Tuesday Morning in the Temple

174:4.1An­other group of Sad­ducees had been in­structed to ask Je­sus en­tan­gling ques­tions about an­gels, but when they be­held the fate of their com­rades who had sought to en­trap him with ques­tions con­cern­ing the res­ur­rec­tion, they very wisely de­cided to hold their peace; they re­tired with­out ask­ing a ques­tion. It was the pre­ar­ranged plan of the con­fed­er­ated Phar­isees, scribes, Sad­ducees, and Hero­di­ans to fill up the en­tire day with these en­tan­gling ques­tions, hop­ing thereby to dis­credit Je­sus be­fore the peo­ple and at the same time ef­fec­tively to pre­vent his hav­ing any time for the procla­ma­tion of his dis­turb­ing teach­ings.

174:4.2Then came for­ward one of the groups of the Phar­isees to ask ha­rass­ing ques­tions, and the spokesman, sig­nal­ing to Je­sus, said: “Mas­ter, I am a lawyer, and I would like to ask you which, in your opin­ion, is the great­est com­mand­ment?” Je­sus an­swered: “There is but one com­mand­ment, and that one is the great­est of all, and that com­mand­ment is: ‘Hear O Is­rael, the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.’ This is the first and great com­mand­ment. And the sec­ond com­mand­ment is like this first; in­deed, it springs di­rectly there­from, and it is: ‘You shall love your neigh­bor as your­self.’ There is no other com­mand­ment greater than these; on these two com­mand­ments hang all the law and the proph­ets.”

174:4.3When the lawyer per­ceived that Je­sus had an­swered not only in ac­cor­dance with the high­est con­cept of Jew­ish re­li­gion, but that he had also an­swered wisely in the sight of the as­sem­bled mul­ti­tude, he thought it the bet­ter part of valor openly to com­mend the Mas­ter’s re­ply. Ac­cord­ingly, he said: “Of a truth, Mas­ter, you have well said that God is one and there is none be­side him; and that to love him with all the heart, un­der­stand­ing, and strength, and also to love one’s neigh­bor as one’s self, is the first and great com­mand­ment; and we are agreed that this great com­mand­ment is much more to be re­garded than all the burnt of­fer­ings and sac­ri­fices.” When the lawyer an­swered thus dis­creetly, Je­sus looked down upon him and said, “My friend, I per­ceive that you are not far from the king­dom of God.”

174:4.4Je­sus spoke the truth when he re­ferred to this lawyer as be­ing “not far from the king­dom,” for that very night he went out to the Mas­ter’s camp near Geth­sem­ane, pro­fessed faith in the gospel of the king­dom, and was bap­tized by Josiah, one of the dis­ci­ples of Ab­ner.

174:4.5Two or three other groups of the scribes and Phar­isees were pres­ent and had in­tended to ask ques­tions, but they were ei­ther dis­armed by Je­sus’ an­swer to the lawyer, or they were de­terred by the dis­com­fi­ture of all who had un­der­taken to en­snare him. Af­ter this no man dared to ask him an­other ques­tion in pub­lic.

174:4.6When no more ques­tions were forth­com­ing, and as the noon hour was near, Je­sus did not re­sume his teach­ing but was con­tent merely to ask the Phar­isees and their as­so­ciates a ques­tion. Said Je­sus: “Since you ask no more ques­tions, I would like to ask you one. What do you think of the De­liv­erer? That is, whose son is he?” Af­ter a brief pause one of the scribes an­swered, “The Mes­siah is the son of David.” And since Je­sus knew that there had been much de­bate, even among his own dis­ci­ples, as to whether or not he was the son of David, he asked this fur­ther ques­tion: “If the De­liv­erer is in­deed the son of David, how is it that, in the Psalm which you ac­credit to David, he him­self, speak­ing in the spirit, says, ‘The Lord said to my lord, sit on my right hand un­til I make your en­e­mies the foot­stool of your feet.’ If David calls him Lord, how then can he be his son?” Al­though the rulers, the scribes, and the chief priests made no re­ply to this ques­tion, they like­wise re­frained from ask­ing him any more ques­tions in an ef­fort to en­tan­gle him. They never an­swered this ques­tion which Je­sus put to them, but af­ter the Mas­ter’s death they at­tempted to es­cape the dif­fi­culty by chang­ing the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of this Psalm so as to make it re­fer to Abra­ham in­stead of the Mes­siah. Oth­ers sought to es­cape the dilemma by dis­al­low­ing that David was the au­thor of this so-called Mes­sianic Psalm.

174:4.7A short time back the Phar­isees had en­joyed the man­ner in which the Sad­ducees had been si­lenced by the Mas­ter; now the Sad­ducees were de­lighted by the fail­ure of the Phar­isees; but such ri­valry was only mo­men­tary; they speed­ily for­got their time-hon­ored dif­fer­ences in the united ef­fort to stop Je­sus’ teach­ings and do­ings. But through­out all of these ex­pe­ri­ences the com­mon peo­ple heard him gladly.