Therefore the law, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength, so far from having been weakened, must have become only more stringent and absolute. The Jew was commanded to love God because God had called out his race and had delivered it from bondage, and placed it in a good land, and continually manifested Himself in new favours to His people. We are called upon to love God because He has so loved us as to send His only-begotten Son that we might be reconciled to Him and might have the life of sonship, and because by His Spirit He is ever speaking words of grace and comfort and hope to our souls.^
2. Notice how strictly all the new commandments of the Kingdom are included in love to God and love to man. The conviction slowly grows upon us that every requirement which is not immediately referable to the precept, Thou shalt love, may be safely eliminated from the Christian law. This is the hall-mark of all the genuine laws of the Kingdom. If we find
^ J. LI. Davies.
330 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
a law without the hall-mark we may safely disregard it. On the other hand, every commandment which receives this stamp immediately becomes obligatory. The Sermon on the Mount, viewed microscopically, presents a broad surface of precepts which cover life in this world and in the world to come ; but viewed telescopically it resolves itself into the large and lucent planet of love, which shines in the heavens as Hesper-Phosphor, the star of evening and of morning. If only we could gain love in its divine fulness, we should " know all mysteries and all knowledge." ^
3. The reply of Jesus to the question concerning the commandments teaches us that the express intent of the decalogue is to secure such behaviour towards God and man as shall comport with true love ; and that therefore, if only our hearts are right with God and with man, the full purpose of the law will be attained, for " love is the fulfilment of the law " (Kom. xiii. 10). It is only by the grace of the Gospel, however, that such fulfilment of the law is made possible ; for " herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. We love him, because he first loved us" (1 John iv. 10, 19). Nor is this true merely of our love to God ; for the love of our neighbour likewise needs the interpreting of the Cross : " A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another ; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." And " hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us " (John xiii. 34 ; 1 John iii. 16). A new interpretation, and a new inspiration, have come to us through the exceeding love of our Saviour Christ ; 80 that, real as was the law of holiness graven by God on the tablets of the heart, and august as was the majesty of its proclamation on the Mount, yet doubly, tenfoldly, more real and strong, and ineffably sacred, is the love that now lights it up with new meaning, and " constraineth us" (2 Cor. v. 14) to its eager and free fulfilment.^
As the ample moon, In the deep stillness of a summer even
• Kising behind a thick and lofty grove, Bums, like an unconsuming fire of light
1 R. F. HortoD. ^ T. F. Lockyer.
ST. MARK 331
In the green trees; and, kindling on all sides Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil Into a substance glorious as her own; Tea, with her own incorporated, by power Capacious and serene. Like power abides In man's celestial spirit; virtue thus Sets forth and magnifies herself; thus feeds A calm, a beautiful, and silent fire. From the encumbrances of mortal life. From error, disappointment — nay, from guilf And sometimes, so relenting justice wills^ From palpable oppressions of despair.^
' W. Wordsworth.
Not Far from the Kingdom.
Literature.
Arnold (T.), Sermons ; Christian Life and its Course, 93.
Chadwick (G. A.), The Gospel of St. Mark, 337.
Drummoud (R. J.), Faith^s Perplexities, 259.
Ker (J.), Sermons, Ist Ser., 121.
Mackay (W. Mackintosh), Bible Types of Modern Men, 196.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions of Holy Scripture, St. Mark ix-xvi., 148.
Newman (J. H.), Parochial and Plain Sermons, viii. 201,
Plummer (A.), An Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St.
Matthew, 25. Rogers (J. H.), The ' Verily, Verilys' of Christ, 21. Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), 2nd Ser., v. No. 520. Watkinson (W. L.), The Banu and the Antidote, 23. Williams (C), The Evolution of Faith, 52. Expositor, 5th Ser., ii. 41 (Watson;.
W
Not Far from the Kingdom.
And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. — xii. 34.
If these had not been the words of Jesus Christ, there would
probably have been some Christians found strongly objecting to
them. They would have said — " No one is nearer to the
I Kingdom of God than another, for all men are alike dead in