According to Jesus Himself, the two greatest commandments are love for God and love for one another. And carrying out these commands involves sacrifices that tangibly show love to others, which is what following in the footsteps of Jesus is really about.
Now, if the two greatest commandments are love for God and love for others, what are the two greatest sins?
Read Psalm 135:13–19. What does this reveal about a common sin emphasized throughout Scripture?
The Old Testament continually emphasizes the importance of love for God above all (see Deut. 6:5). This is closely related to the great sin of idolatry, which is the opposite of love for God.
Read Zechariah 7:9–12. According to the prophet Zechariah in this passage, what does God decry? How does it and the sin of idolatry relate to the two great commandments?
It is not just idolatry to which God responds with the anger of love but the mistreatment of His people, whether individually or corporately. God becomes angry at injustice because God is love.
The two great sins emphasized throughout the Old Testament are failings relative to the two great commandments: to love God and to love one another. The two greatest sins are failings of love. In short, then, you cannot keep the commandments if you do not love God and if you do not love others.
Indeed, 1 John 4:20, 21 states: “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also” (NKJV).
How do you explain why love for God cannot be separated from love for others? How do you understand this unbreakable link?
Supplemental EGW Notes
Many who bear the name of Christians are serving other gods besides the Lord. Our Creator demands our supreme devotion, our first allegiance. Anything which tends to abate our love for God, or to interfere with the service due Him, becomes thereby an idol. With some their lands, their houses, their merchandise, are the idols. Business enterprises are prosecuted with zeal and energy, while the service of God is made a secondary consideration. Family worship is neglected, secret prayer is forgotten. Many claim to deal justly with their fellow men, and seem to feel that in so doing they discharge their whole duty. But it is not enough to keep the last six commandments of the decalogue. We are to love the Lord our God with all the heart. Nothing short of obedience to every precept—nothing less than supreme love to God as well as equal love to our fellow man—can satisfy the claims of the divine law.—Ellen G. White Comments, in The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 2, 1011.
The enemy well knows that if we do not have love one for another, he can gain his object, and wound and weaken the church, by causing differences among brethren. He can lead them to surmise evil, to speak evil, to accuse, condemn, and hate one another. In this way the cause of God is brought into dishonor, the name of Christ is reproached, and untold harm is done to the souls of men. . . .
It is not the opposition of the world that will most endanger us; it is the evil cherished right in our midst that works our most grievous disaster. It is the unconsecrated lives of half-hearted professors that retard the work of the truth, and bring darkness upon the church of God.—This Day With God, p. 165.
Let it be printed on the mind that mercy and the love of God are to be expressed to the children of God. Search heaven and earth, and there is no truth revealed more powerful than that which is manifested in mercy to the very ones who need your sympathy and aid in breaking the yoke, and setting free the oppressed. Here the truth is lived, the truth is obeyed, the truth is taught as it is in Jesus.
There is a great amount of truth professed, but truth practiced in relieving our fellow men is of great influence, reaching unto heaven, and compassing eternity. Every soul in our world is on trial; every man’s experience, the common life history, tells in unmistakable language whether he is a doer of Christ’s words and His works. There is constantly recurring a large array of little things that God alone sees; to act out in these things the principles of truth will bring a precious reward. The great and important things are recognized by nearly all, but the knitting of these things with the supposed smaller things of life and closely connecting them as one, is too rarely done by professed Christians. Religion is too much profession, and too little reality.—This Day With God, p. 224.
The above quotations are taken from Ellen G. White Notes for the Sabbath School Lessons, published by Pacific Press Publishing Association. Used by permission.