The Greatest Commandment, Part 1
Text: Matthew 22:34–40 ESV
Introduction
If I was to ask you this morning to summarize the Old Testament for me, what would you say? My guess is I would get many different answers. Some would say it is about the story of God’s beginning, creation, and his plan for man. Some would say it is about God’s law and trying to obey that law. Some would say it is about Israel and their journey into and in the land God gave them. One answer I rarely ever hear is that the Old Testament is all about love.
As we come to our passage today in Matthew 22, Jesus is being questioned continually by the Pharisees and Sadducees. Remember, these are the two main religious parties of Jesus’s day, and they are competing both with each other to show who is smarter, more important, and right, and they are trying to demonstrate they know more than Jesus to the Jewish people around them. This type of exchange is common throughout the gospels and was part of the ministry interactions Jesus often had.
In Matthew 22:15-22 the Pharisees start by trying to trick Jesus by asking him about taxes, but they are disappointed when Jesus amazes them by telling them to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s. In Matthew 22:23–33 the Sadducees take their turn to question Jesus about a woman and her multiple husbands and who she will be married to in heaven, but their real goal is to see if Jesus agrees with them that there is no resurrection. Of course, Jesus, our resurrected King, believes in a resurrection and sees exactly what they are trying to do and corrects them.
It is in these back-and-forth exchanges that the Pharisees jump back in and question Jesus about the greatest commandment. The Pharisees had a running, internal debate about which laws were weighty and which were light. We see this later in Matthew 23:23 when Jesus remarks about the Pharisees who tithe on their garden herbs—mint, dill, cumin (light matters)—and yet still neglected the weighty matters like justice and mercy and faithfulness.
In our passage this morning, Jesus both summarizes and frames the content of what God has said in Scripture (the entire Old Testament at that point) as being based on love. We are going to examine these two statements in detail today and next Sunday, but look how Jesus ends his statement in Matthew 22:40:
“On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:40 ESV)
The phrase, “the Law and Prophets” was a shorthand phrase for the entire Old Testament. There was the Law, or Torah, the first five books of the Bible (sometimes also called the Pentateuch). There were the prophets, which included both the major and minor prophet books in the Old Testament but also four of the historical books (Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings). And there were the Writings, which consisted of religious poetry and literature—like the Psalms and Proverbs—and also books like Job, Daniel, Ezra, and Chronicles. So sometimes they would say “the law, the prophets, and the writings” and sometimes just “the law and the prophets” as a way to indicate they were talking about all of Scripture. Here in Matthew 22, in response to the Pharisees, Jesus is saying that the two most important commandments are also a summary of what the Law and Prophets are about and the foundation from which they are written. And he says it is all about love.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37 ESV)
And
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39 ESV)
For the last several weeks we have been in Matthew 28 looking at the Great Commission. We have seen how in this one statement from Jesus to his disciples that we have the ideas of spreading, discipling, prayer, the end times, the sacraments of baptism and communion, loving a triune God, and much, much more. One of the main takeaways we hope everyone heard through that passage is that you have a commission—something God has for you to do and a way for you to take part in his mission here on this earth.
If you were listening through that series, you should have come away saying to yourself, “Yes, I have a purpose. I am called to help make disciples—people who know and love God through Jesus Christ and have been changed by the Holy Spirit—by baptizing into and teaching them about God.” Yet, you also might have walked away saying, “And how will I ever do that sufficiently? Have you seen this thing—it’s huge!” To which part of me might say that reading the entire Bible (aloud) is really only the equivalent of watching about 70% of the entire series of The Office on Netflix. Or almost the same as watching every Seinfeld episode. Anyone in here done either of those?[1]
But another part of me says, “I understand your point. You may not be able to get your neighbor to sit down for one conversation about God, let alone 70+ hours (short of using some duct tape).” And that is our heart in these next two sermons. We move from the Great Commission to the Greatest Commandments because they are our Lord’s sweet and gracious summary of what we need to know, love and treasure, and similarly, what we pray all others might know as well.
So, we start today with the first of these commandments and this question and goal: What does it mean and what would it look like to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind? Next week we will look at the second commandment.
What It Means
Heart. Soul. Mind. This is an interesting way to talk about the scope of the love we are to have for God. It is important to note that Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament, from Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Moses has summoned all of Israel and is sharing with them what he has heard from God. This is one of the most recited passages, even by Jews today. When you see Jewish men and women at the Western Wall today or in a synagogue, they are often repeating Deuteronomy 6:4-5, also known as the Shema because of the first word in the sentence in Hebrew.
“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 might.” (Deuteronomy 6:4–5 ESV)
Though Jesus uses the word ‘mind’, and Moses uses the word ‘might’, they are both aiming at the same ideas. In Scripture we as humans are not talked about like a pizza pie that is split into thirds: as though one third of us has heart toppings, one third has soul toppings, one third has mighty or “mindy” toppings. As if we could just find all those pieces and put them together, we would be giving God all of us. Rather, when the Old Testament talks about heart, soul, and might and Jesus says heart, soul and mind, they are both talking about concentric circles out. In Deuteronomy we see that God starts with the inside (our heart) and moves outwards to our soul and then to our might. Each ring is more inclusive and contains what was said previously. The result being that we are being called to give everything about ourselves to loving God.
Heart
The Hebrew conception of these words matter since Jesus is taking us back to the Old Testament with this quote. Our heart speaks to our internal desires: our emotions, attitudes, perceptions, and thoughts. Look at how Deuteronomy 4:39 speaks about our heart:
“[K]now therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.” (Deuteronomy 4:39 ESV)
This is knowledge that we are being asked to accept and own completely—a process that is imaged as happening in our heart. The prophet Jeremiah tells us our heart is deceitful, lying to us constantly (Jeremiah 17:9), so Proverbs tells us to instead trust the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5–6). This aspect of loving the Lord God is what happens within you. It is your thought life, your feelings.
Soul
The soul speaks of all the facets of our heart plus everything outward: our body’s reactions, our words, our actions. This is why David can say in Psalm 63:1
“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1 ESV)
David can note that his love and passion for God is affecting him even beyond thoughts and emotions. His very body is engaged. This is our heart, our inner life on display. As our thoughts and feelings turn to God, they affect our very being. We speak about God’s good work in our life. We sing praises and songs to him. We pray with our tongue and do works with our hands.
Might
Our might speaks even further of this inside-to-outside progression. This includes our heart, our soul, our physical strength, and everything available to us: our house, land, animals, wardrobes, tools and toys, spouses and children. It is our “veryness” in Hebrew. Not only does our heart effect our soul and actions, but our love of God leads us to find value in everything we have only so far as it can demonstrate our love for God!
The Greek idea was similar in that heart, soul, and mind signified everything we were. Heart, soul and might. Heart, soul and mind. This is Scripture and Jesus’s way of saying that everything about you should yell to the watching world, “My God is Yahweh! My God is Jesus!”
What It Looks Like
So much, then, of our Bible is describing for us how we engage both heart, our soul, and our might for love of God. The writers stir our affections for a God who cares for even the weakest of his people just like he does small birds, who controls the seas and every creature there, and set every star in place.
When we read through Scripture, we come across places like Psalm 1:2 that says the Psalmist delights in the law of the LORD and meditates on it day and night. That challenges my heart and makes me ask, “do I do that? Do I find joy in knowing what God has told me? Do I go back and dwell on his word and hold it inside of me, pondering what he has called me to do.” I have a box full of old letters from my kids and my wife. Sometimes I will open it and just remember and find myself to be reawakened to my love for them because I see their love for me. God’s word really isn’t any different…it should encourage my heart to passionately love and pursue the God who has passionately loved me.
Places like Psalm 23:1-6 talk about lying down and trusting in our God, our good shepherd. Demonstrating with our very body that we don’t need to run around panicking when times are difficult nor when they are good. I wish I could be more like my kids in that respect—they don’t worry about so many of the things I do. Sure, that may be because they assume I am thinking about it. But it wasn’t that long ago that one of my kids was talking about our budget and they said to one sibling not to worry about it because we obviously must make like a million dollars a year. I thought that was very generous of them—and very wrong. But my God is really like that—he owns the cattle on a thousand hills, he is the one who made everything you and I see, out of nothing. Should I be worried? And can I take that reality beyond my intellectual knowledge and demonstrate even with my rest that God is someone I love and trust? Do people see me actively resting, serving others, caring? This is part of loving God with my soul.
Paul takes that even further in Romans 12:1 and talks about making our bodies a living sacrifice. This is giving radically of ourselves. I have seen my kids demonstrate the same heart as the widow in Luke 21, who gave her last coin. I have seen them run up to someone in need and try to give them packets they have prepared beforehand. A joy in giving a sibling money to help them out. I worry if I can spend an extra hour helping someone out, let alone give my last dollars to aid them.
In Deuteronomy 6, Moses tells Israel to make this love tangible in specific ways. First, by passing it on to the next generation. He then calls them to bind God’s words on their hands, an image and reminder that all their actions, everything they put their hand to, should be in love for God. He calls them to focus their attention on God continually, using a picture of a box between their eyes full of verses and God’s word to them. He calls them to love God in their home, their community, in private, and in a crowd. In fact, we will talk about next week how the second great commandment, to love our neighbor, is one of the most tangible ways we can live out our love for God.
Tension
On the one hand, realizing that Scripture speaks clearly to a myriad of ways we can love God with all our heart, soul, and might deals with one of our proclivities. On one side of the issue we wonder if we can really relate to God. “How do I have a relationship with God?” is a question I have thought throughout my life. And we see that Scripture does speak to that. Again and again we see examples of how to engage our heart, soul, and might—our whole being—in this task of loving God. Perhaps today that is what you need to hear—you as a Christian can actually love God. You can engage him with your heart, your soul, and your might. This wasn’t possible for many in the Old Testament. Moses knew that most would not love and follow God, but he spoke of a day in Deuteronomy 30:6 where God would send his Holy Spirit and people would finally have a new heart, opened eyes, and opened ears that would want to see, hear, and love God. You and I are living that reality today. Because of Jesus’s work on the cross, we are changed, our hearts are softened, and we can love God! Praise God through Jesus Christ that is true!
Yet, maybe you are like me. I see the truth of how I can love God, and I treasure Jesus and am happy, but I also read verses like Ezekiel 36:27 that says:
“And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezekiel 36:27)
I read that and realize that even with the Spirit of God within me, I still don’t obey the rules of God and live up to that expectation. I try, I do what I find in Scripture, yet I still fail and fall woefully short of loving God very well.
That is the sweet tension that God has placed in a passage like this. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and might. On the one hand, by God’s grace and his Holy Spirit, we can actually follow that command and have many examples of how to do it. Yet, we will never do it perfectly. This call to love God is also meant to push me and you and all those we encounter back to our ultimate need for a savior. One who could walk this out in heart, soul, and might in a way we couldn’t. We look to Jesus Christ as the only one who loved God perfectly and gave us his righteousness through the cross and through our faith. As Romans 3:27 says:
“Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.” (Romans 3:27 ESV)
We work to love God not because it will save us—it can’t. We are saved by faith alone. The tension of this greatest commandment holds us on the path of active humility. It is active because we must act, live, do. But it keeps us humble in that our attempts at love will not save us but rather is a loving response to a God who did save us.
That’s because this is all about a relationship. That is why the language of love is used in the first place. This is not a mere contract but a covenant! It is our God covenanting to love his people, his treasure. Love is the language of this type of covenant. It defines who God is and what he has done for us, and it defines our role in the covenant as well—we are to love God.
Application
The fact that we are told by Jesus here in Matthew 22 and throughout the rest of Scripture to love God and we then realize that the idea of loving points to a relationship—that is the best application we can walk away with this week. Even though the command to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind (or might) is a helpful shorthand to talk about the main way we live out the Great Commission, it doesn’t make the task smaller. In fact, by changing our life from one of duty—working to fulfill a check-list—to one of relationship, we have made our task much larger.
But it is a good shift. When we think of this life of going and making disciples of nations, baptizing and teaching them in God, it sounds daunting when it is a list of passages we need to read, a program we need to get people through so they too can check the boxes and be “saved.” When we think of walking into a relationship, it is joyous. Whether relationships are easy for you or hard for you, we all have a deep need for close relationships. And that is what Jesus is offering through faith. It is what we offer to others through faith in Jesus Christ.
In relationship with God, we find that we can know God, never fully, but truly.
In relationship with God we find that we can attempt to live out love toward our maker and savior, however imperfectly, knowing that he has already loved us. We can find deeper and deeper depths.
In relationship with God, we can find ourselves increasingly giving over our life to God and knowing that we in turn can rest in the peace of our God who has given it all for us already.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your might becomes a call back to relationship, away from works, and a beautiful picture of longing for our lives to be completely oriented toward God. It takes the possibility of duty in the Great Commission and makes it delight!
[1] It would take about 99 hours to watch the entire series of the Office non-stop, 66 hours to watch Seinfeld, and about 70 hours to read the Bible aloud at a “pulpit pace”.