Bible Commentaries

THE CENTRAL TRUTH OF BIBLICAL RELIGION

‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.’

Deuteronomy 6:4-7

This passage may be said to contain the central truth and the central precept of biblical religion. No doubt both the truth and the precept received further development in the course of revelation, but the development depends on the original revelation. The full revelation of the Trinity could only be made upon the foundation of a deeply rooted faith in the unity of God; and the love of man, essential as it is to all true religion, was taught by our Lord and His Apostles as part of the great primal duty of love to God. ‘This commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.’ The love of man is no substitute for love of God, but rests upon it and pre-supposes it, and thus the whole of religion theoretical, and practical, may be said to depend upon the original declaration: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.’

They are words so familiar to us that it may seem strange to assert that the truth, as well as the command, contained in them, has been proved by experience to be singularly difficult of apprehension by the human mind. But the whole history of the religious training of Israel shows that these words needed the continual reiteration which the passage before us prescribes before they could become part of the religious conscience of the chosen race. Yet we know, how in spite of this, they fell away to other gods, and served Baalim and Ashtaroth, and Moloch, and the hosts of diverse and conflicting deities which the human imagination has conceived to account for the manifold phenomena of the universe. So hard is it to grasp and retain the primal truth, ‘The Lord our God is one Lord.’

And in proportion as they lost hold of it did their national life fade and wither, till the great captivity proved the truth of the prophetic warnings against apostasy. Throughout the Old Testament the foundation of true social welfare is declared to be the knowledge and the love of God. And when the horizon broadens into the world-wide Kingdom of God which was proclaimed by Jesus Christ, the knowledge and the love of God are still the conditions of all true life, whether individual or social. ‘This is eternal life, that they might know Thee the only true God.’ The precept of the text, reiterated throughout the Old Testament, is taken up and developed in the New. Love, in its threefold aspects, the love of God for man, and man for God, and the love of man for man in God, becomes the whole of religion.

I. Now we must notice that, simple and familiar as these words and ideas are to us, the declaration of the unity of God was at the time that it was proclaimed a new and startling dogma.—By dogma I mean an authoritative statement of a truth unattainable by the ordinary processes of human reason or perception. But even if we use the word in what has been lately called the more ordinary modern sense by which any assertion which a controversialist does not like or will not believe, is called dogmatic, it still remains true that at the time that it was made the declaration, ‘The Lord our God is one Lord,’ was a dogma. Here was a people surrounded on all sides by other nations, other religions, other gods, by people closely related to kindred races, a people but lately emerged from a bondage in which they had almost become a portion of the great and civilised Egyptian community with its elaborate and organised faith; and to these people it was declared that they were to discard all alien religions whatsoever, to put away every vestige of belief in other deities, and to exalt the God of their fathers into a sole and unapproachable supremacy, being linked together and separated from all other men by an exclusive and intolerant faith.

II. And what was this great dogmatic assertion? Was it a generally accepted truth, or was it a truth which when once declared could be readily corroborated by experience and observation? On the contrary, the dogma of the unity of God was in almost direct contradiction of the facts of the world and of life as the ancient mind conceived them. The infinite variety of the universe, its bewildering multiplicity of experience, made it easy for primitive man to assign to every hill and river its own divinity, and to explain the manifold appearances in heaven and earth by a theory of gods many and lords many. It is only gradually and by a laborious process that reason has in this overtaken revelation, and indeed we might almost say that it has been reserved for our own nation and our own time to complete the course which has led from polytheism to monotheism. The scientific confirmation of the Mosaic utterance is found in Newton’s proof of the unity of force throughout the universe, and in Darwin’s theory of the unity of life. Whatever other hypotheses may be made in the future, it is impossible at least to ascribe to more than One Supreme Mind the origin or the maintenance of the universe, which is knit together by the one force of gravitation, in the development of the most diverse forms of life by the one law of evolution. But in proving this, science has re-echoed in its own language, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.’

It is a dogma, then, that lies at the foundation of the Jewish and therefore also of the Christian religion.

Practical religion, then, rests on dogma: from an unbroken chain we can trace the love of man dependent upon the love of God, and the love of God resulting from our knowledge of Him and what He is.

But modern thought rejects dogma; often in our days on the ground that these are matters of which we know nothing, and that therefore we must be content with a vague feeling of awe towards the great force that works in nature and in man, and a vague emotion of benevolence or love towards all that He or it has made. No one can study the various utterances of contemporary speculation on religious subjects without seeing that the old definite opposition between faith on the one hand and unbelief on the other has given place on both sides to a common agreement that though nothing can be known of the force that lies behind the world of sense, we yet can reverence and even love the unknowable God, provided we think of Him only as manifesting Himself in the natural course of the universe. But there have been, and there are still souls who know God, whose eyes have seen the King the Lord of Hosts, and from them, from prophet and psalmist and apostle and seer and saint, has been gathered the record of the revelation made to them which men contemptuously call dogma. If we, who have received this sacred trust, do not transmit it to them who come after, that their posterity may know it, and the children that are yet unborn, we shall be cutting away the foundadation on which practical religion, the love of God, and the love of man, can alone be built up. Ask those who know, and they will tell you that the love of man, the true enthusiasm of humanity, by which I do not mean the reformer’s instinct for mere social order and improvement—that the love of man is inspired by the love of God within us. Ask them again, and they will tell you that we cannot love what we do not know, and that dim and imperfect as our insight into spiritual truth may always be, it is yet the condition of that absorbing affection, that yearning of the whole nature of man for God, which is the goal of our spiritual life on earth. To us then as to the Israelite of old, dogmatic truth is the foundation of life. ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.’

—Bishop A. T. Lyttelton.

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(1) ‘I must think of God as a living, loving person, for life and love and personality are the highest things I know, although I know them by my experience of man, and as a man. If you can show me anything in the sphere of human knowledge nobler than the noblest man, more venerable than the purest human virtue, wiser than the keenest human intellect, more lovable than human love, I will clothe with its qualities my thoughts of God. But till then I will think of Him under the human aspects of righteousness and mercy and holiness and love, though I know that His holiness is purer than the purest, and His love tenderer than the tenderest of human love. In a word, personality sums up all that is best in our experience, and therefore we believe that God is a person. And we claim that this belief is justified by the facts of the universe so far as we know them. We trace in the order of creation the workings of an intelligence similar though immeasureably superior to our own reason, while the spiritual experiences of individual souls assure us that in the Being with whom we have to do there is the quality which we know as love. The God whom we dimly surmise is a personal God. And when we turn from the guesses of natural religion to the fact of the Incarnation we find the same truth declared in Him who is the express image of the person of God; for the Man Christ Jesus is for us the revelation of the divine nature: “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.”’

(2) ‘A new generation has grown up, a generation that never knew the defiling idolatry of Egypt, and had never bowed under the debasing yoke of Pharaoh. Those were a people whose freedom had been purchased at a great price; but this is a people free born. They had been trained and disciplined in the school of the wilderness, and had learned its lessons; familiar through all their life with the presence and service of the God of Israel. The nation had been born in a day, but it takes forty years to educate it, and fit it for its high calling. We feel as we stand on the borders of Canaan that we are amidst a people a whole heaven above the slaves that had come forth from Egypt, haunted as they were by fear, and incapable of any lofty faith or brave endurance. The murmurings are left behind, and here stands a people that do know their God, and are strong, and shall do exploits. To these people another tone is possible; and there naturally comes a new appeal.

To this new spirit, then, is given a new revelation. And now for the first time is heard the great commandment, the ten in one, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.”’

THE GREAT COMMANDMENT

‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.’

Deuteronomy 6:5

The teaching of the text is that the ‘one God’ must be ‘loved’ and served by the whole man. Consider how the love of God is to be cultivated.

I. We cannot love an abstraction.—God must be a personal God before we can love Him. We must have a sense of property in Him. He must be our own God.

II. Presence is essential to love, even in human love. If we have not a presence in fact, we always make it in fancy. There is an imaginary presence of the person we love always with us. God says, ‘My presence shall go with thee.’

III. There must be prayer.—Communion with the absent whom we love is essential to the existence and the growth of love.

IV. God is really a present God. Therefore we must do acts—acts which have Him in them. Acts of love make love.

V. There is no love like union—wedded union. And so through this mystery of union the love grows fond, intense, eternal. Our whole being gathers itself up to one focus, and the demand of the text becomes possible, and the duty becomes a necessity.

Rev. Jas. Vaughan.

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(1) ‘How shall I love God?

With the love of a newborn soul. There is a family, spiritual and divine. I am brought into it by a supernatural grace and a stupendous change. Formerly I was outside the home; now I am within. I breathe a thousand tendernesses. I am become a son of the Father.

And with the love of a thankful heart. He has done so much for me, and He continues to do so much. It is impossible to sum up His kindnesses; they are like the grains of sand on the shore, like the stars in the fathomless depths of the sky. How can I help loving Him?

And with the love of the sympathising spirit. I am a scholar in His school. I must be drinking in His truth. I must be growing up into His likeness. I must share His likes and dislikes. Am I a citizen of the heaven in which He dwells, the heaven where nothing denies?

And with the love of the surrendered life. God owns me, in order that I may glorify His name, may advance His kingdom, may accomplish His ends. Mine should be an active, sacrificing, suffering love. There is room and to spare in the world for a larger exercise of it.’

(2) ‘We have a Trinity of “Love.” The Father’s “love” originating,—the Son’s “love” executing,—the Spirit’s “love” applying. “Love” in heaven,—“love” on earth,—“love” in the heart. The fountain of “love,”—the stream of “love,”—the sweet draughts of “love.” Above us,—around us,—within us. Free “love”; self-crucifying “love”; effectual “love.” Love’s Trinity.

And man has his trinity: “spirit, soul, and body.” Therefore, man’s “love” is threefold—intelligent, spiritual, active. Our “love” copies the Trinity of “Love.”’

(3) ‘This word love has scarcely been spoken before in all their history. But now it occurs again and again. The command to love God means that they had come to see Him as the Love-worthy, whose every word and work and will was the highest and fullest good of His people. Love is to take the place of fear. And because God is Love, the seat of religion is to be in the heart. God is to be served not with the cold formalities of worship, however awful and reverent the service may be made, but with the warmth of the heart and the gladness of its devotion. It is, I believe, a peculiarity of pearls that they lose their beauty and charm unless they are kept in contact with the warmth of life. They must be worn to keep their worth. And the precepts of our holy religion, these pearls of great price, must he kept in the warmth of the heart’s love, or they become but dead words. To know by heart is the only way to know God. We must carry the glad consciousness of His presence; we must live with the door of communication ever open to Him. The real treasures of life are those that the heart takes care of. Broken bits of memory—a face, a book, a tone, a word, a promise, a whispered wish, a hope—these make the glory and wealth of life. Amongst these the Word of God is to find a place. “These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart.”’

TEACHING THE CHILDREN

‘Thou shalt teach … thy children.’

Deuteronomy 6:7

I. See what grows out of loving God, as the flower and fruit grow out of the root.—‘Thou shall teach these words diligently unto thy children.’ Because the spirit of religion is love, it is to be imparted to others. The service of God was not to shut any in such contemplation and heavenly-mindedness that there was to be no room for neighbour or family. There is a religious life in which a great flame and heat is kindled, but it all goes up the chimney, and never comes out to warm the house or to cook the dinner. The blessed man is not he who goes soaring up into the third heavens lost in the light, but he who is as a tree planted, whose roots are wrapped about the rocks, whose head stretches into the heavens, and whose branches spread over the earth, generously yielding its fruit in its season, whilst the birds come and sing in the branches thereof. This is ever the order. ‘These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them to thy children.’

II. Then there is the method by which the children are to be taught. ‘Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shall talk of them.’ The word rendered teach is given in the margin as whet or sharpen. It is as if by talking of the truth we ourselves get it clearly and sharply set before us. And by talking of it to the children it is kept bright and clean. Talking means something simple, graciously familiar and kindly. We are apt to make all that has to do with the service of God so stiff and stately and preaching is apt to grow wearisome and dull. It is a mercy to have our words broken up by the prattling questions of the little ones. Talking means something at once more human and more humane than either sermon or catechism. He who is love must be talked of lovingly. Beware, above all, of words about God that do make Him a terror to the little ones. The gracious Saviour who said, ‘Suffer the little ones to come unto Me,’ is much displeased if we try either to drag or drive the little ones to Him. Love alone can lead them. Threats can only terrify or harden. And He who bids us ‘Feed My lambs’ will have us deal very tenderly with them. God makes our food not only sustaining, but with a relish and deliciousness that makes eating a pleasure. So are we to feed His lambs. Make it tempting, delicious, and above all, see that is within their reach. A great preacher once said that some people seem to read the command as if it were ‘Feed my giraffes.’

III. Nor was it only in the home that this topic was to be kept ever to the front. Always and everywhere, by the way, lying down and rising up, they were to meditate in the law of the Lord and to talk of His precepts. The words of the seventieth Psalm, from the first to the eighth verse, set forth the purpose to which they are here exhorted. And the example of the Lord Jesus as He walked and talked with His disciples, and found in all the fair things of nature and in all the callings of men the parables that illustrated the truth, beautifully show us how it is to be done.

IV. Nor was it by talking only that the Word of God was to be kept ever before them. ‘Thou shall bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and on thy gates.’ There were but few copies of the law, and they were thus to have before them the most impressive and comprehensive portions at hand. It was from this custom of having passages written on parchment and worn that the custom of the Phylacteries arose. ‘But when the Bibles came to be common among them there was less occasion for this expedient. It was prudently and piously provided by the first reformers of the English Church that then, when Bibles were scarce, some select portions of Scripture should be written on the pillars and walls of the churches, which the people might make familiar to them.… It is also thus intimated that we are never to be ashamed of our religion, nor to own ourselves under the check and government of it. Let it be written on our gates, and let every one see that we believe Jehovah to be God alone, and believe ourselves bound to love Him with all our hearts.’

‘WHAT HAST THOU THAT THOU HAST NOT RECEIVED?’

‘Houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not.’

Deuteronomy 6:11

In the chapters of Deuteronomy which we read to-day, Moses is doing for the Israelites as a nation what we might do for ourselves or for others in respect of our smaller lives—helping them to anticipate experience, to paint beforehand their coming responsibilities, lest they should fall short of them. This is to be one feature of their life and their responsibility, and it is one that finds echoes and analogies in our own experience.

I. They were not pioneers, going to break up virgin soil, to make homes in a wilderness where human life had never yet found resting-place. They were going to inherit the toil of others.—It is a condition which if faced and realised must bring with it some solemn thoughts. In their case there was an additional consideration. They were not succeeding, as by the law of nature all succeed, to the heritage of predecessors. Their wealth was to be founded on the disgrace and disinheritance of others. God was dispossessing in their favour an ancient people with the accumulated stores of a long civilisation. Moses warns them of the dangers of this position. It imposes upon them high obligations; but it might not only fail to make them conscious of these, it might actually minister to base impulses, to pride, ingratitude, sloth. As a protection against these, he exhorts them always to remember how and why they had been put in possession of these good things—not for their own merits. Three thoughts are suggested to the Israelites as to this bountiful provision of comforts and instruments, which they were to find ready to their hands in the Promised Land.

1. They were all God’s undeserved gifts to them. They had not earned them any more than they had provided them for themselves. They must receive them as at His hand, to be used in His service.

2. So far as they were owed at all, they were owed not to them but to pious ancestors, another item added to the debt not to be discharged, another link to bind generations together.

3. They had changed hands once because their possessors had misused them. The new possessors could not remember this without having the reflection forced home to them that they too held God’s gifts on trust and might forfeit them.

II. Is not this a type and parable of all human life?—‘Houses full of good things, which thou filledst not, wells digged, which thou diggedst not.’

What a tiny fraction of all that makes life pleasant or interesting or beautiful is what any one generation adds to it by its own energy or deserves by its own virtues. We are the heirs of the ages. And yet how hard we find it to put ourselves back and realise that what comes to us so easily, comforts that we can hardly imagine foregoing, knowledge that seems to us elementary, ideas which seem to lie at the bottom of all our thinking, are the earnings of the hard toil, brave effort, patient thought, of years long gone by. ‘Others,’ very many others, ‘have laboured,’ the forgotten workers and thinkers of long centuries, and ‘we have entered into their labours.’

And yet once more—of our individual lives. There after all is the root. It is there that the mischief is first found, the pride and ingratitude and sloth which mar afterwards the life of societies.

What have we ‘that we did not receive’? And why did we receive it? ‘Houses full of good things that ye filled not!’

Think especially of the greatest and most sacred of human societies to which we were admitted in the first hours of our life—taken into Christ’s arms, blessed by Him, given back to our earthly parents to be brought up for Him as sons of God, with all the riches of His grace around us, the sense of forgiveness, the promise of His help, perpetual access to Him in prayer and communion, the comfort of His word, the sure hope of His Resurrection.

Why has God given us all these blessings? Not for anything that we have done; for be our lives good or bad, the gifts are, most of them, antecedent to any conduct of our own that could explain them.

But surely we do owe them in great part, under His good providence, to the prayers and efforts and high unselfish purposes of those who have gone before us—to loving, faithful, Christian parents, to ‘founders and benefactors,’ not in the narrower senses, but in the larger sense, of all who in their time and sphere have worked for the permanent good of men, and done their part, large or small, in building up the fabric of ordered and Christian life.

Dean Wickham.

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‘Moses exhausts all his resources in the way of persuasion. His one grand object is to move the people to obedience; and as he argues from their past history, their present blessed condition, and what God has shown him of their future, it seems sometimes as though, were it possible, he would, in his great yearning over them, lift the whole nation in his arms up to the high spiritual level on which he himself lived. But they cannot rise to it. They are like children beside Moses. When he would seek to have them realise the high privilege and honour of being God’s chosen ones; when he pours forth his spiritual ardour and impassioned appeal, there is no response—his words fall on dull ears. Times and again he is compelled to fall back to the dead level of material considerations, which alone will move them.’