Two Great Commands/Two Great Loves

Humans love to ask what I call “mega” or “greatest” questions. What was the greatest empire in world history: Greek? Roman? Ottoman? American? Who was the greatest leader: Jesus? Mohammed? Moses? Augustus Caesar? Who was the greatest American leader: Washington? Lincoln? Roosevelt? Reagan? We do the same thing in sports. Who is the greatest baseball player ever: Babe Ruth? Willie Mays? Ted Williams? Ty Cobb? Hank Aaron? Who is the greatest football player ever: Jim Brown? Jerry Rice? Joe Montana? Walter Payton? Who is the greatest basketball player: Michael Jordan? Magic Johnson? Larry Bird? Wilt Chamberlain? Bill Russell? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? LeBron James?

The questions keep coming: cars, movies, books, musicians. We want to know who or what is the greatest. And interest in these “mega” questions is not new. It goes back even to the time of Jesus, when a religious leader287 asked our Lord about “the most important” of the commands. Our Lord did not give him one. He gave him two, telling him, “All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands” (Matt 22:40). Both commands are grounded in our responsibility to love. We are to love God supremely and love our fellow humans genuinely.

Our response to these two commandments exposes our hearts, lays bare our souls, and reveals what matters most to us. What do you cherish? What is of supreme value in your life?

We Are Commanded to Love God Supremely

Mark 12:28-30

A scribe, a religious lawyer, had come to Jesus. He had overheard our Lord’s disputes with the other Jewish leaders and saw that Jesus “answered them well.” So, without malice, this man asked Jesus a question that was often batted around in religious circles: “Which command is the most important of all?” This is not as easy as it sounds. The rabbinic tradition had identified 613 commands in the first five books of the Bible. Of these, 365 were negative, and 248 were positive. Some were “light,” making less demand, while others were viewed as “heavy,” with severe repercussions for disobedience. So this scribe asked Jesus to “declare Himself.” Our Lord gladly obliges, and His answer takes us to the core of what really matters in life.

Love God for Who He Is (Mark 12:29)

Jesus quotes what Israel called the “Shema,” found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5: “Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” This confession was recited by every devout Jew morning and evening. Edwards explains, “It was and is as important to Judaism as is the Lord’s Prayer or the Apostles’ Creed to Christianity” (Edwards, Mark, 371).

“The Lord [Yahweh] our God [Elohim], the Lord [Yahweh] is One.” Here is the heart and soul of the Hebrew faith, yes, of Christianity. Yahweh is God’s covenant name declared to His people. Yahweh is our God and our only God. Yahweh is One. He is unified and unique in essence and existence. He alone is God; there is no other.

This is a powerful statement of uniqueness and exclusivity. Our God is God alone, and our worship, love, devotion, and allegiance must be exclusively to God or He will not accept it. Teachers and theologians could debate all they want, but Jesus begins by bringing them back to the fundamentals,288 the nonnegotiables of the faith. We should love this God because of who He is: He is our God.

What kind of God is He? Exodus 34:6-7 describes Him as perfect in His gracious love and His pure justice.

Furthermore, the context of the Shema is instructive. To love God is to obey His commandments and statutes “all the days of your life” (Deut 6:2). To love God means you will teach these commandments to your children and grandchildren (Deut 6:2), when you sit, walk, lie down, and rise up throughout the day (Deut 6:7), remembering He is the God “who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery” (Deut 6:12). To love God supremely means you must “not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you, for the Lord your God [Yahweh your Elohim], who is among you, [because Yahweh] is a jealous God” (Deut 6:14-15).

Love God with All You Are (Mark 12:30)

The repetition of the word “all” (four times in Mark 12:30) emphasizes the comprehensive nature of how we are to love Yahweh our Elohim, the Lord our God. It calls for a total response of love and devotion to God. Indeed heart, soul, mind, and strength are not intended as a “psychological analysis of human personality” (Hiebert, Mark, 304), but a call to love God wholly and completely. Kent Hughes says, “It does not take much of a man to be a believer, but it takes all there is of him!” (Mark, 2:115).

The heart speaks to our emotions, the real me on the inside (see Exod 20:3). The soul speaks to the spirit, the self-conscious life (see Ps 42:1-2). The mind speaks to our intelligence and thought life (see 2 Cor 10:3-5). Strength speaks to our bodily powers, perhaps even the will (see Rom 12:1). There is overlap in these categories, but as Sinclair Ferguson says, “God is never satisfied with anything less than the devotion of our whole life for the whole duration of our lives” (Mark, 200).

Comparing a man’s love for his wife gives insight into his love for his God.

1. Is the Lord the all-consuming passion of my life?
2. Do I have a deep, intense, and abiding affection for my Lord?
3. Am I loyal to my God with an exclusive love?
4. Do I resist and even oppose anything or anyone that seeks to do my Lord harm?
5. Am I zealous to defend, with grace, my Lord’s name and honor?
6. Do I enjoy spending time with my Lord?
7. Do I do things that please my Lord and increase His joy?
8. 289Do I brag on my Lord to others?
9. Do I tell my Lord that I love Him?
10. Do I talk with my Lord as much as I can? (Storms, “I Love You”)

Remember, these are not things I do to get God to love me. They are things I do because I am loved by Him and because I love Him. I love Him because He first loved me (1 John 4:10).

We Are Commanded to Love Others Genuinely

Mark 12:31-34

As is so often the case, Jesus gives us more than we ask for! The religious lawyer asks which command is the most important. Jesus tells him there are two that go together. How you respond to the first (loving God) will determine how you respond to the second (loving your neighbor). When you obey the second, it shows that you have embraced the first.

Jesus shows us that love actually defines the lawful life, [and] He shows us that the law actually defines the loving life.... When Jesus says all the laws boil down to “love God and neighbor,” He is saying we have not fulfilled a law by simply avoiding what the law prohibits, but we must also do and be what the law is really after—namely love. (Keller, “Mark,” 163; emphasis in original)

Such Love Is Legitimately Selfish (Mark 12:31)

Jesus adds Leviticus 19:18 to complement Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Growing out of my love for God, I love those who have been created by God in His image. “Neighbor” is not used here in a restrictive sense. All of humanity, even my enemies, are in view (see Luke 10:25-29).

Some wrongly think Jesus, the unselfish One, actually tells me to selfishly love myself. How do we make sense of this? (1) There is a healthy kind of self-love that recognizes we are the objects of both the “creating” and the “redeeming” love of our God. To hate myself is an offense to God and calls into question His wisdom and goodness. (2) The love a person naturally has for himself is now “turned out” toward others (cf. Phil 2:3-5). (3) The fact that this is a command makes clear that the primary focus is on our actions and not our feelings. (4) There is certainly a mysterious paradox, for the same Jesus who tells us to love ourselves also tells us to deny ourselves and die to ourselves (Mark 8:34). The more I rightly love myself, the more I will deny myself and love others. I will serve the needs of others with all the energy, passion, and zeal with which I attempt to meet my own290 needs. However, only by loving my God supremely will I be able to love others—all others—genuinely. And as I do so, I demonstrate that I love my God supremely. No wonder Jesus said, “There is no other command greater than these.”

In a sermon preached at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in February 2012, Don Carson helped us see what it means to love others genuinely. He encouraged us to examine the context surrounding Leviticus 19:18, showing that loving your neighbor as yourself means that you will

• care for the poor (19:10),
• not steal (19:11),
• not lie (19:11),
• be fair in business dealings (19:14),
• care for the deaf (19:14),
• care for the blind (19:14),
• deal justly with all (19:15),
• avoid slander (19:16),
• not “jeopardize” the life of your neighbor (19:16),
• not “harbor hatred against your brother” (19:17),
• rebuke your neighbor when necessary for his and your good (19:17), and
• not take revenge or bear a grudge against others (19:18).

Wow! God does not leave it to our imaginations as to what He means when He tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Such Love Is a True Sacrifice (Mark 12:32-33)

The scribe responds with delight. He affirms Jesus’ creedal confession of the exclusive monotheism of the one true God, affirms the comprehensive love, devotion, and worship our God is worthy to receive, and adds an insight that drew the praise and applause of Jesus.

To love God supremely and our neighbor genuinely “is far more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Real religion ultimately is a matter of the heart. Religious rituals always must give way to the superiority of a right relationship with God and others. Indeed rituals have no real meaning unless they are expressions of our love for Jesus and others. Such spiritual insight finds its echo in the Old Testament at numerous points.

Such Love Is Crucial to Salvation (Mark 12:34)

Jesus was pleased with the scribe’s answer. He told the man, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” What did Jesus mean by this? It is not, “You are close, so try harder!” Rather, the man has come to see that entering the kingdom of God is a matter of heart devotion not hard duty. Obeying rules and regulations will never get me into the kingdom because I can never measure up to God’s perfect standard. No, I need a new me. I need a new heart (Ezek 36:26). I need the grace and mercy of my God who can make me a new creation in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). I need to draw near to Jesus, who has brought the kingdom of God near (Mark 1:15). One draws near and enters the kingdom not by religion but by a relationship with Jesus, a relationship that results in loving God supremely and others genuinely.

Conclusion

The cross tells us that Jesus loves God supremely. It tells us He loves us genuinely. This is why the Holy Spirit moved John to write,

To love God is to love others. To love others is to love God. Two great commands. Two great loves.

Reflect and Discuss

1. Why do people like to discuss “greatest” questions? How are such questions valuable? When do such questions become trivial or even harmful?
2. Which of the Ten Commandments do you consider the most important? Why?
3. Books and movies often tell us that love is the supreme virtue. How does their definition of love often fall short of the Bible’s emphasis?
4. 292Why is it important that God is “One”? Why did this cause the Jews to resist Jesus’ claims to be divine?
5. In what way is the command to love God completely more difficult than the Ten Commandments?
6. What do “heart, soul, mind, and strength” represent individually and collectively?
7. How would you respond to the person who says, “Jesus is telling us we need to learn how to love ourselves first and then to love others”?
8. How is obedience to these two great commands different from observance of religious ritual? How do you explain that God commanded Israel to observe sacrificial rituals?
9. What is the connection between these two great commands and the concept of a relationship with God through Christ?
10. How was Jesus an example of absolute love for God? How was He an example of perfect love for His neighbor?