It started way back with Moses and a list of 613 commandments for the Israelites to follow.  248 of them were thou shalts and 365 were thou shalt nots.  It was a lot to keep track of, let alone make sense of.  It seems the Jews never quite realized that God was actually trying to teach them things through these commandments, not just give them a bunch of stuff to worry about.

Within Moses’ lifetime, God had already had to summarize the commandments for the people.  That’s really what the Ten Commandments are.  They are a summary of the 613 commandments, not just to aid in remembering them, but in making it still more clear that God was trying to teach them something about Himself and how they were meant to live in this world.  The first four of the ten commandments related to our relationship with God.  The last six of the ten related to our relationship with our fellow men.

By the time Jesus had come in the flesh, it was clear that people were still struggling with the commandments, often called the law. Jesus came into a world where His people were very concerned about appearing as though they obeyed the law, but still missing the whole point of it all.  He basically tells them that it is the heart behind the law that is important, not just the keeping of it.  Again, God is trying to get across that the law is supposed to teach us something, not just condemn us when we can’t live every little bit of it.  Jesus gives us yet another summary, this time summarizing the ten commandments.  When Jesus is asked in the book of Luke, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” he answers with verse 27 of chapter 10 (numbers in parenthesis added by me); (1) You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and (2) ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ So Jesus summarizes the ten commandments, which were the summary of 613 commandments, with two commandments.   The first, love God.  The second, love your neighbor.   Not only do all of the 613 commandments fit under this umbrella, but it begins to finally teach us what one of the purposes of the law actually is… to teach us how to love.

Jesus will restate these two commandments repeatedly during his ministry, and His disciples would follow His lead in their letters.  I think the most beautiful example of this is found in 1 John 3:23.  John has just completed an amazing discussion about how loving God and abiding in Him means keeping His commandments.  The natural question that would follow for someone reading this is the very question he addresses, “Which commandments?  All of them?  Just the two?  Just the ten?  All 613?”

The verse reads…  And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another…

I think this is one last summary for us of the law.  I kind of know what it means to love other people, but what does it really mean to love God?  How do we do it?  John tells us that we do it by believing on the name of His Son Jesus Christ.  That is how we love the Father. We believe in the Son.  And don’t get confused that this simply means to believe in any old version of Jesus you choose to believe in.  It’s become quite popular to “customize” Jesus by choosing to accept or reject pieces of His character based on religious or personal bias.  To believe on the name of Jesus Christ means to believe in His character, His claims, His deity, His ability to save, His literal Sonship of the Father, to believe on the true Jesus of the Bible.  To believe on Him as He actually is.

There is no way I could keep all 613 commandments of the Old Testament, but I can (and do) believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ.  And about the loving one another part?   That’s tough, admittedly.  But here’s the cool thing.  Once you truly believe in Jesus, He helps you with that part.  It is only God’s love in us that can allow us to love one another the way God wants us to.

So, if I may add my own summary, the heart behind all of the commandments seems to be summed up in two words.  Jesus and love.

How beautiful.