What Is the Will of God?
Matthew 22:34-40
Illustration
by Rudolf Bultmann

"What, positively, is the will of God? The demand for love. "You shall love your neighbor as yourself!" as the second greatest commandment belongs together with the first: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" (Mk. 12:28-34) There is no obedience to God which does not have to prove itself in the concrete situation of meeting one's neighbor, as in Luke (10:29-37), probably unhistorical but with the right of correct understanding of the subject matter, makes clear by combining the illustrative narrative of the Good Samaritan with Jesus' discussion of the greatest commandment. The demand for love surpasses every legal demand; it knows no boundary of limit; it holds even in regard to one's enemy (Mt. 5:43-48).

Theology of the New Testament, by Rudolf Bultmann