter of it.
5. In respectof the largeness ofit.
6. In respectof its capacity.
7. In respectof the difficulties of it.
8. In respectof the end.
9. In respectof the lastingness of it.
III. WHAT ABILITIES ARE REQUISITE TO THE PERFORMANCE OF
THIS DUTY, AND HOW WE MAY ATTAIN THOSE ABILITIES AS the
only efficient cause ofour loving God is GodHimself, so the only procuring

cause ofour loving God is Jesus Christ, that Son of the Father's love, who by
His Spirit implants and actuates this grace oflove, which He hath merited for
us (Colossians 1:20). Impediments of our love to God.
1. Self-love.
2. Love of the world.
3. Spiritual sloth and carelessnessofspirit.
4. The love of any sin whatsoever.
5. Inordinate love of things lawful.Means to attain love to God.
1. Directing by spiritual knowledge.
(1)The knowledge ofspiritual things.
(2)The knowledge ofordinary things in a spiritual manner, so as to make the
knowledge ofnatural things serve heavenly designs.
2. Promoting means are various.
(1)Self-denial.

(2)Contempt of the world.
(3)Observationof God's benefits to us.
(4)Watchfulness overour own hearts.
(5)Prayer.
(6)Meditation.
(7)Choice of friends.
(8)Thanksgiving.
3. Sustaining and conserving means.
(1)Faith, whereby we are persuaded that what God hath spokenis true and
good.
(2)Hope, whereby we expect a future good.
(3)Patience.

1. Directing.
(1)Prize the word.
(2)Setimmediately upon the practice of those things which you shall be
convinced to be your duty.
2. Exemplary means.
(1)Men.
(2)Angels.
(3)Christ.
IV. How TO IMPROVE AND AUGMENT ALL OUR POSSIBLE
ABILITIES TO LOVE GOD WITH ALL OUR HEART, SOUL, MIND, AND
STRENGTH. Degreesoflove.
1. The first degree is to love God for those goodthings which we do or hope to
receive from Him.

2. The secondstep of our love to God is to love God for Himself, because He is
the most excellentgood.
3. The third stepis to love nothing but for God's sake, in Him, and for Him,
and to Him.
4. The fourth step. of our love to God is for our highestlove of everything to
be hatred in comparisonof our love to God.
5. The most eminent degree ofour love to God is ecstasyand ravishment.
Properties of love to God.
1. To begin with the properties of our love to God.(1) This Divine love is not at
all in the unregenerate, unless only in show and imitation.(2) This Divine love
is far from perfection.(3)Our love to God shall never be abolished.(4)This
Divine love is so unknown to .the world, that when they behold the effects and
flames of it in those that love God in an extraordinary manner, they are ready
to explode it as mere vanity, folly, madness, ostentation, and hypocrisy.
2. The absolute properties of love to God are among many, some of them such
as these.(1)It is the most ingenious of all graces.(2)Love to God is the most
bold, strong, constant, and daring grace ofall the graces ofthe Spirit of
God.(3)Love to God is the only self-emptying and satisfying grace.(4)The
love of God makes us anxiously weary of life itself.
3. This much of the positive properties;the transcendentproperties of our
love to God are —(1) Love to God is the greatgeneraldirecting grace
containing all other particular graces in it and most intimately goes through

the acts of all of them (1. Corinthians 13).(2)It is in a singular manner
infinite. Effects of love to God: — They relate either to God Himself or to
ourselves, orthey are mutual.
1. Effects that relate to God are such as these —(1) Hatred of and flight from
all that is evil.(2) The fear of God.(3) Obedience to the commands of God, and
to those commands which would never be obeyedbut out of love to God (1
John 5:3).(4) Resignationof ourselves to God.(5) Adhesion and cleaving unto
God, in every case and every condition.(6) Tears and sighs through desires
and joys.
2. The only effect I shall name as to us is a seeking ofheaven and things above,
with contempt of the world and all worldly excellences.
3. Mutual effects are these —(1) Union with God.(2) Communion with God.(3)
Familiar love-visits.(4)A putting a love-interpretation upon all things.
Concomitants
S. Annesley, D. D.
1. Devotion, which is an absolute delivering up of ourselves to God's worship
and service, so as by no flatteries or dangers to be diverted.
2. The other concomitantis zeal, which is the most intense degree of desire
and endeavourto please and honour God —(1) In the exercise ofzeal against
sin observe this rule — whatever actof zeal you express towards others,
double the first upon yourselves.(2)Forzeal about duties — in every duty you
take in hand, endeavour to do it above your strength.

V. I PROPOSETO URGE SOME PERSUASIONSTO BE GRACIOUSLY
AMBITIOUS OF SUCH QUALIFICATIONS, AND AS GRACIOUSLY
DILIGENT IN SUCH EXERCISES.
1. God is our great Benefactor.
2. Love to God ennobles all other graces.
3. Love to God rectifieth all other loves, and brings them in due bounds.
4. Our love to God doth more sensibly quiet our hearts, than God's love to us.
(S. Annesley, D. D.)
Love the fulfilling of the law
H. W. Beecher.
I. Look to the testimony of the Bible and see whetherI am right in saying that
THE GREAT CONTROLLING INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS LIFE IS TO
BE LOVE TO GOD AND MAN. Christian people spend much time watching
their motives and actions that they have little or no time to attend to anything
else. There is but one thing required of man, and that is, that he shall have
love. If you take care of that, everything else will take care of itself. As in a
watchthere is a spring, which, if you coilit up, will of itself keepall the wheels
in motion, so there is in the human soul a spring which, if you wind it up, will
uncoil itself, and carry forward everything related to your duties and conduct
in this world.

II. WHAT IS INCLUDED IN THIS LOVE. God has made in the human soul
a threefold provision for the exercise ofaffection:maternal love, personal
affection, benevolence to men irrespective of character. To these forms of
affectionI must add a capacityfor a higher love, by which we are able to
develop out of ourselves a true love for that which is invisible and perfect —
the ideal religious love. This is given us that we may find our wayup to God,
whom we have not seen, with love and trust.
III. WHAT IS THE CONDITION IN WHICH THIS STATE OF MIND IS
TO EXIST? We are conscious thatour feelings exist in a two-fold way — first
as impulses, and secondas dispositions. The former are occasional, the latter
are permanent. Love must be a disposition, our natural equilibrium and rest.
Some men are habitually in a state of industry; they are idle sometimes, but
idleness with them is special, the exception. Industry is their abiding state.
Love must be our abiding condition.
IV. I am to ask your attention to THE RELATIONS OF THIS DISPOSITION
OF LOVE TO THE WORK OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE INDIVIDUAL
AND IN THE WORLD. This dispositionof love is the atmosphere in which all
other qualities ripen, and in which only they are perfect. Those duties
impelled by fearare usually caustic, those impelled by conscience are usually
hard; but those which spring from love are always easy. We shallnever be
able to treat our fellow-men aright without the dispositionof love; to correct
their faults; without love we cannotcorrectly presentChristianity to the
world.
(H. W. Beecher.)
The law of the heart
E. Bersier, D. D.

We all know the physical phenomenon called attraction, that is to say, the still
unexplained cause by which the molecules of matter draw one another.
Science tells us that it is a generalproperty of matter, that it exists in all
bodies whether at rest or in movement and whatever their nature; that it acts
irrespective of distance as wellas in all substances;when it is operating
amongstthe stars, it is calleduniversal gravitation; when it is manifested on
the surface of our globe, it is called weight. All those who have knownnature
since the remotestperiods, have known it. Newtonwas the first to give to this
law the formula which we all learned by heart in our youth, and all ulterior
observations have only verified it. This law of Newtonthen is only a sublime
analogyof the law of love which, in the moral order, should bind togetherall
thinking beings; and as there is not an atom of matter which canloosenitself
from physical attraction, so there is not a moral being who can loosenhimself
from the law of love. "Thou shalt love."
I. Let us face the objections that confront us. It is denied that the heart can
have a law; it is said that the proper characteristic ofthe affections is to be
free from every commandment. There is in every man a domain where nature
reigns supreme. It is, however, the end of education to diminish in man the too
powerful part of instinct and necessity, in order to developthat of intelligence
and will. Instinct says when we suffer an injury, "Revenge thyself." Social
educationkeeps back the arm. The heart can be modified by the will.
Christianity has commanded affections suchas nature never had inspired. In
Saul of Tarsus it overcame all the hatreds of his race. It is true that we can
learn to love; the heart can overcome nature. Whence this love in a dead
heart? Godalone caninspire it.
II. When this love which comes from faith shall have been thus createdin
your hearts, it will be possible for you to love humanity, not only in vague
enthusiasm of a generalphilosophy, but in that particular attachment which
sees in eachof its members a being createdin the image of God.

1. To love humanity we must believe in humanity. The Christian sees under
the most repulsive being the ideal which can one day be born of God in him.
2. Learn to see in him not that which is antagonistic to you, but all that is
possible to be good, noble, and true. In the most benighted soul there remains
some Divine spark.
3. Guard againstthose unjust prejudices, those harsh antipathies, which
obscure the sight and hinder us from seeing, in their true features, those
whom we meet with on our way.
4. Love in order to learn to love — "To him that hath shall be given." If
disorderly passions.have their bewilderments, if they drag down an incline
that is never reascendedby the souls that yield to them, do you not believe
that it will be the same with the noblest, the holiest, the best of loves? Will it
not have its enthusiasms, its irrepressible outbursts, which will fill the soul to
a point that it will desire no other life, because that it would find there nothing
but coldness and weariness? Thoseholy souls that reproduce upon earth
something of the life of Christ, and make to circulate in the presentworld the
current of a warm love, were at their beginning lukewarmand cold as you
and your soul; they have knownall the discouragements, allthe repugnances,
all the disgusts that you complain of. But they gave themselves first to God
and afterwards to man; they loved, and love became their dominant passion;
something of heaven has begun for them here below: henceforth all inferior
ends will appearto them barren and unattractive; they have alreadyfound,
they will soonpossess in its infinite fulness, the eternallife of which love is the
law.
(E. Bersier, D. D.)

"The secondis like unto it
J. B. Mayor, M. A.
In the present day there are three classesofmen who are disposed to confine
the idea of duty to our relations with our fellow-men; either because they
absolutely deny the existence of God, or because theythink that nothing can
be known about Him, or because they hold that there is something
anthropomorphic about the idea of duty altogether, and therefore it is idle to
speak of duty on the part of feeble creatures suchas we are, towards the
absolute and the infinite. One class consists ofthose in whom the spiritual
organis defective; the secondof those who cannot believe without strict
logicalproof, and find a stumbling-block in the demand for faith; while a
third consists ofthose who are repelled by moral difficulties. All these classes
join to swellthe tide of secularism. "To do as you would be done by, and to
love your neighbour as yourself" constitutes the ideal perfection of utilitarian
morality. Still the question remains, Is the rule here given sufficient in itself;
can the secondcommandment stand thus isolated? Is it enoughthat a man
should do to others as he would wish them to do to him? Does it necessarily
lead to virtue? Take the example of a sensualist:what he wishes to have done
is to have his appetites gratified, to be sparedall self-denial. To act towards
others as he would wish them to acttowards him, might lead to the worst
consequences. Also whatis the " love" of the sensualist, and what is the "self"
which he loves. He loves the lowerself in himself and in others. You must be
sure that the man who loves you rightly loves himself. You must in short rise
to the ideal that should be. In this there is a transcending the matter-of-fact
rule — "Do as you would be done by." But how and where is the ideal to be
found. Is it a fancy, in nature, art, poetry? The dullest life offers some
foothold for the God-given faculties of admiration, imagination, and affection.
The beauties of nature are tokens of an existence outside ourselves, infinite in
powerand wisdom, sympathising with every higher feeling of the heart. This
is confirmed by our own experience of life. The first dawn of consciousness
reveals to us a mother's unselfish devotion. We learn to appreciate the
thoughtful justice of a father; watching the world we come to feel that we are
in the midst of " a stream of tendency which makes for righteousness," and
we see its effects on a large scale in the rise and fall of nations. Here then we

find the right interpretation of the rule, "Love thy neighbour as thyself." It is
love the ideal in thy neighbour as thou lovest it in thyself. And to thin end we
must keepour eyes open to the ideal in others. See your friend glorified, as
what he may be by God's grace. And now we have seenthe Ideal at work both
in life and in nature, we may take a further step, and ask whether there is any
other name under which it is known to us. Two heathen philosophers shall
furnish us with an answer. All lower ideals, says Plato, are summed up in one
highest Ideal, the perfection of beauty and goodness. This Idealis to the world
of mind what the sun is to the world of matter, the fountain of life and light.
Love is the yearning after this Ideal, at first a dim unconscious yearning, but
as it grows in purity it comes to discern its object more clearly, until at length
it beholds it face to face, and then there is heaven. For this ideal is God, the
Author of the universe, the Father of eachindividual soul. And Seneca shall
tell us what is the ideal nature formed within each: — sacerintra nos spiritus
sedet, "a holy spirit dwells within us;" and again, prope est ad te deus, tecum
est, intus est, "God is near you, He is with you, He is in you." NeedI remind
you that the same truth is proclaimedby the voice of revelation — "In Him
we live and move and have our being;" "The invisible things of Him are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal
powerand Godhead;" "In Him was life and the life was the light of men;"
"Thatwas the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world."
Once only has the perfect Ideal of man been seenon earth, and that Ideal was
one with the Father; the ideal canbe formed in eachone of us only by the
Spirit of Christ within us. "Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot
bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, so neither can ye except ye abide
in Me;" "If Christ be in you the spirit is life because ofrighteousness."Here
then we may advance to a further definition of our rule. When we say, "Love
the ideal in thy neighbour," we mean as we now see, "Love that which is
Christ-like, that which is God-like in thy neighbour." The natural object of
love, as Plato has taught us, is the Divine perfection. That we are to love; that,
in so far as our heart is in its right state, we cannot help loving, with all our
soul and all our strength; all other things we shall love in so far as they
embody or represent to us any portion of the Divine perfection. Thus the
secondcommandment is like unto the first, because it is, in fact, an
exemplification of it in one direction, just as we might have another

exemplification, bidding us love and admire all the beauty and sublimity of
outward nature, or, as our Lord bids, "Considerthe lilies of the field." The
lessons, then, which we should draw from the considerationof the close
connectionbetweenthe first and the secondcommandments are mainly two.
One is, to suspectall religious emotions in ourselves whichdo not tend to
increase our love for our fellow-men. "Pure religionand undefiled," says St.
James, "is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep
himself unspotted from the world." If our religion fails to do this, whatever
ecstatic heights we may seemto soarto, it is mere self-deception;such religion
is vain. The other is that on which we have already dwelt so much, that we are
to love our fellow-men in God, as createdby God, as redeemedby Christ, as
calledto be .temples of the Holy Spirit, as all having in them the germ of a
new and Divine life, which it is the privilege and the duty of human love to
cherish and to strengthen, until at last the whole body of the Church, "being
fitly joined togetherand compactedby that which every joint supplieth, may
grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ."
(J. B. Mayor, M. A.)
Comprehensive summary of the Ten Commandments
L. O. Thompson.
There are many things about this law to fill us with admiration.
I. Its completeness.It includes the whole of life and all its chiefestduties.
II. Its twofold division. The first table of the law reveals and informs a man's
duty to God. The second, his duty to himself and his fellows.
III. Its twofoldsummary. When classifiedfrom a spiritual standpoint, it has
two greatcommandments: supreme love to God; love to fellow-man as to
one's self.

IV. Reflections. Its uniqueness, origin, scope, simplicity, tendency to lead to
Christ.
(L. O. Thompson.)
The love of our neighbour
W. H. Burns.
I. This duty arises outof our RATIONAL AND SOCIAL NATURES.
II. The OBLIGATIONS under which we are laid to the practice of the duty.
1. From the connectionof this commandment with the first. If we love Cod, we
shall love our brother.
2. A sense ofjustice, the golden rule, should lead us to do goodto our
neighbour.
3. The greatestdifficulty to contend with is the more powerful influence of
other motives addressedto the selfishness ofthe heart.
4. What is heaven, as to which we profess to aspire, but the region of perfect
love.

III. APPLY THE SUBJECT AND HOLD REASONINGSWITHTHE
SELFISH SPIRIT. TO all we have said selfishness says, "Imust mind
myself."
(W. H. Burns.)
The law of love
R. Frost, M. A.
THE PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY OF IT. Mostmen are actuatedby
exclusive self-love. This law operates as a command and as a restraint.
II. THE POSITIVE CHARACTER WHICH THIS LAW GIVES TO ALL
THE COMMANDMENTSOF THE SECONDTABLE. By the first
commandment of the secondtable, the different orders of societyare
protected; domesticatedorderthe well-spring of all socialorder. Life is
protectedby the sixth commandment; by the next precept the personof our
neighbour is protected, property, reputation.
(R. Frost, M. A.)
The law of love
A. H. Charteris, D. D.
Mark the unity and the simplicity which characterisesthis law of love to God.
It is based on the declarationthat there is but one God the Lord.
I. THE LAW OF LOVE IN NOT INFERIOR TO THE TEN
COMMANDMENTS;in fact, love of God and man includes all which these
teachat greaterlength.

II. The law of love is SUPERIOR
1. The positive, whereas the old law was negative.
2. The law of love is superior because exhaustive.
3. It is superior because it begins at the heart.
4. It is superior because it leads us directly to feelour need of the Spirit of
God.
(A. H. Charteris, D. D.)
The mind's love for God
P. Brooks,D. D.
In the first place, then, we want to assure ourselves in generalthat there is
such a poweras intellectual affection, and that no man completely and
worthily loves any noble thing or personunless he loves it with his mind as
well as with his heart and soul. That will not, I think, be very hard to see.
Take, forinstance, your love for some beautiful scene ofnature. There is
somewhere upon the earth a lordly landscape which you love. When you are
absent from it, you remember it with delight and longing. When you step into
the sight of it after long absence, yore" heartthrills and leaps. While you sit
quietly gazing day after day upon it, your whole nature rests in peace and
satisfaction, Now, whatis it in you that loves that loveliness? Love I take to be
the delighted perception of the excellence ofthings. With what do you
delightedly perceive how excellentis all that makes up that landscape's

beauty, the bending sky, the rolling hill, the sparkling lake, the waving
harvest, and the brooding mist? First of all, no doubt, with your senses. Itis
the seeing eye, the hearing ear, the sense offeeling which in the glowing cheek
is soothedor made to tingle, the sense of smell which catches sweetodours
from the gardenor the hayfield, — it is these that love the landscape first; you
love it first with all your senses. Butnext to that what comes? Suppose that
the bright scene is radiant with associations,suppose that by that river you
have walkedwith your most helpful friend; upon that lake you have floated
and frolickedwhen you were a boy; across thatfield you have guided the
staggering plough; overthat hill you have climbed in days when life was all
sunshine and breeze. That part of you which is capable of delightedly
perceiving these associationsas they shine up to you from the glowing scenery,
perceives them with delight and takes the landscape into its affection. You
love the scene with all your heart. But yet again, suppose a deeper faculty in
you perceives the hand of God in all this wondrous beauty; suppose a glad and
earnestgratitude springs up in you and goes to meet the meadow and the sky;
suppose that all seems to tell to some deep listening instinct in you that it was
all made for you, and made by one who loved you; suppose that it all stands as
a rich symbol of yet richer spiritual benefits of which you are aware;what
then? Does not another part of you spring up and pour out its affection, your
powerof reverence and gratefulness;and so you love the landscape then with
all your soul. Or yet again, if the whole scene appears to tempt you with
invitations to work;the field calling on you to till it, and the river to bridge it,
and the hill to set free the preciousness ofgoldor silver with which its heart is
full and heavy; to that too you respond with your power of working;and then
you love the scene with all your will or all your strength. And now, suppose
that beyond all these another spirit comes out from the landscape to claim
another yet unclaimed part of you; suppose that unsolved problems start out
from the earth and from the sky. Glimpses of relationship betweenthings and
of qualities in things flit before you, just letting you see enough of them to set
your curiosity all astir. The scene which cried before:"Come, admire me;" or,
"Come, work on me;" now cries, "Come, study me." What hangs the stars in
their places and swings them on their way; how the earth builds the stately
tree out of the pretty seed;how the river feeds the cornfield; where lie the
metals in the mountains? — these, and a hundred other questions, leap out

from the picture before you, and, pressing in past your senses andyour
emotions and your practicalpowers, will not rest till they have found out your
intelligence. They appealto the mind, and the mind responds to them; not
coldly, as if it had nothing to do but just to find and registertheir answers, but
enthusiastically, perceiving with delight the excellenceofthe truths at which
they point, recognizing its appropriate task in their solution, and so loving the
nature out of which they spring in its distinctive way. It would be strange
indeed if it were not so; strange indeed if the noblest part of us were incapable
of the noblest action;strange indeed if, while our senses couldthrill and our
hearts leap with affection, the mind must go its wayin pure indifference,
making its greatdiscoveries with no emotion for the truths which it
discovered, and for the men in whom those truths were uttered. But R is not
so. The intellect canlove. But canwe think about God's love and not feel ever
present, as an element in it, the working of the infinite mind as wellas of the
perfect heart? No doubt men's minds differ from one another exceedinglyin
their capacityof affection. You tell your scholarthat he must study because
his parents wish it, because he ought to be equal to his fellow-scholars,
because he will be poor and dishonoured if he is ignorant. These motives are
good, but they are only the kindling under the fire. Notuntil an enthusiasm of
your scholar's ownintellect begins, and he loves the books you offer him with
his mind, because of the way they lay hold of his power of knowing them; not
until then has the woodreally caughtand your fire truly begun to burn. To
that end every true teachermust devote himself, and not count his work fairly
begun till that is gained. When that is gained the scholaris richer by a new
powerof loving — the powerof loving with his intellect — and he goes on
through life, carrying in the midst of all the sufferings and disappointments
which he meets, a fountain of true joy in his own mind which canfill him with
peace and happiness when men about him think that he has only dreariness
and poverty and pain.
(P. Brooks, D. D.)
Love of God to be the dominant passion

J. E. Kempe, M. A.
It could scarcelyleadto any satisfactoryresultif we were to attempt nicely to
discriminate betweenwhat is meant here by the heart, the soul, and the mind.
In point of fact, of the four Greek representatives thatwe have of the same
Hebrew original (Deuteronomy 6:5) — that of the Septuagint, and those of St.
Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke — no two preciselyagree in the words
chosenfor the purpose. And what this variation may seemto sayto us is this:
Apart from all metaphysicaland psychologicaldistinctions, whateverterms
will best conveyto you a description of all the powers, faculties, and capacities
which can in any way be affectedby love, let them be adopted and employed
in exhibiting the nature and extent of the love that you owe to God. Feelings,
intellect, and will may perhaps best express for popular purposes the different
spheres or constituents of our moral nature which that love ought to pervade
and influence. The combination of the three is absolutelyessential.
1. The love of the understanding only — a love into which we have reasoned
ourselves — which is based upon a certainbalancing of argument for and
againstit, resulting in a decisionfavourable on the whole to the Divine claims;
a love which we profess because we see clearlythat God ought to be loved,
that He has a right to a place, aye, and the very first place, in our hearts —
this is not the kind of love which is lookedfor from us by Him who spared not
His own Son, but freely gave Him up for us all.
2. Norwill He be content with the love which is merely a feeling, and which
rests upon no solid foundation of a rational convictionthat He is worthy of the
love which is felt for Him. You must justify to your judgment the feeling that
you have admitted.
3. The will — that power by which the feelings of the heart and the
convictions of the understanding are made influential and operative in the
conduct. This is the true test of the sincerity of those feelings, and the
soundness of those convictions. Any love which stops short of this is but self-

love. To be of the right sort, our love for God must be an active moving
principle and power, which so determines our thoughts, words, and works,
that God in all things may be glorified in us through Jesus Christour Lord,
and we ourselves, as it were, may be absorbedinto that glory.
(J. E. Kempe, M. A.)
Love for God the ruling energy
Dr. Thomas.
This, like Aaron's rod of old, swallows up all evil enchantments of the heart. It
enters the sacredtemple within, and, like another Messiah, it expels every
lurking desecrationforthwith. It is a flame which not only lights up the dark
chambers of the soul, but transmutes into its own pure essenceall its elements
of feeling and of thought.
(Dr. Thomas.)
The secondis like unto it
John Trapp.
For it has —
1. The same Author. God spake all these words.
2. The same tie.
3. The same sanctionand punishment of the violation.

4. It requires the same kind of love and service;for the love of our neighbour
is the service of God.
(John Trapp.)
Like unto it
R. Hooker.
in amplitude and largeness, inasmuchas it is the root out of which all laws of
duty to men-ward have grown, as out of the former all offices ofreligion
towards God.
(R. Hooker.)
It is the duty of every man to love his neighbour as himself
Y. Milward, A. M.
It is requisite to show —
I. WHO IS OUR NEIGHBOUR? We are to accountas our neighbour any
man whomsoever, friend or enemy, that lives nigh to us, or at a greater
distance from us.
II. THE LAWFULNESS OF A MAN'S LOVING HIMSELF. It is a duty
incumbent on every man to love himself. There is a twofold self.
1. A natural self.

2. A sinful self. This is to be hated, the other loved.He that came to destroy
"the works of the devil" came to save the soul and body, the works of God
(Luke 19:10).
1. A man may love his own body, and is bound to preserve the life of it
(Ephesians 5:29). A man may sin againsthis own body by excessivelabour,
neglect, intemperance (1 Corinthians 6:18).
2. A man may and ought chiefly to love his own soul. The new nature, or
spiritual self, is the best self we have, and should be most loved (Romans
14:12).
III. TO LAY DOWN SOME CONCLUSIONS.
1. That as God is to be loved above all things else, so He is to be loved for
Himself (Luke 18:19).
2. That creatures may be loved according to that degree of goodnesswhich
God hath communicated to them, not for themselves, but for God, who "
made all things for Himself" (Proverbs 16:4).
3. No man can love himself or his neighbour aright while he remains in a state
of sin. Love is a "fruit of the Spirit" (Galatians 5:22).
I. HOW OUGHT WE TO LOVE OUR NEIGHBOUR?

I. In the same things wherein we show love to ourselves, we oughtto show love
to our neighbour.
1. Our thoughts of, and the judgment we pass upon, ourselves (1 Corinthians
13:5).
2. Our speeches(Titus 3:2).
3. Our desires afterthat which is goodfor ourselves. We should desire the
goodof others in all things as our own (Matthew 5:44).
4. Our actualendeavours that it may be well with us. So ought we to
endeavour to do others good(1 Peter4:10).
II. After the same manner that we love ourselves we ought to love others.
1. We do, or should, love ourselves holily, in the fear of God. In this manner
we must love others. Every man is a creature upon whose soulthere is, in a
sort, the image of God (Titus 3:3, 4).
2. Our love to ourselves should be orderly; we must first and chiefly love our
souls, and then our bodies (Deuteronomy 4:9).
(1)We must seek the conversionof those who are unconverted (James 5:19,
20).

(2)We should show our love to the souls of others by seeking the increase of
their faith, holiness, and comfort (1 John 1:4).
3. Our love to ourselves goesoutfreely. In the like manner we should go forth
to others (1 Timothy 6:18).
4. We love ourselves unfeignedly; and thus it is required we should be to
others (1 John 3:18).
5. We do not only love ourselves truly and sincerely, but with some fervency;
our love to others must not be cold (1 Peter 1:22).
6. We love ourselves very tenderly (Ephesians 5:29). It is required of us that
we "be kind one to another, tender-hearted" (Ephesians 4:32).
(Y. Milward, A. M.)
The royal law
Hooper.
The Christian finds what a right royal law this is of the Saviour's, for he sees
that it includes and covers everypossible form of duty; that if this command
be fulfilled, it necessitatesthe fulfilling of every other command. He who is
content with visiting the lowereminences which surround Merit Blanc may
wander about from one to another, and getpicturesque views in detail; but, at
the best, they are only partial and imperfect glimpses. He alone who reaches
the topmost summit can command at one glance allthe glorious view. In like

manner must it be with him who wishes to serve God. He may try in detail to
keepthis or that commandment, and he will be the better and happier for his
efforts. But, in order to observe them all truly and in their spirit, he must
stand on the moral eminence of love towards God. Then he will be able to
perform his duty, not bit by bit, but as a whole, complete and perfect, doing
everything for God, and yet not neglecting man.
(Hooper.)
Love to God
W. B. Collyer.
I. The NATURE of this principle.
1. Its definition. Love to Godis a principle, not a passion.
2. Its extent.
3. Its sublimity.
II. The OBLIGATIONS ofthis principle. Love to God is(1) the great
commandment;
(a)in point of importance;
(b)in order of nature;
(c)as all others are dependent on it.(2) It is most reasonable and simple.

(3)It is most powerful, binding, and endearing.
III. The INFLUENCE of this principle. Observe
(1)the connectionbetweenthe commandments.
(2)The comprehensionof duty containedin this commandment.
(3)The certainty of this result — loving our neighbour — from the principle.
(W. B. Collyer.)
Christ's two commandments
Matthew Hole.
I. How is the love of God said to be the first commandment? It is
(1)in order of time;
(2)in order of nature.
II. How is the love of God saidto be the greatcommandment?
1. Upon the accountof the greatness anddignity of the object — God.

2. Upon the accountof the largeness andcomprehensiveness ofit — the whole
duty of man.
3. Upon the accountof the influence it hath upon all the parts and duties of
religion, which have all their worth and acceptance entirelyfrom it.
4. Upon the accountof its perpetual and everlasting duration.
III. How is loving our neighbour the secondcommandment, and like unto it?
1. In respectof the authority that commands it, and our obligationto observe
it.
2. In respectof the ground and motive of our obedience, whichare some
Divine perfections residing in God, and communicated to His creatures.
3. In respectof the extent and comprehensivenessofit.
4. In respectof the reward and punishment that attend the keeping and
breaking of it.
(Matthew Hole.)

The nature of moral and positive duties
S. Clarke.
I. All moral duties are containedin, and may be reduced to, these two heads
— the love of God and of our neighbour.
II. All positive and ritual injunctions, though in their proper place they ought
not to be left undone, yet they are but subordinate to these, and subservient to
them. This appears from the following considerations.
1. The moral duties of life are things in their own nature goodand excellent, of
eternal and necessaryobligation. All ritual and ceremonialobservanceshave
no intrinsic goodness in the nature of the things themselves;nor any
obligation but what arises merely from their being positively and occasionally
enjoined.
2. All positive and ritual injunctions whatsoever, canbe but subordinate to the
practice of moral virtues; because these latter are the end for which the
former are commanded, and the former can be consideredonly as means to
the latter.
3. Moralduties, or the practice of true virtue, will continue for ever, but all
positive commandments are but of temporary obligation.
(S. Clarke.)
The love of God man's first duty
Archbishop Secker.
I. The nature of the love of God (i.e., our love to God).

II. The importance of it in point of duty.
III. Its influence on our happiness.
IV. The methods which infinite wisdom hath employed to cultivate it in our
minds.
(Archbishop Secker.)
Love of neighbour man's secondduty
Archbishop Secker.
Our neighbour signifies in Scripture, and not seldom in heathen writers, every
person who is placedwithin our reach and influence. The principal causesof
our narrowing the circle of our neighbours are —
1. Hatred, from diversity of faith and worship; or rivalship in profit,
advancement, affection, and reputation.
2. Pride. They cannotallow such low creatures as the "multitude," to claim
their notice.
3. Selfishness.The selfishman acknowledgesno neighbour; is concerned
solelyfor himself, and what he is pleasedto reckonhis own interest.
(Archbishop Secker.)

God the object of love
H. Melvill, B. D.
I can imagine nothing more perilous than the theory that piety is independent
of the affections — it were better to be the enthusiast with every feeling
excited than the mere philosophical reasonerwith the belt of ice for ever
round the heart.
I. This love of God is reasonable.
1. There are feelings which will be calledinto exercise according as God is
surveyed under different points of view. The proper objectof love, as
distinguished from other affections, is goodness.It is not as the all-powerful
Being that we love God; I have an awe of God as powerful. See how the case
stands in regardof a creature. A man cannot be just and not love justice;
neither canhe be goodand not love goodness. Suppose this creature was your
friend, your governor, what would be the effectof this accumulationof
qualities? Would not your love be enhancedby their depending on one upon
whom it was safe to depend. Now substitute the Creatorfor the creature, and
shall not He be the objectof love. God has planted in us these affections, and
there is that in Himself which should raise them to the highest pitch.
II. The threefold requirement comprehended in the loving " with all the heart,
and with all the soul, and with all the mind." It is demanded that there be no
energy unemployed in the service ofGod. If such a love seemunattainable, it
is not the less to be proposedas the standard at which we should aim. Let it
not be imagined that in demanding all, God leaves nothing for other objects of
affection. The truth is that in proportion as we love the Creator, we shall love
with a purer and warmer love every other lawful objectof affection.
III. That in representing God as the alone sufficient objectof love, we state a
generaltruth whose full demonstration must be referred to the scenes of

eternity. Let us throw awayconfusedand indeterminate notions of happiness,
and it must be admitted that happiness consists in every faculty having its
proper object. And if love find its proper object in nothing short of God, may
it not be that the perfect happiness of the future shall result from the fact, that
every faculty will have found its object in God? But it is certain that in loving
God, we have foretastes ofits delights — for love is to survive, when faith and
hope shall have passedaway. Let us, then, take heed lestentangled with
earthly attachments, forgetful of the rule that love of the creature must be
secondaryto love of the Creator, we provoke God to jealousy, and thus
weakenthe anticipation of heaven.
(H. Melvill, B. D.)
The true religion
H. W. Beecher.
I. We have here an explicit revelation of the true nature of religion, about
which the whole world has been in so much dispute. The essence oftrue
religion is love to God and love to man. It is towards God a whole and
continuous sympathy and love. It is toward man a uniform and dominating
disposition of benevolence.
II. We have here, then, the physiologicalidea of the Bible in regardto the
perfect man. Christ's ideal is neither philosophy, nor war, nor statecraft, but
love to God and man. The capacityto create happiness will be the true ideal of
man.
III. If this be so, we have now the only true test of personalreligion.
Conversionand regenerationare not only really possible, but they are
indispensable; and no man can enter the kingdom of God, which is a kingdom
of love and peace in the Holy Ghost, unless he is born again. Selfishness shall
not enter into the kingdom of God.

IV. This is the true gauge by which to measure the spread, the progress of
religion in the soul. We are apt to confound the question of growthin grace
with the Greek idea of acquisition, self-culture. The gauge of religionis the
intensity and the productiveness of the love principle.
(H. W. Beecher.)
Love divinely cultured in us
H. W. Beecher.
There is not a daisy that was not organizedto be a daisy, but I should like to
see one that did not have the sun to help it up from the seedI there is not an
asterthat was not organized to be an aster, but where is there one that grew
independent of the sun? What the sun is to flowers, that the Holy Ghostmust
be to our hearts, if we would be Christians.
(H. W. Beecher.)
Love renders service easy
H. W. Beecher.
If one were sent to take care of the poor, miserable, wounded soldiers lying in
the plague-strickenhospitals onthe plain of Solferino, he would say to
himself, "Moneywould not hire me to do it, but I must do it because it is my
duty. Here are men who are suffering and need attention, and I am bound to
look after their wants." But let me find my own son among those unfortunate
creatures, and, no matter how loathsome might be the offices to be performed
toward him, could money buy from me the privilege of ministering to his
necessities?Couldany motive induce me to leave his side day or night? That
which I should do in the one case through conscientiousness,orfrom a sense

of duty, and which would be a disagreeabletask, I should do in the other case
through love, and it would then be a pleasure to me. I should do it with
delight. There would not be hours enough in which I might serve in love my
wounded son.
(H. W. Beecher.)
The heart to be educatedas well as the intellect
CapelCure, M. A.
Is it not the specialcharacteristic ofthe age that it trains the intellect with
unrivalled zealand success, while it leaves too often out of sight the heart and
the affections? Are not all the prizes of life heaped together, and increasing in
their value and what may be called their piquancy, in order to spur on to the
utmost the culture of the intellect alone? There is not a schoolmasterwho does
not complain that he is ceaselesslygoadedby the parents to press on their
children even beyond their strength in the race for distinction. Nordoes this
pressure touch the child alone. In age as well as in youth, we are all pressedon
by the swift tide of the world to worship the idol of intellect as though it had
all to give in earth and heaven. And where, in all this eagernessto learn or
gain distinctions, where is the educationwhich all our life long should be
bringing nearer to the heart the truths of the unseen world?
(Capel Cure, M. A.)
Charactermade by love
H. Melvill, B. D.
The mere knowledge ofthings will not necessarilyexert any influence on
conduct; and it were profanely absurd to call that man religious whose
deportment is unaffected by the greattruths of religion.-In respectevenof
the things of sense, we require a combination of love with knowledge in order
to the constitution of character;for we do not calla man a sensualistmerely

because he knows the objects of sense. He must love those objects, he must
have given his heart to those objects, before we think of applying to him such
a title; before we think of calling him a sensualman. In like manner you can
have no right to saythat acquaintance with the articles of religion makes a
man a religious man. He may know the articles of religion just as he knows
the objects ofsense;but he is not a sensualistunless attachedto the objects of
sense;neither is he religious unless his affections fastenon the articles of
religion. When, however, it has been allowedthat the affections must be
engagedin religion, there will arise various questions as to degree and
direction. We have alreadysaid, that with many the majestyand the
awfulness of the Almighty pass as evidence of the impossibility of His being
the objects ofour love. They will tell you that He might rightly be the objectof
the fear, of the reverence, ofthe adorationof His Creatures;but that it
savours of an unholy familiarity, and therefore marks a species ofenthusiasm
to speak of Him as the objectof love — and when you set againstsuchan
opinion the grave requirements of Scripture, which insist on the love of God
as the sum and substance of religion, then you will be told that love as directed
towards the Creatormust be something wholly different from love as felt
betweenman and man; and thus by representing it a mystic and unearthly
thing, they will quite remove it from your comprehensionand attainment.
(H. Melvill, B. D.)
Love ruling the soul, but not excluding other proper activities
H. W. Beecher.
This we may easily understand by familiar parallels. We say of persons who
are cultivated, that their whole manhood is cultivated. We do not mean that
there is a thing called cultivation which they have in exercise, andnothing
besides. We simply mean that there is a given mode of activity; that the reason
and the affections actin a certainfine way; that they actwith a particular
quality which we callcultivation. When we speak ofa man as well-bred and
refined, we do not mean that his taste is the only active part of his nature, but
this: that whateverother faculties are acting, they all take on the quality of

taste, so that they are of the nature of this predominant influence. Just the
same is true of conscience. A man is said to be a conscientious man when
consciencerules him. When we speak of a man as conscientious,we do not
mean that conscienceis the only feeling that rises up and acts, but that it so
distributes itself through the mind that every other feeling which comes in
acts conscientiously. And when we are commanded to love God with all our
heart, and soul, and strength, and mind, and our neighbour as ourselves, it is
not meant that a man should sit down and love, love, love, love, with a
repetition that is just like the ticking of a clock, which repeats the same tick
over, and over, and over, and over again. It is not meant that we are to
compress all the parts of our life into any such unity, or any such singleness,
that they shall all be included in one thing, that one thing being love to God
and love to man. It is meant that a strong predominant love to God and man
shall so pervade the soul, that there cannot be in all the actionof the mind one
feeling that will go contrary to that spirit. The reasonmust be a reasonacting
in the spirit of love; the consciencemust be a conscienceacting in the
atmosphere of love; the taste must be a taste acting in the atmosphere and
spirit of love — love to God and love to man. The appetites and passions, and
every other faculty of the mind, in all their power or variety or versatility,
may act; but they will actas steeds that feel the one rein, which goes back to
the hands of the one driver, whose name is Love.
(H. W. Beecher.)
The worth of love determined by its object
S. Annesley, D. D.
Love is but an indifferent passion, till it be united to the thing loved, and then
it gets a denomination. For example: If the objectbe earthly, it is an earthly
love; if sensual, it is a brutish love; if it be man, it is a human love; if God, it is
a Divine love: so that by our love we are changedand transformed into a thing
more noble, or more vile. We therefore debase ourselves in loving any thing
but God: there is nothing else worthy of our love. Whatsoeverwe love, we give
it a kind of dominion over us, so that the will losethits dignity and excellency

when it loves inferior things; we are, as it were, married to that we love.
"Suppose," saithRaymundus, "a poor man, of mean stock and no reputation,
have six daughters; they are all equal by birth as to reputation and esteem,
but they are all differencedby their marriage. The eldestmarries a farmer,
the next a citizen, the third a knight, the fourth a duke, the fifth a king, the
sixth an emperor; by these marriages there is a very greatinequality. So, here,
by the objectof your love you are dignified or debased."
Proprietorship heightens love
S. Annesley, D. D.
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." Those things that are ours, though they
are not always lovely, yet we love them; our own children, whether of our
bodies or our minds, our own estates. We are more troubled at the loss of
anything wherein our own propriety [property] is concerned, than in all the
world besides. A small thing of our own is a thousand times more to us than a
thousand times as much of another's. We are more concernedfor the cutting
off our own finger, than the cutting off another man's head. Propriety
[proprietorship] doth exceedinglyheighten love.
Love is a busy grace
S. Annesley, D. D.
Love among the passions is like fire among the elements. Love among the
graces is like the heart among the members. Now that which is most contrary
to the nature of love must needs most obstruct the highest actings of it. The
truth is, a carelessframe of spirit is fit for nothing; a sluggish, lazy, slothful,
carelesspersonnever attains to any excellencyin any kind.

The first and great command
S. Annesley, D. D.
Love to God is the most excellentof all graces (1 Corinthians 13:13). Love
among the graces is like the sun among the stars, which not only enlightens
the lowerworld, but communicates light to all the stars in the firmament; so
love to God does not only its own office, but the offices ofall other graces.
COMMENTARIES
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
(36) Which is the greatcommandment . . .?—Literally, of what kind. The
questioner askedas if it belonged to a class. Our Lord’s answeris definite,
“This is the first and greatcommandment.”
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
22:34-40 An interpreter of the law askedour Lord a question, to try, not so
much his knowledge, as his judgment. The love of God is the first and great
commandment, and the sum of all the commands of the first table. Our love of
God must be sincere, not in word and tongue only. All our love is too little to
bestow upon him, therefore all the powers ofthe soul must be engagedfor
him, and carried out towardhim. To love our neighbour as ourselves, is the
secondgreatcommandment. There is a self-love which is corrupt, and the
root of the greatestsins, and it must be put off and mortified; but there is a
self-love which is the rule of the greatestduty: we must have a due concernfor
the welfare of our own souls and bodies. And we must love our neighbour as

truly and sincerelyas we love ourselves;in many caseswe must deny
ourselves for the goodof others. By these two commandments let our hearts
be formed as by a mould.
Barnes'Notes on the Bible
Which is the greatcommandment? - That is, the "greatest" commandment, or
the one most important.
The Jews are saidto have divided the law into "greaterand smaller"
commandments. Which was ofthe greatestimportance 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,"recordedin
the first five books of the Bible.
Jamieson-Fausset-BrownBible Commentary
Mt 22:15-40. Entangling Questions aboutTribute, the Resurrection, and the
GreatCommandment, with the Replies. ( = Mr 12:13-34;Lu 20:20-40).
For the exposition, see on[1343]Mr12:13-34.
Matthew Poole's Commentary
See Poole on"Matthew 22:40".
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
Master, which is the great commandment in the law? He calls him "master,
Rabbi, or doctor", as the Sadducees hadin Matthew 22:24 either because he

was usually so calledby his disciples, and by the generalityof the people; or
merely in complaisance to engage his attention to him, and his question: and
might hereby suggest, thatshould he return a proper and satisfactoryanswer
to it he should be his master. The question is not which of the laws was the
greatest, the oral, or the written law: the Jews give the preference to the law
delivered by word of mouth; they prefer the traditions of the elders before the
written law of Moses;See Gill on Matthew 15:2; but the question was about
the written law of Moses;and not merely about the decalogue,orwhether the
commands of the first table were greaterthan those of the second, as was
generallythought; or whether the affirmative precepts were not more to be
regardedthan negative ones, which was their commonly receivedopinion; but
about the whole body of the law, moral and ceremonial, deliveredby Moses:
and not whether the ceremoniallaw was to be preferred to the moral, which
they usually did; but what particular command there was in the whole law,
which was greaterthan the rest: for as there were some commands that were
light, and others that were weighty, a distinction often used by them (m), and
to which Christ alludes in Matthew 23:23. It was moved that it might be said
which was the greatestandweightiestof them all. Some thought the
commandment of the sabbath was the greatest:hence they say (n), that he
that keeps the sabbath is as if he kept the whole law: yea, they make the
observance ofthe three meals, or feasts, which, according to the traditions of
the elders, they were obligedto eaton the sabbath, to be at leastone of the
greatestofthem,
"These three meals (says one of their writers (o)) are a greatmatter, for it is
one , "of the greatcommandments in the law".
Which is the very phraseologyusedin this question. Others give the
preference to circumcision, on which they bestow the greatestencomiums,
and, among the rest(p), say, it drives awaythe sabbath, or that is obliged to
give place unto it. Others (q) sayof the "phylacteries", that the holiness of
them is the greatestofall, and the command to be arrayed with them all the
day, is more excellentthan all others; and even of the fringe upon the borders
of their garments, others observe (r), that a man that is guilty of that

command, is guilty of all others, and that single precept is equal to all the rest.
In this multiplicity of opinions, Christ's is desired on this subject, though with
no goodintention,
(m) Pirke Abot, c. 2. sect. 1. & c. 4. sect. 2.((n) Zohar in Exod. fol. 37. 1.((o)
Tzeror Hammor, fol. 3. 3. (p) Misn. Nedarim, c. 3. sect. 11. (q) Maimon. Hilch.
Tephillin, c. 4. sect. 25, 26. (r) T. Bab. Menachot, fol. 43. 2.
Geneva Study Bible
Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
EXEGETICAL(ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)
Meyer's NT Commentary
Matthew 22:36 f. What kind of a commandment (qualitative, comp. Matthew
19:18)is greatin the law;what must be the nature of a commandment in
order to constitute it great? The commandment, then, which Jesus singles out
as the greatone κατʼἐξοχήν, and which, as corresponding to the subsequent
δευτέρα, He places at the head of the whole series (ἡ μεγάλη κ. πρώτη, see the
critical notes)in that of Deuteronomy 6:5, quoted somewhatfreely after the
Sept.
κύριοντὸν θεόν σου] ‫ֵא‬ ‫ת‬ ‫הְי‬ ָ‫ה‬ ֱֵ ֶ ‫,הי‬ in which regulardesignationτὸν θεόν σου
is in apposition, consequentlynot to be rendered: “utpote Dominum tuum,”
Fritzsche.
Love to God must fill the whole heart, the entire inner sphere in which all the
workings of the personalconsciousnessoriginate (Delitzsch, Psychol. p. 248
ff.; Krumm, de notionib. psych. Paul. § 12), the whole soul, the whole faculty
of feeling and desire, and the whole understanding, all the powers of thought

and will, and must determine their operation. We have thus an enumeration
of the different elements that go to make up to τὸ δεῖν ἀγαπᾶντὸν θεὸν
ὁλοψύχως τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ διὰ πάντων τῶν τῆς ψυχῆς μερῶν καὶ δυνάμεωναὐτῷ
προσέχειν (Theophylact), the complete harmonious self-dedicationof the
entire inner man to God, as to its highest good. Comp. Weiss, Bibl. Theol. p.
81, ed. 2.
Expositor's Greek Testament
Matthew 22:36. ποία ἐντολὴ: what sortof a commandment? it is a question
not about an individual commandment, but about the qualities that determine
greatness in the legalregion. This was a question of the schools. The
distinction betweenlittle and great was recognised(vide chap. Matthew 5:19),
and the grounds of the distinction debated (vide Schöttgen, ad loc., who goes
into the matter at length). Jesus had alreadymade a contribution to the
discussionby setting the ethical above the ritual (Matthew 15:1-20, cf.
Matthew 19:18-22).
Pulpit Commentary
Verse 36. - Which is the great commandment in the Law? Ποία ἐντολὴ μεγάλη
ἐν τῷ νόμῳ; What sort of commandment is greatin the Law? According to
rabbinical teaching, there were more than six hundred precepts in the Law; of
this considerable number all could not be observed. Which were of absolute
obligation? which were not? The schools made a distinction betweenheavy
and light commandments, as though some were of less importance than
others, and might be neglectedwith impunity; and some of such exceeding
dignity that fulfilment of them would condone imperfect obedience in the case
of others. Some taught that if a man rightly selectedsome greatprecept to
observe, he might safely disregardthe restof the Law (see Matthew 19:16,
etc.). This was the kind of doctrine againstwhich St. James (James 2:10)
expostulates:"Whosoevershallkeepthe whole Law, and yet stumble in one
point, he is become guilty of all." The Pharisees mayhave desired to discover

whether Jesus knew and sanctionedthese rabbinical distinctions. He had
proved himself intimately acquainted with the inner meaning of Scripture,
and able to evolve doctrines and to trace analogieswhichtheir dull minds had
never comprehended; the question now was whether he entered into their
subtle divisions and could decide this dispute for them. Such is the view
usually takenof the scribe's question; but it may wellbe doubted, if regardis
had to the characterofthe man, whether he had any intention of entangling
Christ in these subtleties, but rather askedfor a solution of the general
problem - Of what nature was the precept which should be regardedas
"first" (Mark)in the Law? We may compare the somewhatsimilar question
and answerin Luke 10:25-28. Lange's idea, that the scribe wished to force
Christ to make some answerwhich, by implying his own claim to be Son of
God, would trench upon the doctrine of monotheism, seems wholly
unwarranted. This theory is basedon the supposition that the Pharisee took it
for grantedthat Jesus would answer, "Thoushalt love God above all," and
intended to found upon that reply a condemnation for having made himself
equal with God by his assertionof Sonship. But the text gives no countenance
to such intention, and it has been suggestedchiefly for the purpose of
accounting for Christ's subsequent question (vers. 41-45), which, however,
needs no such foundation, as we shall see. Matthew 22:36
Vincent's Word Studies
Which is the greatcommandment (ποία ἐντολὴ μεγάλη)
The A. V. and Rev. alike miss the point of this question, which is: which kind
of command is greatin the law? That is, what kind of a commandment must it
be to constitute it a greatone? Not, which commandment is greatestas
compared with the others? The scribes declaredthat there were 248
affirmative precepts, as many as the members of the human body; and 365
negative precepts, as many as the days in the year; the total being 613, the
number of letters in the Decalogue. Ofthese they calledsome light and some
heavy. Some thought that the law about the fringes on the garments was the
greatest;some that the omissionof washings was as bad as homicide; some
that the third commandment was the greatest. It was in view of this kind of
distinction that the scribe askedthe question; not as desiring a declarationas

to which commandment was greatest, but as wanting to know the principle
upon which a commandment was to be regardedas a great commandment.
VERSE 37
(37) Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.—In St. Mark’s report (Mark 12:29)
our Lord’s answerbegins with the Creedof Israel(“Hear, O Israel, the Lord
our God is one Lord”), and so the truth is in its right position as the
foundation of the duty. It is significant(1) that the answercomes from the
same chapter (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) which supplied our Lord with two out of
His three answers to the Tempter (see Notes onMatthew 4:4; Matthew 4:7);
and (2) that He does but repeat the answerthat had been given before by the
“certainlawyer” who stoodup tempting Him, in Luke 10:25. In their ethical
teaching the Phariseeshad graspedthe truth intellectually, though they did
not realise it in their lives, and our Lord did not shrink, therefore, so far, from
identifying His teaching with theirs. Truth was truth, even though it was held
by the Pharisees andcoupled with hypocrisy.
BensonCommentary
Matthew 22:37-40. Jesus said, Thoushalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart — Concerning this first and greatcommandment, and the words
wherewith Mosesprefacedit, see note on Deuteronomy6:5; and for the
elucidation of this whole paragraph, see the notes on Mark 12:28-34, where
the conversationwhichour Lord had with this scribe is related more at large.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets — That is,
they contain the substance or abridgment of all the religious and moral duties
containedin the law and the prophets, which therefore may be all saidto hang
or depend on them. The expression, says Dr. Whitby, is a metaphor taken
from a custom mentioned by Tertullian of hanging up their laws in a public
place to be seenof all men; and it imports that in these precepts is
compendiously contained all that the law and prophets require, in reference to

our duty to God and man; for though there be some precepts of temperance
which we owe to ourselves, yetare they such as we may be moved to perform
from the true love of Godand of our neighbour; whom if we truly love we
cannot be wanting in them. For the love of God will make us humble and
contentedwith our lot; it will preserve us from all intemperance, impatience,
and unholy desires;it will make us watchful over ourselves, that we may keep
a goodconscience, andsolicitous for our eternalwelfare. And the love of our
neighbour will free us from all angry passions, envy, malice, revenge, and
other unkind tempers: so that both taken togetherwill introduce into us the
whole mind that was in Christ, and cause us to walk as he walked.
Jesus saidunto 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" -
takenfrom Deuteronomy 6:4. This was said, probably, because all true
obedience depends on the correctknowledgeofGod. None can keephis
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
gospelmore 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 greatobject of all our efforts.

Jesus saidunto him,.... Directly, without taking time to think of it; and though
he knew with what designit was put to him, yet, as an answerto it might be
useful and instructive to the people, as well as silence and confound his
adversaries, he thought fit to give one; and is as follows, being what is
expressedin Deuteronomy6:5.
thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
with all thy mind; that is, with all the powers and faculties of the soul, the will,
the understanding, and the affections;in the most sincere, upright, and
perfect manner, without any dissimulation and hypocrisy, and above all
objects whatever, for this the law requires; and which man, in his state of
innocence, was capable of, though now fallen, he is utterly unable to perform;
so far from it, that without the grace ofGod, he has no true love at all to God,
in his heart, souland mind, but all the reverse;his carnal mind is enmity
againstGod, and everything that is divine and good, or that belongs unto him:
and though this is now the case ofman, yet his obligationto love the Lord in
this manner is still the same;and when the Spirit of Goddoes produce the
grace and fruit of love in his soul, he does love the Lord sincerely; because of
the perfections of his nature, and the works ofhis hands, and because ofthe
blessings ofgrace bestowed, andespecially for Christ, the unspeakable gift of
his love; and most affectionatelydoes he love him, when he is most sensible of
his everlasting and unchangeable love to him, and when that is shed abroad
by the Spirit; "forwe love him, because he first loved us", 1 John 4:19 instead
of, "with all thy mind", as here, in Deuteronomy6:5 it is read, "with all thy
might"; and which clause is here added by the Syriac, Persic, and Ethiopic
versions, as it is in
Mark 12:30. The Hebrew phrase seems to denote the vehemency of affections,
with which God is to be beloved. Thoughthe Jewishwriters (s) paraphrase
and interpret it, "with all thy substance", or"money";and in the Misna (t),
the following interpretation is given of the whole,

""with all thy heart", with thy imaginations, with the goodimagination, and
with the evil imagination; and "with all thy soul", evenif he should take away
thy soul; and "with all thy strength", with all thy "mammon", or riches; or
otherwise, "withall thy might", with every measure he measures unto thee, do
thou measure unto him;
that is, as one of the commentators says (u), whether it be goodor evil; or, as
another (w), in every case thathappens give thanks to God, and praise him.
And certain it is, that as Godis to be loved in the strongestmanner we are
capable of, and with all we have, and are; so always, atall times, under all
dispensations of his providence, and upon all accounts, and for all he does
towards, in, upon, and for us,
(s) Targum Onk. & Jarchi in Deut. vi. 5. (t) Beracot,c. 9. sect. 5. Vid. Targum
Jon. in Dent. vi. 5. (u) Bartenora in Misn. ib. (w) Maimon. in ib.
Geneva Study Bible
Jesus saidunto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy {p} soul, and with all thy mind.
(p) The Hebrew text in De 6:5 reads, with thine heart, soul, and strength; and
in Mr 12:30 and Lu 10:27 we read, with soul, heart, strength and thought.
Matthew 22:37. ἀγαπήσεις, etc. Jesus replies by citing Deuteronomy 6:5,
which inculcates supreme, devoted love to God, and pronouncing this the
great(μεγάλη) and greatest,first (πρώτη) commandment. The clauses
referring to heart, soul, and mind are to be takencumulatively, as meaning

love to the uttermost degree;with “all that is within” us (πάντα τὰ ἐντός μου,
Psalm103:1). This commandment is cited not merely as an individual precept,
but as indicating the spirit that gives value to all obedience.
Cambridge Bible for Schools andColleges
37. See Deuteronomy6:5.
heart … soul… mind] St Mark and St Luke add “strength.” In Deut. the
words are heart … soul… might. Heart includes the emotions, will, purpose;
soul, the spiritual faculties;mind, the intellect, the thinking faculty. This
greatestcommandment was written on the phylactery which the “lawyer” was
probably wearing. See ch. Matthew 23:5.
St Mark (Mark 12:32-34)adds the lawyer’s rejoinder and the commendation
of Jesus, “thouart not far from the Kingdom of God.”
Bengel's Gnomen
Matthew 22:37. Ἀγαπήσεις, κ.τ.λ., thou shalt love, etc.)Moses repeats this in
Deuteronomy 6:8, from the Decaloguein Ib. Matthew 5:10; and it is
frequently repeatedin the same book, of which it is the sum, the last time with
a most solemn adjuration; Ib. 30:19, 20.—ἐνὅλῃ καρδίᾳ σου καὶ ἐν ὅλῃ ψυχῇ
σου, καὶ ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ διανοίᾳ σου,[972]with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind. Those who have copiedor collatedMSS., have for the
most part treated the article with indifference; but as far as canbe gathered
from MSS. lately collated, St Matthew introduced the article only in the last
clause. In the Hebrew it is ‫לכבה‬ ‫,ךדהמ‬ q.d., and with all thy strength (et in omni
validitate tuâ). The LXX. render it καὶ ἐξ ὅλης τῆς δυνάμεώς σου, and with all
thy might. In St Mark it is, ΚΑῚ ἘΞ ὍΛΗς Τῆς ΔΙΑΝΟΊΑς ΣΟΥ, ΚΑῚ ἘΞ
ὍΛΗς Τῆς ἸΣΧΎΟς ΣΟΥ, and with all thy mind and with all thy strength. In

St Luke 10:27, it is καὶ ἐξ ὅλης τῆς ἰσχύος σου καὶ ἐξ ὅλης τῆς διανοίας σου,
one Hebrew word, ‫]379[דהמ‬being expressedby two Greek ones. [sc. ἸΣΧΎΟς,
strength, and διανοίας, mind, or understanding.] Even the Hebrew
accents[974]distinguish this third clause from the two previous ones, which
are closelyunited. They all form an epitasis,[975]with which St Matthew’s
introduction of the article only in the third clause agrees.JohnJames Syrbius,
Philos. primæ, Part I., ch. i., § 1, thus expresses himself,—“OfALL those
things which are ever found in man, there are three fundamental principles,
idea, desire, and emotion.” ALL ought to be animated and governed by the
love of God.
[972]E. M. has ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ καρδίᾳ σου, καὶ ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ ψυχῇ σου, καὶ ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ
διανοίᾳ σου.—(I. B.)
[973]‫הד‬ ֱ‫—מ‬ 1)subst. m. strength, force, from the root ‫.הּוד‬ No. 3, Deuteronomy
6:5, “And thou shalt love Jehovahthy God with all thy heart, with all thy
mind, ‫ּו‬‫דת‬ ‫כ‬‫ה‬ ֱ‫מ‬ ‫כל‬ ֱ‫,ּוב‬ and with all thy strength,” i.e. in the highest degree.
Gesenius.—(I. B.)
[974]For some accountof the Hebrew accents,see p. 132, f. n. 5.—(I. B.)
[975]See explanation of technicalterms in Appendix—(I. B.)
DZ. support the articles before καρδιά, and before διανοίᾳ:the reading of B.
is doubtful. Only inferior uncial MSS. Δ., etc., omit the articles.—ED.
Pulpit Commentary

Verse 37. - Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; Κύριον τὸν Θεόν σου
(Deuteronomy 6:5, from the Septuagint, with some slight variation). Christ
enunciates the two greatmoral precepts of God's Law, not, indeed, stated in
these words in the Decalogue, but implied throughout, and forming the basis
of true religion. Heart... soul... mind. The Septuagint has "mind, soul,
strength." The expressions meangenerallythat God is to be loved with all our
powers and faculties, and that nothing is to be preferred to him. It is difficult
to define with any precision the significationof eachterm used, and much
unprofitable labour has been expended in the endeavour to limit their exact
sense. "Quum," as Grotius says, "vocummultarum cumulatio nihil quam
intensius studium designet." It is usual to explain thus: Heart; which among
the Hebrews was consideredto be the seatof the understanding, is here
consideredas the home of the affections and the seatof the will. Soul; the
living powers, the animal life. Mind; διαμοίᾳ,intellectualpowers. These are to
be the seatand abode of the love enjoined. Matthew 22:37
verse 39
(39) Thou shalt love thy neighbour.—The words were found, strangely
enough, in the book which is, for the most part, pre-eminently ceremonial
(Leviticus 19:18), and it is to the credit of the Pharisees, as ethicalteachers,
that they, too, had drawn the law, as our Lord now drew it, from its
comparative obscurity, and gave it a place of dignity secondonly to that of the
first and greatcommandment.

The secondis like unto it - Leviticus 19:18. That is, it resembles it in
importance, dignity, purity, and usefulness. This had not been askedby the
lawyer, but Jesus took occasionto acquaint him with the substance of the
whole law. Forits meaning, see the notes at Matthew 19:19. Compare Romans
13:9. Mark adds, "there is none other commandment greaterthan these."
None respecting circumcisionor sacrifice is greater. Theyare the fountain of
all.
And the secondis like unto it,.... For there is but a second, not a third: this is
suggestedin oppositionto the numerous commandments in the law, according

to the opinion of the Jews, who reckonthem in all to be "six hundred and
thirteen": of which there are "three hundred and sixty five" negative ones,
according to the number of the days of the year; and "two hundred and forty
eight" affirmative ones, according to the members of a man's body (z). Christ
reduces all to two, love to God, and love to the neighbour; and the latter is the
secondin order of nature, time, dignity, and causality; the object of it being a
creature;and the actitself being the effectof the former, yet like unto it: for
though the object is different, yet this commandment regards love as the
former, and requires that it be as that, true, hearty, sincere, and perfect; that
it be with singleness ofheart, always, and to all men; and that it spring from
love to God, and be performed to his glory: and which is expressedin the
words written in Leviticus 19:18 "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"; as
heartily and sincerely, and as a man would desire to be loved by his
neighbour; and do all the goodoffices to him he would choose to have done to
himself by him. This law supposes, that men should love themselves, or
otherwise they cannot love their neighbour; not in a sinful way, by indulging
themselves in carnal lusts and pleasures;some are lovers of pleasures more
than lovers of God; but in a natural way, so as to be careful of their bodies,
families, and estates;and in a spiritual way, so as to be concernedfor their
souls, and the everlasting happiness of them: and in like manner should men
love their neighbours, in things temporal do them all the goodthey can, and
do no injury to their persons or property; and in things spiritual pray for
them, instruct them, and advise as they would their own souls, or their nearest
and dearestrelations. And this is to be extended to every man; though the
Jews restrainit to their friend and companion, and one of their own religion,
""Thy neighbour"; that is, (say they (a),) thy friend in the law; and "this is
the greatcomprehensive rule in the law", to show that it is not fit there should
be any division, or separation, betweena man and his companion, but one
should judge every man in the balance of equity: wherefore, nearunto it is, "I
am the Lord": for as I the Lord am one, so it is fit for you that ye should be
one nation without division; but a wickedman, and one that does not receive
reproof, it is commanded to hate him; as it is said, "do not I hate them that
hate me?"

But our Lord intends by it to include, that love, benevolence, andgoodwill,
which are due to every man; and suggests, that this comprehends not only all
that containedin the secondtable of the decalogue, but all duties that are
reducible thereunto, and are obligatory on men one towards another
whatever; all which should spring from love, and be done heartily and
sincerely, with a view to the neighbour's good, and God's glory: and with this
Maimonides agrees, saying (b), that "all the commands, or duties, respecting a
man, and his neighbour, , "are comprehendedin beneficence."
(z) T. Bab. Maccot,fol. 23. 2.((a) Moses KotsensisMitzvot Tora pr. affirm. 9.
(b) In Misn. Peah, c. 1. sect. 1.
Geneva Study Bible
And the secondis like unto it, Thou shalt love thy {q} neighbour as thyself.
(q) Another man.
Meyer's NT Commentary
Matthew 22:39. But a seeondis like unto it, of the same nature and character,
possessing to an equal extent the ποιότης (ὅτι αὕτη ἐκείνην προοδοποιεῖ,καὶ
παρʼ αὐτῆς συγκροτεῖται πάλιν, Chrysostom), which is the necessarycondition
of greatness, andtherefore no less radicaland fundamental. Comp. 1 John
4:16; 1 John 4:20-21;Matthew 25:40; Matthew 25:45. Euthymius Zigabenus:
ἀλληλοχοῦνται κ. φεράλληλοί εἰσιν αἱ δύο. We should not adopt the reading
ὁμοία αὕτη, recommendedby Griesbach, following many Uncials and min.
(but in opposition to the vss.);nor againthat of Fritzsche, ὁμοία αὐτῇ, αὕτη
(conjecture). The former was presumed (comp. Mark 12:31)to be a necessary
emendation, because from the commandment being immediately added, the
demonstrative seemedrequisite by way of introducing it. Moreover, according

to the context, there would be no need for the dative in the case ofὅμοιος. The
commandment is quoted from Leviticus 19:18, after the Sept.
ἀγαπήσεις]This, the inward, moral esteem, and the corresponding behaviour,
may form the subjectof a command, though the same cannot be said of
φιλεῖν, which is love as a matter of feeling. Comp. on Matthew 5:44, and see in
generalTittmann, Syn. p. 50 ff. The φιλία τοῦ κόσμου (Jam4:4), on the other
hand, may be forbidden; comp. Romans 8:7; the φιλεῖν of one’s own ψυχή
(John 12:25), and the μὴ φιλεῖν τὸν κύριον(1 Corinthians 16:22), may be
condemned, comp. also Matthew 10:37.
ὡς σεαυτ.] as thou shouldst love thyself, so as to cherish towardhim no less
than toward thyself that love which God would have thee to feel, and to act
toward him (by promoting his welfare, etc., comp. Matthew 7:12) in such a
manner that your conduct may be in accordancewith this loving spirit. Love
must do away with the distinction betweenI and Thou. Bengel:“Qui Deum
amat, se ipsum amabit ordinate, citra philautiam,” Ephesians 5:28.
Matthew 22:39. δευτέρα:a secondcommandment is added from Leviticus
19:18, enjoining loving a neighbour as ourselves. According to T. R., this
secondis declaredlike to the first (ὁμοία αὐτῇ). The laconic reading of [127]
(δευτ. ὁμοίως)amounts to the same thing = the secondis also a great, first
commandment, being, though formally subordinate to the first, really the first
in another form: love to God and love to man one. Euthy. Zig. suggeststhat
Jesus added the secondcommandment in tacit rebuke of their lack of love to
Himself.
[127]Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889
under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

Bengel's Gnomen
Matthew 22:39. Δευτέρα, second)Corresponding with πρώτη, first.—ὁμοία,
like) sc. of that same characteras contrastedwith sacrifice;see Mark 12:33.
The love of our neighbour resembles the love of God more than all the other
duties, just as the moon resembles the sun more than the stars do: see Genesis
1. The lawyer might easily omit the latter, whilst anxious about the former.
Our Lord guards him from that danger, and answers more than he had
asked.—ὡς,as)sc. as thou lovestthyself. Self-love needs not to be enjoined
separately. He who loves God will love himself in a proper degree without
selfishness. Godloves me as He does thee; and thee as He does me: therefore I
ought to love thee, my neighbour, as myself; and thou me as thyself: for our
love to eachother ought to correspondto God’s love towards us both.
Pulpit Commentary
Verse 39. - The second. The scribe had not askedany question about a second
commandment: but Christ is not satisfiedwith propounding an abstract
proposition; he shows how this greatprecept is to be made practical, how one
command involves and leads to the other. Like unto it; ὁμοία αὐτῇ:in nature
and extent, of universal obligation, pure and unselfish. Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself. From Leviticus 19:18. The verb, both here and ver. 37, is
ἀγαπήσεις, which implies, not mere animal or worldly affection(φιλέω), but
love from the highest moral considerations,without self-interest, holy. The
Latins indicated this difference by amo and diligo. Our "neighbour" is every
one with whom we are concerned, i.e. virtually all men. He is to be loved
because he is God's image and likeness, heirof the same hope as we ourselves,
and presentedto us as the objecton and by which we are to show the reality of
our love to God. "This commandment have we from him, that he who loveth
God love his brother also" (1 John 4:21). And for the measure of our love to
man, we have Christ's word in another place (Matthew 7:12), "All things
whatsoeverye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."
Matthew 22:39

PRECEPTAUSTIN RESOURCES
"The 'Big Idea' of the Law"
Matthew 22:34-40
Theme: Jesus summarized the Ten Commandments under the unifying
principle - the 'Big Idea' - of love.
(Delivered Sunday, February 1, 2004 at Bethany Bible Church. Unless
otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotes are taken from the New King James
Version.)
INTRODUCTION
This morning, we come to the end of our study of the ten commandments. Of
course, it wont be the the last time we talk about them; because they are
worthy of being talked about and thought about often. They are even worthy
of being memorized. Certainly, we should be living them daily. They are to be
the standard of our daily practices, becausethey presentto us a picture of
what it means to "live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age"
(Titus 2:12).
But even though we've now lookedcarefullyat all the commandments, we're
still not quite done. There's at leastone more, very important passagefrom
the New Testamentwe need to look at before we can considerour study of the
ten commandments to be complete. It is a very appropriate passagewith

which to conclude our study; because in it, the Lord Jesus Himself tells us
what the point of it all was. I will even go so far as to say that, if we don't
graspthis last point about the ten commandments, we really will not have
understood the ten commandments at all.
* * * * * * * * * *
I'd like to introduce this lastmatter by sharing with you a principle that many
pastors and preachers follow in preparing their sermons. (I've never heard of
a pastor beginning his sermonwith a lessonon preparing sermons before;but
I suppose there's a first time for everything.) Many years ago, when I began
my training for the ministry and beganlearning how to prepare Bible
messages,I was taught to carefully study a passageofScripture and seek out
the unifying theme that ties all the elements of that passagetogether. And
then, having found that unifying theme, and having - to the best of my ability -
statedthat theme in the form of a single idea, I was taught to constructall the
elements of the sermon in such a way as to express and support that one
biblical theme as the single, unifying idea of my sermon. All the points of the
sermon, and all the stories and illustrations, need to be constructedin such a
way as to support that one, single idea. We were trained to refer to it as the
"Big Idea" of the sermon.
A very famous preaching instructor illustrated the need for this "Big Idea" by
telling a story about PresidentCalvin Coolidge. It was said that he returned
home from church one Sunday and was askedby his wife what the minister's
sermon was about. "Sin," the president said. But when his wife pressedhim
further and askedhim what the preacher had to sayabout sin, President
Coolidge seemeduncertain. "I think he was againstit," was the reply.1
Obviously, even the best preacher's sermoncan come across as a very
confusing mish-mash of ideas, if all the parts aren't made to focus around that
single "Big Idea". And this is not only true of sermons;it's also true of any
kind of communication that presents a collectionof ideas. It's very hard to tie

it all down in an understandable wayunless it is all bound togetherunder a
unifying theme - under a single "Big Idea".
Well, we have just spent severalmonths studying one of the greatestcollection
of ideas ever communicated to man. These ten commandments are nothing
less than the very utterances of God - given to man on tablets of stone, and
forever to be revered as God's own expressionof His moral will to humanity.
But what is it that relates them all to one another? Is there a single theme that
unifies these ten separate, individual commandments - one theme that, if we
fail to understand, we will have failed to understand the commandments
altogether?
In other words, is there a "Big Idea" that binds the ten commandments
togetherin a meaningful and purposeful way?
* * * * * * * * * *
You might be interestedto know that this whole matter of a unifying principle
in God's Law was a very relevant question in Jesus'day. The Pharisees and
the Sadducees debatedmuch about this subject.
The Pharisees wasa religious and political party that had developeda couple
of centuries before Jesus'walkedon this earth. It had, as its main focus, the
preservationof Jewishlife and culture againstthe encroaching Gentile culture
- particularly the Greek culture. They so esteemedthe "letter" of the law of
Moses,and were so eagerto preserve the oral traditions that were said to have
sprung from the law, that they developed very strict and detailed applications
of the law for everyday life. Their Scribes - professionalscholars who studied
and taught the Law - held that there were a total of six-hundred and thirteen
different commandments that could be drawn out from the Scriptures. They
said that two-hundred and forty-eight were positive commandments (i.e., "Do

this; do that"); and three-hundred and sixty-five were negative
commandments (i.e., "Don'tdo this; don't do that").
The Sadducees was anotherpoliticaland religious party in Jewishculture.
They were the ruling party in Jewishcultural life in Jesus'day. They rejected
the oraltraditions that the Pharisees held to; and insisted that people were
obligatedto the commandments that were written in the Books ofMoses, but
not to the oral traditions handed down from the Jewishforefathers and taught
by the Pharisees.The Jewishhistorian Josephus writes that "concerning these
things it is that great disputes and differences have arisen among them."2
There were even debates betweenthe Pharisees.There were two opposing
schools oftheology;and they argued over which were the "heavy"
commandments - that is, which were the important and essentialones that
would require the death penalty if broken - and which were, by comparison,
the "light" ones. There were debates over which were the ethical and morally
significant commandments, and which were the ritualistic and ceremonial
commandments.3 You can just imagine what a mish-mash all this had made
out of God's Law.
Man had so mishandled and meddled with God's law, that it resulted in
situations in which one tradition of God's law was made to contradictwith
another. The Scribes and Pharisees once complainedto Jesus and said, "Why
do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? Forthey do not wash
their hands when they eatbread." But Jesus respondedby saying, "Why do
you also transgressthe commandments of God because ofyour tradition? For
God commanded, saying, 'Honor your father and your mother,'; and 'He who
curses father or mother, let him be put to death.' But you say, 'Whoeversays
to his father or mother, "Whateverprofit you might have receivedfrom me is
a gift to God" - then he need not honor his father or mother.' Thus you have

made the commandments of God of no effectby your tradition" (Matthew
15:2-6).
At other times, such confusion resulted in the minutia of the law being
emphasized, while the more important issues of the law were allowedto be
neglected. Jesus once rebukedthe Pharisees sternly, saying, "Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!For you pay tithe of mint and anise and
cumin, and have neglectedthe weightiermatters of the law; justice and mercy
and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone"
(Matthew 23:23).
The Pharisees andthe Sadducees evensoughtto use confusionabout the law
as a weaponagainstthe Lord. They tried to trap Jesus into saying something
controversialabout the law that would cause Him to be discredited before the
people. The Pharisees,for example, tried to trap Him into saying whether or
not it was "lawful" to pay taxes to Caesarornot (Matthew 22:15-22). They
didn't ask this because they wantedto know the answer, but because they
wanted to "entangle Him in His talk" (v. 15) and catchHim up in a tangle of
controversy. This failing, the Sadducees similarly tried use the Old Testament
law concerning a man marrying the widow of his brother in order to trap
Jesus into further controversy. But He answeredwisely, showing that they
were "mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the powerof God" (vv. 23-
33).
* * * * * * * * * *
Now it was in the contextof these debates with Jesus that we come to this
morning's passage;and in it, we see that Jesus clears up all the confusion by
giving us the "Big Idea" - the unifying principle - of God's Law. Matthew tells
us;

Jesus was sure of the greatest commandments

Jesus was sure of the greatest commandments

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