Season 4 Podcast 196 The Stories of the New Testament, Matthew Ch 22:34-46, Pt 7, “The Royal Law.”

Season 4 Podcast 196 The Stories of the New Testament, Matthew Ch 22:34-46, Pt 7, “The Royal Law.”The economy of the language of Christ is inspiring. He is the great synthesizer. Where most would use a thousand words to explain, Christ used only a few. Look how he Synthesizes the entire Gospel of Christ.34 ¶ But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.38 This is the first and great commandment.39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.So that the lawyer couldn’t misunderstand what Christ was saying, he added.40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.Christ is referring to both the Old Testament, which contains the law of Moses, and the New Testament, which contains the full Gospel of Christ. Of course, Christ, or Jehovah, is the God of both the Old and New Testaments.In one of his many prophecies of the coming Messiah, Isaiah describes the Messiah in this way.1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: 2 And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; 3 And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: 4 But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. (Isaiah 11)Isaiah, among the greatest of prophets, is also noted for economy of language; coupled with his poetic style, some may find Isaiah difficult to comprehend. For our purposes particularly note the following qualities attributed to Christ: the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding; the spirit of counsel, the spirit of knowledge, and the spirit of quick understanding. It is all attributed to the fact that “the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.” The Royal law is divided into two classes or two distinct parts:1.     Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.2.     Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.It is no coincidence that the Royal Law is a synthesis of the Ten Commandments. Let’s examine the first great law. Notice that three concepts in our worship must be considered:1.     Love the Lord with all thy heart.2.     Love the Lord with all thy soul3.     Love the Lord with all thy mind.Each represents a separate part of our physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual make up. The heart is equated with love, with feelings and powerful emotions. The heart is often associated with passion, spirit, nature, temperament, charity, benevolence, compassion, grace, mercy, magnanimity, love, courage, boldness, heroism, essence or kernel or center or core or base.  The heart, I suspect, is first for a reason, for it is spirit responding to spirit. Many use the phrase, “with all my heart.” The soul has a different scriptural connotation than the heart. In the creation story in Genesis we read,