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Matthew 22:37-40

(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. (38) This is the first and great commandment. (39) And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. (40) On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
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In effect, He says we are to love our God with the entirety of our being, more than the pleasures Satan sets before us, more than the individual escapes we run to when we are tired or down, more than the pulls of this flesh, more than the opinions of our peer groups, employers, or neighbors, and more than our own intellect and opinions. Simply, we are to put God and His instructions first in our lives in every way.

Jesus states it so simply it must have been difficult for His twig-focused audience to comprehend. This commandment, out of Deuteronomy 6:5, is the first, the greatest of all in dignity and excellence, and is the foundation of all other commandments. It all begins with God and our wholehearted devotion to Him.

But Jesus does not leave it there. He continues in verse 39, listing the other part of the equation, a commandment that Israel had never been able to fulfill. He lists the commandment that requires repentance and change in each one of us, of every human being on this earth. He lists the commandment that will be the instrument or method that will assist in bringing and sustaining peaceand harmony in this world among all nations and races.

Jesus tells the Pharisees: "And the second is like the first, 'You shall love your neighbor as your self.'"

When we consider these two great commandments, our attention automatically dwells on the first, complete love toward God. It is easy to understand why this is. God is the Creator, our Savior, our Healer, our Provider of all things, the One we must answer to, the One we pray to, and the Merciful One who forgives our sins.

However, we normally do not give more than lip service to the second great commandment, to love our fellow man. Again, it is easy to understand why. Our fellow man lies, cheats, steals, murders, commits sexual perversions, blasphemes, and generally makes life miserable for the rest of us.

Under Satan's guidance and in lock-step with the rest of the world, our fellow man promotes lawlessness, spreads pornography throughout the world, and devises evil schemes to bilk millions out of their well-earned money. Our fellow man wars, tortures, kills, and commits horrendous crimes against the weak, and the frustrating part is that we have no power that we can exert at this time to change him.

Our fellow man persecutes those of us who follow the truth. He puts obstacles in our way when it comes to taking our children out of school for the Feast, and he does not want us to take time off for it either. Our fellow man tries to insist that we work on the Sabbath and eat pork and shellfish, and when we persist in following biblical truth, he looks at us as if we have lost our minds.

Despite this, our Lord instructs us in the second great commandment that we are to love him.

Jesus makes an additional comment in verse 40: "On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." In other words, the entirety of Scripture is summed up in these two commandments. Another way of putting it is that everything else in the Bible flows from and depends upon these dual principles. Both commandments are vital to living as God wants us to.

If that is the case—that everything starts with these two great commandments—they will surely continue to be the guiding principles throughout eternity. As Christians, we need to give them the time and effort they deserve.

— John O. Reid

To learn more, see:
You Shall Love Your Neighbor (Part One)