The question about the greatest commandment is seemingly straightforward but it is far from one. They have been presenting their emphasis on tradition and purity laws as an expression of their love of God and their commitment to the greatest commandment articulated in Deuteronomy 6:5. If the Sadducees can get Jesus to admit that the commandment to love God was, in fact, the greatest commandment, they can claim that they have been right all along and silence Jesus. If he refuses to admit that it was the greatest commandment, they can accuse him of sacrilege.

Jesus quickly make it clear that a sophisticated and responsible interpretation of scriptures cannot be reduced to a simplistic understanding of the greatest commandment. Being religious cannot be compressed into a single goal. He quotes the commandment from Deuteronomy—Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind—and rightly calls it the greatest commandment. And he quickly adds the qualifier “first.” The qualifier clarifies that there is more to it and anticipates a second commandment from Leviticus 19:18—Love your neighbor as yourself.

While the first commandment represents the vertical dimension of one’s faith (human-divine relationship), the second commandment represents the horizontal dimension (human-human relationship). The second commandment is comparable to the first in emphasis and significance.

The quick succession and the manner in which Jesus states the two commandments highlights a complementary and symbiotic relationship between the two. The second builds upon the foundation of the first but the first manifests itself through the second. While second is built upon the first, the first is not complete without the second. Loving our neighbors is, to a great extent, an act of loving God in whose image the neighbors are made. One cannot claim to love God unless one does everything in one’s capacity to love one’s neighbors.