Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
Full Answer
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.” Jesus told the lawyer that he had answered correctly, and said, “Do this and you will live” ( Luke 10:28 ).
In the New Testament, the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record Jesus answering questions about the two greatest commandments in the law. As noted above, in His response, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. The next section will examine Christ’s response in each of the gospels.
Jesus cleverly responds by quoting the Old Testament as He quite frequently does. Here is the full passage in contention.
One “lawyer,” speaking on behalf of the others, claims that the Lord Jesus insulted them in Luke 11:45 by telling the truth. Some “lawyers” sided with the Pharisees against Christ when He healed a disabled man on the Sabbath (Luke 14:1-3).
I begin with what Jesus taught were the two great commandments. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. “This is the first and great commandment. “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
New Testament accounts "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. ' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
In Matthew 5:17-18, Jesus says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
Scripture Mastery—Matthew 22:36–39 In Matthew 22:36–39, the context is Jesus Christ's response to a Pharisee who asked which commandment was the greatest. One doctrine or principle taught in that passage is that the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor.
And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? None is good save one, even God. Thou knowest the commandments: Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor thy father and mother. We expect Jesus to recite the entire Decalogue.
There are 1,050 commands in the New Testament for Christians to obey.
Like the law of Moses, this law points us to Christ—the only One who can save and perfect us. “Behold,” He said, “I am the law, and the light. Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live” (3 Nephi 15:9).
In Matthew 22:36–40, a Pharisee lawyer asked Jesus "which is the great commandment in the Law?" Jesus responded, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.
The Law of Moses (Hebrew: תֹּורַת מֹשֶׁה Torat Moshe), also called the Mosaic Law, primarily refers to the Torah or the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. They were traditionally believed to have been written by Moses, but most academics now believe they had many authors.
“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them”: second of the Ten Commandments.
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt alove the Lord thy God with all thy bheart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy cmind. 38 This is the first and great acommandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt alove thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the alaw and the prophets.
613The 613 refers to the 613 Jewish commandments (mitzvot in Hebrew) extracted from the Old Testament. This immense work by Archie Rand includes one painting for each one of the 613 mitzvot. 1. To know there is a God.
Jesus of course outsmarts the lawyer by summing up the Ten Commandments in two by quoting the Old Testament. Matthew 22:36-40 “ Master, which is the great Commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto 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 first and great commandment.
Deuteronomy 6:5 “ And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. ”.
If you love God with all your heart which is the greatest Commandment, you will be obeying all Ten but especially the first four as shown by Deuteronomy 6:5 which is right after the Ten Commandments are quoted. And if you love your neighbour as yourself, you will be obeying the last six. Therefore love is fulfilling the law ...
Note carefully that Jesus said “ all the law hang on these two. ” And all as Jesus clarified means every bit of what God wrote and nothing less. Below you will find the two Old Testament verses that Jesus quoted from and the first verse is “ right after ” the second reading of the law.
The fourth being the Sabbath is a law of love also because Deuteronomy 6:5 says that loving God with all your heart, soul and might is to keep each and every one of the Ten Commandments that had just been read 17 verses earlier.
Jesus' Great Commandment. Jesus said that to love God supremely is the first and greatest Commandment. (Matthew 22:38) It is first and greatest in that it represents the heartbeat of every one of the Commandments. But while it is the first Commandment, it is not the only one as Jesus quoting from the second of the Ten Commandments also said, ...
This does not mean that this so called lawyer practiced law but was one who was learned or skilled in the law of Moses. Mark calls him one of the scribes, which means the same thing.
We see in verse 34 that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, so this lawyer now makes an attempt to trap Jesus by asking Him which is the most important Commandment. Jesus cleverly responds by quoting the Old Testament as He quite frequently does. Here is the full passage in contention.
This is the type of obedience a slave gives. Other Christians make the effort to do what is right because they believe they will be blessed for doing so. This is effectively like obeying God because He is paying them to do so. Their relationship with God resembles more that of a servant than a member of His family.
Some Christians try to do the right thing because they think God will punish them if they don't. While the Word does say God chastens every child he loves, ( Hebrews 12:5-7) this is the wrong motive for obeying our Heavenly Father. This is the type of obedience a slave gives.
Christ said, “If you want to enter into [eternal] life, keep the commandments.”. He made sure everyone knew He meant the 10 Commandments by naming several of them in this passage of Scripture ( Matthew 19:16-19 ). After His death and resurrection, Jesus’ apostles also taught the necessity of keeping the commandments.
Later Jesus explained that love can be expressed in two great commandments —love toward God and love toward your neighbor ( Matthew 22:36-39 ). The way we love God is explained by the first four commandments (Exodus 20:1-11). The way we love our neighbor is explained by the last six commandments (verses 12-17).
A call to repentance. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus upheld the commandments and magnified their application and intent. Understanding the commandments and obeying them is the basis for a relationship with Christ. It begins with repentance and accepting Christ as Savior.
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus explained that the commandments speak to our innermost thoughts in addition to our actions—because thoughts are the doorway to actions. So we must obey not only the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law.
By saying this, Jesus magnified the law against adultery—a lingering, lustful thought breaks the commandment as much as the actual act does.
In the remainder of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus illuminated the meaning of the law. He revealed its spiritual purpose and intent. For example, in magnifying the Seventh Commandment Jesus stated, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’.
Then, in a society that assumed that the scribes and the Pharisees were the epitome of law keeping, Jesus made the even more surprising claim, “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees , you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (verse 20). The disciples surely wondered how this could be ...
--The words are coupled, as in Matthew 5:17; Matthew 7:12, to indicate the whole of the revelation of the divine will in the Old Testament. The two great commandments lay at the root of all. The rest did but expand and apply them; or, as in the ceremonial, set them forth symbolically; or, as in the law of slavery and divorce, confined their application within limits, which the hardness of men's hearts made necessary. For the glowing assent of the scribe to our Lord's teaching, and our Lord's approval of him, see Notes on Mark 12:32-34.
Verse 40. - Hang all the Law and the prophets; i.e. all Scripture, which is comprised in these terms (comp. Matthew 5:17; Matthew 7:12 ); in other words, all the revelations which God has made to man in every age. The clause is peculiar to St. Matthew. It signifies that on love of God and love of man depend all the moral and religious, ceremonial and judicial precepts contained in the Law, all the utterances of the prophets, all the voices of history. Scripture enunciates the duty to God and our neighbour, shows the right method of fulfilling it, warns against the breach of it, gives examples of punishment and reward consequent upon the way in which the obligation has been treated. Thus the unity and integrity of revelation is demonstrated. Its Author is one; its design is uniform; it teaches one path, leading to one great end.
It signifies that on love of God and love of man depend all the moral and religious, ceremonial and judicial precepts contained in the Law, all the utterances of the prophets, all the voices of history.
In everyday speech, we use the term “lawyer ” to mean an attorney, one who represents another in a legal courtroom. The Bible, however, attaches another definition—a religious one. When you encounter the word “lawyer” in Scripture, concentrate on the “law” root. The “law” here is the Mosaic Law, the codified system of rules ...
Acts 5:34: “Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space;….” (According to Acts 22:3, Gamaliel was one of the rabbinical mentors of Saul of Tarsus [later the Apostle Paul].
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. [15] . But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. [16] .
Most of them did not have a positive heart attitude toward God’s Word. Hence, when Jesus Christ came to be a fulfillment of the Law, they could not see Him for who He really was. It was all intellectual knowledge instead of heart faith.
One “lawyer,” speaking on behalf of the others, claims that the Lord Jesus insulted them in Luke 11:45 by telling the truth. Some “lawyers” sided with the Pharisees against Christ when He healed a disabled man on the Sabbath (Luke 14:1-3).
The “law” here is the Mosaic Law, the codified system of rules and regulations meant to govern Israel in JEHOVAH God’s ways as the nation lived in His land, the Promised Land. The suffix “ –er ” means “one who practices.”. A “lawyer,” therefore, was an expert or scholar of the Mosaic Law.
Many Christians are familiar with Christ’s reply to the question of “what are the two greatest commandments in the law?” But have you ever wondered where in the law Jesus got His answer? When people asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was, they were referring to the most important commandment in the Old Testament law that Moses gave the children of Israel..
In the New Testament, the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record Jesus answering questions about the two greatest commandments in the law. As noted above, in His response, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. The next section will examine Christ’s response in each of the gospels.
The two great commandments summarize the whole law. If we want to please God, then we will always keep these commands. We will love God and acknowledge Him in all our ways. And we will love all other people because they bear God’s image and God loves them.
While the law of Christ is also mentioned in 1 Corinthians 9:21, the Bible nowhere specifically defines what precisely is the law of Christ.
Rather than trying to remember the over 600 individual commandments in the Old Testament Law, Christians are simply to focus on loving God and loving others. If Christians would truly and wholeheartedly obey those two commands, we would be fulfilling everything that God requires of us.
We are to obey the law of Christ because we love Him, not so that we can check off a list of commands that we successfully obeyed.
In Mark 12:32–33, the scribe who asked Jesus the question responds with, “To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”. In this, Jesus and the scribe agreed that those two commands are the core ...
Jesus answered, ‘The most important is, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”. The second is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”.
Love is to be our motivation. When we recognize the value of Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf, our response is to be love, gratitude, and obedience. When we understand the sacrifice Jesus made for us and others, our response is to be to follow His example in expressing love to others.
Various New Testament scriptures state that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament Law, bringing it to completion and conclusion ( Romans 10:4; Galatians 3:23–25; Ephesians 2:15 ). In place of the Old Testament Law, Christians are to obey the law of Christ. Rather than trying to remember the over 600 individual commandments in the Old Testament Law, ...
What are the 613 commandments in the Old Testament Law? Answer. The number 613 is often cited as the number of commandments in the Old Testament Law; however, there is no verse in the Bible that gives 613 as the correct enumeration. There are other counts as well.
However, there is no record of Rabbi Simlai listing all 613 commandments. The most commonly accepted breakdown was done by Maimonides in the 12th century AD. Maimonides further divided the 613 commandments into positive, “do this” commandments, numbering 248, and negative, “do not do this” commandments, numbering 365.
In fact, no one can even perfectly obey the Ten Commandments. The Law makes our sinfulness evident ( Romans 7:7 ). God gave the Law to define sin and demonstrate our need for a Savior. Jesus is the only one who has perfectly obeyed the Law.
Biblically speaking, whether or not 613 is the correct count is not that important. The purpose of the Law was to point us to Christ. Galatians 3:24 says, “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (NKJV). No one can perfectly obey all the commandments, no matter how many or few there are ...