Mark 12:32 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Mark 12:32

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If the lawyer came to debate with Christ, he never got that far. The answer he hears is so right and so true that he can add nothing. He is stunned. He has never approached it in this way. Love to God first; love to man second. He is transfixed, he is overcome. Listen to him: he is repeating Christ’s words. He is slowly rolling them round his mind and it is dawning on him what they mean. What an about turn. What a change. He had changed his mind about Christ. His wrong theology crumbled. Loving God: that is how to live; it is my love for him and sincerity for him which counts, not all the meticulous details of the law. The man was under deep conviction. The people who heard were astounded at his response. He is not going to continue with this debate. He is withdrawing from it. The Pharisees were horrified. Their champion, their great debater was petering out; he was clearly changing in heart and mind. It was the opposite of what he should have said and Christ demonstrates his mercy in yet another life, even when under trial, in a sense, and his power to save.‘Is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.’ Those sacrifices were symbols of how God would make a great sacrifice one day for sinners by sending the Lamb of God into the world.. Exactly how much of that he saw just at that time, we cannot tell, but he realised, it isn’t carrying out the ritual or the sacrifices that matters, it is what they mean. This is more important than all the ceremonies. He is not brought to say the ceremonies are no good. He was to learn in due course that they stood only until Christ came. He fulfils them all. But he is more than all of them put together.

Application

If anybody is to be converted, the way God works is this. He puts into us a deep desire, a need to honour him, to love him, to be accepted by him. We understand that we owe him our love, our lives, and as soon as that comes into the heart, we realise we can’t do this. We can’t love God: we are sinful, we are selfish, we love ourselves and the things of this world too much. My mind cannot love God in a pure way, or desire him. Conviction dawns and that’s what happened in the life of this scribe. He sees the law in a new way: ‘I thought righteousness was carrying out all the meticulous details of the law. I thought it was all about observing ceremonies so that I could be proud of myself. I never realised it is love to God’, and he came under conviction. ‘I haven’t done this. I can’t do this.’

What do the atheists do? What do the humanists do? They take away the first – love to God; and they try to speak about the second only – love to fellow man, and it doesn’t work. ‘Love to God? We hate him! Love and humanitarian help to fellow man: that is everything to us,’ they say.

When you witness to people and they resist you, when we preach and people come sometimes to service after service and they won’t listen, don’t give up. Whenever you witness, whenever we preach Christ can transform the most unlikely people. Even his opponents may have their hearts opened and be brought them under conviction. That is what is happening here.

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Mark 12:32 Commentary and Bible Study