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T H E K ING ’S BUS INESS
Sunday, April 4. Matt. 22:34-40.
of our neighbor that we have in our own welfare. The second commandment is really involved in the first; for if we love God, Whom we have not seen, we must necessarily love our neighbor whom we have seen (1 John 4:20, 21). JIt is sheer nonsense for a man to pretend to love God if he does not love his neighbor; for true love to God involves love to neighbor. These two commandments sum up the whole conteftts of both law and prophets; they include the whole of Christian duty. Jesus Christ perfectly kept these com mandments. We can only keep them by having Jesus Christ formed within us. Then by the power of the indwelling Spirit, the righteousness of the law will be fulfilled in us (Rom. 8:1-4), and we shall love God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves. The law says, “This do and thou shalt live” ; the Gospel says, “Live, and thou shalt do this,” and then it tells us how to live by the simple acceptance of Jesus Christ (John 1: 12; 3:16; Gal. 2:20 R. V.). We get life as a gift (Rom. 6:23) and then obey be Up to this point they had been ques tioning Jesus. Now Jesus questions them. He does not take them separately, but puts the whole company .to confusion at once. He was able to do this because God was on His side (Is. 8 ¡9, 10), and because of His deep knowledge of the Scriptures (Ps. 119:98, 99). The question that Jsusu put to them is all-important, “What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he?” Our having eternal life, and our victory over the world, depend entirely upon what we think of Christ as to whose Son He is (John 20:31; 1 John 5:5): The only way to get right thoughts about Christ is by ’being born again, by the study of the Bible, and by being taught of the Holy Spirit (1 John 5:1; John 5:39; 16:13, 14). To the Phari sees Jesus’ question seemed easy and they glibly answered, “The Son of David.” They got into difficulty at once; the answer was cause we have life. Monday, April S. Matt. 22:41-46.
Jesus had silenced both the Pharisees and the Sadducees who had sought to en trap Him and confuse Him. A lawyer (Scribe, Mark 12:28), who had listened, was deeply impressed by the reasoning of Jesus and now he asks a question. He did it to try or test our Lord. The question he asked was an important one and the answer thoroughly convincing. Man’s first duty is to God and our duty to God can be summed up in one word, love. But what is love ?., To love another is to have a desire for and delight in his welfare. Love is not a mere emotion or affection, but the attitude of the whole man. To love God with all the heart and soul and mind is to have a supreme desire for and de light in God’s glory, so that everything else is secondary to that. The proof that we do thus love God with all the heart, with all the soul, and with all the mind, is that we put God first in everything—God first in business, God first in politics, God first in study, God first in pleasure, God first in home life, God first in social life, God first in everything. To do this' is to keep the first and great commandment. To have failed to do this is to have committed the first and great sin, that is the greatest sin a man can possibly commit. At some time in our life all of us have failed to do this, to put God first in everything, and thus have broken God’s first and great com mandment, therefore there is no essential difference among men, for “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Not only sinned, but committed the greatest possible sin. So there is no hope for any one of us except on the ground of the atoning death of Him who perfectly kept the law of God and died as a substitute for us who had broken it (Gal 3:10, 13). But there is a sceond law, not equal to the first, but “like unto it.” Its central word, too, is love; its object, our neighbor, our fellow-mart. 'This second commandment requires that we have the same desire for and delight in the welfare
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