II. THe WHOLE DUTY oF MAN. Our Lord rebuked by his answer those miserable trivialities of the Pharisees, who seemed disposed to bring him into conflict with one or other of the contending parties, headed respectively by Hillel and Shammai. The subject of the question was one about which the schools of these great Jewish school- men differed. If he decided in favour of the one, he necessarily offended and lost in reputation as a public religious Teacher with the other; or perhaps they hoped to bring him into contradiction with an answer to the same question which he had sanctioned with his approval. Our Lord shoved aside their rabbinical quibbles, and passed by their hair-splittings and contendings about such petty trifles, to the neglect at once of the spirit and the really weightier matters of the Law. And as “whosoever shall
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om. xu, 1—44.) THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. 195
keep the whole Law, and stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all,” our Lord, instead of singling out or specifying any particular commandment of the Law, states two comprehensive precepts which embrace the whole Law; and not only so—he not only reduces the ten commandments of the Decalogue to these two precepts, but under- lying these two precepts is one single principle into which they are both capable of being resolved. He thus simplifies the statement of moral duty into a single principle, ee oe principle itself expressed in the one word “love;” for “love is the fulfilling of
e Law.
III. THs supremacy or Love. It has been conjectured that our Lord, when quoting in reply the passage from Deut. vi. 4—9, one of the four Scriptures usually inscribed on the parchment slips of the tephillin, or phylacteries, and called Shema, “ Hear,” from beginning with this word, pointed to the lawyer’s tephillin. This would add to the pictorial or graphic nature of the reply ; but nothing could be added to the beauty of the words quoted. He cites the preface, teaching the unity of God in oppo- sition to polytheism, and then proclaims the love of God‘as the source, and love to man as similar and only second thereto. But whence comes this love? Not by nature, for by nature we are “hateful, and hating one another ;” only, therefore, by the new birth, when we partake of a new nature; for “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things having passed away, and all things having become new.” Once we love him who first loved us, we are in the proper position for loving our Father in heaven and our fellow-man on earth. The manifestation of this love to man is doing to others as we wish others to do to us, and this exercise of the so-called, and properly so-called, golden rule, is loving our fellow-man as a brother, and son of the same heavenly Father; while our love to that Father is supreme, influencing the affections of the heart, the faculties of the mind, the spiritual powers of the soul or life, and employing the whole strength of all and each of these. God is worthy of all this—worthy of our best affections, worthy of our earliest and strongest love. The practice of this principle would make this earth a paradise, restoring it to all the freshness and happiness of its first and early dawn; rather, would it make a heaven upon earth.—J. J. G.
Vers. 35—37. Parallel passaces: Matt. xxii.41—46; Luke xx. 41—44.— The counter- suestion of our Lord. 1. QuzstTion oF oun Lorp my TuRN. Our Lord had by this time asked, and had triumphantly answered, the most perplexing, difficult, and delicate questions that the ingenuity of man could devise, His adversaries had been signally confuted, and covered with shame. These questions were five in all. One concerned his authority ; another was political, about the tribute money ; the third was doctrinal, about the resurrection; the fourth speculative, about the greatest commandment; and the fifth disciplinary, about the adulteress. By his more than masterly reply to the first, he defeated the Sanhedrim ; by his reply to the second, he surprised and silenced the Phari- sees and Herodians; by his answer to the third, he confuted, if he did not convince, the sceptical Sadducees; by his reply to the fourth, he satisfied the Pharisaic scribe, learned in the Law; by his answer to the fifth, he settled, if not to the satisfaction of scribes and Pharisees, at least to their shame, the question of discipline. It is now time that, having passed this ordeal, he should retaliate.
Tl. Osseor OF HIS COUNTER-QUESTION. Our Lord’s design was not so much to show them their ignorance, and overwhelm them with confusion, as to instruct them with respect to the true character and person of the Christ. Their low views were to be elevated, their carnal notions were to be spiritualized, their blind eyes were to be enlightened. Their idea of the person of Messiah was that he would be just a man like themselves ; of his position, that he would be a powerful temporal king; and of his reign, that it would extend over a great earthly kingdom. By his question he let light in upon their dark minds in reference to all these subjects. With the Scriptures in their hands, and all their trifling about the minute things concerning the letter, they had no right spiritual apprehension of their long-desired and much-respected Messiah. His
uestion proves to them that Messiah was not only human, but Divine; not only David’s fea; but David’s Lord; that before his exaltation he must suffer humiliation. They sxpected a triumphant Messiah, but were not prepared for his lowly condition as a sufferer; they overleaped the cross, expecting all at once and from the first the crown, Crucifixiou before glorification was what they could not understand; a spiritual kingdom
196 THE GOSPEL AUCORDING TO ST. MANK. (cea. kul. i= 37,
of righteousness and peace and joy they would not understand, “their wish being father to their thoughts.”