Love Your Neighbour as Yourself - Luke 10:27

In these words Jesus is summing up what we may call the moral law, the six commandments of the Ten Commandments that relate to how we treat our fellow human beings. The first great commandment is given here – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart.” That sums up our obligation to God, but the second one – “Love your neighbour as yourself” – sums up our obligation to our fellow men.

How are we to understand this commandment? First of all, it expresses God’s standard of perfection. God has given us the ten commandments – and these two commandments that sum them up – to tell us what is his expectation of us. If we were to be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect, that is how we would live, keeping those commandments perfectly in thought, word and deed. To inherit eternal life, as it is put in this passage, we would need to keep those commandments perfectly. This expert in the law comes to Jesus and asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus asks him, “Well, what does it say in the law?” He says it gives these two great commandments, and Jesus says, “You answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”

Now for many people that is the sum of what the Bible has to tell us. They then close the book and say, “We don’t need to know any more.” But they have only discovered a problem, because the reality is that we do not keep this law perfectly. We break this law every day of our lives: no matter how we strive and struggle to keep this law, we break it. So according to that principle we are not going to inherit eternal life.

We need to open the Bible again, and to ask, “What does the rest of God’s word say about this?” And we discover that the law convinces us of sin – it tells us that we are sinners. When we are told to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind, and to love our neighbour as ourselves, and we see that we break that law. It is brought home to us that we are very far from perfect. We are lawbreakers, covenant breakers, rebels against God.

The law convicts us of sin. But more than that, as the apostle Paul says, the law leads us to Christ. Paul speaks of the law as the schoolmaster, and really this word would be better translated something like the servant who leads us to the master, who is Jesus. It is the schoolmaster to lead us to Christ. The word that occurs here was used of the household servant who took the boys (it was only the boys who went to school in those days) along to the school. That is what Paul is saying about the law. This is its function: to lead us to Christ. Yes, it shows us our sin, that we have broken God’s law and that we cannot keep it perfectly, but the ultimate purpose of the law is to lead us to Christ, who is the answer.

But then, when we have come to Christ, and we discover that in Christ there is forgiveness of sin, and there is new life – the gift of eternal life given freely – what function does the law perform? What is the value of these words then – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, love your neighbour as yourself”? Is that law then worthless, is it meaningless, is it something about which the Christian can say, “I don’t need that, because I have forgiveness of sin and eternal life through Jesus Christ”? No, far from it, because this is the law of Christ – Christ’s own abiding law, the law for Christian behaviour and Christian attitudes. We are to examine our lives in the light of these great commandments. How do we love the Lord because of all that he has done for us? How do we love our neighbour in light of the great love of God to us? We know that we will not be able to keep these things perfectly in this life, but they are there as the standard that we are aiming at – the ideal against which we ought to measure all our attitudes and behaviour.

Particularly as we think of this commandment – “Love your neighbour as yourself” – we have to ask ourselves the question, “What is our attitude to our neighbour?” Have we a concern for the whole well-being of our neighbour, our fellow human being? Have we a concern for his spiritual and physical well-being? Is that something that matters to us? It ought to, because this is Christ’s concern. Trying to keep his law will not win us salvation, but having been given salvation by Jesus through his death and resurrection, we must follow this law of love. “Love each other as I have loved you” – that is his new commandment, as he calls it, that he gives to us.

In the light of these introductory thoughts, let us ask the same question that the expert in the law asked: Who is my neighbour? Now we know that this man was asking it perhaps not wholeheartedly, because we are told he wanted to justify himself. We may wonder what that means. Probably he was saying, “Well yes, I know these commandments from the Old Testament, but how do you work it out in detail?” These experts in the law loved to work everything out in detail. In a case like this, they would analyse it all and say, “Yes, this person is my neighbour and I owe obligations to him, but that person isn’t. I don’t owe anything to him.” As far as this expert was concerned the great question was “Which kind of person is my neighbour?” and Jesus gave a surprising answer to that.

So let us think about this question: Who is my neighbour? Is my neighbour someone like myself? The Pharisees interpreted this Old Testament commandment by saying, “Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” Jesus refers to that in Matthew 5:43. They recognised that in the Old Testament it says “Love your neighbour”, but the additional phrase – “Hate your enemy” – is not there in the Old Testament. That was their interpretation of it. They were saying that we are only to love people who are like us, who love us and do good to us – people who are our own kind. We are not to love our enemy. We are not to love these Gentiles. We are not to love people who are not part of the people of Israel.

It is very easy for us (perhaps not in such an obvious way) to put a similar gloss on the Biblical text in order to think of our neighbour as someone who is like us in some way, someone who is near us, someone who loves us or someone who does something for us. We limit the application to people of our own circle, or our own class, or our own race, or our own intellectual ability. We limit our concern and our horizon to those people.

Is that what Jesus meant? Did he mean that our neighbour is someone who is easy to love? No, because in the Sermon on the Mount he says, “Don’t just love those who love you – the pagans do that, everyone does that, everyone throughout the world. You must go beyond that standard by loving your enemy, by doing good to those who persecute you.” It is not just a matter of loving people who are just like you.

But he goes much further than that in this story of the Good Samaritan. “Who is my neighbour?” – Jesus turns the whole thing round. You would expect him in this story to try to get across the point to the man, “Look, you really should love people like the Samaritans whom you despise.” You would have thought that he would have told this story so that the poor man by the side of the road, beaten half dead, would be the Samaritan, or a Roman, or somebody that they despised. That is not what Jesus does. He does not tell us at all who the man is lying by the side of the road, he is just a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He might have been a Jew, he might have been a Samaritan or a Roman. He might have been an Egyptian. We know nothing about him. But he was a man in need, and Jesus is really saying to us here, “Your neighbour is anyone in need.” We do not know anything about this man except that he was in desperate need.
In addition, his need was such that he was inconvenient to love. It was inconvenient for the priest and the Levite to express any kind of love to him. Why was that? It was because, being priests and Levites subject to Old Testament regulations, if they went anywhere near a dead body they would have to go through tiresome ablutions or ceremonial washings before they could perform their profession again. As they passed this man, they could not be sure if he was dead or alive, and if they went over to touch him to see if he was alive and found he was dead, that would be their work schedule completely messed up. It was inconvenient for them even to see if they could help this man, or if he needed help. Perhaps also it was dangerous to give any kind of attention to him because, who knows, maybe those robbers who had robbed and beaten him were still in the vicinity, and they did not want to hang around to find out.

In all sorts of ways we can see how it was not quite suitable to have this man as a neighbour. But Jesus says, This man is your neighbour, simply because he is a person in need. He is a person in obvious, desperate need in front of you and that’s your neighbour, whoever it may be. It may be somebody you know, it may be somebody you love, it may not be. But simply because he is a human being, made in the image of God, who is in trouble or distress or needs help in some way, he is your neighbour.

Notice too the point that Jesus is bringing out in this parable. He has recognised as correct the summary of the moral law, “Love your neighbour as yourself”, and in this story he is illustrating what it means not to love your neighbour. The priest and the Levite were not loving their neighbour. Exactly which part of the moral law were they breaking? You know the moral law: Honour your father and mother, you shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness – all these commandments. Which actual part of it were they disobeying? Or were they omitting to do something God commanded? It was what they were omitting to do that was the breach of God’s law – to help someone who was dying. If left there in the heat of the sun he was going to die. It was not that they were deliberately killing him, but nonetheless their action in neglecting him was going to cause him to die.

Now that is important for our morality and our ethics to this day. It has implications not just for medical ethics, but also for us all as individuals. It is not enough to say, “I haven’t done any harm to anyone, I am not a criminal, I haven’t murdered anyone, I haven’t done harm, I haven’t used violence to anyone.” The question is: What have you done to the least of these brothers of mine who were in need? Jesus asks, “What have you done for your neighbour who is in need?” What have you done for those who are perishing, maybe those who are perishing because of drink or drug abuse, or some other problem? They too are your neighbours, and to neglect them means that you are guilty of breaking this law.

Who then is my neighbour? My neighbour is anyone who is in need, anyone I know to be in need, particularly the person in front of me, the person I am confronted with, wherever I am. This is my neighbour.

But a second question is dealt with in this parable, and that is: How are you to love your neighbour? Are you to love this person in need just as much as you can afford or think you can afford? The priest and the Levite felt that they could not afford to love him at all, but maybe sometimes our love is a shade better than that – we love a little bit. That however is not the standard that Jesus lays down here. It is not the standard laid down in the Old Testament from which this expert in the law quotes: “Love your neighbour as yourself”. That is what the Samaritan did, and remember that it is the Samaritan, the despised foreigner, who is the man actually doing the neighbourly deed. And he did not love in a grudging way. He loved fully and freely, and did everything necessary for this man in need. In other words, he loved this man as he loved himself. If he himself had been lying there by the roadside half dead, he would have wanted someone to come along and pick him up and do for him everything that was necessary. That was exactly what he was prepared to do for this man. The priest and the Levite did not think in that way: they did not love the man as they loved themselves. They were concerned only about their own safety, their own satisfaction, their own fulfilment in life. They did not put themselves in the man’s place, they did not love him as they loved themselves, but the Samaritan did. That is what it is all about.

Note from this that there is such a thing as a proper self-love. We know how the expression ‘self-love’ can mean something that is not good. It can mean self-centredness. It can mean pride. But there is something in the Bible that speaks of a proper self-love, because if you are to love your neighbour as yourself, there must be a proper way in which you are to love yourself – not self-centredness, but self-respect. You are to respect yourself as someone made in the image of God. Your life has sanctity and dignity, and you have an immortal soul. So you are to be concerned for yourself and your well-being, not at the expense of others or at the expense of what God commands, but in expressing what God commands and in seeking to do good to others.

Often a large part of the reason for our problems is that we do not have this proper self-respect. We put ourselves down, saying, “I can’t do anything. I’m no use. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do that.” Sometimes that may be a twisted thing, but sometimes it is a genuine humility that has got out of control. Maybe it happens because others have put us down, or because of the way we were brought up or of experiences we have had in the past. We have no self-respect and therefore we find it difficult to love our neighbour as ourselves, because we don’t love ourselves. We have bitterness even towards ourselves. We have to discover the great love of God to us in Jesus Christ. Although we do not deserve it, although we have sinned against him, he has bought us with a great price. We are not our own; we are bought with a price, and we have a dignity as children of God. We have been loved by him, and knowing that great love ought to enable us to blossom, so that we can show the same kind of love to others.

This Samaritan, who loved his neighbour as himself, met his needs, and that is what we are called to do in loving our neighbour. He met his physical needs. We are created with bodies and minds. We have physical, emotional, intellectual and educational needs. The Samaritan met the need that was in front of him. There was a man half dead at the side of the road. It was no good discussing theology with him, or trying to educate him. What he needed was basic medical help, shelter, and comfort. All these things the Samaritan gave him, and that is what we are called to do as Christians – to meet, or seek to meet, people’s needs.

It is great that in Edinburgh there are Christian organisations at work seeking to meet people’s physical, emotional and social needs. There are, for example, Bethany Christian Trust and Edinburgh City Mission – organisations through which Christians are expressing their concern for people in physical need, whether they are homeless, or addicted, or whatever. These are avenues through which individual Christians can serve and seek to help others who are in need. It is good also that we have organisations such as Tear Fund or Blythswood that can bring aid to people in other parts of the world.

I have been reading the story of Jackie Ross, the visionary behind Blythswood, who died last year (An Irregular Candidate by Irene Howat, CFP). It is a powerful book, speaking of God’s grace in action in this man and through him in that whole organisation. There has always been a balance in the work of Blythswood – concern throughout for spiritual well-being, but also concern for physical well-being. When confronted with a situation in Eastern Europe where there was great spiritual need but also, with the collapse of communism, acute physical need, they responded to that physical need, bringing in all sorts of necessary aid.

That is a Christian response. That is what the Lord Jesus is talking about here, and we need to heed it today. People around us need physical help, or emotional help, and as we seek to give that, then people indeed may be more open to the One we represent, the Lord Jesus. If they see the love of the Lord Jesus in us, they may be prepared to give more heed to our words when we speak of Jesus.

That leads me to the last area that I want to cover. Although it is not the most obvious part of the story, yet when Jesus tells us to love our neighbour as ourselves and to meet people’s needs, of course he is not leaving out of the equation people’s spiritual needs. In the earlier part of this chapter we read that Jesus sent 72 disciples out into the towns and villages round about, to do two things: to heal the sick, and to preach that the Kingdom of God was near. There was a healing, and there was a message – a work of mercy in the physical realm, and a message of mercy in the spiritual realm. The two went together, and they still ought to go together today. It can be very easy for us, as Christians getting caught up in people’s needs – and there are so many pressing needs in our society and throughout the world – to forget the greatest need of every single human being. That need is to be reconciled to God.

We are in desperate need. We are sinners, and we are called to trust in Jesus Christ. A great provision has been made for us in the salvation that he has achieved through his death and resurrection. We are invited to respond to that, and every Christian person has responded, everyone who is saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if we love our neighbour as we love ourselves, we are going to want him also to have the gift that we have. We will not be satisfied to give only the physical, or educational, or emotional help. These are good and right in themselves, but they are not everything.

We live in a country today where there is great affluence, as well as great poverty and distress and addiction. Has the gospel no relevance to the affluent, to those who have so much? Of course it has! They are our neighbours too, those people who are highly educated, those who are so wealthy in comparison to the poverty of the world in general. They are just as desperately in spiritual need as the poorest person in the developing world. These people – neighbours, friends, workmates – need to hear this gospel. If we love our neighbour as we love ourselves, we will seek to meet his spiritual need and to tell him of Jesus.

Jesus sent out his disciples to heal the sick and to proclaim that the Kingdom of God was near. In Proverbs 24:11 there are these words, “Rescue those being led away to death, hold back those staggering towards slaughter.” If someone was staggering towards death in front of you, perhaps unsteady on the pavement and about to fall on the road in front of an oncoming bus, and you were able to stop him, of course you would do so! You would grab him and pull him back. That is the kind of attitude we should have to all the physical needs of the people in need around us. But there is something greater – something worse than physical death, and that is spiritual death. All around us people are staggering towards slaughter, because they are going to a lost eternity without Jesus Christ. They are like this man lying by the side of the road half dead. There are people in the city lying in the gutter, half dead. But there are also many people around us who are not literally in the gutter, but yet who are dying spiritually, feeding on spiritual dust and ashes. The Lord Jesus Christ is encouraging us to have compassion, as the Samaritan had in the physical realm. If we are going to love our neighbours as ourselves, we are going to want them to have what we have, because it is the best and the greatest thing in the world – to know Jesus and to know the eternal life that he gives.

Surely it is one of the greatest faults in the church today, in which we see most clearly the church’s need of revival in our society, that we have such complacency about those around us who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ and who do not know that they are heading towards a lost eternity. We should be like the watchman of whom Ezekiel speaks in his prophecy, who must sound the trumpet to those who are perishing, to give them the warning that they need. We are called to make that announcement – to tell people, to invite people, to cajole people, to encourage people to come and to consider the claims of Jesus Christ. We have to ask ourselves as a congregation, as I hope we always do: What are we doing to make sure that this city, this area of the city, our friends, our neighbours, know something of the love of Jesus Christ? We have to ask ourselves as individuals: What am I seeking to do to make this known to people in need around me?

“Love your neighbour as you love yourself.” How are we matching up to this expectation of the Lord Jesus Christ? Keeping this commandment is not the way of salvation. It does not buy us eternal life, because everything we do in that realm is tainted by our sin and failure. But it is Jesus’ expectation of us to love as he loved. He came into the world to seek and to save the lost. Around us – even in our families, among people we know very well – there are people who are lost, just as lost as people who may be in great physical need. We have to be concerned that this love for our neighbour is shown in a full-orbed way. Just as Jesus was concerned to heal the body, so he was concerned that sins would be forgiven. Remember the man who was paralysed, who was lowered down through the roof to him. Jesus’ first words to him were not about his physical condition, about the healing of his body. Jesus knew there was something troubling that man more than his paralysis. It was his needy soul, his guilt before God, and Jesus dealt with that. “Your sins are forgiven.” Then he turns to his critics and asks, “Which is easier: to say ‘Your sins are forgiven’, or to say ‘Rise up and walk’?” So he says, “Rise up and walk!” and the man rises. He heals his body as well. We have to have this whole-orbed concern for people, no matter who they are. As we seek to show the kind of love that the Lord Jesus Christ shows, then perhaps in God’s grace blessing will come in the church and in our society. But we need to be awakened as to how far we may be from the reality of that love in our own lives and in the life of our congregation and in the life of our church. We are challenged by the words of Jesus, and by the example of this Samaritan. We are challenged to love our neighbour.