"Your God is too small." (JB Phillips)
It can be easy to create an image of God that is just not big enough. The Law bound the Jewish people together in the worship of the one God. It gave them a way to live in harmony with one another. However, meticulously observing rules and regulations does not necessarily produce charity. Indeed, it can have quite the opposite effect, as the Pharisees proved. Their minute observance led them to parade their virtue and despise those who were not so diligent.
Jesus, God incarnate, prioritised the commandments of love of God and of neighbour. These encapsulate all the other commandments. His teaching constantly pointed to the God of infinite love and compassion. When asked about forgiveness by Peter, he used the figure of "seventy times seven" to show that forgiveness of wrongdoing has to be unlimited (Matt. 18:21-22). When questioned about “who is my neighbour”, he told the parable of the Good Samaritan to indicate that every human being is my neighbour (Luke 10:25-37). He praised the widow who gave two mites to the treasury, a sum which would have been despised by those who gave lavish amounts from their ample resources (Mark 12:41.44). Jesus knew she had given all she had to live on.
Jesus lived out these commandments to the utmost degree. In obedience to his Father, he gave his life on the cross for love of his neighbours.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son” (John 3:16).