Jesus in Matthew 37-40 says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
How is this applied to Judaic law? We have an example in the Scriptures that deals with the second commandment: Romans 13:8-10 says, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
But under the same principle, what laws would be fulfilled by loving God with all our heart, soul and mind? What commandments would be fulfilled, and to what extent? Consider 2 JOHN 5-6 which says, “And now I ask you, dear lady—not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.” What commandments are referred to here?
If 2 JOHN 5-6 refers to the Ten commandments, then consider that the first commandment, EXODUS 20:2-3 which says, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” Right. And what is God’s relationship to us? It is that we look to Him for our well-being, but that doesn’t come for nothing since He has made demands on us, in the form of the 400 some-odd Laws we see in the Pentateuch.
Jesus didn’t come to overturn the Law. He says in Matthew 5:17-20, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
What “commandments” does Jesus refer to? Whether he refers to his two great commandments, or he is referring to the Ten commandments, we have to consider the First Commandment of God and the first great commandment of Jesus.
Except for Jesus, nobody is capable of fulfilling every Law in the Pentateuch. And JAMES 2: 10 warns us that “Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” But to the extent that we can’t fulfill all the Laws, the Bible says that God may forgive us if we ask for His forgiveness.
How does HEBREWS 6:1, which says “…let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God…” fit into all of this? Some have interpreted this passage to mean that we shouldn’t just be stuck with going through the motions of abiding by whatever commandments are represented by Jesus, but that we should GO BEYOND by loving God and eachother in spirit as well as in deed. In that sense, Romans 7:6 says “But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.”
Some may say that abiding by the “written code” addresses man’s interaction with eachother, since only God knows what is in our hearts. Perhaps the day may come when abiding by the two great commandments of Jesus comes naturally, without need of a second thought. Until then, as we live on earth, I tell you we need divine direction via the Laws, that we can wrap around and carry out with our earthly minds.
How is this applied to Judaic law? We have an example in the Scriptures that deals with the second commandment: Romans 13:8-10 says, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
But under the same principle, what laws would be fulfilled by loving God with all our heart, soul and mind? What commandments would be fulfilled, and to what extent? Consider 2 JOHN 5-6 which says, “And now I ask you, dear lady—not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.” What commandments are referred to here?
If 2 JOHN 5-6 refers to the Ten commandments, then consider that the first commandment, EXODUS 20:2-3 which says, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” Right. And what is God’s relationship to us? It is that we look to Him for our well-being, but that doesn’t come for nothing since He has made demands on us, in the form of the 400 some-odd Laws we see in the Pentateuch.
Jesus didn’t come to overturn the Law. He says in Matthew 5:17-20, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
What “commandments” does Jesus refer to? Whether he refers to his two great commandments, or he is referring to the Ten commandments, we have to consider the First Commandment of God and the first great commandment of Jesus.
Except for Jesus, nobody is capable of fulfilling every Law in the Pentateuch. And JAMES 2: 10 warns us that “Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” But to the extent that we can’t fulfill all the Laws, the Bible says that God may forgive us if we ask for His forgiveness.
How does HEBREWS 6:1, which says “…let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God…” fit into all of this? Some have interpreted this passage to mean that we shouldn’t just be stuck with going through the motions of abiding by whatever commandments are represented by Jesus, but that we should GO BEYOND by loving God and eachother in spirit as well as in deed. In that sense, Romans 7:6 says “But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.”
Some may say that abiding by the “written code” addresses man’s interaction with eachother, since only God knows what is in our hearts. Perhaps the day may come when abiding by the two great commandments of Jesus comes naturally, without need of a second thought. Until then, as we live on earth, I tell you we need divine direction via the Laws, that we can wrap around and carry out with our earthly minds.
