Love Your Neighbor 이웃 사랑

Matthew 22:29-40

29 But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31 And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” 33 And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching. 34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

We had a serious study on the image of God last Sunday. It was a long sermon. But, be prepared. Today’s study might be as heavy as the last one. I trust God will give us wisdom and knowledge to understand His Word.

A question we had in our effort to learn about the will of God was why God created man in His image at the first place, and we learned that God ultimately restored the status of man from a sinner to a friend, when He justified him. God created man just lower than Himself, crowned him with honor and glory, and even called him a friend. Jesus died only for man because man alone was called a friend created in His image.

What we see from today’s passage is Jesus’ teaching on the love of God and the love of neighbor. He said in v. 40, “On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Literally, all the Law and the Prophets “are hung” on these two commandments. The Law and the Prophets is, in the Jewish tradition, the Bible, that is, the Old Testament for Christians. So, what Jesus was saying is that the whole Bible is fulfilled when we practice love to God and to our neighbor. In Short, love fulfills the scripture.

The first commandment of Jesus was to love God. To love God is not so difficult to understand, even though we often fail to practice it as we should like to love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. However, the second commandment (Love Your Neighbor) is particularly a difficult one. There have been many misunderstandings in the history of interpretation.

As I get into today’s message, I stress it again that we are created in the image of God so that God may love us and we love God. The scripture is fulfilled in calling us friend.

Now we see Jesus command us to love our neighbor. The way Jesus lays it out in these verses is that to love God and to love our neighbor is in fact the same kind of love, that is, agape. The verb in “love your neighbor” is “agapaw” a verb form of apage. Do you know that agape is saving grace? And, the same agape is extended to our neighbor. That means that to love our neighbor is a saving kind. Only the saving kind of love is in need for our neighbor as well as us. Why is that? Because we are created in the image of God. What is missing is the love and fellowship that we used to have with God and amongst ourselves in the Garden. This kind of love can be only given by God through Jesus. Therefore, it is saving grace. For example, “philadelphia” (Rom 12:10; 1 Thess. 4:9; Heb. 13:1; 2 Pet. 1:7) is saving grace. The same way, to love our neighbor is saving grace, only possible through Jesus Christ.

I particularly emphasize this because many Christians tend to take Love Your Neighbor as common grace a watered-down version. Natural religion is common grace. Morality based on the natural law is common grace. You can still be good to your neighbor out of your own goodness. That is common grace. Here, however, Jesus is talking about a saving kind of love for your neighbor as well as for God.

In this connection a part that is particularly problematic for us, as we try to obey this command of Jesus, is “as yourself.” To love your neighbor is one thing, but to love “as yourself” is another. It looks like you become a reference point in loving your neighbor. Well, there is truth to some extent, but we have to be very careful as we sort things out here. A common misunderstanding with it is that to love oneself is the first measure to be taken. The so-called “self-love” becomes a measure in loving anyone other than oneself. Some theologians justify self-love as if it was a neutral thing from the beginning and even go further by saying that self-love is as important as God’s love. If self-love is as essential as God’s love, it is dualism, and God is not a god of sovereignty. We do not want to get into the argument but certainly disapprove self-love as a reference point for us.

What is true of “as yourself” though is that you are the image-bearer of God. You are a friend to God. Thus, the implication of “as yourself” is that you should love your neighbor as the image-bearer of God like yourself and potentially a friend to God, when saved by His grace. “as yourself” reminds us that our neighbor is also created in God’s image as well.

Here, at this point I would like to understand it in light of 1 John 4:7-10. I am excited to learn that you are studying 1 John with Pastor Oh. I believe it is not a coincidence but rather God’s providence and blessings upon us. I just want to mention a few things out of v.9. God loved us and sent His one and only Son so that “we might live.” The end result of God’s love is that we live through Jesus Christ. Saving love gives life, when common grace does not. Love Your Neighbor gives life. It continues even in heaven, when the earthly love does not.

If I may connect “as yourself” and “you might live,” agape love restores the image of God that is in your neighbor so that they might live. You feel respected and loved when the image of God is restored in you. You, however, would feel belittled and not-so-special so long as the image of God is not restored in you. God has restored the image of God in you so that you might live again. “as yourself” must remind you of how you live again in the love of Christ.

This is a fundamental difference between Christianity and all other religions, that is, between supernatural religion and natural religion. Natural religion says you fulfill it given the natural power in you. Supernatural religion says you fulfill it only when you are supernaturally empowered. The biblical way to love your neighbor is to supernaturally restore the image of God in them. It is the work of God through Jesus Christ. You are created in God’s image, which can be restored only by God. You may love your neighbor because they are also created in God’s image. It belongs to the supernatural work of God.

Up to this point we have discussed about what love is particularly in light of Love Your Neighbor. From now on we want to think about the obstacles and failures associated with Love Your Neighbor.

Matt. 22:29 says, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.” Here, “you are wrong” (ESV) means that you are misled or deceived in literal sense. You could be misled, deceived and even wrong, when you do not know the scripture or God. Then, what is it that you are misreading in the Bible? For that, we need a bigger picture of the Bible. Simply put, we fail to understand the earthly love.
 

First, Jesus in this passage talks about the things that disappear in heaven, that is, no more physical love between man and woman. Their body becomes like angels. Paul called it “spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44). Thus, the male-female distinction is only an earthly one that is only passing not a kind that is eternal. Whatever people usually associate in the relationship between man and woman in a physical sense does not continue in heaven.

Second, as a result of the Fall the curse of God is placed upon the relationship between husband and wife. “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16). The love-relationship is distorted and becomes the relationship of desire and power struggle. Love has become an object in the game of desire and power. The love that used to be natural has been replaced with the unnatural under the sin (Rom. 1:23ff).

Third, the physical appearance has become the object of embarrassment and enticement. Right after Gen. 2:24 (a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh) v.25 writes, “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” Quite frankly, v.25 does not seem to come very naturally after v.24, if you do not understand the main thrust of God’s will here. God created the physical union between man and woman, and their physical appearance, though naked, was not a thing of which they were mindful at all. After they have eaten the fruit, however, the first reaction was, the Bible writes, that they saw each other naked and covered themselves with fig leaves. Let me explain what it meant. It is easy. Would you, briefly not for long, imagine that we are all sitting here naked in this sanctuary? How awkward and embarrassing! That is exactly how Adam and Eve felt about each other, and it was the result of sin. Nakedness used to be normal and not a thing of shame and embarrassment. Not anymore! Why? The Physical difference between man and woman has become the object of corrupted desire. It was the image of God but now has become the object of sin.

We can summarize the consequences of sin in two areas; one, man has fallen from the position of a free person to a slave, and two, love and the image of God has been degraded to the object of sinful desire. Freedom and love are placed under the curse, and we suffer from the distorted views of freedom and love.

Love is one of my research areas academically, and I do some readings on it. We all know that love is a single most popular theme across literatures, arts, movies, plays and all. Why is it? To me a more relevant question is “What kind?” What do they know about love? If you sort out the themes of love depicted in various forms of arts and entertainments, you will find that they are the distorted views of love. If I mention just a few, they may be desire, passion, lust, obsession, possession, betrayal, misunderstanding, revenge, adultery, pornography, prostitution, sexual slavery and trafficking etc. Sometimes, we innocently believe that love stories are beautiful. Why? People tend to give applauds because it is about love. Is love always good? They tend to justify any means and forms of love because it is love. However, they know no more. They only know of the earthly love, the fallen kind. It is love but not a kind that fits with the God of heaven.

Another illustration about the fall and corruption of love can be straight out of the Bible. A single most frequently mentioned sin in the Bible is the love-related sins like adultery, lust, carnal desire, flesh, homosexuality, etc. One of the Ten Commandment says, “Do not commit adultery.” However, Jesus in His sermon on the mountain went further and said, “everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” There are many evidences in the Bible that reflect the fall and corruption of love. They are simply “abnormal and unnatural.”

People are deceived of love in this world because they do not know that love is also cursed as well. They also do not know that the love of flesh does not go to heaven, as 1 Cor. 15:50 says, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” It is in parallel with Matt. 22:30, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” 1 John 4:7-8 says, “whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” The love of God is a thing of heaven that is eternal. Anyone who loves knows the God of eternal love. God created man in His image so that he may know of eternity, of heaven, and of God. Love is a thing of eternity, of heaven, and of God. And it enables us on earth to love our neighbor. C.S. Lewis once said in his The Four Loves, “In my love for my wife or friend the only eternal element is the transforming presence of Love Himself.” All that is not eternal is merely passing, natural, earthly, physical, carnal, sensual, corporal, worldly, corruptible and perishing.

I would like to draw conclusion this way; Love Your Neighbor is a thing of heaven. not of this world. It is not through the flesh and blood. It is not between men and women. It is heavenly and other-worldly. Only heaven can give heavenly love. Only God of eternity can give agape love. Once we have born the image of the man of dust, we now bear the image of the man of heaven (1 Cor. 15:49). You love your neighbor because you know God. However, if you do not know the Bible, you are deceived and wrong. May God’s will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Coram Deo