#5 Faith Hope & Love
Notes
Transcript
LOVE
LOVE
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
Israel was to respond to Yahweh with the same fullness of love that Yahweh displayed toward his people.
In the NT verse 5 is described by Jesus as the first and great commandment
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment.
On V5 “you shall love Yahweh your God” Israel’s obedience was not to spring form a empty legalism based on necessity and duty.
It was to arise from a relationship based on love.
A similar word is used to express the relationship between a servant and his master. You see that in
1 Now Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon when he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father, for Hiram always loved David.
However, the biblical term “love” has a much deeper connotation.
Hosea uses the verb to express the affection of Yahweh for Israel, making use of strong metaphors drawn from family life, husband and wife
1 The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”
, father and son
1 When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
The extent, size, amount, duration of a man’s love for God was to be total. Israel was to love God with her whole being.
And you see that word here in v 5
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
The expression “with all your heart, soul and might” is a favourite one in Deuteronomy (4:29, 10:12, 11:13, 13:13, 26:16, 30:2, 6, 10) it is used 8 times throughout the book.
The “heart” was regarded as the seat of the mind and will .... as well as of a wide range of emotions.
The term “soul” is difficult to define, but it seems to refer to the source of life, and vitality, or even of one’s being.
When you have the two terms heart and soul between them indicate that a man is to love God with unreserved devotion.
And to give more weight to the demand a third expression is added, “with all your might” with all your strength .
If you compare with the NT the test of man’s love for the Lord Jesus Christ is that he keeps his commandments;
21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
The passage show that obedience to the commandments is an outgrowth of LOVE.
If it is objected that love cannot be commanded but must be spontaneous, the reply must be that love flows out of gratitude and devotion. It is an expression of Loyalty.
The man who loves gladly loves with his whole being.
The present order was given to make clear to Israel what was to be the character of her relationship to Yahweh her Lord. Anything less than Whole-hearted devotion and loyalty would lead to a shared devotion which would have been impossible.
The command to Love cannot be interpreted as an evidence that love is anything other than spontaneous, but rather evidence that only a love that is undivided can can be called love in its truest sense.
When any man loves God in a total way he gladly obeys his “words” which are inscribed on the heart.
