Post #4308033

34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." -Matthew 22:34-40 After so many attempts at destroying His reputation or having Him killed through slander, and after being thoroughly defeated by our Lord every time, it was inevitable that some Pharisees would start to turn to Him. Only a fool would fail to see His wisdom and how endlessly He is vindicated. So it was that this pharisaic lawyer comes to Jesus and asks Him which is the greatest Commandment. It is a straightforward and basic question, so it lacks the venom of the Pharisees' previous attacks. This man is not trying to accuse Jesus or harm Him, but rather wants to clear the air. Is this Jesus a heretic? Are His teachings nearly as wild as the rabbis are saying? "Well then," the lawyer must have reasoned, "if He is a false teacher then He won't even get the basics right." Our Savior is no false teacher, for He is the truth Himself (John 14:6). Of course He gets this question right, for it is the bedrock of the Old Testament and its Law - which Christ Himself gave at Sinai, for He is the very God who led the people out of Egypt (Jude 1:5). No one knows the Law better than He does. For this reason He gives both the first and second greatest Commandments, while adding further that all of the Law and Prophets rest on them. It is a simple yet deep teaching. There is one God, and since He is the only God then He deserves all of your love and devotion. How does one love God? Chiefly by loving one's neighbors, whom God put in your life. From this all of our life and morality flows, with the Ten Commandments being the crucial commentary on what loving God and neighbor look like in practice. Meanwhile all the prophets demonstrate right and wrong in history, showing us the triumphs and failures of men regarding these two great laws. Jesus didn't just answer the lawyer here, He gave the man a proper hermeneutic method for understanding all of Holy Writ up until that point. Chances are the man converted shortly after the encounter, leading to even further distress among his compatriots.