Love God and Love Your Neighbor:
The Comprehensiveness of the Greatest Commandments
Joel Stephen Williams
What matters the most in the Christian faith? What is most important for one’s Christian life? When Jesus was asked which commandment was first, he answered: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29–31). We will analyze Jesus’ answer by Jewish teaching methods of his day and study the context of his quotations in hopes of better understanding what he was teaching.
Cullen I.K. Story explains, “Jewish scholars had often tried to distinguish between weighty and light precepts though they did not see how all could be brought under one umbrella, i.e., under a single principle since all were Divine precepts. After careful calculation, they found that there were 613 commandments and precepts in the Torah, 248 of them positive commands and 365 prohibitions” (“Marcan Love Commandment ‘The greatest of these is love.’ (1 Corinthians 13:13),” Lexington Theological Quarterly 34, no. 3 [September 1999]: 152). When a proselyte asked Rabbi Hillel to teach him the entire law while he was standing on one foot, Hillel summed it up in a negative form of the golden rule: “What is unlovely to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the entire Torah, the other part is commentary. Go and learn this” (Story, “Marcan Love Commandment,” 152).
When Jesus was asked what the most important command was, he responded with two commands, the command to love God from Deuteronomy 6:5 and the command to love one’s neighbor from Leviticus 19:18. Jesus probably was not pointing merely to two brief commands to be considered in isolation from their contexts. Instead, each command was an epitome of a whole collection of commandments. The summary commandment stated the basic foundational principle upon which each individual command rested. The commandment to love God encompassed all of the commands between man and God, while the command to love one’s neighbor would be a synopsis statement for the commandments between man and fellow man (see Jay B. Stern, “Jesus’ Citation of Dt 6,5 and Lv 19,18 in the Light of Jewish Tradition,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 28, no. 3 [July 1966]: 312–16).
If Stern is right, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5) and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18) should not be looked at as isolated statements, but instead must be connected with their contexts in surrounding chapters. As summary statements they are pointing to a way of life and an overall program. They are what one scholar called “unifying principles” (Richard A. Allbee, “Asymmetrical Continuity of Love and Law between the Old and New Testaments,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 31, no. 2 [December 2006]: 164).
E.W. Nicholson said, “It is in a very real sense true to say that the entire book [of Deuteronomy] is a commentary on the command which stands at its beginning” (Deuteronomy and Tradition, 46; cited by P.C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy, NICOT, Eerdmans, 169). What does Nicholson mean when he says that the command to love God stands at the “beginning” of the book of Deuteronomy, making what follows a commentary on the command to love God? Everything from Deuteronomy 1:1 to 4:43 is introduction, prologue, and historical background for the address of Moses that will give the law. Preliminaries in that address, including a reminder of the Ten Commandments, take up 4:44–5:33. The giving of the details of the law begin in Deuteronomy 6 with the greatest commandment and continue through chapter 26. This may be part of the reason why Jesus chose to cite the command to love God in Deuteronomy 6:5 as first in importance. His method of quotation strongly suggests that the command to love God is all-encompassing.
The Old Testament scholar Eichrodt seems to agree. He contends that the legal requirements in Deuteronomy “are directives for the execution of the one great commandment of love, by which God reclaims the whole man for himself; they are practical guides for the verification and exercise of the love of God in concrete cases. ... Each single commandment goes back to the great commandment of God's love” (Walther Eichrodt, trans. by Charles F. McRae, “The Law and the Gospel: The Meaning of the Ten Commandments in Israel and for Us,” Interpretation 11, no. 1 [January 1957]: 34). So, the command to “love God” acted like a unifying principle covering Israel’s relationship with God. It was inclusive of many things such as devotion and obedience to God (Deut. 5:6–11, 28–33; 6:1–3, 10–25), similar to Jesus’ appeal, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15; cf. John 14:24; 15:10; 1 John 2:5; 5:2–3).
What is associated with loving one’s neighbor? Jesus related the requirements of the law with the command to love one’s neighbor when he answered the question, “What good deed must I do to have eternal life?” (Matt. 19:16). After listing the commandments linked to murder, adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, and honoring parents, Jesus added, “Also, you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). If the arguments above have merit, we should examine the context of Leviticus 19:18 to see if “love your neighbor” epitomizes the legal instruction in the Holiness Code (Lev. 17–26) where it is embedded. The section from which Jesus quoted begins: “The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy” (Lev. 19:1–2). Can ten chapters of the Holiness Code commanding Israel to be holy be summarized by a single command to love one’s neighbor? Robson answers in the affirmative: “From within divine holiness, rather than from a separate source, comes YHWH’s love, a love expressed in self-disclosure, in saving activity, in a desire-to-be-in-right-relationship….When this is fully understood, then the call ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ is a call to be like YHWH in his holiness” (James E. Robson, “Forgotten Dimensions of Holiness,” Horizons in Biblical Theology 33, no. 2 [2011]: 146.).
If Robson is correct, we should find examples of how to love our neighbor in the context of Leviticus 19:18 in the Holiness Code (Lev. 17–26). Illustrating only from Leviticus 19, loving one’s neighbor included revering father and mother (19:1), not stealing (19:11), not swearing falsely (19:12), not defrauding or stealing from your neighbor (19:13, 35–36), neither exploiting nor oppressing others (19:13, 20–22, 29, 33–34), not oppressing the handicapped (19:14), being just and fair in judgments, in court, and in negotiations (19:15), not slandering other people (19:16), not hating your kin (19:17), correcting others when necessary (19:17), neither taking vengeance nor revenge (19:18), not bearing a grudge (19:18), and showing respect to the elderly (19:32). “Love your neighbor” was the unifying principle for all of them, binding them together in a holy lifestyle expected of God’s people.
The teachings of the apostle Paul confirm the above approach to understanding Jesus’ quotations from the Pentateuch regarding the greatest commandment. Paul declared, “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal. 5:14). In even more detail, he wrote, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet’; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:8–10). According to Paul, the command to “love your neighbor as yourself” is a summary statement for a way of life.
Our final example comes from James, where he writes, “You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (James 2:8). In the near context, James was discussing a lifestyle quite similar to what was found in the Holiness Code in the context of Leviticus 19:18: a Christian should not show favoritism or partiality (2:1–6, 9), should not commit adultery (2:11), and should not commit murder (2:11); but rather should be benevolent (2:15–16) and have an active faith (2:17–26). Similar teaching about pure, righteous, humble, and wise living is found throughout the epistle of James.
In conclusion, what matters the most in the Christian faith? What is most important for one’s Christian life? It is to love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Be careful not to elevate a human tradition, a personal preference, or a subordinate matter to the level of these commandments. Remember that loving God involves our whole being – heart, soul, mind, and strength – thus, all of our lives. Finally, utilize the command to love your neighbor as a summary principle for living “lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly” (Titus 2:12).
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This article originally appeared as Williams, Joel Stephen. “What Matters the Most.” Gospel Light 87, no. 6 (November/December 2017): 139, 142.
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