(Deu 6:4 NKJV) "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!
(Deu 6:5 NKJV) "You shall love the LORD your God with all your
heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
(Lev 19:18 NKJV) 'You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge
against the children of your people, but you shall love your
neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
The "love commandment" of Jesus Christ was derived from the Shema of
Israel which became part of the Jewish worship 500 years earlier in
the Babylonian Exile. The first passage of the Shema is from Deu
6:4-9, the second from 11:13-21, and the third from Numbers
15:37-41.
In an encounter with a lawyer in Mat 22:36, who asked Jesus a
"trick" question of which specific law amongst the 600 Jewish laws
was the greatest, Jesus replied to him, the Shema of Israel for which
the lawyer would have regularly proclaimed. If Jesus had answered
otherwise, the Lawyer would have used the reply to condemn Jesus for
failing the rest of the laws.
(Mat 22:36-39 NKJV) "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.'
Similarly, when the Christian Right brings out a clobber verse,
there are 600 laws which taken literally and without context, they
would not have complied as well. After all, our church dimensions
ain't the same as the temple of Jerusalem to begin with. The lawyer
was focussing on a specific law, whilst Jesus was focussing on love.
We often hear the Christian Right throwing the OT commandments of
the law against gays often totally out of the religious pagan sexual
context for which it was written to condemn. The God of Israel was
One God, not to two or three other gods that we can go to sleep with
for they literally had sex with these gods with the worshippers
having anal sex with the temple priests in order to join themselves
spiritually and be pocessed by these gods.
When the lawyer came, he called Jesus a teacher, a teacher of the
law, for whom the lawyer is boasting that he could fulfilled. Every
time, the Christian Right is condeming gays, they are essentially
lifting up themselves and affirming how spiritual they are to comply
with all the laws literally. Jesus reminded the man, do you love
God, do you love others even though you proclaim it every day as
part of Sherma Yisrael.
Christianity was to focus on the loving God and loving others
fulfilling the initial intention and context of the law which was to
remind Israel of the covenant sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus
Christ for their sins, and not to depart from God to other religious
faiths.
Jesus revealed little to the lawyer despite many Christians
considering His reply as a "commandment" and the Holy Grail of their
faith. We quickly take this as the summary "commandment" in view of
the many seemingly condeming verses in the bible. A God of love for
example is said would not permit people to go to hell.
Yet, if we look closely to the Shema of Israel, the first verse
declares "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one". In the
context of the struggles of Israel against the temptation to worship
other religious faith, many of which have a multitude of gods within
them such as the ancient Egyptian religion, it is a declaration of a
unique and monotheistic God, that has chosen to be associated and be
in relationship with Israel.
If Jesus had given the lawyer a direct answer, He would have said
that He is one with God, and is God. Surely the greatest commandment
is to bow down before the very presence of God in the Holy of
Holiest. However, this would be tantamount to a
possible accusation and proof of blasphemy by the lawyer. The Lawyer
left receiving not any greater insight in love, but a politically
correct answer. He has failed to abide by the Law of bowing down and
worshiping God.
When Jesus was with His disciples, the Shema of Israel did become a
commandment. Jesus said in John 13:34,35
(John 13:34 NKJV) "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."
Therefore, the love of God was reflected in the love of that Christ
had for His disciples. When the disciples loved each other, they are
drawing from the love that God has poured out in their lives. It was
not a decision to love God or to love others, but a understanding of
"as I have loved you". It is an acknowledgement of a physical
reality of Christ, His claim to be the One God of Israel, and His
fulfillment of the OT laws of sacrifice through His death and
resurrection for us.
We can only truly love, if the love of God reflected in Christ death
and resurrection is being consumed in our hearts. We can love
because we received God's love first. This contradicts the "love
commandment" where we are supposed to first love God with all our
hearts, Soul and mind. Instead, we are to behold God's grace and
mercy in our lives, that the fruit of the Spirit may be loving and
worshiping God with a grateful heart.
Despite repeating the "love commandment" or the Shema Yisrael
regularly, Israel did not become more loving even after 500 years
and when the Messiah appeared, it wasn't long because they judged
Him as a sinner and summarily crucified Him. They had rationalise
this action of crucifying Jesus as their "good works" of loving God.
The Lawyer may aslo have been indirectly asking Jesus a profound
question of which law to be followed so that he can be sure of
pleasing God. Modern Christians likewise are so zealous to do good
works to have an assurance of salvation, many of which are
contradictory such as limiting gay rights.
Jesus is not asking us to love God per say, and even our neighbours in doing
good deeds for God, but to reflect of what God has done for us in
our lives, to reflect upon God's grace, mercy and love. When we
understand the depths and wideness of God's love for us, totally
unmerited, we begin to give grace and mercy to others. We love
God because He first loved us.
The Lawyer in Mat 22 was a Pharisee. He came to test Jesus after the
Sadducees were silenced by the response Jesus gave on the
resurrection. He loved God because it was a religious duty, and this
love was realised by following the specific commandments of the law.
He would be with those raising the pickets withn"God hate fags" in
the 21st century, or throwing and spiting at Jesus at Via Dolorosa
on the journey to the Cross. He would have said that Jesus
deserved it because He had violated the law on blasphemy.
The religious right is motivated by the religious laws to love God
and to love others which only comes out in condemnation and hate
against gays, but on the other divide, other Christians focused on
love out of their own faith journey and decision rather than
motivated by what Jesus Christ has done, and the communion with the
One God. Jesus work was enitrely supernatural, the baptism of the
Holy Spirit, the healings, the feeding of thousands, and finally the
resurrection. Many have denied a spiritual reality and only
concentrated on doing good social works or conversely, zealously
following the law.
What are you motivated by today, Law or Grace, love or hate,
judgement or mercy, a secular Jesus or the incarnate of the One God,
a resurrected Christ or a Christ still buried somewhere because we
do not believe in Satan or the supernatural realm. We say
presumptiously that God is everywhere but the Holy Spirit only came
out of the temple after Jesus died because we can ourselves become
the temple of the Holy Spirit and have communion with God if we
chose to. It's not so important whether God is "everywhere"
but whether we walk by the Spirit of God or by other spirits
including our own carnal self.
What motivates your love for God today? The Pharisees who were bible
believing law minded religious zealots killed Jesus, but we are to
lift Jesus up higher through loving each other and displaying God's
grace and mercy.
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