Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Great Commandment
(From Forerunner Commentary)
Genesis 5:22-24
What does it mean to walk with God? When we think about walking, we think about placing one foot in front of the other, moving from one place to another. In the Scripture, forms of "walk" appear over 400 times in the King James Version, and the majority of the time, they refer to a particular course of life, the way we live and behave. In the Septuagint, the phrase "walked with God" in Genesis 5:22, 24 is rendered as "pleased God." In Hebrews 11:5, the author writes that God delivered Enoch from certain death because he pleased God—because he lived his life in lock-step with God. To walk with God requires five attributes that we all need to strengthen in ourselves: 1. Righteousness. This is not self-righteousness, which Isaiah 64:6 calls "filthy rags," but at first, the imputed righteousness of God. Genesis 15:6 informs us that Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Paul repeats this fact in Romans 4:3, explaining that in the same way, righteousness is also imputed to Christians upon justification. Psalm 119:172 says that all God's commandments are righteousness. So, if we live by and conform to every word of God (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4), we will then grow in righteousness. 2. Faith. Hebrews 11:6 reads, "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." It takes great faith to walk with God. Hebrews 10:38 tells us that "the just shall live by faith." We have to believe Him and His Word and trust Him with all our heart and being. It takes great faith just not to lean toward our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5)! We must be convicted that God loves us and will perform what He has promised. These first two requirements for walking with God represent the first and great commandment, to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:37-38). We exhibit our love for God by obeying Him and believing what He says. The next two requirements for walking with God correspond to the second great commandment, to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:39). 3. Integrity. Enoch must have been a man of integrity, governed by high moral principles, and so must we be if we seek to walk with God. A person of integrity is honest and just in all his social dealings. He loves mercy and shows compassion toward others. Solomon advises us, "The righteous man walks in his integrity; his children are blessed after him" (Proverbs 20:7), and "The integrity of the upright will guide them" (Proverbs 11:3). He is a man that people can trust to do what is right because he is following the way of God. 4. Humility. A truly humble person will not be afflicted with that common disease known as inflated ego. When we walk with God, because we realize His greatness in comparison to ourselves, the ego diminishes to its proper limits. Only then do we truly understand the words of the apostle Paul in Galatians 6:3: "If anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself." Micah 6:8 teaches: "He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?" Everyone who walks with God is required to live in humility. A humble person is gentle and lowly in heart as Jesus was (Matthew 11:29). A humble person can be bold and even aggressive in doing the will of God, but he is never contentious or hostile. Finally, there is no room for arrogance, pride, or jealousy within the one who walks humbly with God, for as Proverbs 15:33 states, "Before honor is humility." 5. Commitment. Lastly, our total dedication is called for in walking with God. We cannot be running off to do our own thing whenever we feel like it. Psalm 37:5 urges us, "Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He shall bring [His promises] to pass." Our commitment must be like the whole burnt offering that was completely consumed on the altar, except that our commitment is a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1), that is, dedicating our lives to following God in everything. Our fellowship with God reaches its highest form when, in all the business of life, we are walking with Him, doing His will, and enjoying His presence.
Clyde Finklea
Walking With God
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Exodus 20:12
Ephesians 6:2 states that the fifth commandment is the first commandment with promise. The second commandment contains a very general promise loosely tied to keeping all the commandments. The promise in the fifth commandment is not general but specifically tied to meeting a specific responsibility—honoring parents. Notice that the commandment does not say, "Obey your father and your mother." This is because honoring not only includes obedience but also goes beyond it. Honoring suggests adding to, glorifying, embellishing, and decorating its object. Obedience can be given in a resentful manner, but honoring requires admiration, respect, even reverence. This quality must be within one's heart, and it is acquired and built upon through thoughtful consideration, even meditation, on the sacrifices and gifts that the parents give to the child. Honoring is something that usually does not happen in the child until adulthood, when the child has his own experiences as a parent to draw upon to appreciate his parent's loving labors. This fact shows us that it is not too late to grow in honoring our parents, and that God is aware, noticing and rewarding with the blessing of long life. Obedience to parents as a child gets one started in the right direction and produces its own rewards. Yet, the honoring of parents greatly increases the appreciation for them. The real rewards lie in the practice of honoring itself, rewards that affect our place in the Kingdom of God because we have transferred giving honor to our physical parents to giving spiritual and moral honor to God, our spiritual Parent. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 declares this commandment's seriousness to us: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on doorposts of your house and on your gates. Notice that child-training is directly linked with the first and great commandment. The fifth commandment is aimed directly at parental responsibility. If children grow up not honoring God, the blame largely falls on the parents' shoulders. God intends this vital child-training responsibility to lead children to honoring Him. That is its goal. It requires consistent and devoted attention. It cannot be accomplished by absent parents. If the parents do not know God, or if their knowledge of Him is shallow, and they are not practicing what they do know, what will they pass on to their children? Worldliness. Both parents must be dedicated and deeply involved in honoring God in their own lives, if their children are going to be prepared to perform the much more rewarding practice of honoring God.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Fifth Commandment
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Psalm 141:2
David says that sacrifice is a prayer. It also works the other way around: Prayer is a sacrifice. Why? Because it is a gift of devotion, praise, and thanksgiving that aids in changing a person's nature from his self-centeredness. Why is prayer a sacrifice? First, it consumes time. We dislike giving time up unless our heart is consumed by what we want to do, and human nature does not want to do spiritual things. Second, prayer requires giving—the giving of one's mind over to thinking about the qualities of God. How else can we thank Him? We give ourselves to the activity of praise—praise for things that He has done. We do that because we have thought about them and because we acknowledge His presence, His activity, in our or somebody else's life. Prayer is most effective when we act as a mediator, interceding on behalf of others, meaning that we have given our time to thinking about them and their needs. We give our time to go to God and ask for His intervention so to help them change. God acts on our behalf because we sacrificed and begins to change us away from our egocentricity, our self-centeredness. God is training our minds to think about others rather than the self. In Psalm 40:6-8, the psalmist says that God did not want burnt offerings. Those who were converted under the Old Covenant understood this fact. Paul quotes this passage in the book of Hebrews. In fact, he quotes Jesus Christ as saying it before He ever came to the earth: "Sacrifice and offering You did not want, You did not desire; otherwise, I would have given it to You. But a body you have prepared for me" (Hebrews 10:5). One can easily make a ritual out of going to services, tithing, getting rid of the leaven, fasting on the Day of Atonement, or even going to the Feast of Tabernacles if our reasons for doing so are perfunctory, we do not understand, or we disagree with the object lesson that God intends we learn from doing them. When that lawyer asked Jesus in Matthew 22, which is the great commandment of the law, Jesus said, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind; and the second is like it." He quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. What Jesus described is the meaning of a whole burnt offering. The burnt offering of Leviticus 1:1-13 is the offering of an animal, but it pictures the offering of a life lived completely consumed in obedience to living God's way. Nothing will prepare us for the Kingdom of God to be both kings and priests like following, with all of our being, Leviticus 1:1-13 and what that burnt offering means. Jesus did. He lived as a whole burnt offering to God.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Preparing to Be a Priest
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Matthew 22:36-40
Jesus Christ's response to the Pharisee's question shows that He divided the Ten Commandments into two sections or tables. He covers the first four by saying, "'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" (verses 37-38). This supersedes all other commandments; none is greater. The second, covering the last six, is similar to it. "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (verse 39). God also arranged each section to begin with the most important command. He placed first the commandment, which, if kept, will ensure the greatest benefit to our lives, both physically and spiritually. On the other hand, if we break this commandment, it will cause the most damage to our worship of God or to the community by virtually ensuring that we will break others. In the first table of the law, this commandment is, "You shall have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20:2). In the second, it is the fifth commandment: "Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you" (verse 12). Just as the first commandment governs our relationship with God, the fifth commandment is first among those that govern our relationships with men. When we keep it or break it, it affects those relationships. Not only is it chief in this section, it also acts as a bridge between the two tables of the law. When we keep the fifth commandment properly, it leads us to revere and obey God Himself.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Fifth Commandment (1997)
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Mark 1:15
Not only does Christ come to announce the soon-coming Kingdom of God, in particular to those whom God calls, but also to prepare the elect for their spiritual responsibilities now and in the Kingdom. Repentance is a prerequisite for belief. What is repentance? Its basic meaning is to change the mind. Once a person hears the gospel and is convicted that his way of life is wrong, he must alter his present behavior and "bear fruits worthy of repentance" (Matthew 3:8). The fruits of repentance are visible actions—often called "works"—that show that a person has indeed changed. When John the Baptist preached repentance to prepare the way for Jesus' ministry, his audience asked him what they should do to repent. He answered: Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, do not steal, do not use one's authority to oppress, do not lie or accuse falsely, and be content with one's wages (Luke 3:10-14). In general, these actions are either showing love for one's neighbor or obeying God's laws. Jesus says, "If you want to enter into [eternal] life, keep the commandments" (Matthew 19:17). Later, when asked what are the greatest commandments, Jesus answered, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart. . . .' And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Matthew 22:36-40). When we put all these things together, bearing fruits worthy of repentance is simply living as God does! Believing the gospel is closely related to having faith. When one believes something, he has faith, trust, confidence, that it is true. This confidence leads him to begin to act in accordance with what he believes, and the result is obedience to it or following it. Notice how the apostle Paul shows this in Romans 10:8-10: But what does [Scripture] say? "The word is near you, even in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes to righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made to salvation. Verse 10 provides the balance to verse 9. It is not enough just to confess Jesus verbally and believe in the resurrection as an intellectual exercise. Paul explains that heartfelt belief leads to righteousness, which is simply right doing or godly behavior. Faith, then—living faith (II Corinthians 5:7)—is trusting God's Word and doing it, even in the face of hardship, sacrifice, the contrary opinions of friends and family, or even death. The author of Hebrews, likely Paul, commends the "Heroes of Faith" to us for just these reasons (Hebrews 11). Thus, Jesus' urgent command for us to repent and believe the gospel provides us with the negative and positive sides of a single, godly action. He tells us to rid ourselves of the evil we have been doing ("repent") and to begin doing what God expects of those to whom He has revealed His way of life ("believe"). This will lead to righteousness and salvation and—God promises—entrance into His Kingdom (II Peter 1:2-11)!
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The True Gospel (Part 5)
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Luke 10:26-28
These verses give us a formula for entering the Kingdom of God. It is just that simple—or is it? We should love the Lord our God more than anything else. Nothing is to take precedence over Him, not our desires, our will, nor anything else. God is always first. We are to love God with all of our soul. We are to be ready to give up our lives to honor God, if it is required. We are to endure all types of ridicule and torment for His sake, if it falls our lot. That is part of loving God. It is our loving God with all of our strength. Whatever we possess has come from God. If we do something to physically serve God, or if we have to give our substance as living sacrifice, this, too, is just part of loving God with all of our strength. Adam Clarke summed up the first part of verse 28: In a word, he [one thinking with and using the mind of Christ] sees God in all things; thinks of Him at all times; has his mind continually fixed upon God; acknowledges Him in all his ways. He begins, continues, and ends all his thoughts, words and works, to the glory of His name. This is the person who loves God with all of his heart, his might, and strength and his intellect. That is a tall order, but it is exactly what God wants from us. He wants us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, loving our neighbors as ourselves. It is self-explanatory. If we are in trouble, do we want someone to come and help us? Of course! Do we want someone to listen to us when we need someone's ear? Of course! Do we want someone to rescue us when we find ourselves in financial difficulties? Certainly! Likewise, we should be concerned for others, as we are concerned for ourselves.
John O. Reid
Don't Take God for Granted
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John 4:24
The second commandment deals with how we worship. The worship of God involves the totality of life, and thus we cannot confine it to a particular location or concentrated in a mere hour or two on a given day. Our focus in worship should be on imitating Him in the totality of life. We are to use no material aids in doing this because no one can capture in a work of art what God is. God wants us to concentrate on what He is, not on what He looks like. However, given human nature's powerful attraction to the physical and material, it is difficult for a person to renounce their dominance over his life. A person's first step backward from conversion is often to become grudgingly willing to share time and energy that should go to God with someone or something else. When asked what the first and great commandment of the law is, Jesus replied, quoting Deuteronomy 6:5, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37). Anything less will affect the quality of our worship. This is a high pinnacle to reach for, requiring a lifetime of growth in wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and character built by overcoming the world, the flesh, and the Devil.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Fourth Commandment
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James 2:10
The whole law encompasses the entire will of God. To break any part of it is to infringe on that will and therefore become guilty of sin, to become a sinner in principle against each individual law and the intent of the whole law. Even under human justice systems, a person becomes a criminal by breaking just one law. God's law goes beyond physical infractions of rules. For instance, when He directs us to love our neighbors, He does not ask us to like the way they are. He expects us to give them forbearance, patience, and help when needed. Passing by a beaten man lying in a ditch on the road to Jericho may not be legally wrong, but it is unloving (Luke 10:25-37). Thus, a person doing so is guilty of far greater spiritual sin. He does not love his neighbor as himself. In Matthew 22:37-39, Christ tells us how we can fulfill His royal law—by keeping the two great commandments: “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. If we want to be part of God's glorious Kingdom, we must face our guilt and overcome our sins.
Martin G. Collins
What Must We Do When We Recognize Our Guilt?
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Revelation 2:4
While Scripture does not explicitly define “first love,” we can infer much from other statements in God's Word. The apostle John uses the Greek words protos agape in Revelation 2:4, which translates as the “foremost (first) love.” In Matthew 22:36-38, Christ declares that the “first and great commandment” is, essentially, to love God unconditionally (Exodus 20:3; Deuteronomy 6:5; 10:12). In effect, Jesus asserts that our unconditional love for God is our first and foremost responsibility, enabling us to love the law and each other (I John 4:7, 21; 5:2-3). As an example of this, upon receiving the Holy Spirit on the Pentecost following His ascension, the new recipients' first experience an enthusiastic love for God, along with unconditional love for one another (Acts 2:41-47; 4:31-35).
Martin G. Collins
First Love (Part One)
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