Luke 10:28

Luk_10:28

This do, and thou shalt live

Eternal life promised the obedient

I.

WHAT IS IMPLIED IN OBEYING GODS COMMANDS. It is easy to see in what obedience to the Divine commands consists. It must consist in doing what the commands of God require. The two great commands of the law require love to God and love to man. And to exercise this love is to obey these commands.

II. GOD PROMISES ETERNAL LIFE TO ALL WHO OBEY HIS COMMANDS, or exercise those holy and benevolent affections which His commands require,

III. WHY GOD PROMISES ETERNAL LIFE TO ALL WHO SINCERELY AND CORDIALLY OBEY HIS COMMANDS.

1. God does not promise eternal life to all who obey His commands, because their sincere and cordial obedience atones for their sin, and lays a foundation for pardon, for forgiveness, or justification in His sight. After men have once sinned, their future obedience can make no atonement for past transgression. Perfect obedience is their constant and indispensable duty.

2. Nor does God promise eternal life to those who obey Him, because their obedience merits eternal life. Though obedience to the Divine commands is really virtuous and intrinsically excellent, yet it is not meritorious. The obedience of a creature can lay no obligation upon his Creator.

3. He does promise eternal life to them because their obedience is a proper ground, reason, or condition, for bestowing upon them such a gracious and unmerited reward. (N. Emmons, D. D.)

The necessity of moral obedience

I. THE INCULCATION OF MORAL OBEDIENCE AS A SCRIPTURE REQUISITE TO SALVATION. Why was the gospel given? What did Christ come into the world for? Doubtless to relieve wretchedness, to dissipate error, to revive hope, to take away condemnation, to make death and the grave unfeared, to light up with brightness the whole face of the world. But was this all? Was it not also to destroy sin, to promote holiness, to cast out Satan from His dominion, to repair the broken and effaced image of paradise, to magnify the victories of the cross, to illustrate the agency of a new principle in mans heart, to form a character which angels might consort with, and God might look upon? We must insist upon such moral obedience as man has power to render, as being vital to his salvation; must close the doors of the kingdom of heaven against everything that defiles; must propound as an eternal axiom of the heavenly moralities, that in every nation he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, and he only, is accepted of Him. This do, and thou shalt live.

II. THE PERFECT COMPATIBILITY OF SUCH A SUPPOSITION WITH OUR RECEIVED VIEWS OF THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. If I am asked to show a man the way of salvation, I am as little at liberty to omit saying to him, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, as I am, in reference to the unchanging demands of the moral law, to omit saying, This do and thou shalt live. But it will be said, if you thus insist upon moral obedience, or works of godliness as vital to salvation, do you not in effect make these works an element of justification? I answer, We do; but not a meritorious element, any more than we make faith a meritorious element. Faith itself is a work; is put down in Scripture among our commanded endeavours after obedience. Then said they unto Him, What shall we do that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent. Let us not put asunder what God hath joined together; let us not weaken the everlasting bond which unites the faith of justification with the sanctities of life. (D. Moore, M. A.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

10:28 Do this and you will live! Jesus was not suggesting that people would be saved by their works; rather, such love expresses genuine faith and devotion to the Lord.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk 10:28. Τοῦτο ποίει, do this) Jesus in His turn πειράζει, tries, justly, rightly [tempts, in the sense puts to the proof, sounds, and tests, Gen 22:1], the man who had ‘tempted’ Him with a wrong motive [Luk 10:25]: see Luk 10:37. [In doing, he might have experience of the real fact, namely, what things were wanting in his obedience, and so might be led to seek fuller instruction. It is not said, Thou art adequate to the doing.—V. g.]

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk_10:28-29. Τοῦτο ποίει] τοῦτο has the emphasis corresponding to the τί of Luk_10:25.

ζήσῃ] ζωὴν αἰώνιον κληρονομήσεις, Luk_10:25. It is thus that Jesus declared the fundamental law of the divine retribution, as Paul, Rom_2:13. But as to the manner in which this moral, fundamental law leads to the necessity of the righteousness of faith (see on Romans, loc. cit.), there was no occasion for Him to explain further in the presence of the legal tempter.

Luk_10:29. δικαιῶσαι ἑαυτόν] namely, in reference to his question, to prove that he had put it with reason and justice; see on Luk_10:26 f. Comp. also Maldonatus, de Wette, Bleek, Schegg. The view that he wished to represent himself as being honestly disposed, Luk_16:15 (so usually), has against it[136] the purpose with which the scribe had presented himself, ἐκπειράζων αὐτόν, in spite of which he himself has still answered rightly, Luk_10:27.

ΚΑῚ ΤΊς Κ.Τ.Λ.] See on the ΚΑΊ occurring thus abruptly and taking up the others discourse, Hartung, Partikell. I. p. 146 f.; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 879 f.; Mire ad ἦθος facit, Bengel.

ΠΛΗΣΊΟΝ] without an article, hence: who is neighbour to me? Comp. Luk_10:36. See Bornemann, Schol. p. 69; Winer, p. 118 f. [E. T. 163]. The element of temptation consisted in this, that from the mouth of Jesus was expected some sort of heterodox reply which should deviate from the Rabbinical definition that the Jews nearest neighbour is his fellow-Jew.

[136] Lange, L. J. II. p. 1076, conjectures that the scribe wished, as the disciples had just returned from Samaria, to call Jesus to account in respect of this fellowship with the Samaritanswhich could not be the way to life. But the Seventy had not been to Samaria at all. Comp. on ver. 1 and Luk_9:56.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

he said, &c.--"Right; THIS do, and life is thine"--laying such emphasis on "this" as to indicate, without expressing it, where the real difficulty to a sinner lay, and thus nonplussing the questioner himself.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(28) Thou hast answered right.—The acceptance of the lawyer’s answer as theoretically true was part of the method of our Lord’s teaching. The words that followed, “This do, and thou shalt live,” were those of a Prophet who knew what was in the man, and read the secrets of his heart, and saw how little love was to be found there. In the command “This do . . . ,” however, our Lord does something more than accommodate Himself to the legal point of view. Love was really life, at once its source and its manifestation, if only the love were true, and the test of its being true was action.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

28. Thou hast answered right] “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” Gen_4:7; “which if a man do, he shall live in them,” Lev_18:5; Rom_10:5; but see Gal_3:21-22.

this do] As the passage from Deuteronomy was one of those inscribed in the phylacteries (little leather boxes containing four texts in their compartments), which the scribe wore on his forehead and wrist, it is an ingenious conjecture that our Lord, as He spoke, pointed to one of these.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But he willing to justify himself,.... Upon the foot of his own righteousness, and to make himself appear to be righteous to others; for this the Jews thought themselves able to do, both to justify themselves before God by their own works, and make it out to men, that they were truly righteous persons; and it is a maxim with them, that

"every one that justifies himself, below (on earth), they justify him above (or in heaven) (k).''

No wonder then that this man was desirous of justifying himself; and in order to which

he said, and who is my neighbour? he takes no notice of God, and love to him, as coming into the account of his justification, only of his neighbour; thinking when this question was answered, he should be very able to make it out, that he was not wanting neither in doing justice between himself and his neighbour, nor in showing kindness and beneficence to him; for by his neighbour he meant only an Israelite; one of the same nation and religion with him. So the Jews commonly interpret the word neighbour, either of one that is related to them in nature, that is, near akin to them in blood (l); or that professes the same religion as they do, and whom they call a neighbour in the law; and so they explain the passage now cited, "and thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself", ; "that is, who is thy neighbour in the law" (m): for they will not allow a Gentile, no, not even a proselyte of the gate to be a neighbour: for thus they say (n),

"an Israelite that slays a proselyte of the gate, or the stranger that dwells with him, is not slain for him by the sanhedrim; for it is said, Exo 21:14 but if a man comes presumptuously upon his neighbour to slay him, &c. and there is no need to say he is not slain for a Gentile.''

And again (o),

"when a man sees one of them (the Gentiles) fall into the sea, he need not take him up; as it is said, Lev 19:16 "neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbour", "but this is not thy neighbour."''

This notion Christ opposes and disproves in the following parable, which is an answer to the lawyer's question.

(k) T. Bab. Tasnith, fol. 8. 1. (l) Kimchi in Psal. xv. 3. (m) Moses Kotsensis Mitzvot Tora, pr. affirm. 9. (n) Maimon. Hilch. Rotzeach, c. 2. sect. 11. (o) Ib. c. 4. sect. 11.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.

Ver. 28. See Mat 19:17.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

28. Answered… do and thou shalt live—It requires no depth of penitent conviction in the lawyer, but simply a proper appreciation of the words he has uttered, to see that he is damned with all his race. For the direction do this governs both his whole past and his whole future. Has he kept it in the past? Will he, can he, keep it in the future? That is a hopeless case. But under this law the live depends upon the do. Death, therefore, is the only result.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

This do, and thou shalt live. The learned Jew was evidently confounded at the Galilaean Rabbi"s first answer referring him to the sacred Mosaic Law. His perplexity is increased by the Lord"s quiet repartee when he had rehearsed the two duties, to his God and his neighbour, "This do, and thou shalt live." It seems as though the clever, unfriendly critic of Jesus of Nazareth now forgot the hostile purpose with which he stood up to question, and, really conscience-stricken, willing to justify himself, in real good faith put the query which called out the famous parable.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Thou hast answered right; this do, and thou shalt live - Here is no irony, but a deep and weighty truth. He, and he alone, shall live forever, who thus loves God and his neighbour in the present life.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

28. ὀρθῶς ἀπεκρίθης. Comp. “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” Gen 4:7; “which if a man do, he shall live in them,” Lev 18:5; Rom 10:5; but see Gal 3:21-22.

τοῦτο ποίει. As the passage from Deuteronomy was one of those inscribed in the phylacteries (little leather boxes containing four texts in their compartments), which the scribe wore on his forehead and wrist, it is an ingenious conjecture that our Lord, as He spoke, pointed to one of these.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

28. Ὀρθῶς ἀπεκρίθης. Comp. ὀρθῶς ἔκρινας (7:43). In Mar 12:32 it is the scribe who commends Jesus for His answer.

τοῦτο ποίει. Pres. imperat. “Continually do this,” not merely do it once for all; with special reference to the form of the lawyer’s question (ver. 25). See Rom 2:13, Rom 2:10:5; Lev 18:5.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.