#DailyDevotion What Must I Do To Inherit Eternal Life?
Luke 10:25-28 25Then an expert in the Law came forward to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what do I do to inherit everlasting life?” 26“What is written in the Law?” Jesus asked him. “What do you read there?” 27“Love the Lord your God with all your heart,” he answered, “and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28“You’re right,” Jesus told him. “Do that and you will live.”
Since Jesus didn’t go through the normal rabbinical schools and he was holding himself out as a rabbi, it isn’t particularly strange that rabbis of Jesus’ day would test him. Indeed at seminary, pastors’ conferences, and other church gatherings pastors test each other all the time. We all like to know where we stand with each other, we like to sharpen our own theological minds and this is a good way to do it.
So this rabbi comes, an expert in the Law (Torah) comes forward to test Jesus. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He asks Jesus. Now if you’re Lutheran, you’re probably going to answer, “Nothing! There’s nothing I must do to inherit anything. You just need to be a child of person to inherit something.” But this wasn’t a strange question for them. They’ve been off the tracks for a while theologically. Really, if you are looking at the Law a better question might be, “What must I do to maintain my inheritance?” For the Isrealites inherited the Promised Land from the promise made by the LORD to the Israelites to Abraham. But they were required to keep the Law if they were to remain in the inheritance. Now how do we get from there to doing the things of the Law to inherit eternal life? It is likely they are coming Leviticus 18:5 in which the LORD promises if we keep the Law, we will live.
Well like a good rabbi, Jesus replies with a question of his own, “What does it say in the Law?” To which the expert in the Law quotes from Deut. 6:5, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” He also quotes Lev. 19:18, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Indeed by Jesus’ day and probably long before the teachers of the Law saw the two tables of the commandments (1-3) dealt with the LORD and commandments (4-10) dealt with our neighbor. All the other commandments, rules, regulations, stipulations and the like of the Torah were explanations of how to keep these in our worship and everyday life for the Israelites.
If you do these two things you will live. You will have eternal life. But who does these two things, all the time, without fail, perfectly? Only Jesus kept these two commandments and all the other commandments of God. Only Jesus perfectly fulfilled the will of God. So how will you inherit eternal life? Jesus tells us, “Everyone who believes in me has eternal life.” If you are repentant, put your trust in Jesus’ work of redemption and are baptized into his name, you are born from above and made a child of the Father, an heir of the kingdom.
Heavenly Father, give us faith to trust in Jesus so we may be your children and through faith in him fulfill your commands. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.