Mark 12:28-34 The most important thing - the first and great commandment

Joel and Mary Nadel, Covenant Church

From: The Holy Bible and J.C. Ryle’s “Expository Comments on the Gospels - Mark”

House Rules: Phones, Respect, Stay on the Text

Pray

Background

Approaching the end of Jesus earthly ministry

First part was Him establishing His purpose for God’s people - that He/the Son of God, had come to save His people from their sins - Repent and believe the Gospel

Jesus has now entered into Jerusalem amid much excitement among the entire population - we are in the last week of Jesus’ life

His popularity is frightening to the Roman and Jewish political and religious leadership

Jesus is challenging the Jewish religious leaders over their leadership and their corruption - unable to discredit Him they are now secretly building a case to have Him executed

Mark 12:28–34 NASB95

One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and 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.” The scribe said to Him, “Right, Teacher; You have truly stated that He is One, and there is no one else besides Him; and to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as himself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that, no one would venture to ask Him any more questions.

Introduction:

As we come to this passage, the Lord has already been challenged with a question on government and a question on theology. Now, from this Scribe, He gets a legal question

He has effectively silenced Pharisees and Sadducees - now this Scribe asks Him to settle a difference among the Jews: What commandment is the foremost of all?

Today, we are truly blessed that God had so many hard questions put to the Lord - without them, and the answers He gave, we would not have heard the marvellous wisdom He had for us.

Here, as in other cases, we see how God can bring good out of evil. Jesus’ answers to the other questions caused this Scribe to be genuinely interested in what He had to say.

Jesus can make the meanest attacks of His enemies work to the good of His church, and bring praise to Himself

He can turn the hate of the Pharisees and Sadducees to instruction for His own disciples.

I suspect none of the these enemies of Christ had any idea how much good they were doing for the Christian faith.

Mark 12:28–31 NASB95

One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and 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.”

1. The Lord places a high standard on our commitment both to God and man.

The answer this Scribe got was probably not at all what He expected

He probably thought Jesus would point Him to some ceremonial law - but he was wrong

He hears these words: Mark 12:29-31 “Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and 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.””

The Lord’s answer shows the power of the feeling that we should have for both God and our neighbor. We aren’t simply supposed to obey God and avoid doing harm to our neighbor - He expects far more than this.

We are to give them love, the strongest of all our affections and the most far reaching. This commandment includes everything and we don’t need to get into details. Nothing is lacking where there is love.

Its striking really, how much the Lord says we should love God and our neighbor

We have to love Him better than ourselves and with all our power - heart, soul, mind, and strength - we cannot love Him too much

We are to love our neighbor as much as we do ourselves, and treat him in every way as we would want him to treat us

The amazing wisdom of this is clear and plain - we can easily make mistakes in our attitudes toward others, either by thinking too little or too much of them. So we need this rule to love them the same way we love ourselves, neither more or less.

Likewise, we can’t make mistakes in our love for God - we can’t love Him too much. He is worthy of everything we can give Him. We have to love Him with all our hearts

We need to keep both these rules foremost in our minds and use them daily in our trip through life. They are a good summary of all we should try for in what we do, both regarding God and man

These need to be our test for every decision we face in life - they are the standard for right and wrong

We will all we successful and happy when we seek to frame our lives according to these rules

These rules show us how much we need the sacrifice and mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ

Who can say truthfully that he/she has perfectly loved God or man? Who could plead “not guilty” when tried by these two laws

Rom. 3:10 “as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one;” Rom. 3:20 “because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.”

Gross ignorance of God’s law(summarized in these two commandments) is what causes people to undervalue the Gospel

The person who has the clearest view of God’s moral law will be the person who has the best understanding of the value of Christ’s sacrifice

Mark 12:32–34 NASB95

The scribe said to Him, “Right, Teacher; You have truly stated that He is One, and there is no one else besides Him; and to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as himself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that, no one would venture to ask Him any more questions.

2. How far a person can go without being a true disciple of Christ

The Scribe in this passage, was apparently more understanding than his colleagues. He realized Jesus was speaking the truth, something the other Pharisees never saw. His own words are proof of this.

These words are remarkable, especially when you see they came from a Pharisee. No wonder Jesus said “you are not far from the kingdom of God.”

Nowhere in the Bible does it say what became of this Scribe. Did he become a disciple of Jesus? The account in Matthew’s gospel is silent on the matter as well

Sadly, we are left to draw our own conclusions, but I would suggest that we shouldn’t do that. Like the “rich young ruler” we read about earlier, we don’t know what happened to him.

It’s possible that even though he was “not far” from the kingdom, he never made it into it and died in his sins.

We see it in many cases in the world today that people come so close to turning to Jesus, but never do and that is tragic.

They see and know much of the truth of the Christian faith, but live and die undecided and unconverted

Many people go to great lengths to study the Christian religion, but never get converted and are never saved. It would be tragic if this happened here.

We need to be careful about resting our hopes for heaven on head knowledge and this is a great danger today. Knowing about Jesus, and knowing Jesus are two different things.

Schools and Sunday schools make kids aware of many religions, but religious training does not make a Christian in the sight of God

We can’t just know Christian teachings, we need to take those teachings into our hearts and they need to guide our lives

We can never rest until we are inside the kingdom of God, until we have repented of our sins, truly believed and are made new creatures in Christ

If we are content being “not far from the kingdom of God”, we may find ourselves shut out of it forever.

The Gospel

1 Corinthians 15:3–4 (ESV)

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

Romans 10:9 NASB95

that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;

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