Debating With Pharisees
DEBATING WITH PHARISEES
MATTHEW 22:34-46
Love God with all your heart and soul, and your neighbors the way you love yourself: sincerely, constantly, actively, and with understanding.
The Pharisees could not but applaud Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees; now they tested his judgment on the kind of question which they debated among themselves. Some of them distinguished “heavy” (more important) from “light” (less important) commandments (cf. 23:23), but that did not mean that they could treat the latter less seriously, for God’s relative assessment of his commandments might be different from theirs. Was there one commandment which could be regarded as the greatest and, if so, how was it to be recognized? Jesus in reply quoted the injunction of unreserved love to God (Deuteronomy 6:5) which included the doing of all his commandments (cf. 1 John 5:3a), and coupled with it (by the rabbinical exegetical method of “equal categories”) the injunction of unreserved love to one’s neighbor (Leviticus 19:18b), which begins, like the former, with “you shall love.” Of this twofold injunction the words might well have been spoken which Hillel used of the golden rule (see note on 7:12). All that God requires in the whole volume of written revelation is comprehended in these two injunctions. (It is noteworthy that in Luke 10:27 these two are quoted by a “lawyer” as a summary of the divine law, in response to our Lord’s question.)
Our Lord’s turn now comes to put a counter-question to the Pharisees. He and they believed that Psalm 110 was composed by David and referred to the Messiah. According to them, the Messiah was to be the son of David (cf. 1:1). But in Psalm 110:1 David refers to the Messiah as “my Lord,” and does so by inspiration. How can the Messiah be both David’s son and David’s Lord? Those early Christians who heard or read this incident would feel that this question, which the Pharisees found unanswerable, presented no problem to them: they knew that Jesus, son of David (cf. Romans 1:3), had been highly exalted by God and made both Lord and Messiah (Acts 2:36), thus receiving “the name which is above every name” (Philippians 2:9-11). Throughout the New Testament, Psalm 110:1 is the principal Old Testament “testimony” for the acknowledgment of Jesus as Lord and for his session at God’s right hand (cf. Acts 2:34f.; Romans 8:34; 1 Corinthians 15:25; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:13; 1 Peter 3:22; Revelation 3:21).