The Greatest Commandment
12:28-34
The third group from the Sanhedrin to confront Jesus is the scribes. Matthew’s account portrays this as a group come to test Jesus. Mark focused on the one scribe who asked Jesus a question.
The scribes evidently heard Jesus dealing with the Sadducees about life after death. (28) They had no love for the Sadducees, so they might have actually enjoyed their humiliation as they failed completely to trap Jesus.
The scribe asked Jesus what is the most important commandment. (29) This was a common inquiry of rabbis and devout Jews of the time. They wanted to know, if you summed up the law in a short statement, what would it be.
Jesus responded with two commandments combined into one. First, he said the most important one is “Hear, O Israel: the Lord or God, the Lord is one. 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.”
Jesus basically quoted Deuteronomy 6:4-5. He added “with all your mind”. The Jews call this the “Shema”. It was recited at the beginning of the synagogue service and still is. It affirms the monotheism of the Jews.
It was written and placed in little leather boxes which a devout Jewish man wore on his forehead and wrist when he was in prayer. Any good Jew would have agreed with Jesus in saying it was the most important commandment.
Jesus then cited a second commandment, which he basically incorporated into the first. He said it was “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. This is a quote of the last sentence in Leviticus 19:18. In it original context, “neighbor” would be you fellow Israelite. As we know, Jesus expanded that definition significantly in the story of the good Samaritan. (Luke 10:25-37)
Putting these two commandments into one was a new thing. Jesus was saying that true religion meant loving God and loving people.
The scribe knew his scripture. He accepted and approved of Jesus’ answer and added that obeying this commandment was better than who burn offerings and sacrifices. He may have had Hosea 6:6 in mind: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings”. He also may have thought of 1 Samuel 15:22: “to obey is better than sacrifice”.
Ritual alone is not pleasing to God. The Jews often got to the place where they thought offering the sacrifices was enough to secure God’s favor and protection. It is a great temptation for all of us, because it is easier to go through the motions than it is to pursue a deep relationship with the Lord.
It is easier to observe ritual than to confess sin and to submit your will to God’s will. But God wants your whole being dedicated to loving him: your mind and your heart energetically engaged in loving him.
Upon hearing the answer of the scribe, Jesus told him he was not far from the kingdom of God. (34) The scribe had yet to understand that loving God including loving his son and believing in him.
Seeing that Jesus bested the groups that came to test him, no one else was brave enough to ask him questions.
Teaching About Sonship
12:35-37
Despite these confrontations, Jesus continued to go into Jerusalem every day, enter the temple courts, and teach the crowds that gathered around him.
Having triumphed over the traps and questions of his opponents, Jesus “turned the tables” and asked a probing question involving the scribes who had just confronted him. Jesus asked “how can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?”.
At this time, it was a settled Jewish belief that the Christ, God’s anointed one, would be a descendant of David. They looked at many of the same verses we look at in the Old Testament to affirm this belief.
We see this in some of Jesus’ encounters, as believers called him “Son of David”. Matthew began his gospel proving that Jesus was the son, descendant of David.
With this question, Jesus was not denying that he is the descendant of David. He knew that to be true. But, he was showing that the title “Son of David” did not capture all of who he was. Many believed, or at least suspected, that he was the Son of David. But they did not understand he was the Son of God.
So, Jesus directed them to Psalm 110:1. He quoted it: The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.” He followed that with a question: if he is Lord, how can he be David’s son.
Notice that Jesus shows the divine inspiration of Scripture here. He said David spoke in the Holy Spirit. So, the truth of that scripture is divine revelation regarding this Son of David.
In the original Hebrew of Psalm 110, the text would say “Yahweh said to Adonai…”. This may have originally been sung as a coronation hymn when a new king was crowned. But it came to be interpreted as referring to God the Father telling the Messiah\Christ to sit at the place of greatest honor, the right hand of the Father, until his enemies were all conquered.
Psalm 110:1 became the most quoted verse in the New Testament.Peter preached it in Acts 2, saying that Jesus was raised and exalted at the right hand of God. (Acts 2:33) 1 Corinthians 15:25 says Christ must reign until he has put all his enemies in subjection under his feet. Colossians 3:1 says Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Hebrews 10:12-13 says “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should remade a footstool for his feet.”
So, Jesus is born into the house of David and is the Son of David. But, Jesus is also Lord as the Son of God who, having died for our sins, now sits at the right hand of the Father, waiting until the time when all his enemies are defeated. There he intercedes for the saints and welcomes those who perish into eternal life.
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