One of the Pharisees, a lawyer, asked Him (Jesus) a question, testing Him, and saying, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus said to him: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:35-40).
Commentary and explanation. These words of Jesus are of transcendent importance for every Christian, since they are the essence of Christian ethics, the distinction between good and evil.
All Christians should be disciples of Jesus and follow Him; but to follow Jesus is nothing other than to obey His commandments and follow His teachings. Jesus addresses these words to everyone who wants to follow Him, and they teach what Jesus wants and expects from his followers. We may notice several things in Jesus' answer.
1. Jesus does not annul the Ten Commandments. Not here, neither in any place in the gospel, does Jesus Christ make void the Ten Commandments; He, not only repeats the first one, but says that on these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. He doesn't declare them void but confirms them and gives them a new dimension and mutual relationship.
2. These two commandments are correlative. This means that one depends on the other; that it is not possible to break one without breaking the other, nor that you can accomplish the love of God if you don't love also your neighbor.
Let us notice that the question was made testing Jesus, and with the expectation that, with Jesus' answer, the Pharisees could justify themselves. They expected Jesus would repeat the first commandment, that they might think they had already fulfilled it; but they didn't imagine that Jesus would go farther than what was written in the Law, and would give such an ample and demanding command, as the second one.
Now the teaching is clear: nobody can justify himself, herself sayings: "I love God" if at the same time he or she does not love the neighbor as yourself.
3. Love is the only law. Jesus set the norm of Christian conduct, that all His disciples must follow. Jesus' ministers of all time must repeat the same words that He said, and shouldn't create new commandments. All Christian congregations and churches should not impose any other yoke and burden but the commandment of love.
4. The measure of the love of God is that it is immeasurable. Jesus does not put limits to the love of God; this should be as much as the human heart can love, with all your strength, as Mark says (12:30); with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. Nothing is excepted; God deserves the fullness of love, worship, reverence and service. Nobody should be short in the love of God.
5. The measure of the love of neighbor is as yourself. Jesus is very specific when He sets the degree of love of neighbor: as yourself. We are aware how much we love ourselves; Jesus teaches that that is the measure of the love for the neighbor.
6. Nobody feels that he or she is loving God if he or she does not love also his/her neighbor. These words do not belong to Mathew's text, although undoubtedly they were on his mind. All the apostles understood very well this command of Jesus about love, among them John, who explicitly writes: He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen (1 John 4:20).
The teachings of Jesus regarding the love of neighbor are clarified extensively in the Gospel of John, and in particular in these words: A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34,35).
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A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-35).
Commentary and explanation. Jesus' commandment is, once more, that we love one another. We should notice three issues in this quotation.
1. Jesus makes of love His own commandment. According to the words of Jesus, love is "His commandment". There is no other command that could be called Jesus' command but love. The Christian commandment is love's command. Christ's law is love, and Christian law is also love.
2. The measure of love is as Christ loved us. These words of Jesus go farther than those of Matthew's in 22:39, where we read that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. It wouldn't be enough, according to these words, to love our neighbors as ourselves, but it is necessary to love them as Jesus loved us. And, how did Jesus love us?
John himself gives the answer when he says: Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end (John 13:1). Love to the end, love without limit, that is the love of Jesus for us.
And this one: Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends (John 15:13). And this was what Jesus did; He laid down His life for us. As a matter of fact, this is the love that Jesus asks from us: as I have loved you.
3. Love is the distinguishing sign of Jesus's disciples. Such is the Lord's teaching, and everybody who professes to be Christ's disciple must be distinguished by loving the neighbor. This is something that we should take very seriously. Whoever professes and says, "I am a Christian", had better examine his/her love for the neighbor; because, if we fail in love of neighbor, we have lost the honor of being called Christian. All Christians should be known and distinguished by love.
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Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have no love, I have become as sounding brass or clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have no love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I have my body to be burned, but have no love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things... And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:1-7,13).
Commentary and explanation. All this chapter 13 of first Corinthians is very important to set faith in perspective, that is, to correctly understand the relation between faith and love.
It is not a matter of deciding which of these two, faith or love, is more important. Without faith, no one can
Nobody should deceive himself, resting on his own faith and neglecting love; the only faith effective to produce salvation is that which does deeds of love, because though we have all faith, so that we could remove mountains, but have no love, we are nothing (13:2).
Verse 3 lets us understand, also, that love is more than giving from what we have, even if we give a lot as bestowing all the goods to feed the poor; not even this would be enough, because the true Christian love demands that we give ourselves, that is, that we be detached of our selfishness. Just to give is not plenty; it is necessary to give oneself.
Verses 4 to 7 tell us about some of the characteristics of Christian love, among them, suffers long and is kind, does not envy, does not parade itself nor is puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own; is not provoked and thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
The text is so clear that it needs no explanation; it is enough to read it several times and reflect on each detail and example given by the Apostle.
The conclusion of verse 13, is a simple consequence of everything that was told before: now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
The saving faith is great, because the justice of God is credited to us through faith (Romans 1:17); but when we think about faith, let us not think only about trust in the Lord; faith is more than simple trust, because, if we have faith in the Lord, we must love also our brothers and sisters, and we should be ready to give them, not just what we have, but what we are, giving ourselves.
Old people used to say that love finds others equal or makes them equal. We should love to the point where we become similar to our brothers and sisters, that we share their feelings and thoughts, their needs and sufferings. Sometimes this is somehow difficult, but that is what love demands, as per the quotation of Corinthians 13.
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Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fufilled the law. For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, You shall not covet," and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:8-10).
Commentary and explanation. Jesus Christ thought that the first commandment was to love God over everything, but He connected this command with the second, when He said: and the second, like it, is this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31). The apostles were faithful messengers of this teaching of Jesus, and they set the commandment of love where Jesus had put it, that is, over everything after the love of God.
Paul says: Owe no one anything except to love one another. This is the debt that we should have with everybody: love. In other words, I am debtor of love to all my brothers and sisters. I owe it to everybody; it is a debt, an obligation, a duty. When you do, you have fulfilled the law. Every other commandment is included here, for all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Galatians 5:14).
All Christian conduct should be manifested by love. Christian commandments are commands of love. Love is in everything that we can call a Christian obligation.
This forces us to conclude that there are many things that some would consider "obligations", when in fact they are not Christian precepts or commandments, because they don't have anything to do with love. By the same token, there are many things that we may think do not oblige us, and they are, in fact, Christian commandments because they are demands of love. If we think that we have a saving faith, let us remember that the proof of true faith is love. If you really believe, you must love everybody as yourself.
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And that is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment (1 John 3:23).
Commentary and explanation. The apostle John gave us, together in one verse, faith and love as the Lord's commandment. According to him, there is only one commandment: to believe and to love. They are inseparable; they come together all the time.
That means that whoever believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, he or she also should love the neighbor; and that faith alone, without the deeds of love, would be incomplete; in other words, it wouldn't be a true Christian faith.
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We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death (1 John 3:14).
Commentary and explanation. And what does it mean, to have passsed from death to life, but to have reached salvation through faith in Jesus Christ? Being dead in your trespasses... He has made alive together with Him (Colossians 2:12)
And now, which is the sign to know that we really were raised with Him (Christ)? (Colossians 2:12). According to this quotation from John, the sign to know that we have passed from death to life, or that we were raised up, is if we love the brethren. There is more, John adds: He who does not love his brother abides in death.
We know, by the whole New Testament, that faith in Jesus Christ saves and justifies; but, in order to avoid being deceived by a "false faith", the same New Testament constantly teaches us that, in order for faith in Jesus Christ to be effective, it must be translated in works.
The relationship between faith and love is not a matter of discussion. Whoever believes that he is saved, but does not love the brethren, does not forgive, does not tolerate his or her brothers and sisters, or does not have compassion for the neighbor, such a person still abides in death; his faith is not true, is not a saving faith.
When we find Jesus Christ by faith and we decide to follow Him, a radical change must happen in our lives: we must pass from indifference toward our brothers and sisters, into a real and effective love for them. We can't tell a brother or sister who is naked or destitute of daily food, or whatever need they may have, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled." If we don't give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? That is what James says in his letter, 2:15,16.
Faith with deeds of love: this is the saving faith; this is the faith that raises up with Christ and makes us to pass from death to life, because we love the brethren.
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