Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

616
Luke X. 25-33.
religion and morality.* For, the addition " and thy neighbour &&
thyself," is at bottom only an rmfolding of the contents of the first
commandment, as Matth. xxii. 37, seq., shews. In- love to God,
which, on the part of the creature, can only take the form of recep-
tive love, there lies the love of his will, and consequently the implied
love of one's neighbour. To draw, however, from the command thus
to love God, the inference, that man must therefore be able to do it
in his own strength, would be wholly out of place. Since only that
which is Divine knoweth God (compare on Matth. xi. 27), so only
that which is Divine can love God ; and when God commands us
therefore to love God, it involves for the creature an injunction to
receive the Spirit of God, in whom alone he can be loved. This
Spirit, however, the New Testament imparts, and consequently
this command of the Old Testament (as indeed the whole law) for
its fulfilment, presupposes the Gospel. This same Spirit, who
teaches us to love God, wholly and entirely with all our faculties,
alone enables us also rightly to love our neighbour. As pure love
to God loveg God more than it does self apart from God, so it also
loves God more than our neighbour apart from God ; but self and
our brother being looked at as in God, and God in them, true self-
love and genuine brotherly love are then at one with the love of
God. Hence does the Lord say that the second commandment is
like unto i\\Q first (Matth. xxii. 39), for this reason, that it is the same
thing with it. Love to one's neighbour, if it be genuine love, that
is, if the creature be loved not merely as a creature (for in that lies
the distinctive character of natural love), is nothing less than love
to God. This is also shewn by the following parable.
Ver. 28, 29.—The answer of the lawyer was in itself satisfactory
to the Saviour, but he directly urged him to follow out the command
into action, remarking that life lay in the practical ftdfilling
of it. But it was precisely this that brought to light his inward
perverseness ;
his knowledge wanted the will which was inclined to
carry it out into life, and this want of moral power again obscured
his discernment. He asks, feeling himself struck—who then was
his neighbour ? a question which in his own mind he would have
been able himself to answer, if he had sought to exercise perfect
love. (At«:a(6w has no peculiar meaning here ; it merely refers,
through the word lavrov, to the person wishing to justify himself.)
Because of his want of experience, Jesus transfers him into the
midst of the realities of life, and makes him behold love actually
loving. (The term v-oXanlSdveiv = diroKpLveadaij excipere, is in the
New Testament found only here. It occurs frequently in the LXX.;
Job ii. 4 ; iv. 1.)
* As to this and the following thoughts, compare the fuller discussion on the passage
Matth. xxiL 37, seq.