Question 104. What are the duties required in the first commandment?

 

Question 104. What are the duties required in the first commandment?

Answer. The duties required in the first commandment are, to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God and our God; and therefore to worship and glorify him alone, in thought, meditation, remembrance, exaltation, reverence, adoration, fondness, love, desire, and fear; to believe in him, trust in him, hope in him, rejoice, and be glad in him; to call upon him with zeal, and offer all praise and thanksgiving; to obey and submit to him with all our being, and to be careful in all things to please him, and to mourn over any thing that may offend him, and to walk humbly with him.

In Mark 12:28-30, “One of the scribes came up and heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that Jesus had answered them well, asked him, ‘Which is the most important commandment of all?’ Jesus answered him, ‘This is the most important: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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.’”

Here are four things that come up. Kardias is translated as heart, which is found in 1 Thessalonians 3:13: “May he strengthen your hearts (kardias) blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming (parousia) of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”

Kardias is the spiritual mind. Parousia is translated as descent, and church people think of it as the second coming of Jesus to the earth at the end. However, it describes the image of Christ entering (being present) into the hearts of the saints and being present in the temple established in the hearts of the saints. Therefore, the word translated as heart is the spiritual mind that has taken on the body of a new person.

Psyche is life. The old life must be crucified with Jesus. Therefore, to say that one is giving up one's life means to crucify the old self. And it says that one must obtain eternal life from God.

Dianoias is also expressed in Ephesians 2:3: "Among whom we also all once lived in the lusts of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind (dianoias), and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest." It is translated as "the desires of the flesh and the mind" (θελήματα τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ τῶν διανοιῶν), which in Greek means the desires of the flesh and its mind. Since the mind comes from the flesh, it is a fleshly mind. The fleshly self cannot know God. However, just as in the parable of the sower, the farmer plows the hardened ground, sows the seeds, and cultivates them so that they can bear fruit, it means that we should realize the principle and discover the kingdom of God.

Isquios symbolizes power, authority, and strength. Jesus receives authority from God the Father. Matthew 11:27 says, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” The saints also receive this same authority from Christ. It is a word to remember that the saints who receive authority come from God.

"The second (Deutera) is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

Deutera (δευτέρα) means next. The most central thing is love of God, but next is love of neighbor. Love (agapao) is the work of reviving the spirit that was dead through the death of the cross. The saint believes that he died in union with the cross of Jesus, and is resurrected together, and the spirit comes alive, so the kingdom of God is established in the soul of the saint. This is the work of loving God.

Jesus spoke in the form of answering a scribe's question, and right before that, he had talked about the topic of resurrection. He explained that it was not the physical resurrection that the Jews thought of, but the resurrection of the spirit. So, he used four words, quite metaphorically, to explain the resurrection of the spirit and God's love.

Loving God means believing in the death and resurrection of the cross. Therefore, those who have my commandments that Jesus speaks of in the Gospel of John are those who have faith in the death and resurrection of the cross. And those who “keep them” are those who keep faith in the cross and resurrection.

The word translated as “guard” (τηρῶν) is “tereo” in its basic form, which means to guard a line of defense, to protect, to maintain a state, etc. In other words, it does not mean to carry out the regulations of the Bible, but to protect the death and resurrection of the cross so that it is engraved in one’s heart and not lost. It means to keep it from falling from one’s heart.

The most critical problem today is the legalistic interpretation and application of the meaning of “keeping the commandments.” The commandment is to love God and one’s neighbors, but legalists say that if one does not love God and one’s neighbors, one is not keeping the commandments. They misunderstand love as keeping rules and regulations.

The meaning of the commandment that Jesus spoke of is love of God and neighbors, and this is fundamentally the belief in Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection. Those who say that this is kept legalistically or not do not understand the meaning of keeping the commandment at all. “Keeping the commandment” means keeping the commandment in your heart. Therefore, it means acting under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If today’s church rejects heresy, but there are those who speak false doctrines or misinterpret the Bible differently from the Greek Bible, then what else is this but heresy?