Love Your Neighbor; Self-Love; Loving One Another, Matthew 22:39-40

Matt 22:39 “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’

Matt 22:40 “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

We will look at the second part of the passage we have been studying in Matthew 22 that began in verse 34 and goes to verse 40. The question that was asked Jesus is, what is the greatest of the Commandments, and his response was, first of all you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

We are going to move from what we have been studying in the previous verses, to the last two verses, focusing on this Old Testament commandment that is reiterated by the Lord Jesus Christ here, that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.

There are a number of things that we need to keep in mind, but first we always need to make sure that we are focusing contextually in the Scripture. We have to accurately understand what was being said, why it was being said, why the author in the human author—in this case, Matthew—is writing this, and presenting this.

This is just before the Lord Jesus Christ is going to be arrested, and the religious leaders are challenging him all day. They set Him up with these trick questions to try to trap Him so that he would say something that would either incriminate himself in the eyes of the Roman authorities, or that he would clearly violate the something from the from the Old Testament.

The third question is: "Teacher, what is the great commandment of the law?"

This commandment that he's focusing on comes from Luke 19:18. All Jesus is quoting is a second part of it and that's was quoted numerous times in the New Testament. The whole context of Leviticus 19:18 says, "You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord."

As is typical in the Scripture, the positive command is couched with a contrast, which helps us to bring the command into better focus. It is contrasted with a negative, not to take vengeance, which is the idea of being motivated through personal of personal vendetta. You may think you are justified in doing something in retribution to somebody because of his unjust actions. This is always summarized in something my mother me over the head with as a child. Two wrongs don't make a right.

You never respond in a wrong way to something that was done to you that was wrong. So you don't seek vengeance or revenge, you don't bear a grudge, you don't have bitterness or anger or hostility or resentment in your soul from someone who has maltreated you, mistreated you, someone who has behaved in what you perceive to be an unjust manner, or may in fact be an unjust manner. Instead we are to return love for evil. We are to love our neighbor as our self.

This command is reiterated a number of times in the New Testament. For example, Galatians 5:14: "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this", and then the quote from Leviticus 19:18. It is also found in passages such as Mark 12:28-31; Luke 10:27-37; Romans 13:9,10; Galatians 5:14 and James 2:8.

There is a similar command, but a critically different command, that Jesus gave to his disciples in John chapter 13. There He says, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Notice that in these two verses the phrase "loving one another" is repeated three times for emphasis. But that is not the only time it's mentioned. This section, starting in John 13 and going through John 16, is called the upper room discourse. This takes place immediately following the celebration of the Last Supper or the Passover meal the night before our Lord went to the cross. So this occurs at probably around nine, 8 to 9 o'clock in the evening, and it immediately precedes him going with the disciples to the garden of Gethsemane. That is when Jesus begins to teach them in John 15 & 16, and in this section this is reiterated several times.

I think it's interesting that as you read through John 14, 15 and 16 there are several things mentioned several times, but two stand out. One is that Jesus is telling the disciples that He is going to leave, but He is going to send the Holy Spirit, another comforter who will be with them, who will guide them and who will direct them. Along with that instruction that they would receive the Holy Spirit we also find repeated several times this commandment to love one another.

A minute ago I read from Galatians 5:14. Those of you who are mindful of the importance of that chapter and the flow of the structure in that chapter know that you have Paul reminding his readers that they are to love one another in 5:14. Then in 5:16, he tells them to walk by the Spirit, and in 5:21 he identifies love as the first of the fruit of the Spirit that is given. So that structure is important.

This love that Jesus talks about in John 13 that is to be a special characteristic of church age believers is directly related to this ministry of God the Holy Spirit in the believer.

Another thing that we should note as we contrast John 13:34, 35 with Leviticus 19:18 is that in Leviticus 19:18, which is clearly still in effect because of its constant repetition in the New Testament:

Remember, there are basically two overall theological interpretations of the New Testament. One is that which is dispensational. And under principles of hermeneutics or interpretation in dispensationalism if something is not repeated in the New Testament, then it doesn't continue. For example, all of the basic commands and ethical commands of the 10 Commandments are repeated in the New Testament except one, and that is the law to observe the Sabbath because that was the sign of the law, the Mosaic covenant. And when Jesus died on the cross, Paul tells us in Romans, this is the end of the law. So the law is no longer in effect.

So since the law ended at the cross nothing in the law inherently continues because the law was the Constitution of Israel and only continues if it is repeated in the New Testament. Therefore when you have a command like Leviticus 19:18 repeated four or five times for emphasis in the New Testament, obviously that mandate continues. We love our neighbor as ourselves.

But notice that if the object of our love in Leviticus 1918 is our neighbor. And "our neighbor" could be anyone, a believer or an unbeliever, in the context of Israel it could be even be someone who is not an Israelite—someone who was maybe a proselyte or maybe a foreigner, an alien who is living in the land. So the object there is anyone who could be your neighbor, and you're supposed to love your neighbor as yourself. Now there is an assumption there that you already love yourself, that is embedded in that command you are to love your neighbor as yourself. And since the assumption here is that everybody has self-love, then instead of focusing selfishly upon yourself, you are to love others in that same way. How you love yourself becomes that standard.

But when we look at the new commandment that Jesus gave his disciples, He says that we are to love one another. That phrase one another is used many times in the New Testament. We are to encourage one another, and admonish one another, teach one another, serve one another, love one another, pray for one another, and many other commands related to one another. One another refers to other believers in the body of Christ. So whereas Leviticus 19:18 is talking about loving anyone, believer are unbeliever, John 13:34, 35 is talking about how we are to treat others in the body of Christ.

We are to love one another, and the standard is no longer as you love yourself, but now the standard is ratcheted up a couple of notches. We are to love one another as Jesus loves us. The standard is no longer how you love yourself, the standard is how Jesus loved us, and that is most evidently expressed in His death on the cross on our behalf. On the cross, Jesus Christ died in our place. He paid the penalty for our sins, which is why in John chapter 15 he says, "Greater love has no one than to give his life for his brother". That becomes the standard: the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now in the previous lessons, as we were looking at what it means to love, what it means to love God, the standard that we saw of God's love is what's expressed at the cross: "For God loved the world in this way", John 3:16 states. In other words, the grammar and language of John 3:16 in the Greek is not that God loved us so much; that is not the meaning of the Greek word, the meaning of the Greek word is God loved us in this way. John is giving us an example of how God loved us.

Romans 5:12 exemplifies at the same way: "God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." So when we talk about love, a much maligned and misunderstood term in our culture and in our world today, the pattern, the standard is God's love for us. And as those who are created in his image and likeness we are to imitate that, to reflect that. Our standard for love is how God has loved us, and in that way we are to exhibit that to others.

And that brings us back to something that we can't lose, that is, in this context, is when Jesus states in verse 39 that the second command is like it. He is drawing a connection, an irrevocable, necessary internal connection between loving others and loving God, that to love others presupposes loving God; that we can't truly love others and let's first of all we love God. And that grounds the Christian in love.

Now when we talk about this concept of love in the Scripture for one another, I've read and heard a number of different terms that are used to try to qualify what this love is. I've heard some people use the phrase biblical love, and that is that's a good way to express it, distinguishing and emphasizing what the Bible says about love. Because if you go to a dictionary you go to some other source and look the word love up the first thing they tell you is it's an emotion. But if we start with the Bible we understand that love isn't emotion, isn't a feeling, isn't getting butterflies in your stomach, it's not puppy love, and it's not sentimentality. It is a mental attitude that is the result of a person's volition or decision to act in the best interests of other people, no matter what it may cost us personally. This is the essence of love.

Another way and I've heard people try to distinguish us as Christian love, which is a good term. That emphasizes the distinctiveness of John 13:34, 35. This is a distinct love that distinguishes disciples. Now someone who is a Christian is not necessarily a disciple. A Christian is someone who has trusted in Jesus Christ as their Savior, they believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for their sins, and at the instant that we believe in Jesus at that instant a number of things happen to us. Among these, we are positionally cleansed and forgiven of all sin, we receive the imputation of Christ's righteousness, we are declared to be justified as a result of that, we are given new life in Him, which is called being born again or regenerate, and many other things happen in just a split second of time as a result of our trusting in Jesus Christ as our as our Savior. That is an important decision that determines our eternal destiny.

But then we have to make a subsequent decision, and that is, now that we are a believer in Jesus Christ are we going to be a disciple or we just got a kind of float along happy and spend eternity in heaven?

A disciple is someone who is a student, a learner, someone who is progressing and moving in the spiritual life. So the way that you distinguish a disciple, Jesus says, is how "all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another". He doesn't say this is how people will know your Christian, but this is how people will know you are my disciples. You are growing and you are maturing.

Another term that I've heard used and have used many times is the concept of unconditional love. This is that God's love for us was without condition. It was based not on who we are or what we've done but totally exclusively on His integrity, His own grace. So there are no conditions placed on it. It is not saying I'm going love you as long as you behave a certain way, act a certain way, conform to certain standards. That love is expressed without condition.

Another term that is sometimes used is the term impersonal love. I've been thinking recently that maybe that has some connotations that people often misunderstand. Non-personal might be another way to express it, and this is what we see exhibited in Luke chapter 10 in the story of the Good Samaritan. It basically is emphasizing that to express this kind of love does not entail having a personal relationship with the person you are showing love to. It can be the checkout person at the grocery store; it can be someone in your strip down the street that you don't know; it could be anyone. It's not related to having a prior personal knowledge or personal relationship with that person.

Another phrase I ran across just this last week is interpersonal love. That is what this is, love for one another. This is clearly emphasized in Scripture.

Now just a quick reminder of the situation in the setting. The Pharisees had tried to set up Jesus, so one of their own—called the lawyer here, a specialist in Torah. He had studied Torah; he understands all the issues. Mark calls him a scribe, so he is one who copies the Scripture. He is the one who is asking Jesus the question to test Him. He is trying to set Him up and trap Him.

He asked this question: "Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law". They didn't that there was one that would be better than the others as they all came from God. Jesus has two answers. He says you first of all, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. This is the first and greatest commandment (first in priority)". The second one is dependent and connected to it. "You shall love your neighbor as yourself".

And then Jesus said: "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." This word hang was one that was used in a couple places in rabbinical writings, indicating a relationship of dependency. Everything else is dependent upon this bedrock foundation of loving God with all your all your being, and loving your neighbor as you as yourself. The scribe in Mark responds positively to this. Matthew doesn't go into this response. But the bottom line at the end is everyone is sort of shut up at the end of the day and after that no one dares to question Him.

I want to point out that this is a verse that has been used in our culture and our time in great, great perversion. The basic summary of this perversion is the idea that you can't love others until you first love yourself. The verse says love your neighbor as yourself but the assumption in humanistic psychology going back to the late 19th century is that the problem that man has isn't sin, the problem that man has is he just doesn't love himself and he doesn't have a high view of himself. He is a problem with self-image, and he has a problem with self-esteem.

This doctrine related to self-love and self-esteem later blossomed in the 60s and 70s and led to this whole self-esteem movement that is at the heart of humanistic psychology. But it can be traced back to the late 19th century to the anti-Christian and anti-God idealistic philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. So all ideas come from somewhere, and they either come from God or they come from some of some humanistic psychologist, and what we see in the middle of the 19th century is a wholesale rejection by Western civilization of its historic Christian roots. It is manifested in what is commonly called 19th century religious liberalism, but it also developed a purely secular worldview that is completely antagonistic, and intentionally so, to Christianity with the self-stated goal of destroying the impact and influence of biblical Christianity and Western civilization.

Friedrich Nietzsche was one of many at the forefront of this but we also connected his nihilism to the teaching of Charles Darwin in terms of evolution. And naturalistic evolution, a natural worldview that that excludes anything supernatural, that excludes God from the get-go, is going to automatically have a totally and radically different view of what makes a human being than what the Bible says.

The Bible says God directly creates man in His image and likeness, and that which makes a human being a human being, that which elevates us above all creation, is that very fact that we are created in the image and likeness of God. But if we are the product of evolution, however you shaped that, whether it's pure, strict Darwinian evolution or some sort of modified theistic evolution and progressive evolution, threshold evolution, or any of the other blasphemous set compromises with Christianity that come along, it changes the nature of how you view man and white man's basic problem is.

Darwin changed the origins. Darwinism provides a theory of origins that is 180° opposite that of the word of God. If you're going to have a worldview you have to have a view of origins. Darwin provided the theory of the origins; then you have to have a theory of the nature of man. So there were a number of different thinkers who influenced Western civilization in terms of their view of man. There was Sigmund Freud in the area psychology, others in the area of a philosophy like Nietzsche and Kierkegaard who were reshaping man, and their flipping of the terminology so that man is not created in God's image, man is creating God in man's image.

At the very core of this is understanding what the problem with man is. But if you reject the Bible and you reject God, you have to reject any notion of sin and that it has to be removed. So how you define man's problems? With their definition is the problem of the of self-image. It is the problem that man doesn't think of himself the way he should think of himself. And so he needs to have self self-esteem and self-love, self-acceptance, and self-confidence, all of these other terms, none of which are ever talked about in the Bible.

What you do find in the Bible are statements such as this. The apostle Paul writing in second Timothy 3:1-4 said: "But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of self (lovers of themselves as the new King James translators have it). It is the same thing; they will love themselves. They will be "lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, the despisers of good, traitors, headstrong haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God."

That could pretty much be the sum total description of modern Western civilization in Europe and in the United States. It is a horrible description but it shows a complete meltdown that has occurred as a result of the shifts that expected place in the end of the 19th century.

Nietzsche is the father of this self-love perversion. He said your neighbor love is your bad love of yourself. You don't let real really love yourself so you can't really love your neighbor. He says the problem is you do not love yourselves sufficiently.

What does the Scripture say? Scripture says in Romans chapter 12:3, "For I say to the grace given to me to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think."

The assumption there is that we already, because of our sin nature, which is oriented to self, we already think too highly of ourselves. But we are to think soberly. Now that doesn't mean you to think without the influence of alcohol. The word soberly has the idea of objectively good. We are to think in terms of reality, not in terms of this self-inflated view that you have of yourself as a result of sin and arrogance.

By the way, one of the psychologist who was a profoundly influenced by Nietzsche--and of course if you have any knowledge of history, you know that Nietzsche's view of the Superman was very influential in the thinking of Adolf Hitler. And it's interesting and you can get out on the Internet and read a lot of things about this to see the connections between Nietzsche and many others thinkers, but one of the most significant in the middle part of the 20th century was a psychologist by the name of Eric Fromm. I was just reading about him earlier in the week as I was doing some studies on the influence of Marxism and American thought and that Eric Fromm was a key person and what is known as the Frankfurt school of critical theory.

Now just as a quick aside without getting the running down this rabbit trail too long. But just so you can connect a few dots is that in the mid-19th century to late 19th century was the influence of Marxism. Now most everybody understands that the country most influence by Marxism was the Soviet Union. It became apparent by the mid-19 century that that the Marxism that was being practiced in the Soviet Union was something of a failure. They were not developing a worker's paradise and were not bringing about utopia, all of these things.

There were Western thinkers who were so in love with Marxism that they weren't began to shift the thinking away from an economic Marxism to a cultural Marxism. This was embodied in a group of intellectuals or pseudo-intellectuals, among whom was Eric Fromm, focusing on this new view of mankind. And so this was the Frankfurt school of the critical theory.

This group identified every problem in Western said is civilization as the result of the influence of the Bible and Christianity and their self-stated goal was to change all of the structures in Western civilization away from the Bible and to influence it through academia. So you see this connection between the thinking that shifted at the end of the 19th century, and part of this was shifting the thinking about the essential problem of man, especially in this area of self-image and self-love.

Now to further connect the dots you have Nietzsche influencing Eric Fromm who influences and a pastor from Southern California by the name of Robert Schuler. He wrote a book in the early 80s called Self-esteem, The New Reformation, and in there is says that the problem we face isn't sin; the problem is self-image. He's just articulating the same thing. He sent a free copy to every pastor in the country and it influenced a whole generation of young pastors in a negative anti-biblical direction, and you would be amazed at how many so-called biblically based pastors I have heard just echo this thought without understanding where it came from, that you really can't love others until you love yourselves.

But that is not what the Bible teaches. In fact, in Ephesians 5:29, as Paul is talking about the husband's love for his wife, he makes this explanatory side note. He says, "for no one". Does that phrase "no one" leave anybody out? No one. That means the person who's depressed, that means the person who is upset with the way they look, they don't like their body type, they don't like a number of things, the person who is upset with their direction in life and the failures in their life; all the people say, you know I'm just I'm just a failure, I'm no good.

The psychologist says, see, you have low self-esteem. But if they had low self-esteem they would be glad they were fat and ugly, if they really hated themselves. If you really hated yourself you be glad you were a loser. If you really hated yourself you'd be glad you are miserable.

But the Bible says no, you don't hate yourself, you love yourself; everyone dies. Ephesians 5:29, "No one ever hated his own flesh …" So that just skewers this whole idea of self-esteem and self-love, and destroys it. No one ever hated himself. You think you may hate yourself at times, but that's because you disappointed yourself, you're not what you thought you should be. Because ultimately what's behind the so-called self-hate is self-love. Everyone loves themselves; this is this is exactly what the Scriptures emphasize.

And so this is the pattern. When Jesus is saying that we are to love others as ourselves He is recognizing that our inherent orientation from our sin nature is to put ourselves first.

Luke 6:31 is a nether statement of this principle in terms of what we often call the Golden rule, where Jesus said, “Treat others the same way you want them to treat you." That presupposes that you want people to treat you well. Just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them.

The essence of being able to love others well is a humility. Philippians 2:3 says, "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit …" The presupposition is that that's the orientation of our sin nature: selfish ambition or conceit. "… but in lowliness of mind …" And that doesn't mean some sort of psychological self-flagellation, it means having an honest understanding of who you are. "… not thinking more highly of yourself as you ought to think", as Paul put it in Romans.

We are to esteem others better than ourselves. That is another expression of what it means to love others as our self.

But Jesus gives a very precise understanding of what it means to love others in a little story He tells in Luke chapter 10. It is not parallel, this conversation happened earlier in his ministry. This lawyer asked Jesus some point facetiously, "Well just who is my neighbor?" And Jesus gives him a story. "There was a certain man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho …" Now this is the reverse course. This is going down the uphill. It is quite a significant walk but it is well traveled. This is the main road from Jericho up to Jerusalem, and so this man is going down and is dropping from a little over 3000 feet above sea level down to about 5 or 600 feet below sea level, down to the location of Jericho. We are not told who certain this man was. We are not I told his ethnicity, his background or anything about him; he is just a man. It's not relevant whether he is Jewish, Gentile, or what. He just a man going down from Jim Jerusalem to Jericho and he is ambushed. He falls among thieves who stripped all of his clothes, they wound him, beat him up, and they leave him for dead by the side of the road. He is probably barely conscious.

There are three people who walk by him. One is a priest; one is a Levite. The difference is that the priest is one who is actively serving in the temple and the Levite is simply one who is a descendant of Levi, he is in the in the tribe of Levi not necessarily actively serving in the temple.

By using both of those examples He is emphasizing that this is someone who knows the Word, someone who understands that the role of the Levite was to teach the Word, and someone who would understand the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. So both of them would understand that commandment.

Luke 10:31 “And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

Luke 10:32 “Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

Luke 10:33 “But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion,

Luke 10:34 and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on {them;} and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him.

First of all, the priest comes down the road and when he saw he goes to the other side of the street and walks by, probably looking in the other direction so he claim that he didn't see anything. Then a Levite comes along and when he arrived at the place he came and looked and passed by on the other side. So both of them are ignoring the needs of this one, and then along comes a certain Samaritan.

Now remember in the context Jesus talking to the Pharisees. He is talking to this legal expert among the fair Pharisees in this passage as well, and that the ethnic group they love to despise and hate was the Samaritans. The Samaritans were half-breeds. They were they had some Jewish blood, but these were a group of people that after the Assyrian invasion of the northern kingdom had resettled into the northern kingdom and so they were not considered pure descendents, truly Jewish. They were mixed race and were looked down upon by the Jews. In fact, the level of racial prejudice you would expect from a member of the Ku Klux Klan toward someone who was black was probably less than the level of racial prejudice that the Jews had towards a Samaritan.

And so this is a Samaritan, one who is despised, someone who is looked down upon, and someone who is ridiculed as unclean. Yet it is this Samaritan who comes along and sees him and has compassion on him. He expresses his understanding of what this man is going through and he is going to help him.

He goes to him bandages his wounds. He puts oil and wine on he cleans him, and he puts him up on his own animal and he walks to the next place, the inn, and he takes care of him. Incidentally, the word for inn here is a word for inn. It is not the same word that is used over in the birth narrative of Jesus where they went to Bethlehem and there was no room at the inn. That is a totally different word and probably means the upper room, and that is how it is translated in other places. This is a genuine inn and he takes him there and we are told that he takes care of him at the inn, makes sure he gets a good nights rest, watches over him, and on the next day when he departs he goes even further. He has no obligation to this wounded victim of highway robbery. Now he takes out money is going to pay for his night and he is going to tell the innkeeper to take care of this man and do whatever it takes, no matter what the cost.

That's grace. He doesn't have a relationship with this man by the side of the road. It's an interpersonal relationship; it's a non-personal relationship. It is just somebody who has a genuine need, and he is going to go beyond whatever is expected in order to provide for the needs. This is a picture of the kind of love that God has expressed to us to Christ on the cross.

Then Jesus addresses the lawyer and says, “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ {hands?}”

He answers that it is the one who showed mercy. That's the one who is fulfilling the command to love your neighbor as yourself.

So when we think about loving others, when we think about what it means to love one another as Christ loved the church, what is exemplified here is that there are no conditions placed on this. No personal relationship is necessary or prerequisite to expressing this kind of love. It's a recognition that this other person is someone who is created in the image and likeness of God, and is therefore worthy of our help, our assistance, no matter who they are and no matter what they have done, simply because they are another human being.

But in terms of the application for the church this really gets ratcheted up when that other person is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, because that is when we express our love for one another, and that is what the Lord says is the sign of being a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. "By this all men will know that you are my disciples".

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