In answering the scribe’s question, “Which is the first commandment of all?” (Mark 12:28), Jesus quoted from the Old Testament:

The first is,
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord!
And you shall love the Lord your God
From all your heart
And from all your soul
And from all your mind
And from all your strength.
— Mark 12:29-30; cf. Matthew 22:37, Luke 10:27, Deuteronomy 6:5, 10:12, 30:6

When we look at this verse carefully, we will realize the Lord is showing us here that our love for God must involve every part of our being.

As we mentioned in the previous Note, our human spirit is included in this verse in the Lord’s mention of loving God “from all our heart.” This is because our heart in the Bible is comprised of our spirit together with our soul; it refers to the totality of our inward being. Yet, our spirit is not mentioned explicitly in this verse because the function of our human spirit is not to love God, but to contact Him; it is our soul that has the function of loving God. (See “Loving God with Our Whole Being” • 1.)

So, after speaking of our heart, this verse goes on to speak in a general way of our soul. Then, it very specifically deals with all the different parts of our soul.

To state it very briefly, our soul has three main functions, or parts: to think (Psalm 13:2), which relates to our mind; to have feelings (SS. 1:7), which relates to our emotion; and to choose (Job 7:15), which relates to our will. Thus, we may say the three basic parts of our soul, of who we are, are our mind, emotion, and will.

So, how do we see these parts of our being in this verse?

First of all, the emotion is involved, because the Lord, using this verse, is telling us to love God, and to love is a function of our emotion. Second, this verse speaks explicitly of loving God with our mind; all of our thoughts must be brought into captivity so that we love Christ with a virgin’s love, a love unspoiled by the world or damaged by Satan (2 Cor. 11:2-3). And finally, the reference to loving God “from all our strength” refers, in its inward aspect, to our will, to the inward resolve, the “strength of will,” to carry out our intention to love God, very practically, in terms of how we choose to live our life.

But there is a reason why this verse does not refer explicitly to the will, as it does to the mind. That is because, in addition to the inward aspect of our will, the “strength” of our being also has an outward aspect, namely, our physical body; it is our physical body that has to use its strength carry out what our will has decided, and what our mind has considered, based upon what our emotion feels of love for the Lord.

So, this verse does indeed speak in a specific way of how every part of our being must be involved in our love for the Lord.

One very prominent theologian in the 20th century referred to this verse as nothing more than an “accumulation of terms.” However, as we can see from all the above, that is absolutely not the case. Rather, when we consider this verse more carefully, we realize how it shows us that to have a genuine love for the Lord is not at all a light matter. Rather, we must present ourselves fully to the Lord, in every part of our being, spirit and soul and body, heart and soul and mind and strength, to love Him in an absolute way.

Sent to our mailing list on
—  21 December 2024 —