Mark 12:28

The scribes and Pharisees were (however bad otherwise) enemies to the Sadducees; now one would have expected that, when they heard Christ argue so well against the Sadducees, they would have countenanced him, as they did Paul when he appeared against the Sadducees (Act 23:9); but it had not the effect: because he did not fall in with them in the ceremonials of religion, he agreeing with them in the essentials, gained him no manner of respect with them. Only we have here an account of one of them, a scribe, who had so much civility in him as to take notice of Christ's answer to the Sadducees, and to own that he had answered well, and much to the purpose (Mar 12:28); and we have reason to hope that he did not join with the other scribes in persecuting Christ; for here we have his application to Christ for instruction, and it was such as became him; not tempting Christ, but desiring to improve his acquaintance with him.

I. He enquired, Which is the first commandment of all? Mar 12:28. He doth not mean the first in order, but the first in weight and dignity; "Which is that command which we ought to have in a special manner an eye to, and our obedience to which will lay a foundation for our obedience to all the rest?" Not that any commandment of God is little (they are all the commands of a great God), but some are greater than others, moral precepts than rituals, and of some we may say, They are the greatest of all.

II. Christ gave him a direct answer to this enquiry, Mar 12:29-31. Those that sincerely desire to be instructed concerning their duty, Christ will guide in judgment, and teach his way. He tells him,

1. That the great commandment of all, which is indeed inclusive of all, is, that of loving God with all our hearts. (1.) Where there is a commanding principle in the soul, there is a disposition to every other duty. Love is the leading affection of the soul; the love of God is the leading grace in the renewed soul. (2.) Where this is not, nothing else that is good is done, or done aright, or accepted, or done long. Loving God with all our heart, will effectually take us off fRom. and arm us against, all those things that are rivals with him for the throne in our souls, and will engage us to every thing by which he may be honoured, and with which he will be pleased; and no commandment will be grievous where this principle commands, and has the ascendant. Now here in, Mark, our Saviour prefixes to this command the great doctrinal truth upon which it is built (Mar 12:29); Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord; if we firmly believe this, it will follow, that we shall love him with all our heart. He is Jehovah, who has all amiable perfections in himself; he is our God, to whom we stand related and obliged; and therefore we ought to love him, to set our affections on him, let out own desire toward him, and take a delight in him; and he is one Lord, therefore he must be loved with our whole heart; he has the sole right to us, and therefore ought to have the sole possession of us. If he be one, our hearts must be one with him, and since there is no God besides, no rival must be admitted with him upon the throne.

2. That the second great commandment is, to love our neighbour as ourselves (Mar 12:31), as truly and sincerely as we love ourselves, and in the same instances, and we must show it by doing as we would be done by. As we must therefore love God better than ourselves, because he is Jehovah, a being infinitely better than we are, and must love him with all our heart, because he is one Lord, and there is no other like him; so we must love our neighbour as ourselves, because he is of the same nature with ourselves; our hearts are fashioned alike, and my neighbour and myself are of one body, of one society, that of the world of mankind; and if a fellow-Christian, and of the same sacred society, the obligation is the stronger. Hath not one God created us? Mal 2:10. Has not one Christ redeemed us? Well might Christ say, There is no other commandment greater than these; for in these all the law is fulfilled, and if we make conscience of obedience to these, all other instances of obedience will follow of course.

III. The scribe consented to what Christ said, and descanted upon it, Mar 12:32, Mar 12:33. 1. He commends Christ's decision of this question; Well, Master, thou hast said the truth. Christ's assertions needed not the scribe's attestations; but this scribe, being a man in authority, thought it would put some reputation upon what Christ said, to have it commended by him; and it shall be brought in evidence against those who persecuted Christ, as a deceiver, that one of themselves, even a scribe of their own, confessed that he said the truth, and said it well. And thus must we subscribe to Christ's sayings, must set to our seal that they are true. 2. He comments upon it. Christ had quoted that great doctrine, that the Lord our God is one Lord; and this he not only assented to, but added, "There is none other but he; and therefore we must have no other God besides." This excludes all rivals with him, and secures the throne in the heart entire for him. Christ had laid down that great law, of loving God with all our hearts; and this also he explains - that it is loving him with the understanding, as those that know what abundant reason we have to love him. Our love to God, as it must be an entire, so it must be an intelligent, love; we must love him with all the understanding, ex holēs tēs suneseōs - out of the whole understanding; our rational powers and faculties must all be set on work to lead out the affections of our souls toward God. Christ has said, "To love God and our neighbour is the greatest commandment of all;" "Yea," saith the scribe, "it is better, it is more than all whole-burnt-offerings and sacrifices, more acceptable to God, and will turn to a better account to ourselves." There were those who held, that the law of sacrifices was the greatest commandment of all; but this scribe readily agreed with our Saviour in this - that the law of love to God and our neighbour is greater than that of sacrifice, even than that of whole-burnt-offerings, which were intended purely for the honour of God.

IV. Christ approved of what he said, and encouraged him to proceed in his enquiries of him, Mar 12:34. 1. He owned that he understood well, as far as he went; so far, so good. Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, and was the more pleased with it, because he had of late met with so many even of the scribes, men of letters, that answered indiscreetly, as those that had no understanding, nor desired to have any. He answered nounechōs - as one that had a mind; as a rational intelligent man, as one that had his wits about him; as one whose reason was not blinded, whose judgment was not biassed, and whose forethought was not fettered, by the prejudices which other scribes were so much under the power of. He answered as one that allowed himself liberty and leisure to consider, as one that had considered. 2. He owned that he stood fair for a further advance; "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God, the kingdom of grace and glory; thou art in a likely way to be a Christian, a disciple of Christ. For the doctrine of Christ insists most upon these things, and is designed, and has a tendency direct, to bring thee to this." Note, There is hope of those who make a good use of the light they have, and go as far as that will carry them, that by the grace of God they will be led further, by the clearer discoveries God has to make to them. What became of this scribe we are not told, but would willingly hope that he took the hint Christ hereby gave him, and that, having been told by him, so much to his satisfaction, what was the great commandment of the law, he proceeded to enquire of him, or his apostles, what was the great commandment of the gospel too. Yet, if he did not, but took, up here, and went no further, we are not to think it strange; for there are many who are not far from the kingdom of God, and yet never come thither. Now, one would think, this should have invited many to consult him: but it had a contrary effect; No man, after that, durst ask him any question; every thing he said, was spoken with such authority and majesty, that every one stood in awe of him; those that desired to learn, were ashamed to ask, and those that designed to cavil, were afraid to ask.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

See the notes at Mat 22:34-40.

Mar 12:28

Perceiving that he answered them well - That is, with wisdom, and with a proper understanding of the law. In this case the opinion of the Saviour corresponded with that of the Pharisees; and the question which this scribe put to him now seems to have been one of the very few candid inquiries of him by the Jews for the purpose of obtaining information. Jesus answered it in the spirit of kindness, and commended the conduct of the man.

Mar 12:29

Hear, O Israel! - This was said to call the attention of the Jews to the great importance of the truth about to be proclaimed. See Deu 6:4-5.

The Lord our God ... - Literally, “Yahweh, our God, is one Yahweh.” The other nations worshipped many gods, but the God of the Jews was one, and one only. יהוה Yahweh was undivided; and this great truth it was the design of the separation of the Jewish people from other nations to keep in mind. This was the “peculiar” truth which was communicated to the Jews, and this they were required to keep and remember forever.

Mar 12:30

And thou shalt love ... - If Yahweh was the “only” God, then they ought not to love any other being supremely - then they might not bow down before any idol. They were required to love God above all other beings or things, and with all the faculties of their minds. See the notes at Mat 22:37.

Mar 12:32-34

This answer of the scribe is not found in Matthew.

Is more than all - Is of more importance and value.

Discreetly - Wisely, according to truth.

Not far from the kingdom of God - Thou who dost prefer the “internal” to the “external” worship of God - who hast so just a view of the requirements of the law - canst easily become a follower of me, and art almost fit to be numbered among my disciples. This shows that a proper understanding of the Old Testament, of its laws and requirements, would prepare the mind for Christianity, and suit a person at once to embrace it when presented. One system is grafted on the other, agreeably to Gal 3:24.

And no man after that durst ask him any question - That is, no one of the scribes, the Pharisees, or the Sadducees durst ask him a question for the purpose of “tempting” him or entangling him. He had completely silenced them. It does not appear, however, but that his “disciples” dared to ask him questions for the purpose of information.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Mar 12:28-29. One of the scribes came — So Luke also, Luk 20:19; but Matthew, εις εξ αυτων νομικος, one of them being a lawyer. In this diversity of words, however, there is no difference in sense. For the scribes not only transcribed the Scriptures, but were generally, also, teachers of the law, from which they had the name of lawyers: Having heard them reasoning together — Having attended to the discourse between Jesus and the Sadducees; and perceiving that he had answered them well — Had confuted their degrading doctrine of materialism, and proved, even from the books of Moses, the divine authority of which the Sadducees themselves could not but acknowledge, the certainty of a future state; asked him another question, with a view to make a further trial of his skill in the sacred volume. Which is the first commandment of all — The principal, and most necessary to be observed? See the note on Mat 22:34-36. Jesus answered, The first of all the commandments — And the foundation of all the rest, is, The Lord our God is one Lord — One Jehovah, one self-existent, independent, infinite, eternal Being: one in essence; inclusive, however, of three, υποστασεις, subsistences, generally termed persons. See on Mat 28:19, and note on Exo 3:14. Dr. Campbell translates this clause, The Lord is our God: the Lord is one; in Deuteronomy, Jehovah is our God: Jehovah is one; and not as one sentence, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah. Among other reasons for rendering the words thus, he gives the following: 1st, That “it appears to have been the purpose of their great legislator, to establish among them these two important articles, as the foundation of that religious constitution he was authorized to give them. The first was, that the God whom they were to adore, was not any of the acknowledged objects of worship in the nations around them, and was therefore to be distinguished among them, the better to secure them against seduction, by the peculiar name Jehovah, by which alone he chose to be invoked by them. The second was, the unity of the divine nature, and consequently, that no pretended divinity (for all other gods were merely pretended) ought to be associated with the only true God, or share with him in their adoration. 2d, That in the reply of the scribe, Mar 12:32, which was approved by our Lord, and in which he, as it were, echoes every part of the answer that had been given to his question, there are two distinct affirmations with which he begins; these are, There is one God, and there is only one, corresponding to The Lord is our God, and the Lord is one. The first clause, in both declarations, points to the object of worship; the second, to the necessity of excluding all others. Accordingly, the radical precept relating to this subject, quoted by our Lord, Mat 4:10, from the LXX., is exactly suited to both parts of this declaration. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God. This may be called the positive part of the statute, and corresponds to the article, The Lord is our God. Thou shalt serve him only. This is the negative part, and corresponds to the article, The Lord is one.”

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Mar_12:28. The scribe’s question was—Of what nature is the first commandment of all? Has it to do, that is, with Sabbath observance, or with circumcision, or with sacrificial rites—or what?

Mar_12:30. Note the prep. ἐξ, before “heart,” “soul,” “mind,” “strength.” The whole of man’s complex being is to go out in love to God. “The measure of our love to God is to love Him without measure.”

Mar_12:32. Finely (answered)! Teacher, Thou hast spoken from (the standpoint of) truth, for He is one, etc. This seems to suit both text and context better than R. V. rendering.

Mar_12:34. Discreetly.—With νοῦς or discernment—“having his wits about him,” as we say.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mar_12:28-34

(PARALLEL: Mat_22:34-40.)

Christ’s interview with a scribe.—The character of the scribes and Pharisees, as a body, is held up by our Lord to the abhorrence of all who would serve God in spirit and in truth. See Mat_16:6-12; Mat_23:1-36. But experience teaches that no general description of a class of men, however just, is applicable to every individual in it. We are not, therefore, surprised to find here a notable exception to the rule—a scribe who entertains such worthy notions of religion as to win the commendation of Christ.

I. The occasion.—The Pharisees and the Sadducees had, one after another, put questions to our Lord, for the purpose of catching or ensnaring Him in His talk. He, seeing through their hypocrisy, gave them such answers as neither satisfied them nor afforded them a handle to use against Him. Then one of the scribes, struck with the appositeness of His replies, determined to put a question of his own, to try whether He who had so properly silenced the crafty and malicious would be as ready with a suitable answer to an honest and serious inquirer.

II. The scribe’s question.—“Which is the first commandment of all?”

1. If his object was to test the merits and attainments of this new Teacher, and to see whether He had a correct notion of that law which He professed to expound, he could not have put a more appropriate question. It would be a parallel case if, in the present day, a professing Christian were to be called upon to state which is the greatest and most distinguishing doctrine of Christianity, or its most excellent privilege. Those persons who are “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth,” would either be unable to answer at all, or would answer in such a way as to prove that they were destitute of any clear and comprehensive views of Divine truth.

2. This question was one very frequently discussed in the schools of the Rabbis; and from many of them it received answers very wide of the mark. Some said the commandment relating to the Sabbath was the greatest of all; others set the highest value on the laws relating to sacrifices, or to purifications. This scribe appears to have come to a sounder conclusion, and to have been anxious to discover whether this new Teacher would confirm him in it.

III. Our Lord’s reply.—This question being honestly put, Christ meets it in a very different manner from that in which He had silenced His enemies. Without hesitation, and without ambiguity, the Oracle of Divine truth delivers His infallible sentence.

1. Whereas the question referred to one commandment only, our Lord in His reply brings forward two. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” He says, is the first commandment. But the mention of a first naturally suggests a second, without which the first might appear incomplete. It is true that the love of God, if perfect and sincere, will constrain us, by a moral necessity, to love our brother also. Still, in a matter of so much practical importance, it is desirable that there should be no room for cavil or mistake. Therefore He proceeds: “And the second is like,” etc.

2. “There is none other commandment greater than these.”

(1) In comprehensiveness. Whatever commandments may be added to these, can they require of us anything greater than is already required by these?

(2) In fundamental importance (Mat_22:40). These are the two great principles upon which all statutes, ordinances, and judgments, which can be given or conceived, are based. Take away the obligation of these two, and it will be impossible to maintain the authority of any others.

IV. The scribe’s remark upon Christ’s answer.—

1. His language is that of a man who, having long considered the subject, and come to a conclusion not generally accredited among those of his own set, at last meets with one whose opinion agrees with his own.

2. In declaring his conviction that the observance of these two commandments “is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices,” he does not mean to imply that burnt offerings and sacrifices are nothing. To him, as a Jew, they were much. They were that wherewith man should “come before the Lord, and bow himself before the high God”; they were the suitable recognitions of the Divine bounty; and, what is still more to the purpose, they were the means appointed by God Himself for the acknowledgment and atonement of sin. What, therefore, though God had declared that “to obey is better than sacrifice,” since He had also declared that sacrifice was necessary to supply the deficiencies of obedience, and thus it became, in fact, a part of obedience! It was not for a Jew to ask how the blood of bulls and of goats could take away sin, or how that Great Being who owned “every beast of the forest and the cattle upon a thousand hills” should condescend to accept a bullock out of his house or a he-goat out of his folds. It was enough for him to know that God in His wisdom had provided for the continuance of these things till He came into the world who should provide a real sacrifice for sin, and by one offering perfect for ever them that are sanctified.

V. Christ’s commendation of the scribe.—Here is—

1. An approbation of the scribe’s remark. It was a “discreet” answer, i.e. moderate and judicious. If, in his admiration of inward and spiritual religion, he had spoken contemptuously of forms and ceremonies, we should have said his meaning was good, but his language indiscreet. As it was, however, he hit the happy mean of exalting the one without degrading the other. He shewed no disposition to disparage the most literal compliance with every jot and tittle of the ceremonial law; he was only anxious that the body and the spirit, the form and the substance of religion, should be estimated in their proper order—first purity of heart, and then scrupulousness of obedience. This was exactly in accordance with Christ’s own teaching (Mat_23:23).

2. A commendation of the individual himself. “Thou art not far from the kingdom of God,” i.e. thou art in a favourable state of mind for embracing the gospel.

(1) The honesty of intention which distinguished this scribe was a very important qualification for his reception of the truth.

(2) His spiritual conception of religion was an even more valuable preparation. A Jew thus enlightened had, to a certain extent, forestalled the gospel; he would find most congenial to his mind those very sayings of Christ which to others were the hardest of all (Mat_9:13; Mat_12:7; Mar_2:27; Mar_7:15-23; Joh_4:21; Joh_4:23).

Love to God and one’s neighbour.—

I. The nature and properties of love.—

1. It is a passion of the soul, that inclines it to unite to the thing beloved.

2. Its properties are chiefly these two:

(1) A desire to please, and

(2) A desire to enjoy.

II. The double object of love.—

1. The first and great object of our love is God.

(1) He is “the Lord”; and so His power and sovereignty may command our affections.

(2) He is “our God,” in covenant and relation to us; and so His kindness and nearness to us may engage us to love Him.

2. The other object of our love is our neighbour. He is to be loved by us—

(1) Chiefly for God’s sake, whose creature, child, and servant he is (1Jn_4:20-21).

(2) For our own sake, because he has the same nature as ourselves (Pro_22:2).

III. In what measure these two are to be loved.—

1. The loving of God with all the heart, etc., denotes both the sincerity and integrity of our love to Him.

(1) The sincerity is signified by its being from the heart; what springs from thence is commonly sound and sincere.

(2) “With all thy heart,” etc., denotes the integrity. God will admit of no rival with Him in our affections. Though He loves a broken He hates a divided heart.

2. “Thy neighbour as thyself”—that is, with a like though not always with an equal affection; for every one being nearest to himself may be allowed, first, to consult his own welfare. Charity begins at home, though it must not end there, but must extend to all that are round about us, making our own desires the measure and standard of our dealing with others, doing all that good to others which we would have done to us, and avoiding all that evil to any which we ourselves would be unwilling to bear.—M. Hole, D.D.

Christ’s first and second commandments.—

I. How is the love of God said to be the first commandment?—

1. It is so in order of time, the love of God being the first thing to be taught and learnt of all that come to Him; for all true religion begins with it and is founded upon it: it is the first step we are to make towards our Maker, and that will lead us on to all the other parts of our duty and obedience to Him.

2. It is the first in order of nature, as being the root and spring of all other virtues. He that truly loves God will fear Him above all things, will trust Him in all conditions, will honour Him in all his actions, will worship Him at all times, and in a word will serve and depend upon Him in the whole course of his life.

II. How is the loving our neighbour the second and like unto the first commandment?—

1. In respect of the authority that commands it, and our obligation to observe it, which is the same in both.

2. In respect of the ground and motive of our obedience, which are some Divine perfections residing in God and communicated to His creatures. Our love to man is grounded upon the love of God; and we depart not from the love of our Maker by loving our neighbour, but rather heighten and increase it; for it is for God’s sake, and on His account, that we pay this affection to His creature.

3. In respect of the extent and comprehensiveness of it; for as the love of God includes the whole of that duty and homage we owe unto Him, so the love of our neighbour comprises all the good offices we are to pay unto him.

4. In respect of the reward and punishment that attend the keeping and breaking of it, which is the same in both. See Mat_25:31-46.—Ibid.

Completeness of character in serving God.—Jesus took this questioner back to the familiar beginning of things—to a well-worn platitude of the Jewish system—and, leading this man to old and familiar ground, made him work the old machinery with a new leverage, as the life of Christ fulfilled the old command, and lighted up the letter of the Mosaic economy with the spirit of the new-found Christian faith.

I. By loving God with all our heart we mean the placing of our affections upon Him. By the heart we mean love, emotion, the vitality of the tender, responsive, emotional side of our being. But you say, “How can I love God, for I have never seen Him?” A mother who had lost an only child in her brooding grief adopted an unknown child in a foreign mission school. The Arab boy was at first an unknown quantity to her. She assumed that the child was and the child became in time real to her. Not her reason but her affections were set upon the child who took the place of her own lost one. She loved him with all her poor broken heart, and by-and-by they met, each having saved the other. In the same way, dear friends, you must assume that God is, until He becomes real to you. You must love Him who is unknown, in the light of all His righteousness, until He becomes known to you. Your affections must grow towards God; they must lead the way to Him, for the rest of our nature always follows the leading of the heart.

II. By loving God with all the soul we mean giving to God and His service that which is the very essence of a being, the internal, animating principle of our lives. What we mean by soul is that essence or spirit within us which is regardless of matter. The power of the soul is a very different quality from the power of the heart. We may defend a cause or a person, or throw our lives into a certain current, because the soul compels us to that course of action, regardless of the heart. The power of the heart is in idealising another. The power of the soul is in idealising some hidden strength within ourselves. You love your darling child with all your heart. You love the cause you have at heart with all your soul. This is what is meant by soul—it is the rising above all the hindrances and limitations of our physical and material nature. Brethren, that is the kind of strength in us which God wants. It is that which we ought to give to Him, and which is always a great and commanding power when we find it ruling a strong character in the religious life.

III. By loving God with all the mind we mean putting into exercise our reasoning faculties with regard to Him. God can never be real to you unless you have real and definite thoughts with reference to Him. Begin with the fact of Jesus Christ, study out the meaning of the Christian Church, take in the grasp of the religious instincts and the moral faculties, study out God in history, believe in a definite Holy Ghost, and you will find that the mind will grow by what it feeds on, and that God will be a reality to your mind, when your mind has a real grasp upon God.

IV. By loving God with all our strength is meant the co-ordination of our powers and faculties in such a way as to shew the force of our character, the energy of our entire nature, the putting of our energies into exercise, and the command of our own personality over our mere circumstances and surroundings. We mean by the exercise of all our powers, through the unit of the individual will, what Frederick the Great meant when speaking of William Pitt. He said, “England has been a long time in labour, but she has at last brought forth a man.” In the same way heart and soul and mind, when they become united with a definite will and purpose, produce that strength which shews itself in action—that belief which becomes a living force when it is translated into a life! How is it, then, that this wholeness of service ensures us against restlessness and unbelief and sin? The answer is very plain. Do you not see that if you have this much of the bulk of your nature on the side of the service of God, if God is real enough to you to claim a real and honest portion of your nature in every department—in heart, in soul, in mind, and in strength—there will be no trouble either in your belief in Him or in your service for Him? You will have exalted the spiritual side of your nature over the tyrannous rule of the body with its material demands, and you will be living upward to God instead of downward towards self; and the Being who had claimed and has received your affection, your soul, your mind, and your concentrated force of living will give you as a reward those returns of a spiritual life which grow to great results in cur life in exact proportion to our daily practice.—W. W. Newton.

Mar_12:34. Obedience to God the way to faith in Christ.—In these words we are taught, first, that the Christian’s faith and obedience are not the same religion as that of natural conscience, as being some way beyond it; secondly, that this way is “not far”—not far in the case of those who try to act up to their conscience; in other words, that obedience to conscience leads to obedience to the gospel, which, instead of being something different altogether, is but the completion and perfection of that religion which natural conscience teaches. Indeed, it would have been strange if the God of nature had said one thing and the God of grace another, if the truths which our conscience taught us without the information of Scripture were contradicted by that information when obtained. But it is not so; there are not two ways of pleasing God; what conscience suggests Christ has sanctioned and explained; to love God and our neighbour are the great duties of the gospel as well as of the law; he who endeavours to fulfil them by the light of nature is in the way towards, is, as our Lord said, “not far from Christ’s kingdom”; for to him that hath more shall be given.

I. Consider how plainly we are taught in Scripture that perfect obedience is the standard of gospel holiness.—Rom_12:2; 1Co_7:19; Php_4:8; Jas_2:10; 2Pe_1:5-7; Joh_14:21; Mat_5:19. These texts, and a multitude of others, shew that the gospel leaves us just where it found us, as regards the necessity of our obedience to God; that Christ has not obeyed instead of us, but that obedience is quite as imperative as if Christ had never come; nay, is pressed upon us with additional sanctions; the difference being, not that He relaxes the strict rule of keeping His commandments, but that He gives us spiritual aids, which we have not except through Him, to enable us to keep them. Accordingly Christ’s service is represented in Scripture, not as different from that religious obedience which conscience teaches us naturally, but as the perfection of it. We are told again and again that obedience to God leads on to faith in Christ, that it is the only recognised way to Christ, and that therefore to believe in Him ordinarily implies that we are living in obedience to God (Joh_6:45; Joh_3:21; Joh_7:17; Joh_15:23; Joh_8:19; 1Jn_2:23; 2Jn_1:9; 2Co_4:4).

II. If we look to the history of the first propagation of the gospel, we find this view confirmed.—The early Christian Church was principally composed of those who had long been in the habit of obeying their consciences carefully, and so preparing themselves for Christ’s religion, that kingdom of God from which the text says they were not far (Luk_1:6; Mat_1:19; Luk_2:25; Joh_1:47; Luk_23:50; Act_10:2; Act_10:13; Act_10:17). But it may be asked, “Did Christ hold out no hope for those who had lived in sin?” Doubtless He did, if they determined to forsake their sin. When sinners truly repent, then indeed they are altogether brothers in Christ’s kingdom with those who have not in the same sense “need of repentance”; but that they should repent at all is, alas! so far from being likely, that when the unexpected event takes place it causes such joy in heaven (from the marvellousness of it) as is not even excited by the ninety-and-nine just persons who need no such change of mind. Of such changes some instances are given us in the Gospels, for the encouragement of all penitents, such as that of the woman, mentioned by St. Luke, who “loved much.” And, moreover, of these penitents of whom I speak, and whom, when they become penitents, we cannot love too dearly (after our Saviour’s pattern), nay, or reverence too highly, and whom the apostles, after Christ’s departure, brought into the Church in such vast multitudes, none, as far as we know, had any sudden change of mind from bad to good wrought in them, nor do we hear of any of them honoured with any important station in the Church. I have confined myself to the time of Christ’s coming; but not only then, but at all times and under all circumstances, as all parts of the Bible inform us, obedience to the light we possess is the way to gain more light (Pro_8:17-20; Luk_16:10; Mar_4:25).

III. Some of the consequences which follow from this great Scripture truth.—

1. First, we see the hopelessness of waiting for any sudden change of heart, if we are at present living in sin. To all those who live a self-indulgent life, however they veil their self-indulgence from themselves by a notion of their superior religious knowledge, and by their faculty of speaking fluently in Scripture language, to all such the Word of life says, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked”; He tries the heart, and disdains the mere worship of the lips. He acknowledges no man as a believer in His Son who does not anxiously struggle to obey His commandments to the utmost; to none of those who seek without striving, and who consider themselves safe, to none of these does He give “power to become sons of God.”

2. But, after all, there are very many more than I have as yet mentioned who wait for a time of repentance to come, while at present they live in sin. For instance, the young, who think it will be time enough to think of God when they grow old, that religion will then come as a matter of course, and that they will then like it naturally, just as they now like their follies and sins. Or those who are much engaged in worldly business, who confess they do not give that attention to religion which they ought to give, who neglect the ordinances of the Church, who allow themselves in various small transgressions of their conscience, and resolutely harden themselves against the remorse which such transgressions are calculated to cause them; and all this they do under the idea that at length a convenient season will come when they may give themselves to religious duties. All such persons do not, in their hearts, believe our Lord’s doctrine contained in the text, that to obey God is to be near Christ, and that to disobey is to be far from Him. How will this truth be plain to us in that day when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed! Now we do not believe that strict obedience is as necessary as it is. We put something before it, in our doctrinal system, as more necessary than it; one man puts faith, another outward devotion, a third attention to his temporal calling, another zeal for the Church—that is, we put a part for the whole of our duty, and so run the risk of losing our souls. These are the burnt offerings and sacrifices which even the scribe put aside before the weightier matters of the law. Or, again, we fancy that the means of gaining heaven are something stranger and rarer than the mere obvious duty of obedience to God: we are loath to seek Christ in the waters of Jordan rather than in Pharpar and Abana, rivers of Damascus; we prefer to seek Him in the height above, or to descend into the deep, rather than to believe that the Word is nigh us, even in our mouth and in our heart. Hence in false religions some men have even tortured themselves and been cruel to their flesh, thereby to become as gods, and to mount aloft; and in our own, with a not less melancholy, though less self-denying, error, men fancy that certain strange effects on their minds, strong emotion, restlessness, and an unmanly excitement and extravagance of thought and feeling, are the tokens of that inscrutable Spirit who is given us, not to make us something other than men, but to make us, what without His gracious aid we never shall be, upright, self-mastering men, humble and obedient children of our Lord and Saviour. In that day of trial all these deceits will be laid aside; we shall stand in our own real form, whether it be of heaven or of earth, the wedding garment or the old raiment of sin; and then how many, do we think, will be revealed as the heirs of light, who have followed Christ in His narrow way, and humbled themselves after His manner (though not in His perfection, and with nothing of His merit) to the daily duties of soberness, mercy, gentleness, self-denial, and the fear of God?—J. H. Newman, D.D.

OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Mar_12:28-31. The scribe’s question, or catch, was a common one among the learned of that day; and this answer of Jesus was the recognised solution of it. Long before now another lawyer, when asked by Jesus, “What is written in the law? How dost thou read it?” had replied in similar terms (Luk_10:25-27). So that our Lord’s answer was not original, was not His private solution of the problem; it was the common and accepted solution among the students and masters of the law, as indeed this master himself confesses in the next verse. The only wonder to those who heard it from the lips of Jesus was how He came to know it, He who had “never learned,” never sat at the feet of any of their rabbis or passed through any of their schools. An ordinary layman would have been posed by it. For neither “the first and great commandment,” nor “the second, which is like unto it,” was contained in the Decalogue, though obedience to them was far “more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” The first, that which enjoins love to God, is only given incidentally, in a summary of human duty contained in Deu_6:5; and, again, Mar_10:12. The second, that which enjoins love for our neighbour, is hidden away among a crowd of Levitical enactments of the most minute and burdensome kind (Lev_19:18). It took some knowledge of the law, therefore, to find these two commandments at all; and much knowledge, much spiritual insight and a deep sympathy with the animating spirit of the Hebrew law, to discover that they were the first and best commandments of all. And it shews, I think, what a real genius for religion the Jews had, that even the hide-bound rabbis and scribes had discerned for themselves that love—love to God and man—is the end of the commandment and the fulfilling of the law. But, though they would have used the very words which Jesus used, would they have used them in the same sense? They would have selected—they had selected—the same two commandments as the great commandments; but did they see in them the meaning that He saw? We know they did not. To them this answer was only the right answer to a legal catch; to Him it was the supreme fact of human life. For what else had He come into the world but just this?—to induce men, by revealing God’s hearty love for them, to love Him with all their hearts, and their neighbours as themselves.—S. Cox, D.D.

Christ’s two commandments and the Decalogue.—Have the two commandments of Christ superseded the ten commandments of Moses? Yes and No: they abolish only by fulfilling them. So long as we are compassed about with infirmity, and come short therefore of the full height of the charity of love, it is very meet, right, and our bounden duty to bear in mind the commandments of the law, and to enforce ourselves to obey them. And yet, if we could but keep the two commandments, what need should we have of the ten, or of any other commandment? How can any man who loves God with all his heart have any other God besides Him? How can any man who loves God with the whole of his mind, with full and clear intelligence, make unto him any graven images, any idol, and bow down before it? How can any man who loves God with all his soul take the name of the Lord his God in vain? How can any man who loves God with all his strength forget to hallow every day to His service, and not only the seventh? Or how can any man who loves his neighbour as himself fail to honour all men, and not only his father and mother, or do any murder, or commit adultery, or steal, or bear false witness, or covet anything that is his neighbour’s? Within the compass of these two commandments the whole law does hang and move: love is the fulfilling of the law; and he that walketh in love both walks at large (i. e. in liberty) and keeps all the commandments of God.—Ibid.

True religion.—True religion can be no disjointed, fragmentary affair. As the forest tree is one tree, though it have a myriad branches and twigs and leaves, because it has one root, so the true religious life must be one because it can have but one root—supreme love to God.

2. True religion engages the whole man, mind and soul and affections, while the strength and power to carry out its behests are not wanting. The intellect and the emotions, the spiritual nature, and the will and force to make the Spirit effective are all drawn upon.

3. Philanthropy is not religion; but there can be no true religion without philanthropy. We love God whom we have not seen because we have learned to love our fellow-men whom we have seen, and our love to our fellow-men is intense and pure and active in proportion to the strength of our devotion to the Lord our God.

4. True religion is an active influence, leading us to do as well as think, to act as well as feel.

5. While true religion demands our all, it demands no more than any one can give. No experience that is beyond us is demanded. No angel’s love, no seraph’s might, not the devotion of the ripened saint unless his years and experience have been attained, but “with all thy heart and soul and mind and strength, and thy neighbour as thyself.”—F. E. Clark.

Guidance in the religious life.—These words of Christ form a noble guide for the religious life. You are concerned with religion in many of its varied aspects. You are interested in thoughts about God and His relation to the world and man; you give expression to your spiritual aspirations in one and another form of worship; you bear your share of the Christian activity of the congregation; and you can never escape from the demands made upon you for Christian conduct. Forget not what religion according to Christ means. Take heed lest you be so engrossed with its mere accidents that you lose sight of its substance. Strive that you may grow in love to God and man. Despise not creeds and theologies, but so use creed, theology, and Bible that you may gain that deeper insight into God and God’s ways with men which will waken a deeper love. In recoil from a ritualism which sets more store by the means than by the end which is subserved by the means, do not rashly sit too loosely to forms of worship, but so use these forms that they may serve to bring you nearer God and nearer man. In the sphere of Christian duty beware of the letter which killeth, rise above mere obedience to external law, and ever seek in your relations with others to have a fresh baptism of that love by which alone the law of Christ can be fulfilled. And in the work you undertake in Christ’s Church on behalf of others be not content with their acceptance of a creed, with their participation in religious worship, or with the observance of the respectabilities of social life; strive to lead them into the love of God and man; and that you may be successful in that work grow yourself in that love, for love is begotten by love.—D. M. Ross.

Mar_12:29. The unity of God.—What a massive and reassuring thought! Amid the debasements of idolatry, with its deification of every impulse and every force, amid the distractions of chance and change, seemingly so capricious and even discordant, amid the complexities of the universe and its phenomena, there is wonderful strength and wisdom in the reflexion that God is one. All changes obey His hand which holds the rein; by Him the worlds were made. The exiled patriarch was overwhelmed by the majesty of the revelation that his fathers’ God was God in Bethel even as in Beersheba: it charmed away the bitter sense of isolation, it unsealed in him the fountains of worship and trust, and sent him forward with a new hope of protection and prosperity. The unity of God, really apprehended, is a basis for the human will to repose upon, and to become self-consistent and at peace. It was the parent of the fruitful doctrine of the unity of nature which underlies all the scientific victories of the modern world. In religion St. Paul felt that it implies the equal treatment of all the human race (Rom_3:29).—Dean Chadwick.

Mar_12:30. Loving God with heart, soul, mind, and strength.—We know what love is in the relation of husband and wife, of father and children, of friend with friend; and from time to time any thoughtful Christian asks himself somewhat sadly, “Do I, with the same reality of love, love God?” If we would endeavour to get some answer to this question in regard to ourselves, let us examine carefully this passage.

1. To love God with all my heart means that I do deliberately direct my life consciously to God as its first end, and that not generally only, but in detail also. I seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness in the small ordinary transactions of life as well as in the great movements of my life.

2. The soul or life means the sum of the faculties. There is the life of a plant, which means the sum of its faculties—the power of absorbing moisture, developing the leaves, the flower, and the fruit. There is the life or soul of the animal; that is, in addition to its powers of assimilation, digestion, and reproduction—powers also of movement and expression of sound—there is the sum of faculties, which is the life of the animal. And there is the sum of the faculties which belong to man in addition to those which the animal shares—those rational powers which constitute the true life of humanity. In part those powers belong to all men; in part they are the peculiar endowment of special individuals, as each of us has from Almighty God his special gifts and powers. To love God, then, “with all our soul,” is to take stock of the faculties which God has given us, and deliberately as we realise what they are with increasing assurance as life goes on to direct them one by one and altogether to the service of God.

3. “To love the Lord our God with all our mind” is to direct our faculties of intellect to knowing what we can of God. Let us run through the various traits of the being of God which He has revealed to us. There is, first, His revelation in nature. It is a scene which, by captivating the spiritual imagination and faculties of man, discloses something of the mind and spiritual being of that God who is at work in it: power, wisdom, beauty; and not so only, for this scene is also a storehouse of truth. Everywhere God is appealing there to the mind of man, informing it, enlightening it. God is there disclosed in His power, in His beauty, in His truth. And yet we have but begun to estimate what we can know of God. There is that other great natural witness—the witness of conscience. So it is when man within himself becomes conscious of the altogether new work of self-revelation. God is disclosed in righteousness. And then, once more, there is the moral character remaining, which is the argument of the psalmist: “He that made the eye, shall He not see? He that planted the ear, shall He not hear?” And our great poet Robert Browning has taught men to argue—He that made love and righteousness the character of man, must not He in Himself be greater than this moral work? So it is with men. They look to human nature, and see in what is best in man once more the order of the uncreated God. And yet what a wild scene this human nature is! How are we to discriminate between what belongs to human nature, between love and cruelty, between justice and tyranny? How shall we know what here is proper to human nature, and what is but the corruption of it? At this point there comes in the rectifying disclosure which God has given of Himself in the humanity of our Lord. Jesus Christ, our Master, gives us the true standard of human nature. There we see what belongs to man, and what is only the corruption of the gift of God. And yet in Jesus Christ is not only the disclosure of perfect manhood—it is the disclosure, under the conditions of our humanity, of perfect Godhood. He in man is very God. We look at His life, His forbearance, His patience, His gentleness, His self-sacrifice, and we see nothing else than forbearance and patience and gentleness—very God. So it is with point after point. Gradually we sum up what we can know of God, His power, His beauty, His truth, His righteousness, His love, His self-sacrifice—that being of God which is summed up in St. John’s words: “God is love.” And yet one step more. In thus disclosing to us His character God has revealed to us something at least of His own being. We could not conceive of God at all in blank, monotonous solitude. We could not conceive of a personal God living in the enjoyment of spiritual life in monotonous solitude. There can be no life, no knowledge, no will, if there be no relationship, if there be no fellowship. But as God has come nearer to us in the person of His Son, He has disclosed to us something of those inner relationships which obtained eternally in His being—the relation of Father and Son and Holy Ghost.

4. With all our strength! What does that add to the other? This surely: that everything in human nature degenerates very rapidly into routine is an experience with which we are all only too unhappily familiar. Therefore to love the Lord our God with all our strength is again and again to make fresh beginnings in the love of God—again and again be as one who has not yet begun at all to learn the lesson of religion, so that new force of vitality may in each successive epoch of our life, in each successive morning of our life, be put into the service which we offer to God.—Canon Gore.

Love to God.—

1. The sentiments and actions wherein love to God is chiefly exhibited. It implies in general to regard Him from intimate conviction as our sovereign good, as the source of all our happiness; to delight more in Him than in all things else; to prize and covet His favour and fellowship above all things; and diligently to make it our business to be well pleasing to Him.

(1) Frequent meditation on God is the first particular by which the religious man evinces his love to the Supreme Being, and shews it to be operative in him.

(2) The delight with which the religious man attends on public as well as private worship is the second particular whereby his love to God appears and shews itself active.

(3) An enlightened and active zeal for the honour and glory of God is the third particular whereby the love towards God is manifested and effectively displayed.

(4) A constant and earnest endeavour to please God by a willing and unlimited obedience to His commands is the fourth particular whereby the love towards God is displayed and shewn to be effective. This, in fact, forms the most essential part of it.

(5) The love of God must manifest itself by a sincere and effective love of our neighbour. God is infinitely superior to all necessities. We cannot augment His perfection, or give Him anything which He has not first given us. But He has rational creatures who bear His likeness, He has children, He has friends and subjects here on earth, whom we may effectually serve, to whom we may be useful in various ways, whose temporal and eternal prosperity we may promote. These He recommends to our love, to our care, to our relief.

(6) Lastly, the love of God displays itself in sincere aspirations after heaven, where we shall be more intimately united with Him, and partake of His good pleasure in a superior degree.

2. How our love to God should be constituted, or what qualities it should possess, for being genuine. “With all thy heart, soul, mind, strength.” These accumulated expressions, which apparently denote the selfsame thing, serve generally to shew the sincerity no less than the force and degree of the love which we owe to God. They give us to understand an undissembled, an ardent, an effective, and a constant love, captivating as it were the entire soul, setting all its capacities and energies in motion, and becoming a ruling affection.

(1) It must be sincere.

(2) We must love God above or more than all things else.

(3) We must love all else that merits our esteem and affection, principally in regard and in reference to God as the author of it.

(4) Our love to God must be firm and immutable.

3. The reasons which oblige us to such a love towards God. Love is founded on the excellency of its object, or on the close relations wherein we stand towards it, or on the benefits which we receive from it, or on the good we have to hope for from it. In regard to our love for God all these reasons unite together; and who does not perceive how strong and indissoluble they render our obligation to it?

(1) Where is the being that is more excellent, more venerable, more amiable than God? Does He not comprise in Himself whatever is beautiful, good, perfect?

(2) Consider the close relation wherein you stand towards God, and the multitude, the greatness, the high value of the benefits you have received from Him. He is our Creator; we are the work of His hands. He is our Sovereign, and we are His subjects. He is our Father, and we His children.

(3) Add the intrinsic excellency and the manifold utility of this virtue. (a) What can more delightfully employ the soul of a reasonable and virtuous being; what is more adapted to elevate and enlarge his capacities and powers; what can procure him a more pure, a more noble, a more sensible pleasure, than the love of a God who possesses all the prerogatives and attributes which only merit love in the supreme degree, without limitation and change; who is the ever-flowing and inexhaustible fountain of light, of life, of joy, of happiness; whose goodness and grace continue for ever and ever; and who will never cease to bless His friends and worshippers, and to make them happy? (b) What is more adapted to facilitate to us the practice of all the virtues, the discharge of all our duties, than the love of God? (c) What is more adapted to comfort us in all adversities, to render us firm and undaunted in every danger, and to give us the most certain hope of the completest happiness, than love towards God?—G. J. Zollikofer.

The meaning of this commandment for us is nothing less than this: that we are to cherish and maintain within ourselves an enthusiastic devotion to the highest vision that is vouchsafed us of the Eternal Reality, the Eternal Love, the Eternal Beauty.—R. J. Fletcher.

Mar_12:31. Duty to neighbour.—Christ sums up all God’s law, all man’s duty, in the word “love.” The love of God and its manifestation in the love of man.

1. The strictness of the commandment and the frequency of its iteration.

(1) Here it is put forth as the compendium of the law, and again Rom_13:8.

(2) The breach of charity is a bar to the acceptance by God of ourselves and of our work (Mat_5:23-24; 1Jn_3:14).

(3) It is the new commandment given by Christ on the most solemn occasion (Joh_13:34-35).

(4) It has attached to it the promise that its fulfilment shall cover a multitude of sins (1Pe_4:8).

2. Its twofold channel of operation.

(1) Alms-deeds and the corporal works of mercy: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, harbour the stranger and needy, visit the sick, minister to prisoners and captives, visit the fatherless and widows, bury the dead.

(2) Intercession and the spiritual works of mercy: to instruct the ignorant, correct offenders, counsel the doubtful, comfort the afflicted, suffer injuries with patience, forgive offences and wrongs, pray for others.

3. Its scope and limit.

(1) It is to be universal in its scope, reaching even to our enemies (Mat_5:43-48; Luk_10:29-38).

(2) Its limit: we are to love our neighbour as ourself; not more—a warning to those who neglect the cultivation of their own spiritual life for the active ministrations of Church work; but not less—a warning to those who think only of the needs of their own soul.—A. G. Mortimer, D. D.

Motives to universal charity.—

1. Wouldst thou love all mankind as thy brethren, rejoice in them and think of them with complacency, say sometimes to thyself, “God loves them; He designs their good; He showers His benefits upon them; He rejoices in them as the work of His hands, as His creatures, His children; He beholds them with complacency.”

2. Wouldst thou love all mankind as thy brethren, rejoice in them all, and think on them with complacency and esteem: in the judgment that thou passest on them be not biassed either by the homeliness of their figure, or the meanness of their apparel, or the humble situation in which they are placed, or by single actions, foolish or wicked, which they commit. Nothing of this detracts from the inherent worth of the man, his native grandeur and dignity, his essential excellences.

3. Wouldst thou awaken and confirm in thy soul the principle of love, inward, cordial love towards all mankind, as towards thy neighbours, frequently resolve in thy mind the various and generally useful connexions in which they all stand with thee and with human society at large. Not one is entirely useless, or absolutely and in all respects injurious to society, and no one can or will be so at all times and in every situation.

4. Wouldst thou excite and cherish in thy heart this universal charity, judge, esteem thy brethren, mankind, not merely by what at present, in this their infant state, they are and afford, but by what in all future times on every higher step of their existence they may and will be and afford.—G. J. Zollikofer.

Mar_12:32-34. The excellence of the moral law.—

I. The great practical duties of the law are supremely excellent.—

1. They are good for their own sake; whereas the institutions of the ceremonial law were good only as means to an end.

2. They can be performed only by a renewed heart; whereas the institutions of the ceremonial law may be performed by the most abandoned of mankind.

II. They are such as must commend themselves to the conscience of every candid inquirer.—

1. Are they reasonable? What can be more reasonable than that we should love Him who is infinitely lovely, and who has so loved us as even to give His only dear Son to die for us?

2. Are they conducive to our happiness? Wherein does the happiness of heaven consist but in the exercise of love?

3. Are they perfective of our nature? The want of love is that which debases us even lower than the beasts that perish. No words can describe the full malignity of such a state. But let a principle of love possess our souls, and it instantly refines all our feelings, regulates all our dispositions, and transforms us into the very image of our God.

4. Are they instrumental to the honouring of God? We know of no other way in which God can be honoured, because these two commandments comprehend the whole of our duty. But by abounding in a regard to these we may and do honour Him.

III. An approbation of them argues a state of mind favourable to the reception of the gospel.—When there is a readiness to approve the boundless extent of these commandments, there must of necessity be—

1. An openness to be convinced of our lost estate.

2. A willingness to embrace the offers of salvation.

3. A readiness to receive and improve the aids of God’s Spirit.—C. Simeon.

Mar_12:34. Not far from the kingdom.—

I. What is it to be near the kingdom?—There are habits of life, traits of character which bring us nigh—

1. A moral life.

2. Interest in religion. The Holy Spirit guides all sincere seekers of truth.

3. Knowledge of Scriptures. This is a long step nearer Christ. The seed lies ready for the sun and rain.

II. What is it to be in the kingdom?—

1. Answer supplied in narrative. To know that to love God and man is more than all mere rites is to be near the kingdom. To have that love in the heart is to be in the kingdom.

2. To enter the kingdom love must be shed abroad in the heart. This love enters when we believe God’s love to us. The last step into the kingdom is then faith—belief in God’s love to me. God’s love enters the soul like a cascade, as we believe it. Then rises up our love to God, like the spray, the vapour-cloud of the fall, that fills our life with beauty, as the mossy banks of the cascade are full of flowers and ferns. Our love to God is the return of God’s love to its source. This love shews itself to our neighbour; if not, it does not exist.

III. Why do men not go all the way?—

1. They love some secret evil. A hidden anchor holds the vessel when the tide is flowing.

2. They are not in earnest. It is necessary to “strive.”

3. They procrastinate; they lack the final act of decision; they miss the flood-tide which would have led to salvation.

IV. The responsibility of stopping short.—

1. It is full of danger. To feel “near the kingdom” breeds the presumption, “I can enter any time.” Where despair of salvation slays one soul, presumption slays a thousand.

2. The position cannot be maintained; the habits of life, the traits of character, which bring us near, will fade, unless we ask Christ to guard them. We shall drift farther every year from heaven.

3. It is fatal. “To be almost saved is to be altogether lost.”—J. H. Hodson.

Nearness not possession.—It is with the kingdom of God as with other kingdoms—kingdoms both objective and subjective—to be almost in possession is not sufficient. A man may be almost in possession of a fortune, but that adds not to his credit at the bank. A man may be almost honest or almost sober, but that will be no recommendation to a position of trust and responsibility. And as with these, so with the kingdoms of mental force, health, and social influence; nearness is not sufficient.

I. A man is not necessarily in the kingdom of God because an intelligent inquirer.—Christ does not shrink from being questioned; but let us discriminate between questioning with a view to information and questioning with a view to disputation. Moreover it is worthy of notice that when Christ pronounces upon a man’s condition that man does not farther presume upon his mere knowledge. “Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.” What then? “No man after that durst ask Him any question.”

II. A man is not necessarily in the kingdom of God because he knows truth when he hears it.—Twice over in the narrative we find this scribe tacitly saying Amen to the utterances of Christ. But a man may do that and yet have no affection for Christ as Saviour. This man was thoroughly orthodox. But it is quite possible to make a false god of orthodoxy. At all events theoretical orthodoxy is not enough. A man may be ready “to stand up for the truth,” nay, ready to die for it, and yet be only “not far from the kingdom of God” (1Co_13:3).

III. A man is not necessarily in the kingdom of God because he can answer questions bearing upon Christianity.—We fear that not a little confidence is reposed in questions having only a very remote bearing upon religion. A man may know the creed without knowing the Christ, and the catechism while yet he knows nothing of charity, Farther, a man may answer according to the letter of Scripture and yet be only “not far from the kingdom of God.” We must repent, confess, believe, and serve.—J. S. Swan.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 12

Mar_12:30. Love, the most important thing.—“Father,” asked the son of Bishop Berkeley, “what is the meaning of the words ‘cherubim’ and ‘seraphim,’ which we meet with in the Bible?” “Cherubim,” replied his father, “is a Hebrew word, signifying knowledge; seraphim is another word of the same language, signifying flame. Whence it is supposed that the cherubim are angels who excel in knowledge, and that the seraphim are angels likewise who excel in loving God.” “I hope, then,” said the little boy, “when I die I shall be a seraph, for I would rather love God than know all things.”

Mar_12:31. Loving neighbour as self.—A good old clergyman, living on the borders of Salisbury Plain, was admired by his bishop for having performed “the greatest act of charity of which he had ever heard.” It will amuse you to hear what that act was. When the Rev. Samuel Settle—for that was his name—required a new suit of clothes, he used to send for the parish tailor to measure him; and when the number of inches had been correctly noted down, he would add, “Make the things a size larger than the measure, Grant.” Did he like his clothes very loose, do you think? Not a bit of it; but his reverence was a particularly small man, and the poor old parishioner to whom he usually gave his cast-off garments was a size larger. Now do you see the reason for the order to the tailor, and do you wonder at the bishop’s praise? Which of us would choose our coats or dresses to suit another person? Verily good old Mr. Settle—now gone to his rest—did love his neighbour as himself.

Mar_12:34. “Not far from the kingdom.”—When, after safely circumnavigating the globe, the Royal Charter went to pieces in Moelfra Bay, on the coast of Wales, it was my melancholy duty (says one) to visit and seek to comfort the wife of the first officer, made by that calamity a widow. The ship had been telegraphed from Queenstown, and the lady was sitting in her parlour expecting her husband, with the table spread for his evening meal, when the messenger came to tell her he was drowned. Never can I forget the grief, so stricken and tearless, with which she rung my hand, as she said, “So near home, and yet lost!”

Half a point off the course.—Almost is not sufficient. A gentleman crossing the English Channel stood near the helmsman. It was a calm and pleasant evening, and no one dreamed of a possible danger to their good ship. But a sudden flapping of a sail, as if the wind had shifted, caught the ear of the officer on watch, and he sprang at once to the wheel, examining closely the compass. “You are half a point off the course,” he said sharply to the man at the wheel. The deviation was corrected, and the officer returned to his post. “You must steer very accurately,” said the looker-on, “when only half a point is so much thought of.” “Ah, half a point in many places might bring us directly on the rocks,” he said. What avails being almost right, if destruction is the end?

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

5. The Scribe, first tempting, then half won. Mar_12:28-34

(Parallels: Mat_22:34-40; Luk_20:39.)

28     And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving13 that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? 29And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments Isaiah , 14 Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 30And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, 15 and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. 16 31And the second is like, namely this, 17 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: there is none other commandment greater than these. 32And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; 18 and there is none other but he: 33And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, 19 and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices. 34And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask him any question.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Comp. Matthew.—The peculiarities of Mark: Matthew causes the tempting Pharisees, who were for the moment influenced by friendly feelings towards the Lord because He had put the Sadducees to silence, to advance; while Mark brings forward into the light their representative, a well-meaning scribe, whom Matthew designates more specifically as a lawyer. Matthew emphasizes the temptation, Mark the questioning; and, in addition, the transaction is clothed in a much richer form than in the Gospel by Matthew. The statement of Jesus is first introduced, that the greatest commandment is to hear that God is one, as therefrom proceeds the unity of the commandment of love out of the unity or absolute simplicity of the entire inner life. To this succeeds the joyful assent of the scribe, and his well-nigh literal repetition of the Lord’s words. And, lastly, the recognition by Christ that he had answered discreetly; to which the declaration is appended, that he was not far from the kingdom of God. The observation that the Jews dared not question further, forms the conclusion of this section in Mark. Luke appends this remark to the question of the Sadducees, Matthew to the counter-question of Christ. Considering the meaning, these three narratives form but one whole. For, after the Sadducees had been defeated, the hope to overcome Him was already destroyed. The temptation here narrated was only an ambiguous after-game, probably half devoted to the attempt of inducing Christ to allow Himself, in spite of all, to be won over as a partisan to the party of the Pharisees. But when Jesus had put His counter-question, to which no reply could be given, the mouths of His opponents were finally closed. Upon the allegation of Meyer, that a difference exists between Mark and Matthew, comp. Note to Matthew’s account.

Mar_12:28. The first commandment of all.—The first, and that in the sense of the chief importance. See Note upon Matthew. “The Jews enumerated six hundred and thirteen ordinances; three hundred and sixty-five prohibitions, according to the days of the year; two hundred and twenty-eight commandments, according to the parts of the body. The Pharisees distinguished between lesser and greater commandments.” Braune.

Mar_12:29. Hear, O Israel; The Lord: Deu_6:4-5.—Jesus gives the introduction to the ten commandments as the first command itself, not in so far as it forms one of the commandments, but in so far as it is the principle of the commandments,—finding its full exposition in the words: And thou shalt love, etc. The inner idea of the introduction has been explained already in Deuteronomy, from which the citation is drawn. Directly in opposition to this qualitative conception, the modern Jews reckon, according to their division, the words: Hear, O Israel, etc., quantitatively, as the first commandment. Upon this division, as well as generally upon the various divisions of the decalogue, comp. Geffken, Ueber die verschiedene Eintheilung des Dekalogus, Hamburgh, 1838, p. 9 seq. “This principle of all duties was termed specially, קריאה, or sometimes, after the initial word, שׁמע; and the words were usually recited daily, night and morning; see Vitringa, Synagoga Judaica, 2, 3, 15; Buxtorf, Syn. 9.” Meyer.

Mar_12:30. With all thy heart.—The Hebrew text has the three following specifications: with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength (מְאֹד, a might which is at once the manifesting of strength, and employing of strength; Gesenius, robur, vehementia). Instead of the first word, heart, the Septuagint reads, διάνοια; the second is of the same tenor; and the third it properly renders δύναμις. Christ’s quotation, as given by Matthew, follows the original text in the first and second word, heart, soul; but substitutes, with a fulness of meaning, for the third, διάνοια, the moral might of consciousness, of will. In Mark, the one word is expressed by two, διάνοια and ἰσχύς (=מְאֹד). On the contrary, in Mark, the scribe divides the first conception (heart) into two, καρδία and σύνεσις; while the lawyer, in the narrative in Luk_10:27, where we have a similar, though not identical, interview, speaks as Jesus here does. Only ἰσχύς precedes διάνοια. From all this, it is evident that a freer mode of handling the Old Testament text prevailed in the apostolic circle; moreover, it is worthy of being noted that no Gospel contains the δύναμις of the Septuagint. Whether the differences are only “variations of the Greek tradition,” occasioned by the habit of quoting from memory, or different points of view, is doubtful. In any case, it is noteworthy that the philosophizing Septuagint has explained καρδία by διάνοια; while, according to Matthew, Christ, spiritualizing ἰσχύς, gives its force as διάνοια, which is preceded by the heart and soul. Mark and Luke exegetically unite διάνοια and ἰσχύς. The lawyer, to indicate his legal stand-point, adds to καρδία, which the Septuagint had converted into καρδία, the σύνεσις. Upon biblical psychology (upon which Roos, Beck, and Delitzsch have written), comp. Note upon Matthew.

Mar_12:33. With all thy understanding.—Signification of the intelligence, as it develops into understanding.

Burnt offerings and sacrifices.—Psalms 51; 1Sa_15:22; Hos_6:6. This very comparison proved that the lawyer was overcome by an emotion of courageous faith, the giving utterance to which might have easily caused offence to his companions. It was in this situation a testimony.

Mar_12:34. Discreetly, νουνεχῶς: with knowledge and understanding.—Attic, νουνεχόυτως; the opposite, ἀφρόνως.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. See remarks upon Matthew.—From the unity and spiritual harmony of God proceeds the essential unity of His law in one principle—love. This principle has already been brought into view in Deuteronomy. The true covenant-God, as the one God and the one Lord over hearts and in them,—this makes one life-experience, one life-motive, love. So appears the royal law as given by James (Mar_2:8) and Paul (Rom_13:10). Upon the element of temptation in this question, comp. Note on Matthew. In the passage before us, religion is declared to be the central, concentrated direction of the whole man, especially of his soul’s powers, to the one God.

2. The man, in whose inward parts the law of God has been by love inscribed, loves at first from the heart, in the very core of his being; next, notwithstanding the varying frames of his soul, in his soul likewise, in the disposition of his soul-life; and then in his practical intelligence or mode of thought,—in the practical resolutions and purposes of his life, with which all the powers of his life (as members and instruments of righteousness) enter into, and are spent in, the service of love.

3. Braune:—These two commandments point to the two tables of the law. Upon the first are five laws, concerning God’s glory, God’s likeness, God’s name, God’s day, God’s representatives; upon the second, five concerning person and life, marriage and household peace, goods and chattels, honor and right, and the heart of man. The two tables are one; containing the commandments of one, inseparable, heavenly law of love.

4. To be rational (discreet), the Lord here calls, not to be far from the kingdom of God. The reason, ideally conceived, is the faculty of understanding or perceiving the divine in its ideas. This faculty perceives the idea of love in the law. Discretion and subtilty mark the contrast between the true and false use of reason.

5. Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.—He who recognizes the law in its spiritual meaning, and in opposition to external forms and ceremonies (more than burnt-offerings and sacrifices), is on the road of the Spirit (rational in a moral sense), and on the way of return from self-righteousness and of turning back to self-knowledge, which conditions the entrance into the kingdom founded by Christ. Not far from, that is, near. What was still wanting was, the full surrender to his conviction, or the actual following of Jesus. This transaction is, accordingly, a sign and presage of Christ’s victory in the centre of His enemy’s camp.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See Matthew.—The three unities in religion, a type of the Trinity of the one God: 1. The one God; 2. the one faith (giving heed to Christ’s word); 3. the one commandment.—The unity of God is not mere individuality, nor singleness, but chiefly, His being alone and His being one, to which the unity of man in the simplicity of the faith must correspond.—Man is really a unity in obedience, when his inner life, in the trinity of heart (feeling), of soul (the will), and of reason or intelligence, is at one with itself and with God’s word.—Unity and trinity, the secret of all spiritual life: 1. Of the highest life above us; 2. of the deepest life within us; 3. of the richest life around us.—In the true love of God and his neighbor, man would re-obtain his true self-love, and recover from his diseased self-love.—Thou art not far from the kingdom of God; or, the tempter transformed into the disciple. Or a meaning-fraught word,—1. of recognition, 2. of warning, 3. of encouragement.—Christ explained in the temple-court, in the circle of those who hated Him, the great law of love, as He upon the night of betrayal instituted the meal of love, and upon Golgotha overcame the curse of the entire world-hate, by His act, by His suffering, and by His sacrifice of love.

Canstein:—Good men may be often so misled as to permit themselves to be employed against Christ: for such we must have compassion, pray for them, and endeavor to deliver them.—Quesnel:—True religion consists in hearing, believing, and loving.—As thou lovest thyself, so act with thy neighbor.—Hedinger:—Who can withstand the truth? Where but a little good-will is found, it pierces through. But ah! how hard the hearts that strive against her!—Osiander:—External ceremonies are no doubt good; but where they are found without love, they are only a mantle covering secret sin, and will be rejected by God.—Bibl. Wirt.:—Courage, ye teachers and preachers! God moves the heart of many a one, who has not known the fact, in a sermon, so that he goes forth better than he came in.—He who recognizes the worth of love, and what it is, is near the kingdom of God; but he who has experienced love, is in it.—Hedinger:-—Whosoever is, in the beginning, obedient and true to the divine leadings of grace, of him is there hope that he is won.—He who is near, is not therefore within the kingdom, Mat_7:13.—Canstein:—Truth conquers.—Quesnel:—A silence of contentedness and obedience is a wholesome silence; but that of rude ignorance and obstinacy is a damning silence.

Rieger:—Upon the commandment of love to God and to our neighbor is all dependent; and yet God, on account of man’s lost state, could not leave all to be dependent on this alone, but had to reveal many other, special, explicit commandments, and make us conscious of our captivity to sin by them. Not till that institution (these laws) has fulfilled its part, can we be brought by the grace of Christ under the law of the Spirit.

Lisco:—All external sacrifices are only weak types of the one perfect sacrifice, the perfect surrender of the heart to God.—With thy earnest moral striving, thou art upon the way by which the kingdom of God may be reached; for thou recognizest the existence of true piety, and deceivest thyself not with an external righteousness by works. The entrance is by faith alone in the Saviour, who is the Way, Joh_14:6.—Gerlach:—Through a living acquaintance with God’s law, through heartfelt affection for its chief commandment, love, man comes near to the kingdom; but to come into the kingdom, he needs the knowledge of God, by which alone the conflict between pleasure in the law, and its constant transgression, can be stopped.—Braune:—God is one, says Paul, Gal_3:20, to prove that law and promise are eternally one. So, too, says the Lord here, in that He calls to His support the fundamental doctrine of the law: Hear, Israel, etc. It is always the heart upon which God first looks.—The second command is the proof of the first. “If a man say, I love God,” etc., 1Jn_4:20.—God says, No God beside Me; but man must say, Other men beside me.—On God’s account we are bound to love our neighbor as ourselves.—Thou shalt: it is accordingly no merit if thou do so; but it is sin if thou neglect. Thou shalt perfectly: It is not a portion which suffices. This must drive us to Him who fulfilled this law, and helps us to fulfil.—The Master gives measured praise: of beautiful views and fine declarations He never makes too much, but recognizes these in all relations in such a way as to encourage to progress.—Let each take heed, that in his case the separation between knowing and doing, between the acknowledgment of the faith and the work of faith, become not fixed, and ever grow more terrible.

Schleiermacher:—See his Sermons, vol. iii. p. 765 ff.—Brieger:—To love God, who is the Love and the Life, is to live godly. But he who lives in and with God, or godly, loves also what God loves.—Love is the only self-sacrifice, and it is the only sacrifice that God wishes.—Gossner:—One God, one heart, one love.

Footnotes:

[13][Mar_12:28.—Lachmann reads ἰδών for εἰδὼς, after C., D., L.]

[14]Mar_12:29.—Many variations. Tischendorf, adopting B., L., Δ., reads on ὄτι πρώτη ἐστίν; Griesbach, ὅτι πρώτη πάντων ἐντολή, after A. and Minusculi.

[15]Mar_12:30.—Tischendorf, following D. and some Minusculi and Versions, omits καὶ ἐξ ὅλης τῆς διανοίας.]

[16]Mar_12:30.—Αὕτη πρώτη ἐντολή omitted by Tischendorf, following B., E., L., Δ.; retained by A., D., &c.

[17]Mar_12:31.—Tischendorf reads simply δευτέρα αὕτη, and so B., L., Δ.; this means, “this is the second in importance.” Lachmann, and the majority of the MSS., retain ὁμοία αὐτῇ.

[18][Mar_12:32.—The best MSS. omit Θεός after ἐστι.]

[19][Mar_12:33.—Tischendorf, following B., L., Δ., omits καὶ ἐξ ὅλης τῆς ψυχῆς. Meyer defends the reading.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

THE THEOLOGIAN AND THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS

Mat 22:34-40; Mar 12:28-34. “And one of the scribes coming to Him, and having them interrogating Him, knowing that He answered them beautifully, asks Him, What is the first commandment of all? And Jesus responded to him, The first commandment of all is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these. [Deu 6:4; Lev 19:18.] And the scribes said to Him, Beautifully, Teacher, You spoke the truth, that He is one and no other beside Him; and to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the mind, and with all the strength, and to love the neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices. Jesus seeing him, that he answered intelligently, said to him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no one dared to interrogate Him any more.” This theologian so meekly and intelligently corroborated and endorsed Jesus on the great plan of salvation, as He showed from the Scriptures the pre-eminence of love into God supreme, with all the heart, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves, that Jesus, reading his heart like a book, saw his sincerity and candor, and notified him that he was not far from the kingdom of God. You see, the attitude of this theologian, when he exalted Divine love — to God supreme and to the neighbor as ourselves — and so frankly confessed that this love was infinitely more important than all the sacrifices of the Levitical law, clearly demonstrated that he was on the fight line, recognizing the pure spirituality of the redemptive scheme, while sacrifices and oblations are merely subordinate and symbolic. This man clearly evinces that the light of the Holy Ghost was already shining in on his mind, and revealing to him the true way of salvation. What a beautiful exception to the hypocrites, legalists, and ritualists, who so constantly thronged about Jesus with their captious questions and occult intrigue!

Mat 22:40. “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Hence you see that even the Old Testament teaches a religion of perfect love, its burdensome ritual constituting a symbolic school, in which the people were constantly and vividly reminded of the vicarious atonement of the Son and the Pentecostal baptism of the Spirit.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER 12:28-34 (Mar_12:28-34)

THE DISCERNING SCRIBE

"And one of the scribes came, and heard them questioning together, and knowing that He had answered them well, asked Him, What commandment is the first of all? Jesus answered, The first is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, 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 second is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto Him, Of a truth, Master, Thou hast well said that He is one; and there is none other but He: and to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, He said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask Him any question." Mar_12:28-34 (R.V.)

THE praise which Jesus bestowed upon this lawyer is best understood when we take into account the circumstances, the pressure of assailants with ensnaring questions, the sullen disappointment or palpable exasperation of the party to which the scribe belonged. He had probably sympathized in their hostility; and had come expecting and desiring the discomfiture of Jesus. But if so, he was a candid enemy; and as each new attempt revealed more clearly the spiritual insight, the self-possession and balanced wisdom of Him Who had been represented as a dangerous fanatic, his unfriendly opinion began to waver. For he too was at issue with popular views: he had learned in the Scriptures that God desireth not sacrifice, that incense might be an abomination to Him, and new moons and sabbaths things to do away with. And so, perceiving that He had answered them well, the scribe asked, upon his own account, a very different question, not rarely debated in their schools, and often answered with grotesque frivolity, but which he felt to go down to the very root of things. Instead of challenging Christ's authority, he tries His wisdom. Instead of striving to entangle Him in dangerous politics, or to assail with shallow ridicule the problems of the life to come, he asks, What commandment is the first of all? And if we may accept as complete this abrupt statement of his interrogation, it would seem to have been drawn from him by a sudden impulse, or wrenched by an over-mastering desire, despite of reluctance and false shame.

The Lord answered him with great solemnity and emphasis. He might have quoted the commandment only. But He at once supported the precept itself and also His own view of its importance by including the majestic prologue, "Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God, 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 they strength."

The unity of God, what a massive and reassuring thought! Amid the debasements of idolatry, with its deification of every impulse and every force, amid the distractions of chance and change, seemingly so capricious and even discordant, amid the complexities of the universe and its phenomena, there is wonderful strength and wisdom in the reflection that God is one. All changes obey His hand which holds the rein; by Him the worlds were made. The exiled patriarch was overwhelmed by the majesty of the revelation that his fathers' God was God in Bethel even as in Beer-sheba: it charmed away the bitter sense of isolation, it unsealed in him the fountains of worship and trust, and sent him forward with a new hope of protection and prosperity. The unity of God, really apprehended, is a basis for the human will to repose upon, and to become self-consistent and at peace. It was the parent of the fruitful doctrine of the unity of nature which underlies all the scientific victories of the modern world. In religion, St. Paul felt that it implies the equal treatment of all the human race, when he asked, "Is He the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yea, of Gentiles also, if so be that God is one." (Rom_3:29 R.V.). To be one, he seems to say, implies being universal also. And if it thus excludes the reprobation of races, it disproves equally that of individual souls, and all thought of such unequal and partial treatment as should inspire one with hope of indulgence in guilt, or with fear that his way is hid from the Lord.

But if this be true, if there be one fountain of all life and loveliness and joy, of all human tenderness and all moral glory, how are we bound to love Him. Every other affection should only deepen our adoring loyalty to Him Who gives it. No cold or formal service can meet His claim, Who gives us the power to serve. No, we must love Him. And as all our nature comes from Him, so must all be consecrated: that love must embrace all the affections of "heart and soul" panting after Him, as the hart after the waterbrooks; and all the deep and steady convictions of the "mind," musing on the work of His hand, able to give a reason for its faith; and all the practical homage of the "strength," living and dying to the Lord. How easy, then, would be the fulfillment of His commandments in detail, and how surely it would follow. All the precepts of the first table are clearly implied in this.

In such another commandment were summed up also the precepts which concerned our neighbor. When we love him as ourselves (neither exaggerating his claims beyond our own, nor allowing our own to trample upon his), then we shall work no ill to our neighbor, and so love shall fulfill the law. There is none other commandment greater than these.

The questioner saw all the nobility of this reply; and the disdain, the anger, and perhaps the persecution of his associates could not prevent him from an admiring and reverent repetition of the Savior's words, and an avowal that all the ceremonial observances of Judaism were as nothing compared with this.

While he was thus judging, he was being judged. As he knew that Jesus had answered well, so Jesus saw that he answered discreetly; and in view of his unprejudiced judgment, his spiritual insight, and his frank approval of One Who was then despised and rejected, He said, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. But he was not yet within it, and no man knows his fate.

Sad yet instructive it is to think that he may have won the approval of Christ, and heard His words, so full of discernment and of desire for his adherence, and yet never crossed the invisible and mysterious boundary which he then approached so nearly. But we also may know, and admire, and confess the greatness and goodness of Jesus, without forsaking all to follow Him.

His enemies had been defeated and put to shame, their murderous hate had been denounced, and the nets of their cunning had been rent like cobwebs; they had seen the heart of one of their own order kindled into open admiration, and they henceforth renounced as hopeless the attempt to conquer Jesus in debate. No man after that durst ask Him any questions.

He will now carry the war into their own country. It will be for them to answer Jesus.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

12:28-34 After the three hostile challenges of 11:27–12:27, the reader might expect the next question to Jesus to be hostile (see 11:28; 12:13, 15, 19-23), but this was not a hostile counter. Earlier references in Mark to the teachers of religious law have portrayed them as antagonistic (2:6-7, 16; 3:22; 7:1, 5; 8:31; 9:14; 10:33; 11:18, 27), and Jesus will warn the crowds against their hypocrisy (12:38-40), but this teacher was positively inclined toward Jesus (12:28, 32) and praised him (12:32-33). Jesus described the man’s answer to his question as having understanding, and Jesus said that the man was not far from the Kingdom of God (12:34).

12:28 Of all the commandments: The Torah (Genesis—Deuteronomy) contains 613 separate commandments, and Jewish teachers frequently debated about which were more important than others. No command was considered unimportant, but some were recognized as more fundamental than others (see Matt 22:40). Rabbi Hillel’s answer to this question was, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor” (Babylonian Shabbat 31a; see also Tobit 4:15). Other suggestions included Prov 3:6; Isa 33:15-16; 56:1; Amos 5:4; Mic 6:8; and Hab 2:4.

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

Mar 12:28. Καλῶς, well) Admirably. The admirable character of Christ’s teaching is often conspicuous, even to those who do not comprehend it wholly [in all its parts]. To this we are to refer Mar 12:32, καλῶς, well.

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

Mar_12:28-34. See on Mat_22:34-40.

Mark, however, has much that is peculiar, especially through the characteristic and certainly original amplification in Mar_12:32-34.

The participles are to be so apportioned, that ἀκούσας is subordinated to the προσελθών, and εἰδώς belongs to ἐπηρώτηρεν as its determining motive.

εἰδώς] not inappropriate (Fritzsche, de Wette); but the scribe knew from his listening how aptly Jesus had answered them (αὐτοῖς, emphatically placed before ἀπεκρ.); and therefore he hoped that He would also give to him an apt reply.

πάντων] neuter. Compare Xen. Mem. iv. 7. 70: ὁ δὲ ἥλιος … πάντων λαμπρότατος ὤν, Thucyd. vii. 52. 2. See Winer, p. 160 [E. T. 222]; Dorvill. ad Charit. p. 549.

Mar_12:29-30. Deu_6:4-5. This principle of morality, which binds all duties into unity (see J. Müller, v. d. Sünde, I. p. 140 f.), was named pre-eminently קריאה, or also from the initial word שׁמע, and it was the custom to utter the words daily, morning and evening. See Vitringa, Synag. ii. 3. 15; Buxtorf, Synag. 9.

ἰσχύος] LXX. δυνάμεως. It is the moral strength, which makes itself known in the overcoming of hindrances and in energetic activity. Comp. Beck, bibl. Seelenl. p. 112 f., and on Eph_1:19. Matthew has not this point, but Luke has at Mar_10:27.[150]

Mar_12:32. After ΔΙΔΆΣΚΑΛΕ there is only to be placed a comma, so that ἘΠʼ ἈΛΗΘΕΊΑς (comp. on Mar_12:14) is a more precise definition of ΚΑΛῶς.

ὍΤΙ ΕἿς ἘΣΤΙ] that He is one. The subject is obvious of itself from what precedes. As in the former passage of Scripture, Mar_12:29, so also here the mention of the unity of God is the premiss for the duty that follows; hence it is not an improbable trait (Köstlin, p. 351), which Mark has introduced here in the striving after completeness and with reference to the Gentile world.

Mar_12:33. συνέσεως] a similar notion instead of a repetition of ΔΙΑΝΟΊΑς, Mar_12:30. It is the moral intelligence which comprehends and understands the relation in question. Its opposite is ἈΣΎΝΕΤΟς (Rom_1:21; Rom_1:31), Dem. 1394, 4 : ἈΡΕΤῆς ἉΠΆΣΗς ἈΡΧῊ Ἡ ΣΎΝΕΣΙς. Comp. on Col_1:9.

ὉΛΟΚΑΥΤ.] Nobilissima species sacrificiorum, Bengel. ΠΆΝΤΩΝ ΤῶΝ applies inclusively to ΘΥΣΙῶΝ. Krüger, § 58. 3. 2.

Mar_12:34. ἸΔῺΝ ΑὐΤῸΝ, ὍΤΙ] Attraction, as at Mar_11:32 and frequently.

ΝΟΥΝΕΧῶς] intelligently, only here in the N. T. Polybius associates it with φρονίμως (1:83. 3) and ΠΡΑΓΜΑΤΙΚῶς (2:13. 1, 5:88. 2). On the character of the word as Greek, instead of which the Attics say ΝΟΥΝΕΧΌΝΤΩς (its opposite: ἈΦΡΌΝΩς, Isocr. Mar_5:7), see Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 599.

οὐ μακρὰν κ.τ.λ.] The (future) kingdom of the Messiah is conceived as the common goal. Those who are fitted for the membership of this kingdom are near to this goal; those who are unfitted are remote from it. Hence the meaning: There is not much lacking to thee, that thou mightest be received into the kingdom at its establishment. Rightly does Jesus give him this testimony, because in the frankly and eagerly avowed agreement of his religious-moral judgment with the answer of Jesus there was already implied a germ of faith promising much.

καὶ οὐδεὶς οὐκέτι κ.τ.λ.] not inappropriate (de Wette, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Bleek); but it was just this peculiar victory of Jesusthat now the result of the questioning was even agreement with Himwhich took from all the further courage, etc.

[150] The variations of the words in Matthew, Mark, and Luke represent different forms of the Greek tradition as remembered, which arose independently of the LXX. (for no evangelist has δύναμις, which is in the LXX.).

REMARK.

The difference, arising from Matthews bringing forward the scribe as πειράζων (and how naturally in the bearing of the matter this point of view suggested itself!), is not to be set aside, as, for instance, by Ebrard, p. 493,[151] who by virtue of harmonizing combination alters Mar_12:34 thus: When Jesus saw how the man of sincere mind quite forgot over the truth of the case the matter of his pride, etc. The variation is to be explained by the fact, that the design of the questioner was from the very first differently conceived of and passed over in different forms into the tradition; not by the supposition, that Mark did not understand and hence omitted the trait of special temptation (Weiss), or had been induced by Luk_20:39 to adopt a milder view (Baur). Nor has Matthew remodelled the narrative (Weiss); but he has followed that tradition which best fitted into his context. The wholly peculiar position of the matter in Mark tells in favour of the correctness and originality of his narrative.

[151] He follows the method of reconciliation proposed by Theophylact: πρῶτον μὲν αὐτὸν ὡς πειράζοντα ἐρωτῆσαι· εἶτα ὠφεληθέντα ἀπὸ τῆς ἀποκρίσεως τοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ νουνεχῶς ἀποκριθέντα ἐπαινεθῆναι. Comp. Grotius and others, including already Victor Antiochenus and the anonymous writer in Possini Cat.; Lange, again, in substance takes the same view, while Bleek simply acknowledges the variation, and Hilgenfeld represents Mark as importing his own theology into the conversation.

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.

Mar 12:28-34 . The great commandment (Mat 22:34-40 ). The permanent value of this section lies in the answer of Jesus to the question put to Him, which is substantially the same in both Mt. and Mk. The accounts vary in regard to the motive of the questioner. In Mt. he comes to tempt, in Mk. in hope of getting confirmation in a new way of thinking on the subject, similar to that of the man in quest of eternal life that which put the ethical above the ritual. No anxious attempt should be made to remove the discrepancy.

Mar 12:28 . προσελθὼν , ἀκούσας , εἰδὼς : the second and third of these three participles may be viewed as the ground of the first = one of the scribes, having heard them disputing, and being conscious that He (Jesus) answered them well, approached and asked Him, etc. ποία , what sort of; it is a question, not of an individual commandment, but of characteristic quality. The questioner, as conceived by Mk., probably had in view the distinction between ritual and ethical, or positive and moral. The prevalent tendency was to attach special importance to the positive, and to find the great matters of the law in circumcision, Sabbath-keeping, the rules respecting phylacteries, etc. (Lightfoot). The opposite tendency, to emphasise the ethical , was not unrepresented, especially in the school of Hillel, which taught that the love of our neighbour is the kernel of the law. The questioner, as he appears in Mk., leant to this side.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Sacrifices and outward worship, never pleased God, unless such necessary duties as we owe to God and our neighbors went afore.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

(28-34) And one of the scribes came.—See Notes on Mat_22:34-40. St. Mark’s description is somewhat less precise than St. Matthew’s “one of them (i.e., the Pharisees), a lawyer.” The form of the question differs by the substitution of “first of all” for “great” commandment.

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

28–34. The Question of the Scribe

28. one of the scribes] From Mat_22:34-35, it appears that he was a Pharisee, and a Master of the Law.

Which is the first commandment of all?] This question, on which the schools of Hillel and Shammai were disagreed, the Lawyer put, tempting our Lord (Mat_22:35), hoping that He would commit Himself as an enemy of the Traditions. The Rabbinical schools taught that there were important distinctions between the Commandments, some being great and others small, some hard and weighty, others easy and of less importance. Great commands were the observance of the Sabbath, circumcision, minute rites of sacrifice and offering, the rules respecting fringes and phylacteries. Indeed, all the separate commandments of the ceremonial and moral Law had been carefully weighed and classified, and it had been concluded that there were “248 affirmative precepts, being as many as the members in the human body, and 365 negative precepts, being as many as the arteries and veins, or the days of the year; the total being 613, which was also the number of the letters in the Decalogue.”

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.

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God,.... Which is to be understood of the one God, Father, Son, and Spirit; for all the three divine persons are to be equally loved, being possessed of the same perfections and excellencies, and having done the same works, and having bestowed like benefits and favours upon men: and though there is now no principle of love to God in men; but, on the contrary, men are enemies to God in their minds, which appears by their wicked works; yet this commandment is still in force, and the obligation to it is the same; the fall of man, the corruption of nature, and the impotency, and even aversion in man to observe this command, do not make it null and void: and in regeneration, when God puts his laws into the heart, and writes them in the mind; love is produced in such persons, to God the Father, who has begotten them again, according to his abundant mercy; and to Christ, who has saved them from their sins; and to the blessed Spirit, who has quickened and comforted them: and this love is in some measure exercised as it should be, and as here directed to,

with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; that is, with all the powers and faculties of the soul; or with the affections, as under the influence and guidance of the more noble faculties of the soul, the mind, the understanding, judgment, and will: it is added here, which is not in Matthew,

and with all thy strength; which answers to the phrase in Deu 6:5, "with all thy might"; that is, with the greatest vehemency of affection, in the strongest expressions of it, and with all the strength of grace a man has. This passage follows the former in Deu 6:5 and is what is only cited in Mat 22:37; see Gill on Mat 22:37.

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

28 And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?

Ver. 28. Asked him, which is the first] All Christ’s disciples must be Ζητητικοι, Questionists, and do the same to learn that this scribe here doth for a worse purpose.

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.

See the notes on "Mat 22:35", and following verses to Mat 22:40, where whatsoever Mark here hath is opened.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

St. Matthew (Mat_22:34) says here that the Pharisees, when they heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, gathered themselves together, and that then one of them, who was a lawyer (nominov), that is, "a scribe," asked him this question, What commandment is the first of all? It appears here from St. Mark that this scribe had been present at the discussion with the Sadducees, and he had probably informed the others of what had taken place, and of the wisdom and power of our Lord"s answer; so he was naturally put forward to try our Lord with another crucial question. It does not necessarily appear that he had an evil intention in putting this question. He may, in his own mind (seeing the wisdom and skill of our Lord), have desired to hear what Christ had to say to a very difficult question on a matter deeply interesting to all true Hebrews. The question was one much mooted amongst the Jews in the time of our Lord. "For many," says Beds, "thought that the first commandment in the Law related to offerings and sacrifices, with regard to which so much is said in Leviticus, and that the right worship of God consisted in the due offering of these." On this account the Pharisees encouraged children to say "Corban" to their parents; and hence this candid and truth-loving scribe, when he heard our Lord"s answer about the love of God and of our neighbor, said that such obedience was worth "more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." With regard to the love of God, St. Bernard says, "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 possibly give to him.

Vers. 28-34. The great commandments.

This passage of the Gospel affords common ground, upon which those who lay the greatest stress upon Christian doctrine may meet with conciliation and harmony those who are wont to insist most upon Christian morality. Here is a statement, upon the highest authority, as to what God requires of man, as to what man owes to God and to his fellow-men. "Do this, and thou shalt live!" It is a sublime view of the great purposes of our spiritual being. Beyond this religion cannot go; for this is the end for which our nature was framed, for which revelation was vouchsafed. Yet who can read these requirements of a holy and benevolent Creator and Ruler without feeling that by himself they have not been fulfilled? The man must be besotted by self-conceit, or must have silenced conscience, who claims to have loved God with all his powers, or to have uniformly loved his neighbor as himself. The purer, the more stringent the Law, the deeper the humiliation and contrition of the transgressor. What, then, more fitted to induce sinners to receive the gospel with faith and gratitude than these words of Jesus? What can make so welcome the tidings of Divine forgiveness secured through the redemption wrought by the Savior on the cross? And, further, as we meditate upon this ideal of a beautiful and acceptable moral life, how profoundly are we impressed with a sense of our own weakness! And surely this must lead us to seek and to accept the aid of the Spirit of God, who is the Spirit at once of power and of love! Thus the inculcation of Christian morality naturally suggests the doctrines upon which we build our hopes for time and for eternity. On the other hand, in the presence of these inspiriting words of the Master, how is it possible for the candid and the faithful to rest in that view of the gospel which represents religion as merely securing the forgiveness of sin, and immunity from wrath and punishment? Here is a summons to a spiritual, a self-denying, and a benevolent life.

I THE QUESTION PROPOSED TO JESUS.

1. In itself it was a worthy, a noble question. Unlike the trifling and ridiculous riddle propounded by the Pharisees, it was an inquiry becoming on the part of the scribe who urged it, and fit for the consideration and judgment of the holy Master himself. It respected commandments, and thus acknowledged the rule of a just God, and the duty of man"s obedience and submission. It concerned morality the highest of all human interests. It evinced an evident desire to do what was right, and to give precedence to what should be acknowledged best. There can be no nobler inquiry than this What is the will of God? What is the duty of man? What shall I do?

2. In its spirit and purport, the question was commendable. The questioner observed that Jesus had answered well; that he had solved with marvelous wisdom the difficult question of the Pharisees; that he had dealt skillfully and conclusively with the caviling of the Sadducees. The limits of civil submission are an interesting branch of study; the future life is of all speculative questions the most engrossing to the thoughtful; but of even wider interest are the foundation, the character, the means, of human goodness. The inquiry as to the first of commandments was put as a testing question, but in no captious spirit; it was the expression of a desire to learn to learn from the highest authority, to learn the most sacred principles of moral life. And not to learn only, but doubtless to practice the lesson acquired.

II THE ANSWER OF JESUS TO THE SCRIBE. There was no hesitation in the Master"s reply to the question proposed; the challenge was at once taken up. And consummate wisdom was shown in the reference to the Mosaic Law, the very words of which were quoted. Thus the right-minded were conciliated, yet at no expense, but rather by the manifestation, of truth. And the hostile were silenced; for who of the Jewish rabbis could call in question the authority of their own sacred books? When we look into the substance of the response, several remarkable facts become apparent.

1. Love is represented as the sum of the Divine commandments. The Pentateuch contained the injunctions our Lord repeated, but they were included in a vast body of precepts and prohibitions. It could scarcely be said with justice that love was the most prominent of the Mosaic commandments. Christ"s independence, discernment, and legislative authority were shown in his fixing upon the two requirements which occur in different books and in different connections, and in bringing them out into the light of day, and exhibiting them as in his view of surpassing importance, and so promulgating them as the laws of his spiritual kingdom through all time. God himself is love; Christ is the expression and proof of the Divine love; and it is therefore natural and reasonable that love should be the law of the Divine kingdom, the badge of the spiritual family.

2. The Object of supreme love is God himself. The personality of God is assumed, for we cannot love an abstraction, a power; only a living being, who thinks, feels, and purposes. The unity of God is asserted; for although, when Jesus lived on earth, the Jews were no longer subject to the temptation to idolatry, such temptation had beset them when the Law was originally given, and for a long period subsequently. The relationship between God and man is presumed God;" for he is ours and we are his. The claims of God are implied; his character, his treatment of men, his redeeming love in Christ. "We love him, because he first loved us.

3. The description and degree of love demanded are very fully stated in the text. The expression is a very strong one: "With all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength." Attempts have been made accurately to discriminate among these. But it seems sufficient to say that the love required in such language is cordial and fervent; cordial, as distinguished from mere profession, and fervent, as distinguished from lukewarmness and indifference. The whole of our nature is expected to combine, so to speak, in this exercise. Not only so, but God is to be regarded as the supreme Object of affection and devotion. He demands the first place in our heart; and those who see his grace in Christ cannot find it hard to offer what he demands.

4. Love to man follows upon love to God. It may, indeed, in order of time, in some measure precede and prepare for it. But in the moral order, in the order of obligation, love to God comes first, and, indeed, furnishes the one sound and safe basis for human love. The designation of the objects of this love deserves notice; they are our "neighbors." We must interpret this term in the light of our Lord"s answer to an earlier question put to him by a certain lawyer: "Who is my neighbor?" In the parable of the good Samaritan Jesus then laid a broad foundation for human charity. Not our own family, or Church, or nation, but all mankind, are to be regarded with good will, and treated, not only with justice, but with kindness. Practically, those have a claim upon our kindly feeling and good offices whom Providence brings into any contact with us in human society. Remark the measure of this love: "As thyself." It is, then, right to love self; but in subordination to Divine love, and in accordance with love to neighbors. The test is an effective one, and can always be applied; the Law is parallel with the golden rule, "Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you." The dependence of this law upon the preceding is obvious. Christianity bases morality upon religion; we love our fellow-men as the children of God, because he loves them and for his sake.

5. Love, to be acceptable, must display itself in practical forms. The love we cherish toward God should lead to worship and to obedience in a word, to a religious life. The love we entertain to our fellow-men will reveal itself in the demeanour, the language, and still more in the conduct. Helpfulness, self-denial, liberality, forbearance, are all fruits of love; which is destructive of discord, malice, and envy, of jealousy, hatred, and persecution. Here is the power to banish the vices, and the remedy to heal the spiritual maladies which afflict mankind!

III THE SCRIBE"S APPROVING CONSENT TO CHRIST"S REPLY.

1. He thus proved his independence of judgment. Others, when answered and silenced by Jesus, retired discomfited, but unconvinced. This rabbi, with a mind candid and open to the truth, receives the Lord"s saying as sufficient and decisive, and renders his own consent and approbation in the words, "Thou hast well said.

2. He shows his pleasure in the grand utterances of inspiration by repeating the language which Jesus had quoted language evidently both familiar to him and congenial to his character.

3. His boldness and spirituality are apparent in his stating, what Jesus had implied, the superiority of the heart"s affection to all service of the hands.

IV THE COMMENDATION EXPRESSED BY JESUS.

1. The position of the lawyer was very different from that of others. There were many who were "far" from God"s kingdom. The Pharisees for the most part by their formality, the Sadducees by their scepticism and arrogance, the publicans and sinners by their vices, the multitude by their ignorance, these were far from the kingdom. Amongst those who may justly be so described are always some who are outwardly numbered among the religious, as well as multitudes who are without God, and manifestly have no hope.

2. There were several respects in which this scribe approached the spiritual kingdom of the Savior.

(1) He was acquainted with God"s Word, and was interested in it; he explored and studied it. He appreciated the grandeur and beauty of the Divine Law, and he was bold and earnest in speaking of it. In all this he displayed sympathy with him who came to magnify and to fulfill the Law, and who bade the people search the Scriptures.

(2) He thoroughly agreed with the dictum of the great Master, with regard to the first and most binding and comprehensive ordinances of the inspired Word. Whether or not he was prepared with this answer to the question he proposed, it is evident that the answer commended itself to his judgment and conscience, and that the Divine Respondent was regarded by him with reverential admiration. It is well to find the truth; but it is also well, when others have found it, to recognize and to accept it.

(3) Grand indeed was this scribe"s confession, that love "is much more than whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." All religions the true as well as the false are corrupted by a tendency in human nature to substitute the sacrificial, the ceremonial, the verbal, for the real, the spiritual. Men think that to comply with directions, instructive and profitable in themselves, but having reference only to symbolical actions, is all important, and they give diligent attention to these, and neglect the weightier matters of the Law. It is presumed that bodily service is sufficient, in forgetfulness of the fact that God is the Searcher of hearts, and that he will be worshipped in spirit and in truth. This is a lesson which still needs to be inculcated, even in days of Christian light and evangelical fervor. Never be it forgotten that character and conduct are of supreme importance, and that the only sufficient, conclusive evidence that a man has received the benefits of redemption, and has felt the renewing power of the Spirit of God, is to be found in the reign of love within his soul, and the manifestation of love in his whole character and life.

V THE RESERVATION AND QUALIFICATION IN OUR LORD"S APPROVAL. If there was so much that was admirable in the spirit and the language of this student and expositor of the Law, what was lacking? If he was near the kingdom, what separated him from it, and prevented him from entering in? This question we cannot answer with certainty; we can only surmise. There may have been an inadequate sense of sin; his admiration of Jesus may have come short of true faith in him; and he may have been unready to make a complete surrender of himself to the Lord Jesus. At all events, we have no difficulty in enumerating various hindrances which, as a matter of fact, do keep outside of the kingdom those who are very near its confines. Christ"s dominion is one which cannot be entered except through the door of repentance and of faith. True subjects come in sincere and childlike humility, and receive the welcome promised; by the new birth they enter the new life of the kingdom. The laws of the kingdom are spiritual, and demand spiritual conformity. And the King is enthroned in the heart as well as in society. You must become as little children in order that you may enter the kingdom of God.

APPLICATION.

1. Let faith work by love in Christian natures; and let those who love Christ prove by their spirit and their actions the sincerity of their love.

2. Let those who are near the kingdom, instead of resting in their nearness, regard this as a reason why they should, without delay, enter the gates before which they stand.

Vers. 28-34. The Law akin to the gospel, but inferior to it.

I True RELIGIOUS INQUIRY IS ENCOURAGED BY CANDOUR AND SPIRITUAL INSIGHT ON THE PART OF RELIGIOUS TEACHERS. Matthew tells us that the Pharisees came together top the same place." when they saw the discomfiture of the Sadducees; and "then one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying." Mark introduces him as one of the scribes. In the one Gospel the motive and encouragement are represented as experienced by the Pharisaic party in general; in the other they are represented as individually felt and acted upon. There were, therefore, elements of earnestness and spirituality amongst the Pharisees, and these were called forth by our Saviours teaching. They were now in a more favorable attitude for receiving the truth than they had ever been before. As to the idea expressed by "tempting," it need not be understood in a sinister sense, but generally as proving, testing, etc. Our Lord did not crush the spirit of inquiry, but courted it. They felt that there was more in him than they could explain, and that his knowledge of Scripture was spiritual and profound, and therefore they wished to discover what he could possibly have to tell them that was not already taught by Moses or his prophetic exponents. He had all but converted his enemies and critics into his disciples. He had infected them with his own spirit of religious earnestness. Of this mood the "lawyer" was the mouthpiece. He pushes inquiry to its highest point, and desires to know the chief duties of religion.

II THE BEST MODE OF ANSWERING SUCH INQUIRY IS THAT WHICH PRESENTS THE SPIRIT AND SUBSTANCE OF DUTY, OR TRUE RELIGION IN ITS UNITY AND UNIVERSALITY. Deu_6:4. This is not given as a part of the Law of Moses, but as the principle of all service. "Lev_19:18 contains a similar principle for all social duties" (Godwin). Passing over all matters of mere ceremonial, and questions of less or more, he lays hold of the spirit of the Law and presents it to his inquirer. It is out of the very heart of the hook of ceremonies (Leviticus) that the duty to neighbors is extracted. He declares "the three unities of religion:

(1) the one God;

(2) the one faith;

(3) the one commandment" (Lunge);

and compels the agreement and admiration of his questioner. "Note also the real reverence shown in the form of address, "Master," i.e. "Teacher, Rabbi." He recognized the speaker as one of his own order" (Plumptre). All religion is summed up by him in a "great commandment," viz. the love of God, and that is shown in its earthward aspect to involve loving our neighbor as ourselves. That true religion is not ceremonial but spiritual is thus demonstrated; and in quoting the highest utterances of the prophets, the scribe but endorses and restates the same doctrine. Teacher and inquirer are therefore theoretically one. But more is needed; and towards the attainment of this the stimulus is given, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." This meant that

III SUCH INQUIRY CAN ONLY BE SATISFIED AND CROWNED BY ACTING UPON ITS HIGHEST SPIRITUAL CONVICTIONS. "The words are significant as showing the unity of our Lord"s teaching. Now, as when he spoke the sermon on the mount, the righteousness which fulfils the Law is the condition of the entrance into the kingdom of God. (Mat_5:19, Mat_5:20) Even the recognition of that righteousness as consisting in the fulfillment of the two commandments that were exceeding broad, brought a man as to the very threshold of the kingdom. It is instructive to compare our Lord"s different method of dealing, in Luk_10:25-37, with one who had the same theoretical knowledge, but who obviously, consciously or unconsciously, minimized the force of the commandments by his narrowing definitions" (Plumptre). "The kingdom of heaven is, for the moment, pictorially represented as localized, like the ordinary kingdoms of the world. The scribe, walking in the way of conscientious inquiry, and thus making religious pilgrimage, had nearly reached its borderland. He was bordering on the great reality of true religion, subjection of spirit to the sovereign will of God" (Morison). This state can only be attained to by conversion, the identification of the sinner through faith with the righteousness of the Savior, and the indwelling of the Spirit of God. It is thus scientific conviction becomes moral, and we are able to carry into effect what we know to be true and right. M.

Vers. 28-34. The great command.

One more question ere it could be said, "No man after that durst ask him any question." Alas! on the human side it, like the others, is a mere quibble, or based on one. But though man asks in his folly Jesus never answers according to it, but always according to his supreme wisdom, in a manner so high, so far-reaching, so seriously. He trifled not with the perplexities of men. He knew nations and tribes of men would feed on his words to the end of time, and he gladly bore witness to all those truths against which the human errors in that erring age stood out in humiliating contrast. The Christian teaching grows up out of the Mosaic. The later development of the one system does not set aside a single moral principle of the earlier. The solution of the difficulty which beset a few amidst the many commandments for which priority was urged laid down a permanent principle for all time, and took up into Christianity the essential teaching of Mosaism. We read

I THE SIMPLICITY OF THE CHRISTIAN TEACHING. One word embodies it the word "love." To this Christ gave the utmost prominence and the most beautiful illustration. This simple rule engages the devotion of the central energy of the entire life. It describes the first effort of feeble infancy and the ripest experience of the mature Christian age. It is at once the point from which all pure and active obedience takes its departure, and it is the end towards which all spiritual growth and culture tends. It is the alpha and the omega of the Christian spirit. To love, to love God first and supremely, and in that love to love the neighbor, is so complete a dedication of the entire inner man to the service of the Most High, that all commands requiring the details of that service are anticipated. From these branches hang all the rich, ripe clusters of fruitful obedience.

II THE ELEVATING TENDENCY OF THAT TEACHING, WHICH SETS FORTH THE LOVE OF THE INFINITE EXCELLENCE AS THE HIGHEST AND MOST OBLIGATORY OF ALL ITS REQUIREMENTS. That holy system of spiritual morality first called Mosaism, or Judaism, and now called Christianity, is for ever raised to the highest pitch of excellence and worthiness by making this its central, its almost solitary, command. All that is good in morals, all that is pure in aspiration, all that is beneficent in action, flows from this fountain. The perpetual aim to reach to the most entire love of the most exalted Object of human thought must insensibly raise the moral and spiritual character of every one who is controlled by so worthy an endeavor. It ensures the recognition of the soul"s subjection to the authority of God; it makes the Divine excellences objects of ceaseless contemplation; it subordinates all the aims and activities of life to the holiest purposes; and, while withdrawing the life from the degradations of low and unworthy motives and pursuits, it regulates the whole by an ever-present, powerful, and satisfying principle of life, at the same time preserving the simplicity and moral cohesion the unity of the character. Never was a holier law uttered; never were the feet of men directed to a purer, safer path; never was a firmer, truer basis laid on which to found a kingdom of truth, of peace, and of well-being.

III THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF THE CHRISTIAN TEACHING shalt love thy neighbor." To present rules for the government of every hour and the regulation of every transaction of life would be far less effective than to seize upon a principle like this, which underlies all conduct. It may be entrusted with the guidance of the life in the absence of controlling regulations and minute details of obligatory observance. It leaves the spirit free to act according to its own generous impulses or prudent caution. Such a rule prevents the necessity for "Thou shalt not steal;" "Thou shalt not kill." Love embraces all virtues; it fulfils all righteousness. The regulating principle, "as thyself," points to the due estimate of one"s own life; such a love for it as would prevent its exposure to evil, and such a discernment of the true interests of life, and the common participation in those interests, as would lead to right adjustment of the relative claims of self and the apparently conflicting claims of others. Truly, "there is none other commandment greater than these." This, indeed, is "much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." And he who has come to appreciate the truth and beauty of this is "not far from the kingdom of God;" while be who keeps this commandment already dwells within the security and shares the blessedness of that kingdom. G.

Vers. 28-34. The essence of religion.

I THE LEADING IDEA FOR THE INTELLIGENCE. The unity of God, his personality, his supreme lovableness. "All love is lost save upon God alone.

II The leading maxim for the will. To love one"s neighbor as one"s self. Kant said, trying to translate the gospel into his own dialect, "Act so that the maxim of thy will may be the principle of a universal legislation.

III The moral surpasses the ritual in religion. Surpasses it by including it with itself. Nothing can be offered to God dearer than a just and a loving life. Love, in fact, is the measure of life"s worth. And he who believes and acts upon these principles is recognized by Christ as being a Christian. J.

Vers. 28-34. Parallel passage: Mat_22:34-40. Question about the greatest commandment.

I PUERILITIES OF THE PHARISEES. The Pharisees busied themselves about the letter of the Law, but had little practical acquaintance with its true spirit. The Jews generally divided the commandments of the Law into the preceptive and prohibitory the "Do" and the "Do not;" nor was there anything amiss in this. But the Pharisees, we are told, counted the affirmative precepts, and found them as many as the members of the body; they counted the negative, and reckoned them equal in number to the days of the year, viz. three hundred and sixty-five; they then added them together, and found that the total made up the exact number of letters in the Decalogue. They also divided the commandments into great and small the more important and the less important, or the heavy and the light; those of greater weight being such commandments as related to the sabbath, circumcision, sacrifice, fringes, and phylacteries. They did not stop with puerilities of this sort, but descended to trifling minutiae, which we have neither time nor wish to record. Some of their distinctions were of a more mischievous kind, such as preferring the ceremonial to the moral Law, the oral to the written Law, and the trifles of the scribes to the teachings of the prophets. They also taught that obedience to certain commandments atoned for the neglect of others; in some measure like persons in much more recent times, who "Compound for sins they are inclined By damning those they have no mind to.

II THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN. Our Lord rebuked by his answer those miserable trivialities of the Pharisees, who seemed disposed to bring him into conflict with one or other of the contending parties, headed respectively by Hillel and Shammai. The subject of the question was one about which the schools of these great Jewish schoolmen differed. If he decided in favor of the one, he necessarily offended and lost in reputation as a public religious Teacher with the other; or perhaps they hoped to bring him into contradiction with an answer to the same question which he had sanctioned with his approval. Our Lord shoved aside their rabbinical quibbles, and passed by their hair-splittings and contendings about such petty trifles, to the neglect at once of the spirit and the really weightier matters of the Law. And as "whosoever shall keep the whole Law, and stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all," our Lord, instead of singling out or specifying any particular commandment of the Law, states two comprehensive precepts which embrace the whole Law; and not only so he not only reduces the ten commandments of the Decalogue to these two precepts, but underlying these two precepts is one single principle into which they are both capable of being resolved. He thus simplifies the statement of moral duty into a single principle, and that principle itself expressed in the one word "love;" for "love is the fulfilling of the Law.

III THE SUPREMACY OF LOVE. It has been conjectured that our Lord, when quoting in reply the passage from Deu_6:4-9, one of the four Scriptures usually inscribed on the parchment slips of the tephillin, or phylacteries, and called Shema, "Hear," from beginning with this word, pointed to the lawyer"s tephillin. This would add to the pictorial or graphic nature of the reply; but nothing could be added to the beauty of the words quoted. He cites the preface, teaching the unity of God in opposition to polytheism, and then proclaims the love of God as the source, and love to man as similar and only second thereto. But whence comes this love? Not by nature, for by nature we are "hateful, and hating one another;" only, therefore, by the new birth, when we partake of a new nature; for "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things having passed away, and all things having become new." Once we love him who first loved us, we are in the proper position for loving our Father in heaven and our fellow-man on earth. The manifestation of this love to man is doing to others as we wish others to do to us, and this exercise of the so-called, and properly so-called, golden rule, is loving our fellow-man as a brother, and son of the same heavenly Father; while our love to that Father is supreme, influencing the affections of the heart, the faculties of the mind, the spiritual powers of the soul or life, and employing the whole strength of all and each of these. God is worthy of all this worthy of our best affections, worthy of our earliest and strongest love. The practice of this principle would make this earth a paradise, restoring it to all the freshness and happiness of its first and early dawn; rather, would it make a heaven upon earth. J.J.G.

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

Which is the first commandment? - The principal, and most necessary to be observed. Matt. xxii, 34; Luke x, 25.

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

The foremost commandment:

v. 28. And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, Which is the first commandment of all?

v. 29. And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel: The Lord, our God, is one Lord;

v. 30. 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: this is the first commandment.

v. 31. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

It was not a mere harmless question or request for information which this scribe here uttered. He was rather one of the sharp-witted ones of the Pharisees, whose object was to tempt Christ and lead Him to make a statement which would in some way compromise Him. But it spoke in this man’s favor that he realized and was conscious that Jesus answered them well. Approaching, therefore, he put his question as to which was the first of all commandments. If Christ had singled out a separate precept, He might have been charged with unwarranted emphasis upon some individual form to the exclusion of the rest. Thus the Pharisees laid the greatest stress upon the law of circumcision, the keeping of the Sabbath, the proper width of the fringes of the mantles, the correct size of the phylacteries, etc. By giving the summary of the entire Moral Law, in all its various branches, in all its various precepts, Jesus intercepted and warded off any accusation regarding any disregard, on His part, of the sanctity of the Law. He places first of all the Shem a of the Jews, Deu 6:4. The fulfillment of the entire Law flows from love of God, which, in turn, is the fruit, the outgrowth of faith. The one Lord, who has revealed Himself in three persons, is the only Lord in earth and heaven; He requires the whole, undivided service and worship of the man that trusts in Him. With heart, soul, mind, and strength every believer should love Him, that is, to the uttermost degree, with every ounce of everything that is within, throwing all into the scales for the Lord and His service. And to this must be added the second great commandment: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. The love toward one’s neighbor flows from the love toward God. He that truly loves God will also love his neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the entire Law, and all commandments can be summarized in that one word, love, Rom 13:10. Beyond this, higher than this, there is no commandment; this represents the pinnacle of accomplishment in fulfilling the Law.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Observe here, 1. A question propounded to our blessed Saviour, and his answer thereunto. The question propounded is this, Which is the first and great commandment? Our Saviour tells them, It is to love God with all their heart and soul, with all their mind and strength; that is, with all the powers, faculties, and abilities of the soul, with the highest measures, and most intense degrees of love; this is the sum of the duties of the first table: This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like unto it. He doth not say equal with it: although the duties of the second table are of the same authority, and of the same necessity with the first, as no man can be saved without the love of God, so neither without the love of his neighbour.

Whence note, 1. That the fervency of all our affections, and particularly the supremacy of our love, is required by God as his right and due; love must pass through, and possess all the powers and faculties of our souls; the mind must meditate upon God, the will must choose and embrace him, and the affections must delight in him. The measure of loving God is to love him without measure; God reckons that we love him not at all, if we love him not above all.

Note, 2. That thus to love God, is the first great commandment; great in regard of the obligation of it. To love God is so indispensible a duty, that God himself cannot free us from the obligation of it; for so long as he is God, and we his creatures, we shall lie under a natural obligation to love and serve him.

Great also is this command and duty, in regard to the duration and continuance of it; when faith shall be swallowed up in vision, and hope in fruition, love will then be perfected in a full enjoyment.

Note, 3. That every man may, yea, ought, to love himself: not his sinful self, but his natural self; especially his spiritual self, the new nature in him. This it ought to be his particular care to strengthen and increase. Indeed there is no express command in scripture, for a man to love himself, because the light of nature directs, and the law of nature binds, every man so to do. God has put a principle of self-love, and of self-preservation, into all his creatures, but especially into man.

Note, 4. That as every man ought to love himself, so it is every man’s duty to love his neighbour as himself; not as he doth love himself, but as he ought to love himself; yet not in the same degree that he loves himself, but after the same manner , and with the same kind of love that he loves himself. As we love ourselves freely and readily, sincerely and unfeignedly, tenderly and compassionately, constantly and continually, so should we love our neighbour also; though we love him not as much as we love ourselves, yet must we love him truly, as truly as we love ourselves.

Note lastly, That the duties of the first and second table are inseparable, namely, love to God, and love to our neighbour. These two must not be separated; he that loveth not his neighbour whom he hath seen, never loved God whom he hath not seen. A conscientious regard to the duties of both tables, will be an argument of our sincerity, and an ornament to our profession.

Observe, lastly, The favourable censure which our Saviour passes upon the scribe: he tells him, He was not far from the kingdom of God.

Note here, 1. Some persons may be far, and farther than others, from the kingdom of heaven; some are farther in regard of the means; they want the ordinances, the dispensation of the word and sacraments; others are far from the kingdom of God, in regard of qualifications and dispositions; of the former sort, are all heathens without the pale of the church; they are afar off, as the apostle expresses it, Eph 2:13. of the latter sort, are all gross and close hypocrites within the church; who, whilst they continue such, shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Note, 2. As some persons may be said to be far from the kingdom of God, so are there others which may be said, not to be far; such who have escaped the pollutions of the world, abstained from open and scandalous sins, are less wicked than multitudes are; but are strangers to an inward, thorough, and prevailing change in the frame of their hearts, and course of their lives: they have often said, I would be, but they never said, I will be, the Lord’s. When the work of regeneration is brought to the birth, after all, it proves an abortion.

Lord! what a disappointment will this be, to perish within sight of the promised land; to be near heaven in our expectation, and yet not nearer in the issue and event? Woe unto us, if this be the condition of any of us, who have all our days sat under the dispensation of thy gospel.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CIX. C. The Great Commandment].

CIX. JEWISH RULERS SEEK TO ENSNARE JESUS. (Court of the Temple. Tuesday, April 4, A. D. 30.) Subdivision C. A LAWYER ASKS ABOUT THE GREAT COMMANDMENT. aMATT. XXII. 34-40; bMARK XII. 28-34; cLUKE XX. 40.

a34 But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, gathered themselves together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, bone of the scribes came, and heard them questioning together, and knowing that he had answered them well, aasked him a question, trying him [he was evidently deputed by those who counseled to ask this question]: 36 Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? bWhat commandment is the first of all? [According to the statement of Jewish writers, there had been an old and interminable dispute among the rabbis as to which was the greatest commandment. Some held that it was the law which commanded sacrifices; others, that which commanded the wearing of phylacteries; others contended for those about purification; others, for those about the great feasts. But as they reckoned the commandments of Moses as numbering over six hundred, there was plenty of room for argument. On this memorable day the answers of Jesus had hitherto been of such a nature as to put his questioners to silence. Therefore, in asking this question, they hoped to get an answer about which they could at least find room to wrangle, and thus discredit the wisdom of Jesus.] 29 Jesus answered, a37 And said unto him, bThe first is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is one: 30 And aThou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. band with all thy strength. a38 This is the great and first commandment. [ Deu_6:4-9. This command is first because it is the foundation of the entire law of God. It is greatest, because, in a sense, it includes all the other laws. Polytheism, atheism, idolatry, and all sins against God are forbidden by it. All sins against man are likewise, in [603] a sense, prohibited by it; for sin against man is sin against God's image, and against the objects of God's love. Those who truly love God can not consistently sin against man ( 1Jo_4:20). The curious may make metaphysical distinctions in the analysis of this required fourfold love, but the sum of it is that we are to love God with our whole being.] 39 And a { b31 The second alike unto it bis this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. [Love is the cure for sin, for we can not sin against those whom we truly love. Where we love, we desire to bless. But sin always carries with it a willingness to injure or to curse.] There is none other commandment greater than these. a40 On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets. [The generic nature of the law of love is also noted by Paul ( Rom_13:8-10); but love without law is not sufficient. Love begets a desire to bless, but the law guides to the accomplishment of that desire. Perfect righteousness is the result of wisdom as well as affection. Love without law is power without direction, and law without love is machinery without a motor-- 1Co_13:1-3.] b32 And the scribe said unto him, Of a truth, Teacher, thou hast well said that he is one; and there is none other but he: 33 and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is much more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices. [Here, as in the preceding subdivision, the answer of Jesus was so clearly right that it enforced admiration.] 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. [Prejudice is the great obstacle to entering the kingdom. In proportion as we overcome it we draw near to God.] And no man after that durst { c40 For they durst not any more ask him any question. [They found it expedient to keep silence when their questions only exposed their own shallowness, and made more conspicuous the supreme wisdom of Jesus.] [604]

[FFG 603-604]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

28–34. One of the scribes came. See notes on Matt. 22:34–40. Matthew adds that the scribe asked his question, “tempting him;” that is, “testing him.” Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. This commendation, not given by Matthew, is given because the scribe had declared that outward obedience amounted to nothing unless the heart was right. Pharisaism consisted of forms and paid little attention to love, mercy, and purity of heart. Alford says: “This man had hold of that principle in which law and gospel are one. He stood, as it were, at the door of the kingdom of God. He only wanted (but the want was indeed a serious one) repentance and faith to be within it. The Lord shows us here, that even outside his flock, those who can answer discreetly, who have knowledge of the spirit of the great command of law and gospel, are nearer to being of his flock than the formalists; but then, as Bengel adds, 'If thou art not far off, enter; otherwise it were better than thou wert far off.'”

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

He asked him

"The scribe asked Jesus"

the most important of all ... The most important is

"The most important" refer to the most important commandment. AT: "the most important commandment of all ... The most important commandment says" (See: Nominal Adjectives)

Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one

"Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord"

with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength

Here "heart" and "soul" are metonyms for a person's inner being. These four phrases are used together to mean "completely" or "earnestly." (See: Metonymy and Doublet)

love your neighbor as yourself

Jesus uses this simile to compare how people are to love each other with the same love as they love themselves. AT: "love your neighbor as much as you love yourself" (See: Simile)

than these

Here the word "these" refers to the two commandments that Jesus had just told the people.

translationWords

scribe

Jesus

command

Israel

love

lord

God

heart

soul

mind

strength

neighbor

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

28–34. THE SCRIBE’S QUESTION ABOUT THE GREAT COMMANDMENT

Mat 22:34-40. Cf. Luk 10:25-28; Luk 20:39

28. εἰδώς ([2776]c[2777][2778][2779][2780][2781][2782]) rather than ἰδών ([2783][2784][2785][2786][2787][2776] Codex Sinaiticus. 4th cent. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the Monastery of St Katharine on Mount Sinai. Now at St Petersburg. The whole Gospel, ending at Mar 16:8. Photographic facsimile, 1911.

[2777] Codex Alexandrinus. 5th cent. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to King Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. The whole Gospel. Photographic facsimile, 1879.

[2778] Codex Vaticanus. 4th cent., but perhaps a little later than א. In the Vatican Library almost since its foundation by Pope Nicolas V., and one of its greatest treasures. The whole Gospel, ending at Mar 16:8. Photographic facsimile, 1889.

[2779] Codex Monacensis. 10th cent. Contains Mar 6:47 to Mar 16:20. Many verses in 14, 15, 16 are defective.

[2780] Codex Oxoniensis. 9th cent. Contains Mark, except Mar 3:35 to Mar 6:20.

[2781] Codex Sangallensis. 9th or 10th cent. Contains the Gospels nearly complete, with an interlinear Latin translation. The text of Mark is specially good, agreeing often with CL. At St Gall.

[2782] Codex Athous Laurae. 8th cent. Like N and Σ, it is written in silver letters on purple vellum. Contains Mar 9:5 to Mar 16:20, and, as in L, the shorter ending is inserted between Mar 16:8 and Mar 16:9. As in Δ, the text of Mark is specially good.

[2783] Codex Sinaiticus. 4th cent. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the Monastery of St Katharine on Mount Sinai. Now at St Petersburg. The whole Gospel, ending at Mar 16:8. Photographic facsimile, 1911.

[2784] An asterisk denotes that the word is not found elsewhere in N.T., and such words are included in the index, even if there is no note on them in the commentary.

[2785] Codex Ephraemi. 5th cent. A palimpsest: the original writing has been partially rubbed out, and the works of Ephraem the Syrian have been written over it; but a great deal of the original writing has been recovered; of Mark we have Mar 1:17 to Mar 6:31, Mar 8:5 to Mar 12:29, Mar 13:19 to Mar 16:20. In the National Library at Paris.

[2786] Codex Bezae. 6th cent. Has a Latin translation (d) side by side with the Greek text, and the two do not quite always agree. Presented by Beza to the University Library of Cambridge in 1581. Remarkable for its frequent divergences from other texts. Contains Mark, except Mar 16:15-20, which has been added by a later hand. Photographic facsimile, 1899.

[2787] odex Regius. 8th cent. An important witness. At Paris. Contains Mar 1:1 to Mar 10:15; Mar 10:30 to Mar 15:1; Mar 15:20 to Mar 16:20, but the shorter ending is inserted between Mar 16:8 and Mar 16:9, showing that the scribe preferred it to the longer one.

28. προσελθὲν εἷς τῶν γραμματέων. When the discomfited Sadducees retired, a Scribe came forward and asked a question which was often discussed. Mk takes a favourable view of his intentions and says that his comment on Christ’s reply won from Him high commendation. Mt. does far otherwise. He says that the man was a Pharisee (therefore an enemy, according to Mt.), who, so far from being grateful to Christ for refuting the Sadducees about resurrection, put a testing question to Him, apparently to draw a vulnerable reply. The man makes no comment on Christ’s reply and receives no commendation. Lk. says that some of the Scribes praised Christ’s refutation of the Sadducees, but he does not give this conversation with one of them, perhaps because he has recorded a similar conversation earlier (Mar 10:25 f.). Note the accumulation of participles. Syr-Sin. omits the first and smooths the awkward constr. “And when one of the Scribes heard that He had answered well to those who were questioning Him.” See on Mar 1:15.

Ποία ἐστὶν ἐντολὴ πρώτη πάντων; R.V. elsewhere gives the right meaning to ποῖος (Luk 9:55; Joh 12:33; Joh 18:32; Joh 21:19; Rom 3:27; 1Co 15:35), but neither here nor Mar 11:28. Sometimes the distinctive meaning is faint or extinct, but here it has point. The Scribe wants to know what kind of a commandment is to be put in the highest place. The Rabbis divided the 613 precepts of the Law (248 commands and 365 prohibitions) into “weighty” and “light,” but the sorting of them caused much debate. This Scribe wants a principle of classification. The neut. πάντων looks as if πρωτ. πάντων was a colloquial expression used independently of the gender of whatever was “first.” Alford suggests that πρῶτος πάντων was treated as one word, “first-of-all”; or perhaps as meaning “first of all things” (Winer, p. 222; Blass § 36. 12). Examples from papyri are wanted; there seem to be none in Greek literature, where πρώτη πασῶν would be correct.

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.

28-34.] Reply concerning the great commandment. Mat 22:34-40, but with differing circumstances. There the question appears as that of one among the Pharisees’ adherents, who puts this question, πειράζων αὐτόν,—and in consequence of the Pharisees coming up to the strife, after He had discomfited the Sadducees. I should be disposed to take Mark’s as the strictly accurate account, seeing that there is nothing in the question which indicates enmity, and our Lord’s answer, ver. 34, plainly precludes it. The man, from hearing them disputing, came up, and formed one of the band who gathered together for the purpose of tempting Him. Mark’s report, which here is wholly unconnected in origin with Matt.’s, is that of some one who had taken accurate note of the circumstances and character of the man: Matt.’s is more general, not entering, as this, into individual motives, but classing the question broadly among the various “temptations” of our Lord at this time.

28.] The motive, as shewn by the subordination of ἀκούσας to προσελθών, and of εἰδώς to ἐπηρώτησεν, seems to have been, admiration of our Lord’s wise answer, and a desire to be instructed further by Him.

ἐντ. πρώτη πάντ.] This was one of the μάχαι νομικαί (Tit 3:9),—which was the greatest commandment. The Scribes had many frivolous enumerations and classifications of the commands of the law.

πάντων, not πασῶν: πρώτη-πάντων is treated almost as one word, so that πάντων does not belong to ἐντ. understood, but, q. d. ‘first-of-all of the commandments.’

29 f.] Mark cites the passage entire,—Matt. only the command itself:—compare the LXX. In this citation the Vat. reading διανοίας and the Alex. καρδίας are combined: and ἰσχύος ═ δυνάμεως. “Thou shalt love the Lord with spirit, soul, and body:” with the inner spirit, and the outer life. This is faith working by love: for κ. ὁ θ. ἡμῶν is the language of faith.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

28-34. A Scribe, apparently without the usual prejudices of his class, and impressed by his answer to the Sadducees, approaches Jesus with an honest question as to the first of the commandments of the Law. Jesus answers with the quotation from Deut. used at the beginning of morning and evening prayer, affirming the unity of God, and the consequent duty of loving him with an undivided heart. He adds a second command from Lev., bidding the people of God to love their neighbors as themselves. The Scribe assents to this, and adds that obedience to this law of love is a greater thing than all sacrifices. Whereupon, Jesus assures him that he is not far from the kingdom of God. But his enemies are evidently satisfied—they do not dare to question him further.

Judging from the fact, that he was led to put this question by seeing how well Jesus had answered the Sadducees, and from his commendation of our Lord’s reply to himself, as also from our Lord’s commendation of his answer, it seems probable that the Scribe did not ask this question in a captious spirit. He thought, Here is possibly an opportunity to get an answer to our standing question, about the first commandment. Mt. states the matter differently, making him one of a group of Pharisees, who gathered about Jesus with the usual purpose of testing him. He also omits the mutual commendation of Jesus and the Scribe.1 Lk. puts this scene at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Southern Palestine. He coincides with Mt. in regard to the purpose of the question, saying that the lawyer ἀνέστη ἐκπειράζων.2

28. ἰδὼν (εἰδὼς) ὅτι καλῶς ἀπεκρίθη αὐτοῖς, ἐπηρώτησεν αὐτόν, Ποία ἐστὶ ἐντολὴ πρώτη πάντων3—seeing (knowing) that he answered them well, asked him, What (sort of) commandment is first of all?

ἰδὼν, instead of εἰδὼς, Tisch. Treg. א* CDL 1, 13, 28, 69, mss. Lat. Vet. Vulg. ἐντολὴ πρώτη πάντων, instead of πρώτη πασῶν τῶν ἐντολῶν, Tisch. Treg. WH. RV. א BCLU Δ 33, 108, 127, 131, Memph. Syrr.

ποία asks about the quality of command, as if the scribe had in mind the different classes of laws. This is indicated also by his reply, v. 33.

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

Well [καλως] . Lit., beautifully, finely, admirably. What [ποια] . Rather, of what nature.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.