Lord’s Day 2
Q4. What does God's law require of us?
Christ teaches us this in a summary in Matthew 22:37–40: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets."
Scripture Proofs — King James Version
Deuteronomy 6:5
“And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”
Leviticus 19:18
“Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.”
Commentary — Zacharias Ursinus (1616)
Christ rehearses the substance of the law in Matt. 22:37, and in Luke 10:27, from Deut. 6:5, and Levit. 19.
8. He explains what is meant by that declaration: "Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them;" that is, he who does not love God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind, and with all his strength, and his neighbor as himself. These several parts must be explained more fully.
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." To love God with the whole heart, is, upon a due acknowledgment of his infinite goodness, reverently to regard and esteem him as our highest good, to love him supremely, to rejoice and trust in him alone, and to prefer his glory to all other things, so that there may not be in us the least thought, inclination, or desire for anything that might be displeasing to him; yea, rather to be willing to suffer the loss of all things that may be dear to us, or to endure the heaviest calamity, than that we should be separated from communion with him, or offend him in the smallest matter, and lastly, to direct all this to the end that he alone may be glorified by us.