Don’t Make It Complicated
“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. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40
The above verse from the book of Matthew was an answer to a question asked by a lawyer, a Pharisee, concerning which commandment Jesus believed to be the greater of the Ten Commandments. The Pharisees, Sadducees, and the other religious leaders were constantly trying to trap Jesus hoping He would violate the law in some way. (The Pharisees and Sadducees remind me of our modern day politicians who are always on the lookout for someone to harass, belittle, and/or destroy.) The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were sticklers for the letter of the law, but ignored the spirit, i.e., the practical application of the law. Jesus came to fulfill both the letter and the spirit of the law.
Since Jesus was fully God and sinless, He would outsmart them every time. The basis of the law was the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) which had been given to the people of Israel’s forefather, Moses, at Mt. Sinai nearly 1,500 years before Christ walked the earth, plenty of time for them to figure out which one was foremost in God’s view. So, which one did they consider the greatest? Who knows? They prided themselves on their knowledge of the law, yet Jesus called them hypocrites because of the burdensome demands they placed on the common folks, demands that exceeded what God required of His people, yet the religious leaders did not follow their own rules (Matthew 23:4). It was sort of “do as I say, not as I do” way of ruling. Jesus had some choice names for them besides hypocrites. He also called them blind guides, fools, whited sepulchers (white-washed tombs), serpents, and a generation of vipers (Matthew 23). This really wasn’t name-calling like we understand name-calling. This was Jesus’ way of alerting them to the truth about themselves. Men and women must come to know the truth about themselves before they can see their need of the Savior.
Jesus answer to them was brilliant, of course. He summed up the entire Ten Commandments in two statements. The first, loving God with all the heart, soul, and mind, covered the first four commandments which deal with man’s relationship to God. The second commandment, loving others, takes care of the last six commandments which guide us in our relationships with all those to whom we come in contact. The Pharisees loved to make life lived in obedience to God difficult and complicated for everyone but themselves while Jesus makes God’s requirements for living righteously understandable, attainable, and not complicated at all through Christ.