Transcendent Reverence To One

Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. 30) And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31) And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. The religious lawyer was present when the Sadducees debated with Jesus over the matter of resurrection using a marriage scenario to disprove eternal salvation. The Sadducees did not believe in angels, immortality, or resurrection of the soul. They were ignorant concerning the words of Moses and the Law concerning the direction of the living brother’s duty of “levirate and marriage” where the dead brother would be acknowledged as the father of that firstborn child provided through the living brother (Deuteronomy 25:5). This practice was done to carry on the family name that the dead brothers may not be blotted out of the community of Israel.

The thinking of marriage being associated with resurrection was related to Pharisaic belief and was a test against the words of Jesus. Jesus refuted their erroneous argument with O. T. history concerning Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses understood that Yahweh was saying that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, live still. So Jesus addresses the Sadducee’s problem in pointing out their ignorance of the scriptures and ignorance of God’s power. Since marriage between a male and female requires a physical body, their argument was vanity since immortality is a different form. The Scribe (specialist or expert of the Mosaic Law), though he refused His offer of salvation by faith in Him, was impressed with Jesus so much that he was interested in Jesus’ answer to the most important question. In Mark 12:28, “Which is the first commandment of all?” This is a question that comes from someone who exercises expertise in studying the moral law covenant. It is a relevant question for today! Why? What is this Expert asking of Jesus concerning this Law? There are 613 commands, laws, and statutes that are written and rabbi’s wanted to know how to simplify it by inquiring which is the most important to keep and practice. Which law is “Principal, First, Greatest, Most Important,” of all? “Our principal life priority and responsibility is to devote the whole of ourselves to the One God Who is also One Lord Who is our Liberator from sin and slavery. His response corresponds with Moses’ exhortation to the Israelites in Deut. 6:4-5. They were to devote themselves to continually acknowledge Yahweh who is also Kurios of the N.T., as the Creator who is their only Savior who freed them from Egyptian bondage. It’s Yahweh (Kurios N.T.) “Lord” they’re Elohim (Theos N.T.) “God,” who rules the universe. ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, “single deity.” This is important because while the Israelites were in bondage to Egypt they were under the influence of polytheism. Egypt had different gods to justify different things they honored and did within their kingdom society. Are we sometimes influenced by an unknown deity in some kind of decision or choice? It is easy sometimes, to adhere to a perspective or direction of instruction on social media or someone because they have a degree or are an Author of a Book. We as covenant people don’t know who or what their source for this information is. Because of this, hearing of the “One Lord” who is God is commanded as most important. Being attentive to the person, authority, and direction of the One Lord, acknowledges and esteems relationship with Him as the highest priority. Why is this magnitude of love so important to God, the only Lord of Israel? Why is this message still relevant to us today in the new covenant? Look at the problem, the chief priests and the elders, the Scribes, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees, claimed a part of the O.T. worship system under Moses, and acknowledged a part of Abraham’s life, but not the essential part that the “One Lord” was interested in for their lives. None of these religious sects aligned themselves to follow the aim of God’s commandments. They made room for (prioritized their hearing towards) politics, favoritism, and tradition based on some kind of political religion, social religion, or status religion. They missed the purpose for which the Lord God delivered Israel from the power of Egypt. The Lord sought to make an everlasting covenant with the people He chose to rescue from man’s bondage and the bondage of religious error to be identified with Him. The purpose was to develop a people who would be devoted to the person and mission of the Lord from their heart, soul, mind, and body, to teach all nations to submit to the will of the One Lord. Just as Israel’s Marriages, Parents, Families, leaders, neighbors, and foreigners among them were to keep the Lord’s commandments and promises so are we to do under the New Covenant. In order to keep His commandments we must seek to keep a devoted relationship with the Persons of our One Lord who is God alone. Egyptian idolatry was the cause of all immoral practices and behaviors that influenced and burdened the Israelites while in bondage. This command requires us to “love (agapao) Him from our heart, soul, mind, and strength, Mark 12:30. First of all, Agapao “Love” means “to esteem or direct one’s will to find joy in our One Lord. In Deuteronomy 30:6-8, the context says that the Lord God would circumcise the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that is, causing Israel to love the Lord God by obeying His proclamation and keeping His covenant precepts. He would do this by causing all nations that His people were captive to dispossess them and lead them to the land of promise. The Lord caused His enemies Satan, sin, and the flesh, to dispossess His chosen people so that He alone would be the principal influence in their lives. In Deuteronomy 10:15-21, the Lord chose Israel as His covenant people and because of this, they were to change their interests from impure things to holy things, that is, “the duty of circumcising themselves,” because of the character and ways of the Lord their God. We are not to practice partiality or taking bribes. Sometimes, some people among the body of Christ who are also the kingdom of God are swayed more by politics, parties, philosophies, etc., and drag the progressive work of the Christian faith in the process of being distracted by these. When Jesus answers this way, He demands love with an exclusiveness which means that all other commands lead up to it and all righteousness finds in it its norm. To Jesus, love is a matter of will and action. But He demands decision and readiness for God and for God alone in an unconditional manner. It includes the idea of duty, respect, veneration, meaning to love and serve with fidelity. When love is used toward our Master God or Christ, it involves affectionate reverence, prompt obedience, and grateful recognition of the benefits received. This love must reside in the central part of our being and influence the use of our personal faculties of reasoning, deciding, experiencing, and expressing our personhood in relation to the Lord.

From our hearts, that is, the seat and center of spiritual life, the soul or mind, as it is the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, and endeavors, this is the source and center of the whole inner life. It is supremely the one center in man to which God turns, in which the religious life is rooted, which determines moral conduct. From the whole heart, that is, with sincerity.

From our soul (psuche), the seat and center of the inner human life in its many and varied aspects. Specifically, the soul is the sentient principle, the seat of the senses, desires, affections, appetites, passions, and the lower aspect of one’s nature. Used here of the feelings and emotions of humans. This is where our ability to perceive and feel resides.

From our minds (dianoia), the faculty of thinking, comprehending, reasoning, understanding, intelligence, mind as the organ of such.

From our strength (ischuo), “to have strength,” meaning physical strength, mental or moral powers as an endowment, might, the ability of man, and facility.

All human strength must be concentrated on the love of God. “From the extent of our mental and moral ability to do so.” Love is from the spiritual (inner) person, the human inner person, from the organ and faculty of comprehension, and from the physical, mental, and moral behavior, whether male or female. In other words, my heart, soul, mind, and body are an ongoing offering to the Lord for reverent purposes, reverent desires, reverent intelligence, and reverent behavior, and should be the resulting effect of loving the Lord God. The Lord doesn’t want His people to live their saved lives according to their independent purposes, desires, understanding, or strength. The key to where the state of our heart, soul, mind, and strength seems to be relative to who and what we esteem or who and what our will finds joy in. It is possible to esteem relationships with unwholesome people or unwholesome activities. Whoever or whatever we spend most of our time with or in is the determining factor for what we esteem or find joy in. Our reverence, adoration, admiration, and joy, need to be prioritized according to covenant truth. There is no one or nothing besides the Lord God that should be regarded as the essential Savior, that is, to learn from, adhere to, pray to, and serve. There should be undivided reverence and unconditional service from those who are chosen to be His people. When I think of the exclusive and unconditional priority that I am called to, it reminds me of other instructions of the same sort like: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple,” Luke 14:26-27. What about other verses such as Mt. 6:31-33; and 16:24-26? In other words, the heart (as my inner man), my soul (as my will), my mind (as my faculty of understanding), and my strength (as my physical body), should be in complete compliance with the One Lord. He delivered Israel from slavery and gave them a land flowing with milk and honey. I am to esteem and find joy in the Lord for Who He is. His love for me is greater than my love for me. On this basis, I am to love myself in response to how He loves me and love my neighbor based upon the way that I received God’s love that delivered me from bondage, that is, “Love my neighbor (including my enemies) as myself,” Mark 12:31; Mt. 5:44. These two commandments are a package that cannot be separated. God loved my neighbors and enemies too, within the same behavior of deliverance. Love here means “to have warm regard for and interest in another, have affection for, to cherish them. By this definition, there is no room for a covenant-keeping child of God our Lord, to dislike anyone any human whether it be in feelings or actions. To dislike someone promotes hostility and disfavor, not goodwill for the soul. In Romans 13:9-10, Paul teaches that the goal of the Lord’s commandments is so that no one does harm to their neighbors. Treating anyone with any attitude or behavior that is less than love (goodwill) is considered (criminal) toward any person within your sphere of influence and against covenant teaching. In Luke 10:29-37, when the official leaders “priest and Levites” who are supposed to represent the covenant Israel people saw the injured man, they avoided him and passed him by on the opposite side of the street, but a certain Samaritan saw him, and out of mercy, saw to it that he was cared for. He was treated like a neighbor, not a stranger. Therefore, love is a better answer than Religious Office, Political Correctness, Philosophy, Psychology, Education, Medicine, War, Ethnic or Social Justice. These methods don’t address the inner person where the ills start. Policies, Political Theories, Psychological assessments, medicine, or education will not address the need of every human to receive “the affection and warm regard unconditionally as is being taught. There is more to a person than just their skin, their money and status. For those of us who are in covenant with Yahweh, we are to speak and work missions that promote active affection for all souls. The bigger matter is where the condition of their “heart, soul, and mind,” is. The success or failure of Marriage, Parenting, Friendships, and Social Development, will depend upon these persons’ inward condition. In summary, Transcendent Reverence is realized when I acknowledge once and for all that the “One God” Who is “One Lord” is my only deliverer from mankind’s sinful dictates and influences over my life. In this, my life should be under the guidance of covenant and not man’s political, economics, traditions, philosophy, favoritism, status, wealth or power. But give myself wholly to Him. So, what is “Transcendent Reverence?” It is when through the saving circumcision work of Kurios “the Lord” we are caused to acknowledge and love Him as our only deliverer from the slavery of anyone and from the slavery of sin to wholeness of relationship with Him. It is covenant reverence.

Questions:

Why was the command to hear so important to Yahweh? Look at (Deut. 4:35-36; 6:4; Exodus 19:9; 20:22-23)

Loving the Lord God as One is the Principal responsibility of every covenant believer. The matters and circumstances of our lives that are allowed to interfere with our allegiance to Him have to do with how we esteem Him compared to other people and things in this world. Whenever thoughts, desires, opinions, behaviors, oppose the Lord’s will, it is because within us, in the moment, something or someone else shares that place of influence. He wants to be unconditionally, the Exclusive One that we devote ourselves and our lives to until He returns. He is the unbiased Creator and Savior of humanity and especially His covenant people. He is not a respecter of persons, nor does He take Bribes but, He accepts those who fear Him and works His righteousness (Acts 10:34-36). We must become as He is through Him working in us. Because of this, the second command should identify His covenant-keeping people as people who regard the welfare of all persons, being revealed as “affectionate, benevolent, goodwill servants” to the needs of mankind to the purpose of their deliverance from life’s ills. This mission should show us to be God’s people.

My answers: