Sow LOVE AS DEFINED BY CHRIST, Reap The KINGDOM OF GOD in the earth.
In Matthew 22 Jesus gives a concise summary of the Old Testament Law and Prophets in response to the cagey goading of the Pharisees:
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
(And even the conciseness of this summary led to another pharasaic quibbling question, “Who is my neighbor?” That led Jesus to the story of the Good Samaritan ….. a selfless, generous, decentered other-focused response to the need of a helpless and broken stranger.)
So, to whom is this directed: “Love others as you love yourself?” It is to law-driven Pharisees of OT law bondage… From Jesus’ perspective, if they just did that it would be enough. Just obedience as significant as that would cover a multitude of sins, justifying one in righteousness through obedience (instead of through grace by faith) and Isaiah said in Is.1:18 ” Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow “….. snow…. a COVER that gives the outward appearance of goodness, imputed by God. That love for others (that is at least as much as you love yourself, which is really a higher standard even itself, than most people meet. It is like saying in current lingo, “Love others with the love language that speaks to you and maybe they’ll figure out how you want to be loved. ” But that is not the point, it is to selflessly love others perfectly, in the way that they need to be loved to become the best of who they are intended by God to be) just loving others as one loves herself …. the best you know and can do out of your own understanding….can provide a covering for sins. That summary to the Pharisees also gives birth to a rephrasing of the Great Commandment, Part 2 in this principle from Luke 6:31 & Matthew 7:12: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”Ahhh, yes, the Golden Rule that once was considered good enough for anyone of any faith and community to follow.
In his famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: “All things . . . that you want men to do to you, you also MUST DO to them,”(Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31) which sounds a good deal more like a Golden Imperative…..No wonder in today’s culture it has been erased from the public square, not simply because of who said it, but because of the demand for fulfilling the OT letter of the law. Those who prefer to separate Christ and Christianity from the roots of Judaism that Jesus loved, lived, and lifted the concept of “love” to a new, higher standard of the Spirit of the Law. But, interestingly, most people today using “love” as their standard for loving persist in quoting these oft-repeated OT restating of the Law to the Pharisees as the touchstone….”Love others as you love yourself….. as you wish to be loved.” Where is the focus? On the quality of love as I desire to be loved. Another’s love is measured by one’s own standard of love as she desires to experience it herself…… a highly variable, subjective, very selfish and self-centered view of love.
These phrasings of OT law by Jesus reflect accurately the Law given to the Hebrews and were intended to steer the Pharisees away from their hypocritical mindset of “Do as we say, not as we do” that they used to privilege themselves and elevate themselves above the people they were to teach and care for.
But consider this…..In John 13:34-38, after Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem, eaten his final Passover meal with his disciples, washed their feet, including Judas’, Jesus says in no uncertain terms:
“A NEW COMMAND I give you: Love one another. AS I HAVE LOVED YOU, SO MUST YOU LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 35 By THIS everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” 36 Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?”Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now,but you will follow later.”37 Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”38 Then Jesus answered, “WILL YOU REALLY LAY DOWN YOUR LIFE FOR ME? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!”
This is an entirely new measure and standard for love and represents the Spirit the Law, a higher New Testament. Messianic-fulfilled standard….OF LOVING AS GOD LOVES, not only according to one’s own understanding and desire for love of herself….as foretold by the Prophets (love as I have loved you) instead of the former standard (love as you love yourself, or as you would desire to be loved by others.)
Jeremiah 31:31-34; “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I WILL PUT MY LAW IN THEIR MINDS AND WRITE IT ON THEIR HEARTS; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
The Incarnate Christ has and is making God known to all…. this Jesus who confronted Pharisees, the Temple moneychangers, and Roman authorities and also said, “Let these little ones come to me” is the fulfillment of this promised new covenant. His way is the new covenant born of THE SPIRIT OF THE LAW ( expressed by the Prophets)……it is love in the selfless, agape, sacrificial manner of Christ Himself AND embraces obedience to the Spirit of the Law that lives in His disciples.
Ezekiel 11:17-20 reveals it, too:
“Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again.’ 18 “They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols.19 I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.20 Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. 21 But as for those whose hearts are devoted to their vile images and detestable idols, I will bring down on their own heads what they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
In Jesus’ heartfelt, fervent, effectual prayer for his disciples (then and throughout ages to come) He spoke of the new covenant of love He exemplified once more and where it arises from and who bears it :
John 17:22-26
22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
Jesus really puts it in no uncertain terms in John 15:8-27
“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’ 26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.”
If you bear the Spirit, he knows and bears witness to Jesus Christ. Period!
Love by the world’s standard =\= obedience to God’s Word.
Love by The Kingdom’s standard = obedience to God’s commands, in particular the NEW COMMANDMENT OF JESUS …… to love others, even our enemies, as He loves and as He is loved by the Father….. selflessly and desiring God’s best for them.
“All the law and prophets hang on these two”. If all you do is the second one…. loving neighbors as you love yourself( in Pharisee fashion )…… without fully embracing the obedience required of the first one, loving God with all of who one is, one’s human understanding and expression of love for others and self may become the shackle that keeps you from abundant life and true freedom in Christ!