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THE GOSPEL OF MARK – HOW CAN WE LOVE GOD?

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HOW CAN WE LOVE GOD?

28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:28-31

The preamble to their question seems to suggest that this man was more sincere than the rest. It isn’t clear whether this was another trick question or whether he really wanted an answer. He questioned Jesus about the greatest commandment and Jesus, as a fully-trained rabbi, responded with the Shema which He would have learned at His mother’s breast.

Those who deny the Trinity have lost the significance of the statement, “the Lord is one”. ECHAD is not a numeral but an expression of unity, of loving submission and interaction between beings, a unity of essence, vision and purpose, a team expressing unity in diversity, and this cannot happen outside of a plurality. Even if there were twenty beings in the Godhead, they could still be one if we understand the meaning of ECHAD.

The response God yearns for from His sons is the love that He has for His offspring, the human beings He has created voluntarily to receive and return the love He has for us. In The Message, Peterson uses the expression “passion and prayer, intelligence and energy”, which conveys the idea of action rather than thought and emotion. Love, correctly understood, is an action word. It has an emotional content but, without the active response, it is without meaning and power.

The way love is expressed to God is by directing that love toward our fellow human beings. If we love God’s children, and that includes those whom we consider “outsiders”, we have an outlet for our love for God which God Himself has chosen and approves. Outside of that, loving God has no expression and loses its energy and outcome.

Every other commandment is a practical way of showing and expressing our love for God. Like God’s love, our love does not need to take into account the worthiness of its object. Love is an expression of who we are, not the worth of who we love.

How is this love possible from people who have an inborn selfishness which does not respond to mere will power? The Old Covenant provided the prescription but not the power. Only faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus can transform us from selfish to loving people because we are made new by the power of the Holy Spirit.

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 2 Corinthians 5:17

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:7-11

Debate Closed

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DEBATE CLOSED

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked Him, ‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important?’ ‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no commandment greater than these.’

‘Well said, teacher,’ the man replied. ‘You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but Him. To love Him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices’.

When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, He said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ And from then on no one dared ask Him any more questions (Mark 12: 28-34).

One more question! Yet another teacher of the law had to have the last word. In spite of the accuracy of his question and his answer, something just does not ring true. O, he didn’t come with flattering words like the Pharisees and Herodians who tried to push Jesus into a corner with their question about paying taxes to Caesar. Nevertheless, his was also a trick question, judging by his response. He was not looking for an answer because he already knew the answer. He was testing Jesus and, at the same time, there was a subtle dig in his response.

The debate had raged around authority. Jesus said and did things that cut across the traditions of the sages. He did things on the Sabbath that enraged the religious leaders, like healing people, and instructing them to do what was “unlawful” to do on the Sabbath according to their laws – to carry a sleeping mat, for example. He defended His disciples for picking and cleaning grain on the Sabbath, which they said was “work”. He declared Himself to be Lord of the Sabbath.

When they demanded to know the source of His authority, He angered them even more by claiming to have received it directly from God. This man was incorrigible! He could not have been serious, but they could not ignore or deny the miracles which He said were proof that His authority came from God.

Then yet another teacher of the law came along and pushed Jesus just a little bit further. Did you notice how he laboured the point that God is one? “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but Him.” Jesus had quoted the Shema, a kind of “creed” that every Jewish baby heard from birth at his mother’s breast.

The Shema, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” was repeated by every Jew at least three times a day. But what did they understand by this declaration? Many false religions reject the truth that the God of the Bible is the only true God because of this very question – “How can God be one when the Bible claims that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are also God.” God cannot be three and one at the same time

The Hebrew word for one – echad – does not imply “one” as a single unit, but “one” as in unity. When a group of people function together in harmony, they are said to be “one”, as a football team, for example, that has one purpose, to win. All the team members work together to accomplish that goal. The covering of the tabernacle, for example, was constructed of strips of material fastened together with clasps to make it echad – one.

This Jewish boffin was accusing Jesus, in a veiled way, of blasphemy but Jesus ignored his dig. Instead He commended him – but notice, He did not say that he was in the kingdom. He said that he was not far from the kingdom. The man was right in his head but not right in his heart. He knew the right answer but he did not recognise in Jesus the true representative of the Father, nor accept Him as the Father’s Son.

In an earlier debate with the religious leaders, Jesus had made it clear to them:

Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent Him (John 5: 23) and . . .

I and the Father are one (John 10:30).

How much clearer could He make it? To love Jesus was to love the Father; to honour Jesus was to honour the Father. To reject Jesus was to reject the Father, and as long as anyone kept questioning Him and debating His claim and the witness of His words and works, they were still outside the kingdom of God.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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