The Great Commandment
Matthew 22:34-40
In Matthew 22, we are following Jesus and His encounters with the religious leaders in the temple at Jerusalem. Remember that this happened only a couple days before Jesus would be betrayed by Judas, arrested at prayer, put on trial, falsely accused, unjustly convicted, beaten, and crucified. The confrontations in Matthew 22 draw attention to the unrepentant unbelief of the Jewish leaders, while at the same time, highlighting the courage, wisdom, and compassion of our Lord Jesus.
Recall that first, the Pharisees, together with the Herodians, tried to ensnare Jesus in His words by asking a question about paying taxes to Caesar. Next, the Sadducees tried a trick question about the resurrection. Jesus had not only wisely answered their perplexing questions, He exposed their sinful unbelieving hearts. By the end of the chapter, Matthew records, “And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore” (Matt. 22:46). When their trap questions fail, the religious leaders will conspire to get rid of Jesus through crucifixion.
Today, we look at the last question they ask Jesus, and next time, Jesus Himself will ask them a question of His own about His identity as the Son of God. Even though they were trying to trap Jesus, He still gave them an invitation to believe.
First, let’s examine …
1. The Lawyer’s Question (Matt. 22:34-36)
Matthew 22:34 says, “But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.” The Pharisees and Sadducees have been taking turns confronting Jesus. First up were the Pharisees. Then the Sadducees took a turn. Both groups had fired their best shot, and both came up short. Now it’s the Pharisees’ turn again. So, in desperation, they collude, grasping as straws to come up with a way to discredit or accuse Jesus.
And here it is: Matthew 22:35-36, “Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’” Admittedly, it’ harder to see where the trap is here. With taxes the snare was obvious. With the resurrection riddle, the design was to make Jesus look foolish. But this question is a little more perplexing.
The test of the question was the fact that this question was constantly being debated among the Pharisees and to some degree even among the people. Over the years, the rabbis had come up with the idea that there were 613 separate laws in the books of Moses. This came through the use of numerology and grammatical studies. They calculated 613 commandments given by Moses because there were 613 Hebrew letters in the Ten Commandments. In addition, they divided these laws into 365 negative ones (like the “thou shalt nots”), one for each day of the year, and 248 positive laws like “thou SHALL”, one for every part of the human body, they supposed.[i]
They also categorized these laws as either weighty or light. The weighty ones were absolutely binding and had to be done. The light ones were less serious. They never came to any consensus as to which laws fit into which category, and they spent a lot of energy debating various schemes of dividing and ranking the commandments. The Pharisees undoubtedly thought Jesus would have His own scheme for arranging the laws, so perhaps they could get Him to enter into a debate about it. Likely, since Jesus’ teachings were so contrary to their own, and since He claimed to be the Son of God, they hoped perhaps He might not only expose His unorthodox views but might even directly contradict Moses. If that happened, they could accuse Him of heresy and turn the people against Him.
So one of the Pharisees, a lawyer, steps up to ask the question. He wasn’t a lawyer in the modern sense of an attorney. Rather, he was a “lawyer” in the sense that he was a scholar and an expert in the Old Testament law of Moses. “Note the irony. This lawyer tested the true lawgiver and only law-keeper with a question about the law.”[ii] And although Matthew says that this question also was a test, he doesn’t record Jesus rebuking this lawyer as He had done to His previous questioners. Unlike the previous questioners, perhaps this lawyer sincerely wanted to know the answer.
And in fact, it was a genuinely good question. Out of all the commandments of God’s law, and out of all the “rules and regulations” that the Pharisees made up from those commandments, which one was the “great commandment of the law“? “Great” translates the Greek word megas, having to do with the biggest, highest, and best. Which one was “first” above all others; and from which all the others drew their foundational principle?
That’s the question. Let’s look at …
2. The Lord’s Answer (Matt. 22:37-39).
Without a moment’s hesitation, the Lord easily answered the perplexing question. Jesus answered by quoting Moses from Deuteronomy 6. “Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’” (Matt. 22:37). It’s a passage that every Jewish person would have known by heart and would have recited every day. It was even written on pieces of paper and folded up and placed inside the phylacteries that the Pharisees wore around their heads, or on their arms. Listen to it again from Deuteronomy:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).
Jesus says, “This is the first and great commandment.” (Matt. 22:38). Jesus didn’t wade into the debate about heavy and light commandments. He presented the command at the heart of all commandments. The chief command is to …
A. Love God (Matt. 22:37-38)
Notice first, the Great Commandment is not just a call to love in general. Whom were they commanded to love? “You shall love the LORD your God.” The name of God has two parts here. First is “the LORD”. In the Hebrew of Deuteronomy that is Yahweh, the God of the covenant, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who redeemed Israel out of slavery in Egypt. God spoke in Exodus 20:2 as He gave Moses the Ten Commandments saying, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”
Second, the LORD is “your God”. In Deuteronomy, this is the Hebrew word, Elohim. He is the God who created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1). He is the almighty, sovereign ruler over all creation. And He is personally “your God.” God owns you and you belong to Him.
The command is to love “the LORD your God,” not a god of your own choosing, the LORD God who revealed Himself to Israel and through the Scriptures, the God who ultimately revealed Himself through Jesus Christ His Son. No one who truly loved the Father would have hated His Son.
Notice the three qualifiers Jesus adds to the command. Jesus says you are to love the LORD “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). It would be easy to think that we keep this commandment if it had been given in an ‘abstract’ form; but the Lord reminds us that it has been broken down for us into ‘concrete’ details of life.[iii]
First, you are to love the LORD with “all your heart.” In scripture, all your thoughts, words, deeds, and affections originate in the heart. To love God with all your heart means that your heart is fully reserved for love of Him and Him only. Your heart is undivided. Does your heart belong to the Lord alone? Love Him only.
Second, you are to love the LORD with “all your soul.” Our “soul” is the seat of our inner-life; and is, in fact, our very life itself. Contrary to the world’s propaganda, your life is not your own. Your soul is created by God, and if you are saved by Jesus Christ, your soul is doubly His. This speaks of the depth of our love. Love Him with your whole life.
Third, you are to love the LORD with “all your mind.” The mind is the center of our decisions and determination. In Deuteronomy, God commands through Moses to love the LORD with “all your strength.” Jesus changes it to “all your mind” knowing that the true place of strength is not the body, but the mind. Love is not just something we feel, but something that we determine to do.
Heart, soul, and mind are not separate parts of human nature. The three nouns stand together to speak of loving God with your total being. The key word here is “all,” used three times: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” We love God and Him only. We love Him with the greatest love. And we love Him with an immeasurable love that moves us to live in obedience to Him. Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” (John 14:15). Love is not just the command, it is the motivation to keep all the other commandments of God.
Jesus said, “This is the first and great commandment.” (Matt. 22:38). It is not only the greatest, most weighty, ultimate command, it is also the “first”. It is first in priority and prominence. There is no more important duty than to love God with your whole being.
The lawyer tested Jesus asking what the one, “great” commandment was. But isn’t it interesting that Jesus goes on to give him what he didn’t ask for—the “second”?
B. Love Your Neighbor (Matt. 22:39).
Jesus says in Matthew 22:39, “And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Jesus quotes this commandment from Leviticus 19:18 which reads, “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”
By the way, this second command to “love your neighbor as yourself” is not two commands. The phrase “as yourself” is not a command, it is a presupposition. We do love ourselves. That’s our problem. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:1, “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come.” What will these perilous times look like? 2 Timothy 3:2 answers, “For men will be lovers of themselves …” Paul writes in Ephesians 5, “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it …” (Eph. 5:29). The point is practical. You take care you. You do is best for you. You do what you have to do to meet your needs. You should do the same for your neighbor. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught, “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 7:12). In other words, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
How is this second command to love your neighbor like the first command to love God? They are not alike simply by the incidental connection of the common theme of love. In the scriptures, loving God and loving others are inextricably linked together. You can’t truly love your neighbor if you don’t love God first. And you don’t truly love God if you don’t love your neighbor also. That’s what Jesus means when He says the second command is like the first.
John writes in his first epistle, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God … By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.” (1 John 4:7; 5:2). God is the source of all true love. So until you receive the love of God and love Him in return, you can’t really love at all. Again, John writes, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10). And the result of that is, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:11). You can’t love your neighbor if you don’t love God.
And the reverse is also true. You don’t love God if you don’t love your neighbor. Again, John writes, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (1 John 4:20). When you truly love God, you will love who God loves. God loves your neighbor. So, if you love God, how can you not love your neighbor, too?
Finally, we see …
3. The Law’s Governing Principle (Matt. 22:40).
Jesus concludes in Matthew 22:40, “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Jesus has just told the Pharisees what the two greatest commands are. Now He tells them why these two commands are the greatest. They are the greatest because all the Law and the Prophets hang on them. The Law and the Prophets are like garments hanging on a peg. If you remove the peg, all the garments fall down. If you take away the greatest commandment to love God and neighbor, the rest of God’s commands fall down with it.[iv]
The command to love does not replace the commandments of the law. It fulfills them. Paul writes in Romans 13,
8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Rom. 13:8-10).
Think about the Ten Commandments for a moment. The Great Commandment that Jesus quotes here fulfills our obligation to God expressed in the first four commandments. If you truly love Him with all your being, you will never allow any other ‘god’ occupy the first place in your heart. If you truly love God with all your being, you will never seek to create a graven image of Him that reduces Him in some way; nor will you bow down an idol in worship to Him. If you truly love God with all your being, you will honor and reverence Him and never blaspheme by takin His sacred name in vain. And if you truly love God with all your being, you’ll faithfully follow the example He set for you, and give due attention to Him on His sacred day of rest.
And just as the first Great Commandment fulfills the commandments that govern our relationship with God, the second fulfills the ones that govern our relationship with other people. If you love your neighbor as yourself, you’ll honor your father and mother. If you love your neighbor as yourself, you’ll not murder your neighbor, nor have murderous anger and hatred for him (Matt. 5:22). If you love your neighbor as yourself, you’ll not commit adultery against him or her, even with adulterous thoughts. If you love your neighbor as yourself, you will not steal from your neighbor. If you love your neighbor as yourself, you will never bear false witness, lying about them or to them. And if you love your neighbor as yourself, you’ll be content with what God has entrusted to you, not envying what God has given them.
What God requires is that we love Him first and love others. Sound’s simple right? Until you try to do it consistently. We all know how hard it is to love God with all that we are when the world, the flesh, and the devil are vying for our attention. We all know how hard it is to love our neighbor when we have to deal with them at home, at school, at work, or anywhere else in the world. In fact, wouldn’t you agree that to love God perfectly and always love others as the LORD commands us is impossible?
This is why the Great Commandment is not the way of salvation. If getting to heaven is as simple as loving God and loving people, I can’t trust in the best five minutes I have ever lived to get me to heaven. It’s impossible. That’s why Jesus will go on in the rest of this chapter to teach about who He really is, the Son of God and Messiah who came to save His people from their sins. Remember 1 John 4:10? “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Only the love of God the Father, the blood of God the Son, and the power of God the Holy Spirit can enable you to love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.
The old hymn pictures it this way:
I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore,
Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more;
But the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me, now safe am I.
Love lifted me! Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help,
Love lifted me!
[i] Scott Harris, The Greatest Commandments – Matthew 22:34-40, https://www.gracebibleny.org/greatest_commandments_matthew_223440
[ii] H. B. Charles, THE GREAT COMMANDMENT Matthew 22:34-40, https://hbcharlesjr.today/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/The-Great-Commandment.pdf.
[iii] Greg Allen, The Great Commandment, https://www.bethanybible.org/archive/2008/060108.htm.
[iv] Ray Fowler, Loving God and Neighbor, https://www.rayfowler.org/sermons/matthew/loving-god-and-neighbor/.
