Which is the first of all the commandments? We live in a very “linear” and hierarchical world. We love grading and comparing things so that we can go for the best. In asking Jesus which commandment was the first, the intention of this teacher of the law was not to set up Jesus so that he could find something of which to accuse him. He probably just wanted to know so that he could “invest” in the right project. Just like we do, he perhaps didn’t want to waste his time observing statutes that were the lowest in rank and at the bottom of the hierarchy. Jesus did give him an answer, and he went home a happy and satisfied individual because Jesus’ answer affirmed what he had known all along: that loving God comes first and everything else follow. But in addition to the first commandment, Jesus added a second commandment: loving the neighbor as oneself. He added it, not because it was “second” as such, but to show the teacher of the law that the “first” commandment did not have a meaning apart from the “second,” and that these two cannot be separated.
The love of God (the first commandment) is shown, not in its knowledge, but in practicing it. This is where the “second” commandment becomes requisite. While the teacher of the law might have had a totally different understanding of “first,” by volunteering the second commandment, Jesus reveals the correct understanding of the love of God being a first commandment. It is a commandment that is “first” among many others because it opens up the way for the expression of those others. Without it, the other commandments cease to be. The other commandments are brought into existence by this “first” commandment. The other commandments can only be rightly expressed in, and through this first commandment. They become the expression or rather the extension of the first commandment. The apostle John reminds us that we can only love God whom we have not seen by loving the neighbor whom we can see (cf. I John 4:20). Jesus would later expand or rather explain this answer by telling us who a neighbor is (cf. Luke 10:25-37).