Matthew 22:36-42
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them,
42 Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The Son of David.
What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he?
1 Sam 15
9. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not completely destroy them; but every thing that was despised and worthless, that they destroyed completely:
10. Then came the word of the Lord to Samuel, saying:
11. I regret that I have set up Saul to be king; for he is turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments; And it grieved Samuel; and he cried to the Lord all night:
12. And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a monument, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal:
13. And Samuel came to Saul; and Saul said to him, Blessed be you of the Lord; I have performed the commandment of the Lord:
14. And Samuel said, What is the meaning then of this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear:
15. And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; and the rest we have completely destroyed:
16. Then Samuel said to Saul, Stay, and I will tell you what the Lord has said to me this night; And he said to him, Speak:
17. And Samuel said, When you were little in your own sight, were you not made the chief of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed you king over Israel:
18. And the Lord sent you on a journey, and said, Go and completely destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed:
19. Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord, but did fly upon the booty, and did evil in the sight of the Lord:
20. And Saul said to Samuel, Indeed, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have completely destroyed the Amalekites:
21. But the people took of the booty, sheep and oxen, the best of the devoted property to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal:
22. And Samuel said, Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen better than the fat of rams:
23. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry; Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king:
24. And Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned; for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and your words; because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice:
25. And therefore, I beg you, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord:
26. And Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you; for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel:
27. And as Samuel turned about to go away, he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it tore:
28. And Samuel said to him, The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day, and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you:
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself =
Thou shalt love DAVID as thyself.
David's heart was perfect (complete) with the Lord, because David loved the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind. IOW, David = the Shema, "Hear O Israel"...
David's heart, mind, and soul *was* the Shema. Messiah son of David is the perfection of David. It answers the question, "If David called him Lord, how then is he his son?"
David's son is the master, having mastered the Law via the heart of his father David. He *is* David, only better. That's another fascinating subject, how David becomes perfected through his own son. A child has both a father, and a mother.
to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen better than the fat of rams
Whosoever loves David as himself would do anything that David asked, with eagerness and joy. And David being the king, to please the king is really important, so it is a good thing to love the king that way. It would be a guarantee that no one would run afoul of the Law. It would be the natural order and desire to “obey”, there not being any sense of obligation at all.
Genesis 29:20 And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.
It’s about Jesus, not David.
David was a man after God’s own heart.
His actions were far from perfect and he never perfectly obeyed God’s commands either.
NOBODY can.
NOBODY has the righteous perfection that God demands of someone for them to be in right relationship with Him. That’s why it has to be imputed to him, credited to the man’s account from someone else who DID fulfill the Law perfectly.
Even if someone could from this point forward obey God’s Law perfectly in the smallest detail with absolute heart perfection, it still wouldn’t save anyone because everyone has sinned at least once in their lives and that one sin, even if they had an otherwise perfect record, would be enough to condemn them.
Abraham BELIEVED God and it was credited to him as righteousness. He wasn’t declared righteous after obeying. He was declared righteous BEFORE obeying and his life reflected that later.
Works followed as the result of the faith which they always will, but that faith is what saved him before the works were manifest.
And the works don’t keep anyone saved. We don’t begin by the Spirit and continue in the flesh.