What does it mean to love your neighbor as you love yourself?

195 - 27. Some are apt to take the second member of the great commandment as though it was a measure of the extent to which love to our neighbour was to go, and that we need not love him better, but if we thus weigh the obligation we shall be apt to lose the very principle wholly, and in essence, which we seek thus to limit to make self-love the judge of how far we are to go in kindness to our neighbour, instead of a holy urgency by which another is identified (not contrasted in obligation) in interest with oneself in unity of love. But it seems to me, though it be a simple practical direction, yet it teaches us the moral measure of love towards man or our neighbour, while it gives a regulating principle when we love God. It is unlimited in its nature. The object is infinite, the debt is infinite. It is an entire devotedness fluent in obligation, which in duty takes its measure from the nature and essential supremacy of God, and His claim over us from His being our God and all in all, which none can express, but the believer alone can apprehend. Whereas thus to love man would be so far from excellent that it would be idolatry. Man is to be loved as man, yet with a perfect love according to its nature, such as every man must bear to himself, and when love exists it identifies our neighbour not in necessity but in unity of interest with ourselves, and we seek his good with a perfect heart. But it is in its nature essentially different from love to God, in that God is so from man, and every affection follows the nature, and, if a holy affection, is perfectly and precisely suitable to the nature and character of the object of it. We may remark the facility of our Lord's transition from the summit, as it were, and fulness of contemplation and, so to speak, divine philosophical enunciation of truth, to the practical dealing with the lawyer's reluctant conscience. It was one thing to Him.

Let us take an illustration! If I have got £1,000, and I love my neighbour as myself, I shall give him half of it. I cannot keep it to myself. I love him as myself. I must give him a share equal with myself. But, you ask, where would that land you presently? Just where the Lord would have this young man land. I have £1,000; I see my neighbour, who has not so much. If I love him as much as myself, then I go and hand him over £500. I have got £500 left, but again I see another neighbour without any, and I give him the £250; but there is another neighbour whom I see, who gets the £125, and so on. Why, you say, you will be stripped. That is the point. The Lord does not take a long time in reaching it. He says to the rich youth, If you mean to get eternal life on that ground, you go right away, and sell all you have, and give it to the poor; and thus illustrate the principle of the man who loves his neighbour as himself. Further, you will then have got rid of that which is a hindrance to your coming after Me.

Another duty is here urged, considerateness for such as through natural infirmity are liable not only to err but to have advantage taken of them by the lightminded or the malicious. Other warnings are given that an Israelite might behave to his brother as became the people of Jehovah. His fear was to govern all the life, individually or together. Righteousness in judgment is insisted on, irrespective of low or high. Tale-bearing is frowned on: who could tell the mischief that might result? Hatred in the heart is the deep wrong against a brother; but it is immediately urged earnestly to rebuke one's neighbour that one bear not sin on his account (or, bring not sin on them). In short, no allowance of grudge, or self-vengeance, but to love one's neighbour as oneself.

Talebearing or slandering is then mentioned followed by hidden hatred. Law does not only forbid bad actions, but also bad thoughts of the heart (vv. 16-17). If one's brother had done evil, this was no reason to hate him: rather, even the law required that he should rebuke the offender, not in a harsh spirit, not condemning him nor bearing any grudge against him, but instead, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (v. 18).

Some have hastily concluded, in reading the parable of the good Samaritan, that the Lord answered the question, "Who is my neighbour?" by pointing out that wherever there is need we should do our duty towards our neighbour. But it should be observed that the man who fell among thieves is not mentioned as a neighbour towards whom the other acts, but the Samaritan was neighbour unto him. This is another principle of acting altogether to what was in the lawyer's mind when he said, "Who is my neighbour?" and stands out in contrast with it, because the lawyer merely wished to justify himself; i.e. to have clearly defined those who had any claim upon him, that he might have no outstanding debts. We know for ourselves the satisfaction in being able to say, "I owe nothing." Thus what prompted that question was really love to himself, and not love to his neighbour. Where love is in exercise, it asks not Who? but has its own delight in acting apart from the question of who deserves it. And this is the principle of grace which is here shown out in contrast to the principle of law, which was the fulfilling of duty towards one's neighbour. The one is meeting claim, the other is meeting need apart from the question of claim altogether.

The lawyer therefore asks what it is that he must do. The answer was plain: the law (with all its ordinances, its ceremonies, all the conditions of God's government, which the people had broken, and the violation of which led to the judgment announced by the prophets — judgment that should be followed by the establishment, on God's part, of the kingdom in grace) — the law, I say, contained the kernel of the truth in this respect, and distinctly expressed the conditions of life, if man was to enjoy it according to human righteousness — righteousness wrought by himself, by which he himself should live. These conditions were summed up in a very few words — to love God perfectly, and one's neighbour as oneself. The lawyer giving this summary, the Lord accepts it and repeats the words of the Lawgiver: "This do, and thou shalt live." But man has not done it and is conscious that he has not. As to God he is far away; man easily gets rid of Him; he will render Him some outward services and make his boast in them. But man is near; his selfishness makes him alive to the performance of this precept, which, if observed, would be his happiness — make this world a kind of paradise. Disobedience to it is repeated every moment, in the circumstances of each day, which bring this selfishness into play. All that surrounds him (his social ties) makes man conscious of these violations of this precept, even when the soul would not of itself be troubled about it. Here the lawyer's heart betrays itself. Who, he asks, is my neighbour?

The Lord's answer exhibits the moral change which has taken place through the introduction of grace — through the manifestation of this grace in man, in His own Person. Our relationships with one another are now measured by the divine nature in us, and this nature is love. Man under the law measured himself by the importance he could attach to himself, which is always the opposite of love. The flesh gloried in a nearness to God which was not real, which did not belong to participation in His nature. The priest and the Levite pass by on the other side. The Samaritan, despised as such, did not ask who was his neighbour. The love that was in his heart made him a neighbour to any one who was in need. This is what God Himself did in Christ; but then legal and carnal distinctions disappeared before this principle. The love that acted according to its own impulses found the occasion of its exercise in the need that came before it.

This sets forth, then, the difficulties of the legal mind; it is a technicality: he cannot understand what is meant by his "neighbour." Intellectually it was no such feat to penetrate the meaning of that word, "neighbour." But the consequences morally were grave; if it meant what it said, had he ever in his life felt and acted as if he had a neighbour? He gave it up, therefore. It was a mysterious something that the elders had nowhere solved, a case that was not yet ruled in the Sanhedrim, — what was meant by this inscrutable "neighbour." Alas! it was the fallen heart of man that wanted to get out of a plain duty, but a duty which demanded love, the last thing in the world he possessed. The great difficulty was himself; and so he sought to justify himself — an utter impossibility! For in truth he was a sinner; and the thing for him is to confess his sins. Where one has not been brought to own himself, and to justify God against himself, all is wrong and false; everything of God is misunderstood, and His word seems darkness, instead of light.

Mark how our Lord puts the case in the beautiful parable of the good Samaritan. It was, if I may so say of Him as a man, the single eye and the heart that perfectly understood what God was, and enjoyed it; that never, therefore, had difficulty in finding out who was his neighbour. For, in truth, grace finds a neighbour in every one that needs love. The man that needs human sympathy, that needs divine goodness and its clear testimony, though it be through a man upon the earth, he is my neighbour. Now, Jesus was the only man who was walking in the whole power of divine love, though, I need not say, this was but a little part of His glory. As such, therefore, He found no riddle to solve in the question, Who is my neighbour?

The Good Samaritan. — An honest inquirer, really anxious, would probably have been dumb. But the lawyer, willing [or desiring] to justify himself, asked, "Who is my neighbour?" The question asked, the answer came in a way that the man never expected. For the Lord proceeded to speak of the Good Samaritan; whether a parable or a history is not stated, and really it matters not. Had the lawyer answered his own question, he would doubtless have confined the thought of neighbour to one of his own nation, virtually confounding neighbour with brother. For all Israelites in the law were regarded as brethren (Deut. 23:19-20). But a neighbour is a more comprehensive term. This the Samaritan's act brings out. The priest and the Levite passed by the wounded one on the other side. The Samaritan did not. He noticed him. He had compassion on him. The man, beaten and half dead, had gone down from Jerusalem, and probably would, in health, have refused any intercourse with a Samaritan. The latter, however, thought not of the enmity between the races. He saw one in distress, and, whoever he might be, he would minister to him. The teacher of the law passed by. The doer of the law — the Samaritan — personally ministered to, and amply cared for the injured one. Who was that poor man's neighbour? Constrained to answer, the lawyer described him characteristically; but carefully, it would seem, abstained from mentioning his nationality: "He that shewed mercy on him," were the words. "Go and do thou likewise," was the answer of the Lord. Here the incident terminates. Did these words of Christ ring in the ear and find a place in the heart? That we shall never know this side of death, nor what the lawyer felt, as again he had to answer to his own confusion. Little did he think to whom he was approaching, when he brought his question to the Lord.

A lawyer, who connected life, to which the law pointed, with eternal life of which prophets had spoken in its millennial conditions (Ps. 110; Dan. 9), and who would know what he must do to inherit it, is referred by the Lord to the law, of which he was able to quote the substance from Deuteronomy and Leviticus. There was no other standard, if man would live by his doing, though the law says nothing of eternal life. Lawyer-like, he raises a question on the terms — "And who is my neighbour?" The answer of the Lord brings out that a neighbour's need was enough for divine love; neither priest nor Levite would or could touch it, and the heart to meet it was only found in the despised Samaritan. But He became such a neighbour to the one in need that he never needed a neighbour again. How sweet the revelation of the ways of grace that were to form a heavenly people, in contrast to legal measures and requirement. But conduct moulded upon such a model can only be formed by personal acquaintance with Him, and is to be found as with her who sat at His feet and heard His word — and to be maintained by prayer. (Luke 11)

In seeking to carry out this exhortation we have no need to search for opportunities, "the neighbour" would be he who is nearest to us. If we see an immediate need our exercise should be to show mercy to that needy person, for that is the way God Himself is moving today.