Understanding Unconditional Love for all Mankind
James 2:6
What we find out in James 2:8 is that this rich man is not only an unbeliever but he is antagonistic to Scripture, has been oppressing and persecuting the believers, and yet they are going cow-tow to his money and his position and treat him with all of this respect. Yet the poor man who is a believer advancing to spiritual maturity is placed at the back. James is drawing the believers' attention to the fact that you have to exercise love for your neighbour as yourself. James 2:6 NASB "But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? [7] Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?" Not only are they antagonistic to these believers personally but they are blaspheming Christians, they are antagonistic to Christianity as a whole. [8] "If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF," you are doing well." Love for God is exemplified by obedience to divine mandates.
There is a very important principle that we have to go over here related to the interpretation of Scripture. We are going to call this principle a dispensational distinctive. This is a matter of interpretation and it is something that a lot of people don't understand. The Bible is divided into two major sections which we call the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is primarily directed toward the nation Israel; the New Testament is directed to a different people of God called the church. The Old Testament has hundreds of mandates to Israel, and the New Testament in turn has hundreds of other mandates directed to believers in the church age. The issue is, what is the relationship of the mandates in the Old Testament to believers in the New Testament. There are basically two prominent Protestant systems of theology, covenant theology, the theology usually associated with John Calvin and followers, and dispensational theology. The primary difference between covenant theology and dispensational theology is that covenant theology is based on replacement. The church replaces Israel, that is, God made all of these various promises to Israel in the Old Testament and they are not going to ever be literally fulfilled to Israel because they rejected Christ as Messiah, the church is the new Israel and replaces the old physical Israel with the spiritual Israel, and is the recipient of instead of physical promises like the land, etc. they are going to get spiritual blessings. The land becomes spiritualized to heaven, the kingdom becomes spiritualized to the kingdom of heaven. Instead of having 1000 years of literal reign of Christ on the earth in the Millennium that becomes spiritualized to be heaven, and they introduce a certain level of allegorical interpretation with regard to prophecy. Dispensational theology, on the other hand, maintains a distinction in God's plan between Israel and the church.
The dispensation distinctive here that applies to our understanding of the text is that is dispensationalism is the principle that Old Testament mandates are no longer valid unless repeated in the New Testament. For example, the Old Testament has mandates for sacrifices. They are no repeated in the New Testament so they are no longer in effect. In the Old Testament there is the mandate to observe the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath, and not work on the Sabbath. That command is not repeated in the New Testament, it is no longer valid. However, there are many other mandates such as not committing murder, prohibition of adultery, and lying and thievery, and many other things which are repeated in the New Testament, so those mandates are still in effect. Covenant theology says, by way of contrast, that Old Testament mandates are still valid unless they are specifically cancelled. They would say, for example, that Christ's death on the cross cancels out all of the sacrifices and that other things change a few others. But other than that everything else in the Old Testament is still in effect. There is a big difference between those two positions.
What we are going to see here is that there is a verse quote (2:8) which is a quote from Leviticus 19:18, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself," which shows that this mandate is not only an Old Testament mandate for Israel but was repeated by Jesus during the age of the incarnation and is reiterated again here. And Jesus utilized this in reference to the Sermon on the Mount and its application in the Millennium. So this is a permanent principle of all of human history. The reason for saying that is there are a lot of things that the Bible says about love and about this principle that are hard for us to apply and understand. We need to stop and look at this and go back and see what the Bible says and how we run up against this in terms of misinterpretation today. For example, this principle that we are to love our neighbour as ourselves has been radically distorted in secular psychology. We hear that man's problem is not sin, that is just an antiquated term for dealing with man's shortcomings and it has all sorts of patriarchal religious connotations in which you advance to those concepts. We hear that the problem with man is not self, it is self-image; he thinks too lowly of himself. In the pop psychology of the day the idea is that you need to start loving yourself and accepting yourself before you can love anybody else.
Where did this idea that this verse means that you need to love yourself before you can love your neighbour come from? In the 19th century there was a famous philosopher, a nihilist, by the name of Friedrich Nietze. This is what he has to say in his book: "Your neighbour love is your bad love of yourselves…. you cannot stand yourselves and so you do not love yourselves sufficiently." What he is saying is that the reason you cannot love others is because you don't have sufficient self-love. He is saying your neighbor love is a problem because of your bad love for yourself. His philosophy had a strong influence on Hitler as well as many others. But this concept from the Bible that you need to love yourself before you can love your neighbor was eventually popularized by a psychiatrist by the name of Eric …. He is not a Christian in any way, shape or form, and he is just popularizing a certain psychological view of man. But his ideas were picked up by a preacher out in California by the Name of Robert Schuller. He has written several books, including Self-Esteem, the New Reformation, and he makes the audacious statement in that book that it was okay to talk about sin back during the Reformation when people thought about man's relationship to God in those terms but sin is just an antiquated term, the real problem is self-esteem, and that Jesus didn't die for your sins, He died for your self-esteem. Schuller has popularized that concept and it has been picked up far and wide. This is just the opposite of what the Bible says. The Bible says we are not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought and that the essence of sin is self-love. Ephesians 5:29 NASB "…for no one ever hated his own flesh…"
We need to look at precisely what the Bible says, and the context always helps us to understand what the Scripture says. We need to go back to Matthew 22 and look at the context when Jesus is asked about the great commandment. 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. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.'" We need to be passionate about doctrine. That is where it starts. Here Jesus is summarizing the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law has ten specific mandates. The first part of it is related to God—Exodus 20:1-11. From verse 12 on deals with human relationships. Jesus summarizes the Mosaic law into two categories: loving God and loving man. So the mandates from Exodus 20:12 onward define what it means to love our neighbour.
[12] "Honor your father and your mother": respect for parents.
[13] "You shall not murder": respect for human life.
[14] "You shall not commit adultery": respect for marriage.
[15] "You shall not steal": respect for private property.
[16] "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour": you are going to tell the truth, letting truth dominate your relationships with other human beings.
[17] "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor": respect for private property.
So we see that in the Ten Commandments love for your neighbour is exemplified by respect for his privacy, his possessions, his property, and treating him honourably.
Leviticus 19:18 NASB "You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD." The first prohibition, you shall not take vengeance, is based on the qal imperfect, second person singular of the verb naqam, which means to avenge yourself, to seek vengeance. In other words, to take the law into your own hands over some real or imagined wrong. The second verb is the qal imperfect of natar which means to keep something, to hold on to something. When it is used in this kind of a context it means to keep a grudge, to hold on to it and not let it go, to have as a result enmity, animosity toward someone who has offended us. So what this is saying is that when someone does something to us that is wrong, either real or imagined, forget it and move on. Don't hold a grudge. Put it in the hands of the Supreme Court of heaven.
We need to go back to verse 9 to pick up the context here so we can understand the contextual definition of what it means to love your neighbour as yourself. "Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest." In your business dealings, don't try to squeeze every drop of profit out of everything for yourself. Have a sense of generosity about you toward other people. [10] "Nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the LORD your God." The needy and the stranger are the deserving poor. Leave something for them. [11] "You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another." In other words, you are going to respect the privacy and property of other people. [12] "You shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to profane the name of your God; I am the LORD." Perjury violates the principle of loving your neighbour as yourself. You will deal honestly with people on the basis of the truth. [13] "You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob {him.} The wages of a hired man are not to remain with you all night until morning." Give him what he is due him so that he can invest it, make money on it, whatever. [14] "You shall not curse a deaf man, nor place a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall revere your God; I am the LORD." Notice the connection here back and forth between the way we treat other people and our respect for God. Why? Because all mankind is created in the image and likeness of God. That is ultimately why we must have this kind of love for all mankind. Even though they are sinners they are in the image and likeness of God. It is marred now because of sin but we are to respect all men, even those who are disfigured, who have physical disabilities. We are to still treat them in generosity, kindness and graciousness. [15] "You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly." There is supposed to be an impartial attitude, treating all with the same deference and generosity. [16] "You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people, and you are not to act against the life of your neighbor; I am the LORD." No sins of the tongue. You don't run down other people even if they have offended you in some way. [17] "You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him." No mental attitude sins of hatred, anger, jealousy, vindictiveness, bitterness; all of that will destroy your spiritual life.
All of this defines love, but almost in a negative way, what is does not include. We get a very different picture of the positive aspects of love if we turn to the New Testament, Luke 6:27 NASB "But I say to you who hear [willing to listen and concentrate on doctrine], love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…" This isn't just maintaining a relaxed mental attitude to wards someone who is against you, this is doing something positive towards them. [28] "bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you." [29] "Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. [30] "Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back."
Think about this. Think about the Lord Jesus Christ during His last week before the cross and think about the application of these principles and that we are to have the character of Christ formed in us. God the Father loved you enemies. Romans 5:8 NASB "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." God sent His unique Son out of His love to a hostile world that was antagonistic toward Him and hated Him, and had rejected His messengers time and time again. God was doing good to those who hated Him, mankind. Jesus prayed for them who hung Him on the cross.
Verse 31 defines impersonal love. "Treat others the same way you want them to treat you."
Earlier we said that we have to develop grace orientation as an infant believer. If we don't understand grace, that you do nothing, you have done nothing to earn God's love. He gave it to us while we were enemies. If we can't understand that we will never get to the point of loving God or loving others. That is why the prerequisite for advance to spiritual maturity is understanding grace, because in understanding grace we develop humility. We learn not to expect anything in return. We learn to give graciously and generously of our time, our talent and our treasure because that is the example that God gave to us in Christ on the cross.
John 13:34 NASB "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. [35] By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
