And a second like it [is] this Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is not another commandment greater than these.
Jesus has just named the first commandment — total love for God — and He does not stop there. He adds a second and closes the subject: nothing outranks these two, and the question left hanging is what "as yourself" really asks of us.
The second grows out of the first
One commentator shows where the Lord found this second command, and why it grows out of the first:
For the second commandment the Lord referred the man to Leviticus 19:18, another unexpected passage. But this commandment clearly springs out of the first. No one can have both the ability and the desire to treat his neighbour rightly unless he is first right with his God. But love is the essence of this second commandment no less than of the first. To love one's neighbour as oneself is the limit under the law… However, "Love is the fulfilling of the law" (Romans 13:10), and this is said in connection with this second commandment.
People are quick to treat decency toward others as the whole of religion:
But men make the second first, last, and only commandment, because in this world there are few who have any respect for God. People are ready to assume they have done all that is asked of them. They act fair and square with their neighbours. They do not trespass on what may be supposed to be their rights.
What "as yourself" measures
You can read the phrase as a ceiling: love this far and no further. One writer warns that this reading destroys the very thing it tries to measure:
Some take the second part of the great commandment as though it set the limit of how far love to our neighbour should go. They think we need not love him any better than that. But if we weigh the obligation like this, we shall likely lose the very principle entirely. Self-love then becomes the judge of how far we go in kindness to our neighbour. The real principle is a holy urgency, in which another person is identified with you in interest, in unity of love.
The two commands do not ask for the same thing. God gets love without limit; the neighbour gets love on a human scale:
He sums up the heart of the law of God in these two extracts. The love of God is unlimited. The love of one's neighbour is not with all the soul and strength, but "as yourself." The first is loving God more than oneself, leaving no other object as a rival. The second is loving one's neighbour as oneself.
One command that covers many
Because this single sentence gathers up every command about how we treat people, keeping it settles the rest at once:
In the variety of action specified here, man shows his habitual breach of the second table of the law, whose provisions are mainly toward man. Love is the fulfilling of the law; it thinks no evil, and does no harm. Love of one's neighbour therefore secures the keeping of the various prohibitions against trespassing on his rights.
Who counts as a neighbour
Who counts as a neighbour? One writer says the parable of the good Samaritan turns that question around:
Some read the parable of the good Samaritan and conclude too quickly that the Lord had answered the question "Who is my neighbour?" Their idea is that wherever there is need, we should do our duty toward our neighbour. But notice: the man who fell among thieves is not spoken of as a neighbour whom the other acts toward. It was the Samaritan who was neighbour to him. The lawyer only wished to justify himself. He wanted a clear list of everyone who had a claim on him, so that he might have no outstanding debts… Where love is at work, it does not ask "Who?" It takes its own delight in acting, apart from the question of who deserves it. The one is meeting a claim; the other is meeting need, with no question of claim at all.
Beyond the measure
One writer sets the law's measure beside what grace asks:
The law makes your love for yourself the measure of your love for your neighbour. Grace asks you to give up yourself entirely. In a sinful world, I want something more than the former. I have to do with people who wrong, insult, harass and outrage me. Christ did more than love us as He loved Himself; He gave Himself up entirely.
The one who kept it
So who has actually kept it?
But the Lord goes on to insist that the second is like the first, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." Who does this? Today's "permissive society" says the flat opposite: "live for yourself; forget your neighbour." Only the Lord Jesus has ever obeyed this law.
Summary
- Source. Love for a neighbour springs out of love for God; no one treats people rightly who is not first right with God.
- Measure. God gets love without limit. The neighbour gets love "as yourself" — a phrase that ties you to him, instead of letting self-love set a cap.
- Scope. Love is the fulfilling of the law, and that is said about this very command toward our neighbour.
- Reach. The question is not who has a claim on me, but whom I will become a neighbour to — need, not entitlement.
- Fulfilment. Only Jesus ever kept it, and He went past it: grace asks not for love measured by self, but for self given up entirely.