Matthew 22:39
“Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39)
Jesus identified two commandments on which all else depends, and the second, he says, is very like the first: “Love your neighbor as yourself “ (Matthew 22:39; cf. Leviticus19:18). Both Jesus himself and John the well-loved took pains to spell out in great detail that other-love is the indispensable evidence of love for God. But the demands of other love are not equal for all people. Consider the various levels of responsibility.
When God created the male, he judged that he was incomplete. He had God in daily companionship, yet still God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18), so God created a partner to complement him. Thus the primary human relationship-in-love was God’s wonderful idea of a man and woman united as one in marriage. So important is this relationship that the husband is charged with loving to the level of that high-water mark of love: as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it (Ephesians 5:25). And wives, in turn, are to love their husbands (Titus 2:4).
Then comes love for one’s own family: parents, children, brothers, sisters. So important is this relationship that one who does not care for his own family is worse than an unbeliever (1 Timothy 5:4, 8).
But there is brotherhood beyond one’s human family. The Old Testament focus of responsibility was on love for fellow countrymen, and the apostolic guiding principle was love for the brethren. For example, in the most exhaustive treatment of the theme of love in the Bible (1 John 3–5), John consistently speaks of love for the brothers. Paul concurs: “Let us do good to all men”—yes—”and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10). This is the New Testament pattern (John 15:12, 17; 1 Peter 1:22; 2:17; 3:8). It draws the altogether startling picture of a group of people, the church, that is, a true family bound together by closer blood ties than human blood relations, the blood ties of Calvary. It is the picture of a people bound by love in interdependent responsibility for one another in every facet of life: spiritual, physical, emotional, material. Such is New Testament “love of the brethren.” But biblical love does not end there.
The Old Testament theme of “neighbor love” was never restricted in Scripture to fellow Israelites. The foreigner was included (Lev. 19:33). But Jewish people, being human, wanted to restrict the application of the sweeping demands of love. So the lawyer, who demonstrated that he knew the summary command of love well enough, wanted to justify his unloving behavior and asked: “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29). Jesus turned his question upside down (or right side up) with the story of the half-breed Samaritan who understood love better than the credentialed religious leaders and became a neighbor to the one who needed him. So neighbor-love reaches beyond brother-love to anyone at all who is in need.
Neighbor does not really mean “anyone” or “everyone.” It is so easy to love mankind in the mass and neglect or even despise the one nearby.
Love is not mere tolerance, a warm feeling for everyone “out there” or even special indignation for the oppressed in some distant place. It must be for one’s neighbor—the person within reach. Anyone within reach, to be sure. But love as action must be for someone who needs what I have and can give (Gal. 6:10). Neighbor-love extends to a wider circle than love of the brotherhood, just as love of the brotherhood extends beyond family love. And it is not restricted to worthy neighbors. It includes even one’s enemy.
Love for one’s enemy was taught in the Jewish law,[106] but no one took it very seriously. In fact, Jesus says that tradition held it was all right to hate your enemy (Matt. 5:43). But he taught love of enemy with a force and consistency that startled the Jewish world. He startled the world of Roman law and Greek philosophy as well. This was unique: Love your enemy. If you cannot feel all that warm about him, you can choose to act lovingly: pray for him, do good to him, speak well of him (Matt. 5:43-48; Luke 6:27-38). But the world-shattering message was not that he taught this way of life—incredible as that is—but that he loved his own enemies just that way: “But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). And we are to love our enemies just that way. [107]
How is your love life today? Why not take an inventory? Love for your spouse? Love for your family? The body of Christ? Your neighbor? What love do you choose to express for your enemy? Do you speak well of your enemy? Difficult? Yes! It would not be commanded if it could not be done. How do you measure love? Its height or depth? By what thermometer do you take its temperature? As Jesus demonstrated for us, love is measured by the sacrifice it makes.
[106] Exod. 23:5; Job 31:29-30; Prov. 24:17; 25:21
[107] IBE (2014), 44-46.