Mark 12:29

Jesus answered, The first is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our Lord, the Lord is one: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.

The Lord is one ... This is a quotation from Deuteronomy 6:4; and the oneness of God, as set forth in the Old Testament, is a compound unity, like the oneness of the people, or the oneness in a marriage. The Hebrew word that denotes this is [~'echad], and must be distinguished from [~'achid], meaning an absolute unity. There is no argument here against the concept of a Trinity.

The great commandment is the one from which all others are derived, the one that polarizes the soul with reference to the Creator, and is therefore the root of all true worship and obedience of God. "The measure of our love to God is to love him without measure; for the immense goodness of God deserves all the love that we can give him."[12] See an entire chapter on this commandment in "The Ten Commandments," pp. 19-29.

Monotheism is dogmatically affirmed in this commandment; and the need for man to love God with his entire being is firmly declared.

... mind ... soul ... strength ... "It is impossible to exactly define each of these faculties, though it seems clear that some differentiation is intended. The command is for the complete response of the whole person."[13]

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS DUTIES

Jesus' designation of the first commandment means that the human obligation to believe in God, be baptized, worship God, accept a place in the corporate fellowship of God's people, take the Lord's Supper faithfully, and engage continually in public assemblies of the church that all such things are a higher obligation than the moral prohibitions against such things as murder, adultery, theft and falsehood.

That this is not the way people think is obvious. Almost any group of people requested to rank God's commandments would place first the very ones which are actually secondary. Jesus had in view, in this passage, the two tables of the Decalogue, the first pertaining to God-related duties, the second to man-related duties; he emphasized the first table as the greatest.

The reason for the priority of the first set of duties is inherent in the fact of their relation to man's egocentric pride, whereas, in the second class of obligations, the relationship is to human weakness, lust, and emotions. Rebellion in the first tier of duties derives from pride, rebellion in the other from weakness. Also, the second tier of obligations have no meaning apart from their being grounded in the first. Even the strict observance of morality is only self-will and self-interest unless related to the prior duty of loving God.

The most serious of all violations is therefore in the sector of one's attitude toward God, there being, in the last analysis, no extenuation of guilt such as the extenuation pertaining to moral lapses due to the temptation which induces them. Guilt is present in both types of violation, but the guilt is greater where no temptation supports it. Violation of the first commandment derives from pride and hatred of God; violation of the other class of duties comes from weakness and strong temptation.

That God honored this distinction in the Old Testament is evident in his forgiveness of David's sin with Bathsheba, Moses' committing murder, and Abraham's lying with regard to Sara; but he struck dead the presumptuous violators such as Nadab, Abihu, and Uzzah, also removing the kingdom from Saul as a penalty for the presumption of offering a sacrifice which should have been offered by the prophet. Sin due to weakness God can and does forgive; but presumption and pride to the extent of violating covenant obligations are much more serious. The first commandment is really first in every sense of the word.

THOU SHALT LOVE GOD

This is actually the goal of all God's dealings with the human family, namely, that they should love God. This purpose of the Almighty explains everything in the Bible. When Adam and Eve were placed in the paradise of Eden, God could have created them so that it would have been impossible for them to have violated his will, just as animals cannot sin. God, however, desired that his human creation should love him; and, because love that is coerced or forced is not actually love, God made the principle of freedom of the will operative in humanity; but with that freedom of choice, the consequences of the wrong choice became inherent in human life. From the Adamic fall there came the need for redemption, and the whole drama of human salvation was set in motion.

God's purpose, however, has never wavered, the great intention continuing to be that men shall love their Creator. Love of God is a far greater thing even than faith; for if men love God, they will also invariably obey him (John 14:15), something that is not true of faith at all. It is in this supreme truth that the justification is found for Paul's declaration that "the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13); and it is the undergirding of Jesus' declaration that the first and greatest commandment is to love God.

Here also is the explanation of why there was a forbidden tree in Eden, why Satan had access to the human creation, the environment having been specifically ordered by an all-wise God for the purpose of giving Adam and Eve freedom of choice. Had they not sinned, there is no reason to believe that the testing inherent in such a situation would have been discontinued. It is God's will that every man shall have a right of choice, a choice that derives finally from the man's moral nature. This accounts also for the truth that God's revelation to man has never been so overwhelmingly objective as to take away from men the right of denying it IF THEY SO DESIRE. Therefore the love of God cannot be induced by purely intellectual proof, or demonstration, faith having ever been not altogether an intellectual decision but a moral one (John 3:19).

[12] St. Bernard, as quoted by E. Bickersteth, The Pulpit Commentary (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962), Vol. 16, p. 137.

[13] A. Elwood Sanner, Beacon Bible Commentary (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1964), p. 376.