Probably no question ever asked is fraught with such profound and universal import to humanity as is the question once put to Jesus by a student of the law in these words: "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" The question occurs in an incident related in the tenth chapter of Luke's Gospel. Jesus made no direct answer, but by a counter-question drew from the student his own knowledge as to what rule the law prescribed upon the subject of gaining eternal life. "What is written in the law?" was Jesus' return question, and the student proved himself no mere tyro in legal knowledge, for he at once replied by quoting from the law the commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself."
The student's answer was correct, for the approving reply of Jesus was, "Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live." In view of the fact that Jesus, at this incident, says of this commandment that obedience to it brings life,—gains immortality,—and that on another occasion he had said "there is none other commandment greater than these," and on still another occasion that "on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets," there can be no limit to the importance of a scientifically correct understanding of the answer. The commandment calls for motive, activity,—activity in contradistinction to mere passivity, and that activity is love. It will be noted that there is only one verb, viz., love, in the whole commandment, and hence there can be but one motive, one activity or kind of love, notwithstanding that this one motive includes within its single embrace both God and neighbor: "Thou shalt love . . . God . . . and thy neighbor."
One may without any great difficulty form some kind of a concept of the meaning of the first branch of the commandment, viz., "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God," and may flatter himself into a belief that his concept so formed is fairly correct and may, upon some vague theory, hope that he is obeying it and entitling himself to the reward of obedience; but when he comes to the formation of a concept of the second branch, viz., "Thou shalt love . . . thy neighbor as thyself," he is liable to run into such vagueness as not to be able honestly to affirm that he understands. Such seems to have been the condition of mind even of the student whose accurate statement of the commandment won from the great Master an unqualified approval, and hence his further question to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" His understanding failed him as to this latter yet integral branch of the commandment.
