Readings for the Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity, Year A — exegesis on the Gospel, Matthew 22:34-46, part 1

The Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity is October 29, 2023.

Readings for Year A can be found here, used for the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity on October 25, 2020.

The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):

Matthew 22:34-46

22:34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together,

22:35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.

22:36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

22:37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

22:38 This is the greatest and first commandment.

22:39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

22:40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

22:41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question:

22:42 “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.”

22:43 He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,

22:44 ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”‘?

22:45 If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?”

22:46 No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

We are in Wednesday of Holy, or Passion, Week. Traditionalists refer to this particular day as Spy Wednesday, because in St Luke’s version of last week’s reading, Matthew 22:15-22, he calls the Jewish hierarchy and the Herodians ‘spies’.

Last week’s reading had to do with paying the census or poll tax. Our Lord’s answer silenced the Pharisees and the Herodians.

The question to follow that day came from the Sadducees about remarriage and heaven. Only St Luke’s version of this account is in the Lectionary, but I wrote about Matthew’s in 2016 as part of my Forbidden Bible Verses series:

Matthew 22:23-33 – Jesus, Sadducees, resurrection, afterlife, widowhood, children, remarriage, Holy Week

During the middle of Jesus’s last Passover week — what we remember as Holy Week — He gave the Sadducees answers about the living God, the afterlife and the marital state therein.

We know how the Sadducees got their name from Matthew Henry (emphases mine):

These heretics were called Sadducees from one Sadoc, a disciple of Antigonus Sochæus, who flourished about two hundred and eighty-four years before our Saviour’s birth. They lie under heavy censures among the writers of their own nation, as men of base and debauched conversations, which their principles led them to. As the Pharisees and Essenes seemed to follow Plato and Pythagoras, so the Sadducees were much of the genius of the Epicureans …

Key verses:

²⁹ But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. ³⁰ For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. ³¹ And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ³² ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” ³³ And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching. (Matthew 22:29-33)

The two parallel accounts of this exchange are Mark 12:18-27, about which I wrote in 2013 and Luke 20:27-38, which is included in the three-year Lectionary.

On that point, it is important to know that there will be no human activities such as marriage or meals in heaven because we will have glorified bodies, as Matthew Henry’s commentary explains:

In heaven there will be no decay of the individuals, and therefore no eating and drinking; no decay of the species, and therefore no marrying; where there shall be no more deaths (Rev 21 4), there need be no more births … as in hell, where there is no joy, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride shall be heard no more at all, so in heaven, where there is all joy, and no care or pain or trouble, there will be no marrying. The joys of that state are pure and spiritual, and arise from the marriage of all of them to the Lamb, not of any of them to one another.

Our Lord silenced the Sadducees, who denied the supernatural, and, with that, the Pharisees regrouped (verse 34).

One of them, a lawyer, asked a question to test Jesus (verse 35).

John MacArthur explains why the various groups of the Jewish elite were asking all these questions:

Now, what they’re trying to do, if they can’t discredit Him politically, they’re going to try to discredit Him as a teacher before the people of Israel, and at least that’s a step in His elimination. And so they talk about the resurrection, and they make up an absolutely bizarre situation, and they assume that if He says there is a resurrection, He’s going to be stuck with this bizarre situation, and the people are going to see what an utterly inept and inadequate teacher He is.

And they’re trying to discredit Him, if not politically, they’re trying to discredit Him theologically – theologically. But again His answer confounds and astonishes and amazes them, and that test failed. And that brings us to the third. One more time they come to test Him. In fact, it says that that was their purpose, in verse 35, asking Him a question, testing Him, and their desire is that He would fail the test.

They tried to test Him politically, they tried to test Him theologically with a major doctrinal issue, and now they’re really probing in the spiritual dimension again, and they have one more shot that they want to give to try to discredit Him with the people. This is their last attempt. In fact, Mark 12, verse 34, paralleling this passage, says, “When this was over, no man dared ask Him any more questions.” This is it.

Verse 34 has the past participle ‘silenced’. MacArthur explains it in the Greek:

The verb to put to silence is literally gagged. He gagged them. It wasn’t that they wanted to be silent. They had no choice, He gagged them.

It is a verb used, for example, in Mark 1:25, of silencing a demon. It is used also in Mark chapter 4, verse 39, of silencing a storm, when the Lord did that. It is used in 1 Corinthians 9, I think it’s verse 9, of muzzling an ox. In other words, it’s an unwilling gagging. They had more to say, they just had nothing to say, in a sense. They couldn’t say it. There was nothing that they could speak. He silenced them. He brought their argument to an utter end where they were absolutely without another sound, they were without another thought, without another idea, without another retort.

All of these groups, some of them enemies, such as the Pharisees and the Herodians and the Pharisees and the Sadducees, had one collective plan in mind:

So on the on hand, there must have been a certain amount of gloating over the Sadducees’ ineptness, but that was far outweighed by the fact that they would rather have seen Jesus discredited than the Sadducees discredited because Jesus posed a far greater threat to them than the Sadducees ever did, and seeing their foes unsuccessful in destroying a greater enemy, namely Jesus, must have left them dissatisfied.

MacArthur explains the fulfilment of prophecy here:

And so it says in verse 34 they gathered together, and in this gathering together, I think we sense a real fulfillment of prophecy here.

In Psalm 2, which is a Messianic prophecy, in which the psalmist looks ahead to the Messiah, it says in verse 2, “The kings of the earth set themselves,” and then this, “and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed.” And that seems to be drawn right into this particular verse when it says they were gathered together. It’s the same idea that was predicted, that the rulers would come together and take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, the Messiah.

In fact, in Acts chapter 4, that verse out of Psalm 2 is referred to. It says, “The kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ.” That’s Acts 4:26. So Psalm 2 looked to the cross and said they would gather together against Him, Acts 4:26 looked back to that time that they would gather against Him. We’re in that time right here. This is that which is seen in Psalm 2:2, which is alluded to in Acts 4:26. And what’s interesting about that is that this plotting fits into the plan of God as He foresaw it in Scripture.

Students of the New Testament might wonder why Matthew used the word ‘lawyer’ in verse 35 rather than ‘scribe’.

Henry says:

The lawyers were students in, and teachers of, the law of Moses, as the scribes were; but some think that in this they differed, that they dealt more in practical questions than the scribes; they studied and professed casuistical divinity.

MacArthur has more:

A scribe was one who copied the law, who was an authority on the law, who knew the law, who interpreted the law, who taught the law, and so forth. And normally Matthew uses the word “scribe.” It’s unlike Matthew to use the word “lawyer.” In fact, some commentators think it shouldn’t be there because it’s so uncommon to Matthew …

But I believe the reason it’s here is because it’s a word that may suggest that this guy was a cut above the average scribe. He was a law expert. And all scribes were, to some extent, lawyers, half attorney, half theologian because their understanding of law was that it was biblical law and traditional law, not just secular law, so they were sort of theologian attorneys and advocates and teachers. And so this may have been one who stood out from the many scribes as a real expert. And he is sent to ask the question on behalf of the rest of the Pharisees.

Both our commentators mention St Mark’s version of this story and our Lord’s remark to the lawyer, who must have been very good indeed.

Henry says:

This lawyer asked him a question, tempting him; not with any design to ensnare him, as appears by St. Mark’s relation of the story, where we find that this was he to whom Christ said, Thou are not far from the kingdom of God, Mark 12 34, but only to see what he would say, and to draw on discourse with him, to satisfy his own and his friends’ curiosity.

MacArthur says:

… they’re filled with venom and they’re filled with hatred, and all they want to do is see Jesus eliminated, but it seems to me that he’s not quite committed to that. He’s a little more objective than the rest of them, and we know that because if we compare the Mark passage where Mark describes the same scene, the lawyer starts out thinking that Jesus answered those other questions very well, so he’s attracted to the wisdom of Jesus.

When Jesus answers this question, the lawyer responds by saying, “You have said the truth. That’s exactly right.” And Jesus in turn said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom.” So while he is acting as an emissary for the Pharisees, on his own terms, he seems to have more integrity than they do. And while they are without any objectivity at all, seeking only to eliminate Jesus, he at least has enough to come with a somewhat open mind to hear an answer that he may receive.

So he’s not quite as venomous as the rest, and maybe that’s why he was willing to go. He could sort of kill two birds with one stone. He could play out his role as a Pharisee, and he could also get a direct contact and a direct answer for himself that might help him in his own thinking. But we don’t want to forget that it says in verse 35 he asked Him a question to test Him, so he’s not totally honest. It’s not a heart sincere question. He’s not really pleading for his own case. He’s somewhat objective, but not totally. He puts Him to the test.

The lawyer asks, addressing Jesus with respect (verse 36), ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ In some Bible versions, the lawyer addresses Jesus as ‘Master’.

MacArthur gives us a historical analysis of the background to the lawyer’s question:

Now, it’s essential that we understand what this question is all about and what the approach is all about. Let me see if I can give you the background.

The number one hero in Judaism, historically, do you know who it is? Moses. Without question, Moses is the number one hero of Judaism – still is. Moses, who spoke to God face-to-face as a man speaks to his friend. That sets him apart from everybody else. Moses, whom when God searched the world for a man to whom He could give His law, was chosen the recipient of the Decalogue, the divine law of God. Moses, the priority writer, who penned the first five books of the Old Testament. Moses was their great hero.

Just as a parenthetical insert, the Book of Hebrews begins by discussing the priority of the angels and of Moses in the Jewish mind:

Rabbi Jose ben Chalafta, in the second century said this: “God calls Moses faithful in all His house, and thereby ranks him higher than the ministering angels themselves.” And many of the Jews believe that Moses was in a category above the angelic hosts. He was it. He was the greatest one. In fact, in chapter 23, verse 2, it says the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat because that was the seat of ultimate authority. That was the seat of absolute power. Moses had given the law of God. He was their greatest hero.

MacArthur says that the Jews believed that Jesus was exalting Himself above Moses. The author of Hebrews goes at great length to describe why He is above Moses. However, at this juncture, we are dealing with our Lord and the Jewish hierarchy. Hebrews would be written decades afterwards:

Now, the Jews believed – and this is the important point – that the teaching of Jesus attacked Moses’ teaching. They believed that. That is why in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:17, Jesus said, “I want you to know this: I have not come to destroy” – what? – “the law and the prophets but to fulfill them, and not one jot or one tittle shall in any case be removed from this law.” In other words, Jesus is very sensitive to the fact that He would be accused of attacking Moses, of setting Himself up as a new authority and diminishing the role of Moses, was sensitive enough to that to say, “I have not come to obviate the law of Moses, I have not come to remove one jot or one tittle,” not one little marking from it.

But they believe that Jesus is a diminisher of Moses. They believe that Jesus comes to postulate something beyond Moses, something above Moses, something greater than Moses, and they want Him to say that. They want Jesus to affirm that He has a word that supersedes Moses so that they can accuse Him of being a heretic and an apostate, who has apostatized; that is, departed from the faith delivered through the greatest of all, the greatest authority, Moses himself. If they can just get Jesus to say that He supersedes Mosaic authority, He will become a blasphemer, He will discredit Himself, He will become unpopular with the people who revere Moses as the greatest of all. So they want to put Jesus in a situation to attack Mosaic law by superseding it, and they believe that He will do that because they saw His teaching as something beyond.

That wasn’t true, by the way. He reiterated to them that God’s law had not been altered. They had merely changed things with their traditions. But their goal is to make Him look like an apostate. So we see the approach of the Pharisees. Discredit Him with the people by setting Him against Moses and pushing Him to a point where he articulates some law that’s above Moses and therefore the people will turn against Him. That’s the approach.

From the approach of the Pharisees, we come to the question of the lawyer in verse 36. And here is the question that is set to bring Jesus His own demise. “Master” – and again that flattery that they always seem to attach. “Master” – the word means teacher – “which is the great commandment in the law?” And it would be very fair with the Greek text here to make this word great a comparative in this usage, “which is the greatest commandment in the law?” …

Now, the Sadducees accepted only the Pentateuch, so they really held Moses as the authority. The Pharisees accepted the Pentateuch and everything else, but Moses was still supreme, so the issue is Moses. If Jesus will just speak some unorthodox law. And so they ask, “Give us the number one commandment.”

Jesus replied, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind’ (verse 37), saying that loving God was the greatest and first commandment (verse 38).

Jesus then said that the next greatest commandment is similar to the first, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’ (verse 39), emphasising that on those two commandments hang all the law and the prophets (veres 40).

Those two verses, by the way, are in the Traditional Language form of the liturgy for the Anglican service of Communion. The priest reads them early on in the service in the section about the Ten Commandments.

Henry says:

Christ’s answer to this question; it is well for us that such a question was asked him, that we might have his answer. It is no disparagement to great men to answer plain questions. Now Christ recommends to us those as the great commandments, not which are so exclusive of others, but which are therefore great because inclusive of others.

Henry gives us an insight into the weight that the Jews of the day put on the more detailed aspects of Mosaic law, yet Jesus points to the love of God as being first and foremost:

… not the judicial laws, those could not be the greatest now that the people of the Jews, to whom they pertained, were so little; not the ceremonial laws, those could not be the greatest, now that they were waxen old, and were ready to vanish away; nor any particular moral precept; but the love of God and our neighbour, which are the spring and foundation of all the rest, which (these being supposed) will follow of course.

MacArthur explains in detail how the Jews regarded Mosaic law, applying what was known as letterism to its importance but also making hundreds of these laws a burden for themselves:

Now, they had a lot of discussion about this kind of stuff among themselves. I don’t know if you remember your history of Jewish law, but they claim there are 613 separate laws because there were 613 separate letters in the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments. I don’t know what connection that has, but that’s the way they did things, some of the strange rabbinic letterism, as it used to be called. But they had one law for every letter in the Decalogue, Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments, and they divided that into two parts.

They said there are 248 affirmative laws, one for every part of the human body – I don’t understand why they did that, either – and there are 365 negative laws, one for every day of the … year … So they said one for every day of the year, one for every member of the human body adds up to 613, and then they divided the 613 laws into the light laws and the heavy laws. And the light laws were semi-optional and the heavy ones were binding. I mean you can’t keep 613, you’ve got to have a break somewhere, so they lightened up on some and got heavy on some others.

And in verse 4 of chapter 23, we’re reminded that they bind heavy burdens grievous to be born on men’s shoulders. So they were into the heavy and the light, and there was a lot of debate about what was light and what was heavy, what was really important, what wasn’t so important, and so forth and so forth, so forth.

Addressing our Lord’s answer, note that He replied to the lawyer using Moses’s own words.

MacArthur explains:

He quoted Moses, Deuteronomy 6:5. He quoted Moses. I mean He did exactly the opposite of what they wanted Him to do. They wanted Him to supersede Moses – He quoted Moses. Not only did He quote Moses but He quoted the most familiar thing that Moses ever wrote, the Shema. Deuteronomy 6:4 and 5, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” That was the most familiar Scripture to all of those Jews.

You ever gone to a Jewish house and seen a Mezuzah on the door, a little box that they put on the – by the front door? Look when you go to a Jewish household. You’ll see a little box, usually has the Star of David on it. Inside that is Deuteronomy 6:4 and 5. You ever seen an orthodox Jew strapping to his forehead the phylactery, the little box strapping to his arm, the little box? Inside the box on his arm and the box on his head is Deuteronomy 6:4 and 5. Every orthodox Jew, every Jew at the time of Jesus who was faithful to his religion twice a day had to stop and recite this statement: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might,” out of Deuteronomy 6:5.

I mean He hit them right at the very core of their own religion. He is saying, “I’m no apostate. I’m no heretic. I’m not coming up with something you didn’t know about.” He affirms solidarity with Moses. He speaks to them of a verse that is most familiar to all of them. By the way, verse 37, the Authorized has the word “Jesus” there, but most of the Greek texts say “He” said unto them. It refers to Jesus, that’s just a note for your understanding.

But He quotes something with which they were all familiar. I’m not here to tell you anything different than what Moses told you.

We may ask why love of God and love of our neighbour come first and foremost. We hear the word ‘love’ all the time to the point where it has become as hackneyed as ‘peace’.

MacArthur gives us a biblical and theological explanation which is full and complete. He tells us why loving God includes all our heart, all our soul and all our mind. Recall that to the Jews of the era and in the Bible, the word ‘heart’ refers to the mind, whereas ‘gut’ — not mentioned here — refers to emotion and desire:

The word in Deuteronomy 6:5, thou shalt love, ahebv in Hebrew, the verb, refers primarily to the love of will, the love of the mind, the love of action, rather than the love of feeling, the love of emotion. It is that highest kind of love. Not – not the love that you just feel but the love of dedication, the love of commitment, the love that says this is right and this is noble, no matter what I feel. And that’s the word, agapaō.

Agapaō is the love of intelligence, it’s the love of purpose, it’s the love of will, as opposed to phileō, which is the love of emotion or affection and eros, which is the love of the physical animal senses. This is the highest kind of love, the love of purpose, the love of will, the noblest, purist, highest, self-sacrificing love of that which is right and that which is worthy.

And so he says to them what they already knew, that the number one thing is to love God with your whole being, your heart, your soul, and your mind. And they’re all called to participate. And Mark, in Mark’s recording of the passage indicates that the Lord also said strength, your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength.

Now, I think the point here is that He that He just collects all the parts of – of being. He just covers all the words, and there’s definitely some overlap in those words. Those words are used different ways at different times in Scripture. And He’s simply calling together all that a person is with your whole being, is what He’s saying, you’re to love God. And I don’t think the intent is to sort out every individual sense of every word, but I think there is something to be learned by just looking a little more closely at the words.

The word “heart” basically in the Hebrew understanding is the core of a person’s identity. You remember Proverbs 4:23, “Guard your heart with all diligence for out of it are” – what? – “the issues of life.” Everything comes out of the heart. I see the heart in the Hebrew understanding as the intellect, which produces the thoughts, produces the words, produces the actions. It’s as a man thinks in his heart that he is. And so it’s the intellectual part that’s most often stressed, although, as I say, the word is sometimes used of other aspects of human nature.

And then the word “soul.” It seems to me that that, when it’s isolated, can refer best to emotion. For example, in Matthew 26, verse 38, it says, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful.” And maybe the emphasis could be on the emotional part. And “mind,” let me talk about that for a moment because “mind” here replaces “might” in Deuteronomy 6, and I don’t think the Lord is out of line, I don’t think He’s misquoting. I think “mind” is another way to say “might.” “Might” is a very broad word but it seems as though might has to do with intention and will.

It has to do with moving ahead with energy, and I see that with mind. I see mind in the same sense, mind having to do with purpose or with intention or with will. For example, we say “he had a mind to do this” or “he had a mind to do that.” And then, as I said, Mark adds the word “strength,” which is all of our physical capacities.

And so you can see here that in an overlapping sense, there are four channels for love to be perfectly balanced. It’s an intelligent love, it’s a feeling love, it’s a willing love, and it’s a serving love. It carries itself right out to how we act in our physical strength. So our intellectual part, our emotional part, our volitional part, our physical part all comes together to love God, to love God with the total being, all that we are.

This next part explains something I had wondered about for years:

And would you notice that these things are not pushed together? It doesn’t say love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, and mind. It doesn’t say that. It’s not that they’re pushed together, it’s that they’re spread apart. It says literally that you are to love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind. It’s as if He wants to push them to as wide a possible level as He can. To really love God, that’s the great commandment.

You see, God is not looking for people who go through religious ritual. God is not just looking for people who, on the outside, can go through the motions. God wants people who with the whole being love Him.

MacArthur reminds us of God’s great love for us:

He gave us everything He was and is and will be. He gave us Himself in death for our sin. And He who gave us His wholehearted love does not want our half-hearted love in return. And as He loved us enough to give His Son, we’re to love Him enough to give ourselves.

As He said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down His life for His friends.” We’re to lay down our life for Him. As He demonstrated that here in His love, not that we love God but He loved us and gave us His Son, as He showed that love can sometimes happen even where there’s not initial reciprocation …

A lot of people say they believe in God but at the same time reject His Son.

MacArthur addresses this erroneous notion of belief:

Now let me say something that you might misunderstand, but listen carefully. God wants more than our believing. Do you understand that? He wants more than our believing. James 2:19 says the devils — what? Believe and tremble.

And why, then, aren’t they redeemed? Because though they believe God, they do not love God. And that is the distinguishing mark of the redeemed. They love God. And God demands that we love Him with a perfect love, with a love that is as wide as all of our capabilities and capacities. And no one is ever right with God, no matter what kind of religious activity they’re engaged in. No one is ever right with God no matter how much church they attend or how many good things they do or how many sacrifices they offer or how many rules they try to keep.

No one is ever right with God until his heart and soul and mind and strength manifests love for God. That’s why we’ve said this so many times through the years, that a person does not become a Christian just because they may believe, a person becomes a Christian when they demonstrate a consuming love for God. Paul had that in Romans 7, even though he sinned, he said, “The things that I do that are sin I don’t want to do, but I find that in me is my flesh and it does these things, but that’s not what I choose to do,” and the essence of what he is saying is I love God and I love what’s right and I love what honors God, and even though I don’t always do it, I love it. And even though sometimes I sin, I hate it.

MacArthur brings us back to the Jews who were confronting Jesus. Also, love of God implies obedience — inner as well as outer — something these men clearly lacked:

It wasn’t so with the Jews. This is an indictment of them. Boy, when He said this to them they were unmasked. What God wants out of you is your heart of love. You have never given that to God, He’s saying to these leaders. And in chapter 23, I mean He spells it out in no uncertain terms. Look at verse 13, chapter 23, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;” verse 14, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;” verse 15, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;” verse 23, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;” verse 25, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;” 27, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;” 29, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.”

And what is a hypocrite? It’s somebody who has something on the outside and nothing on the inside. They didn’t love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. They were going through the religious motions for what they could gain out of it, self-satisfaction, pride, ego, an appearance of righteousness. You say, “Well, maybe this was new to them.” No, it wasn’t new to them. When He said thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, that wasn’t new to them. That’s right out of Moses, and that way of describing the redeemed was the Mosaic say of describing them.

In Exodus 20, where you have the giving of the Ten Commandments. I don’t know if you remember this, what it says in verse 6, that God is a God who shows mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Yes, He wanted them to keep His commandments. That’s the outside. The inside was what? Love me and keep my commandments. And again that is repeated in Deuteronomy in the seventh chapter, that same basic injunction when God gives His commands again. In verse 9, He says, “Know therefore that the Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy with them who love Him and keep His commandments.”

It isn’t anything new. It was repeated again in Nehemiah’s time, chapter 1, verse 5, “The Lord God of heaven, the great and awe-inspiring God who keeps covenant and mercy for them who love Him and observe His commandments.” There was never a time in the Old Testament or a place where God taught externalism. Never a time when He said I just want you to crank these rules out and I’ll accept you. It was always, at first you love me and as a result of that love, there is a desire and a commitment to obedience.

So when Jesus says, gathered in the upper room with His disciples, “If you love me, keep my” – what? – “commandments.” That isn’t anything new. That’s what God’s been saying all along. There’s nothing new about it. If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. You see, we are people who love God if we’re redeemed. First John 4:19 says, “We love Him because He” – what? – “first loved us.” Turn it around, He first loved us; therefore, we what? We love Him. We are those who love God.

In fact, we’re defined that way in one of the most beautiful definitions Christians could ever have in Ephesians 6:24. The last verse in Ephesians says, “Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.” Grace to those who love the Lord honestly, who really love Him, and the opposite of that, 1 Corinthians 16:22, it says there, “Cursed are those who love not the Lord Jesus Christ.”

The message of the Bible is consistent. One clergyman told me a few months ago, ‘It’s a mess’. No, it isn’t. God, Moses, the prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus, the Apostles, especially Paul at length, all said the same thing.

I hope that this clarifies an essential theological point about the love of God and obedience to Him.

Tomorrow’s post, which continues this passage, will address another essential theological point about Christ’s being throughout the ages into eternity.