Luke 10:28

Answered right. Later, when Jesus gave the same answer to another lawyer’s question, the questioner commended Him with the words, “Master, thou hast said the truth” (Mark 12:32). Christ’s answer had bypassed the mass of oral and written comment on the law, and even all the specific precepts of the law themselves. Every precept of “the law,” in the broader sense of “law” (see on Prov. 3:1) as well as in the narrower sense of the Ten Commandments, is an expression, extension, and application of the principle of “love” (see on Luke 10:27). The form of the lawyer’s answer was entirely correct; what he lacked was spiritual insight into the application of this principle to his life (see on Matt. 5:17-22). He knew the letter of the law, but not its spirit. This knowledge comes only when the principles of the law are applied to the life (see on John 7:17).

This do. According to the Greek, “keep on doing this”; that is, begin applying these principles to your life and keep on applying them. Apparently the trouble was that this man, like the rich young ruler, thought he had kept all these things from his youth up (see Matt. 19:20), but at the same time realized that something was still lacking in his spiritual life. Legal righteousness never satisfies the soul, for there is something vital lacking until the love of God takes control of the life (see 2 Cor. 5:14). Only as a man fully surrenders himself to the influence of that love (see on Luke 10:27) can he truly keep the spirit of the law (see Rom. 8:3, 4).

Live. That is, in the full sense of the word, both here and in the hereafter (see on John 10:10). However, the context shows that Jesus here refers primarily to eternal life (see Matt. 19:16, 17; Luke 10:25).