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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Matthew 22:34 - 22:40
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The Silencing of the Pharisees.
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v. 34. But when the Pharisees had heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.
v. 35. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked Him a question, tempting Him, and saying,
v. 36. Master, which is the great commandment in the Law?
v. 37. 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.
v. 38. This is the first and great commandment.
v. 39. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
v. 40. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets.
The Sadducees had been most effectually silenced, so that they had nothing more to say. Now the ancient rivalry between the two sects came into play. Should the members of the one succeed in conquering Jesus in an argument, it would be a feather in the cap of the entire party. So the Pharisees determined to find a point in which they could triumph over the Lord. They came together and finally agreed upon a certain question, whose answer would be sure to compromise Him. In a very earnest manner, as though they were most sincere in their longing after truth, their spokesman, one well versed in the Law, put the question; Which is the great commandment, the most important, the one upon which everything depends? His purpose is evident. If Jesus should select some single precept of the Law and place it above the rest, He might be accused of giving to the other commandments a correspondingly low position and denying their validity. But Christ avoids the pitfall by giving a summary of the entire Law, placing that of the first table first and that of the second table immediately beside it. The love toward God is the fulfillment of the Law. But the entire heart, the entire soul, the entire mind must be His, Deu_6:5. Reason and intellect, sentiment and passion, thought and will, must be given into His service. "Take, then, before thee this commandment: Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart, and think upon that, seek after it, and try to understand it, what kind of a law it is, how far thou still art from fulfilling this commandment; yea, that thou hast not really begun to fulfill it rightly, namely, to suffer and to do from thy heart what God wants of thee. It is pure hypocrisy if one will crawl into a corner and think: Aye, I want to love God! Oh, how dearly I love God: He is my Father! Oh, how well-intentioned I feel toward Him! and similar things. Indeed, when He does according to our pleasure, we can say many such words, but when once He sends us misfortune and adversity, we no longer consider Him to be a God or a Father. A true love toward God does not act thus, but feels it in the heart and says it with the mouth: Lord God, I am Thy creature, do with me as Thou wilt, it is all the same to me; for I am Thine, that I know; and if it should be Thy will that I should die this hour or suffer some great misfortune, I should suffer it with all my heart; I shall never consider my life, honor, and goods, and whatever I have, higher and greater than Thy will, which shall be well-pleasing to me all my life. " (Luther.) This is the first commandment, the one with which sanctification begins. And it is great, since it includes all the other commandments. But the second is like it, Lev_19:18-34, since it brings the love to God, in the fulfillment of His Law, into a visible, tangible form, in the relation toward one's neighbor. As every person by nature has the wish to have only the good and pleasant fall to his lot, so he should endeavor, in all his relations toward His neighbor, to yield and provide for him the same pleasant and agreeable things wherever he can. In these two commandments hang the whole Law and the prophets. The faith of the heart finds its expression in the doing of the will of God, and the sanctification of life begins and ends in love toward God and man. Love is the fulfilling of the Law, Rom_13:10.