The Great and First Commandment
The Love of God in the Qur'an and the Bible
Chapters
Centuries later a Jewish scribe came up to Jesus and put a question to him to test his interpretation of the law to see whether he agreed with the opinions of the Jewish elders:
"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" Matthew 22:36
The Jews had studied God's laws exhaustively and this one wished to test Jesus to see what answer he would give him to this question. At once Jesus said:
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment." Matthew 22:37-38
The command to love God is therefore the greatest and foremost of all his commandments. All other laws and all the teachings of the prophets are summed up in this one law to love the Lord with all our hearts, souls and minds. No other law can faithfully be kept unless it is kept in a spirit of love.
What, however, is love? Can we say that by our a efforts to obey God's laws we automatically show that we love him? That obedience to his commands is an essential aspect of love towards him is not to be disputed. No one who disobeys his commands loves him. Nevertheless the mere performance of religious duties is not proof of the presence of love. Men who endeavour to serve God may do so through fear, pride or prospect of reward. Love, therefore, is not necessarily the motivation behind such service. We must serve and obey God if we love him but this service must be done out of love, and must be motivated by love. One of the closest disciples of Jesus, the Apostle John, put it as follows:
"And this is love, that we follow his commandments; this is the commandment, as you have heard from the beginning, that you follow love." 2 John 6
There is clearly something intensely deep about obedience that grows out of love. When we analyse the basic principles of love, we find certain essential features which must be present for this love to be truly exercised.
Firstly, love must be genuine (Romans 12:9). It must be an uninhibited expression of the affections of the heart. There must be complete freedom for such love to be genuinely exercised. If there is any presence of fear in the heart, love cannot be openly displayed. The fear of punishment will automatically disqualify the one who has it from genuinely loving the one he fears. All his service towards that person will be done with the purpose of alleviating the wrath of that person towards him. Such service, therefore, springs not from love but from self-motivation. The man who serves God because he has no assurance of forgiveness from God, and seeks by this service to obtain that forgiveness, has his own welfare at heart. He most certainly does He not truly love God for love is selfless. Love, as a motivation of the heart, knows no partners. For love to be genuine there cannot be any other factor affecting the service of the one who seeks to express that love.
"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love". 1 John 4:18
Accordingly, if a man would serve God and keep his commandments through genuine love, there may not be any fear of God's wrath in his heart. This makes it essential, from the outset, for there to be complete knowledge of forgiveness in the heart of the man who would to serve God out of love. That forgiveness must be experienced now, and may not be an uncertain prospect at a time to come in the future.
If a man is unsure of God's complete remission of his sins, and if he does not enjoy a state of permanent forgiveness for all that he may think or do, he cannot possibly serve God out of genuine love. Though he profess love towards God, he must really serve him with the primary objective of obtaining his forgiveness and alleviating his wrath. Such service is, as we have seen, principally self-motivated for it seeks approval for itself rather than the glory of God. Therefore, if we are to truly love God, we must first experience the perfect knowledge of his forgiveness in our hearts. For our love to be genuine, a condition of complete peace with God must reign within us.
Secondly, love must be expressive. Unless deeds of love flow from the heart, there is no love in the heart of the worshipper. Love is an empty vacuum unless it manifests itself in appropriate ways.
"Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and truth". 1 John 3:18
From the side of man the obvious form of this expression is through heartfelt obedience to God's commands. As Jesus himself put it on the last night he was with his disciples:
"He who has my commandments and keeps them, he is it who loves me". John 14:21
God will discover no love in us towards him if we do not obey his commandments. Nevertheless, if it is God's desire not only that we should obey his laws but that we should do so completely out of love, then it is essential that there be in the nature of God that which merits this love. The expression of man's love towards God must be in response to, and in gratitude for, the manifestation of God's love towards man. If men have knowledge of the love of God through some definite revelation of it in the history of God's dealings with them, then it is not only possible but essential that men express their appreciation of this fact through love towards God.
In one of the most beautiful books in the Bible, the Song of Solomon, we have a splendid example of this principle. The book concerns the deepest affections of a man and his bride for one another. On one occasion when he was apart from her, she sought him desperately, saying to her companions:
"I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him I am sick with love". Song of Solomon 5:8
Mildly surprised by this determined quest for the presence of the one she loved (which they apparently did not share for their own partners), her companions said to her in reply:
"What is your beloved more than another beloved?" Song of Solomon 5:9
In a lengthy reply she detailed the worth of her loved one and showed that she considered him to excel in every respect, from his head to his feet. He was, in her view, distinguished among ten thousand. It was little wonder that a deeper expression of love for her beloved sprang from her heart than from those of her companions for their spouses. She summed up his worth in these words:
"His speech is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem". Song of Solomon 5:16
Because he excelled in honour all the other men oft her nation she naturally expressed a deeper affection for him than her companions did for their husbands. With these principles in mind it must surely be true that those who see the very best of God's love towards men will respond in the most fervent way in love towards him. Those who see God's love in the works of nature and the many providential graces he extends towards us will find it possible to express love to him in return. But if God should choose to demonstrate his love for mankind by giving of his very own self to redeem them from sin, no men on earth will know the capacity of love towards God which those have who are in fact partakers of this redemption. The deeper the revelation of God's love towards mankind, the deeper will be the response of love towards him in those who believe in and appropriate the effects of this love.
Thirdly, love must be mutual. No man will be able to sustain love in his heart towards a woman who scorns that love and within a marriage love can only really develop where the spouses reciprocate their love for each other. If we are to be rooted and grounded in love, for one another, it is necessary that such love be mutual for a perfect balance to take effect. An achievement of such mutual love will result in such an expression as this from the one who shares in that love:
"I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine". Song of Solomon 6:3
Love is the greatest of all abiding graces (1 Corinthians 13:13). When God commands men to love him with all their hearts, he is drawing on the greatest of all virtues in doing so. He seeks the best form of worship he could possibly obtain from them. But for such worship to develop to its highest possible potential in men, the expression of love between men and God must be mutual. Not only is it necessary for God to manifest his love towards men but he must also allow men the fullest possible experience of that love in their own hearts for such mutual love to truly be present.
Therefore let us at this stage formulate our conclusions about the "great commandment" that each of us should love God with all his heart, soul and mind. This commandment demonstrates the will of God that men should give of their very best for him. Nothing less than genuine love, expressed in positive ways, is acceptable to God. But for this to be possible on the part of men, three initiatives are needed on the part of God. They are these:
1. He must offer forgiveness of sins to all from whom he expects this love so that it may be real and undisturbed by fear.
2. He must manifest and reveal his love for men in such a way that they can respond to him in love.
3. He must allow men the personal knowledge of his love and a living experience of it in their hearts if a mutual, abiding communion based on love is to develop between him and them.
It may seem strange, even presumptuous, to some men to say that God "must" do these things, but when all the implications are considered it is surely obvious that for creatures to obey the commandment to love God, these factors must of necessity be present. Otherwise men cannot possibly exert such genuine love towards God as he expects of them.