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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Luke 10:25 - 10:28
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The question of the lawyer:
v. 25. And, behold, a certain lawyer stood, up and tempted Him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
v. 26. He said, unto him, What is written in the Law? How readest thou?
v. 27. And he, answering, said, 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.
v. 28. And He said unto him, Thou hast answered right; this do, and thou shalt live.
A lawyer, a man versed in the Law and the traditions of the Jews, one of those that belonged to the wise and prudent of the world, stood up before or against Jesus, as His opponent. His purpose was deliberately to tempt Jesus, to lead Him astray. He tried this with the question: Master, what shall, what must I do to inherit eternal life? His question is strangely put, for it can hardly be said that the heirs do anything to get the inheritance. He would have expressed his meaning more truthfully if he had said: What must I do to earn eternal life? Jesus, according to a disconcerting habit He had, answered with a counter-question. He did not give the results of any philosophy, but referred the questioner to the written Scripture. The first question with its general trend is supplemented by the second, which searches the mind of the man before Him. Note: Philosophy of the Christian religion is a dangerous term, and stands for a dangerous science. The Lord does not want us to philosophize and to think out our own religious scheme, but to follow the Word. The man was indeed well versed in the Old Testament, for he gave the summary of the Moral Law correctly, according to Deu_6:5; Lev_19:18. To love God the Lord with all the heart and with all the soul and with all the strength and with all the mind and understanding, that is the summary of the first table. And to love one's neighbor as one's self is the summary of the second table. "To love God with all the heart, to love God above all creatures, that is: although many creatures are pleasant that they please me and I love them, that I yet, for the sake of God, when God, my Lord, wants it, despise and give them all up. To love God with all the soul is that thy whole life be directed toward Him and thou mayest say, if the love of creatures or any persecution wants to overwhelm thee: All this I gladly give up rather than leave my God; they may throw me out, they may strangle me or drown me, let anything happen to me that God wills, all this I will gladly endure rather than leave Thee. Lord, to Thee I will cling more firmly than to all creatures, also to all that does not belong to Thee; all that I am and have I will give up, but Thee I shall not leave. To love God with all the strength is to bring all members into action, so that one will risk all that he can with his physical body rather than do what is opposed to God. To love God with all the mind is to accept nothing which does not please God; by this he means the self-conceit which a person has; but rather that the mind be centered in God and upon all things that please God. " Jesus commended the answer of the lawyer as being correct. But He added a weighty word: This do, and thou shalt live. Here lay the real difficulty, for knowing and doing are two very different things. If that were possible, indeed, to keep the Law of God perfectly, then the person that could perform this wonderful feat would thereby earn eternal life. A perfect fulfillment of the Law has, as its reward of merit, the blessedness of heaven. But there is the rub. By the deeds of the Law is no man justified before God, because there is no man on earth that doeth good and sinneth not. "That is preaching the Law properly and giving a good, strong lesson, yea, catching him in his own words and in the right place, where He can show him what he still lacks."