"Even So Do Ye Unto Them"

by Edwin Neely, Brantford, Canada | Category: The Sermon On The Mount | Oct 1984

All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them: for this is the law and the prophets (Matthew 7:12).

Love thy neighbour

Our text, this key verse from the Sermon on the Mount, concisely expresses

the practical form that Christlikeness should take in our actions towards others. Its context, the inappropriateness of earthly anxiety, demonstrates the additional effect that its practice will have upon ourselves. The Lord had just finished telling His listeners that He had come to fulfil the law and the prophets. This summation of both of these, closely resembling the royal law of James 2:8, epitomizes His desire for the behaviour of all who would be sons of the Kingdom.

Seven times in the New Testament is Leviticus 19:18 quoted, each time through its context revealing something further of the Person who fulfilled it, and giving further direction to those who would be His disciples:

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Matthew 5:44 adds the love of enemies; 19:21; responsibility to those less fortunate; 22:39, the impossibility of loving God without loving one's fellow. Mark 12:33 shows the superiority of love over sacrifices and offerings, while the quotation in Galatians 5:13-15 underscores its importance in our lives in fellowship with believers. Luke 10:25-37 stresses the necessity for action rather than passivity in its fulfilment, and James 2:8-9 shows how that fulfilment requires special care. Matthew 7 begins with the need for a correct estimation of the character of others and ends with a right estimation of God. John also uses this order for the believer, while the unbeliever must firstly come to know God through Jesus Christ:

If a man say I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen. And this is the commandment we have from Him, that he who loveth God love his brother also (1 John 4:20, 21).

Whosoever loveth Him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of Him (1 John 5:1).

Hurtful criticism

If we are to be like Christ we must avoid being censorious: Judge not, that ye

be not judged. This condemnation of others betrays the presence of hypocrisy in one's own life, a "beam" evidenced by a lack of love. The admonition against such judging, like the command to throw the first stone in John 8:7, redirects one's attention from the desire to correct or punish others to the need for personal repentance. This does not mean that there is never the necessity to judge another. Indeed, verse S indicates that once a believer's own life is in order, he should remove the "mote" from his brother's eye, and Galatians 6:1 echoes the teaching that spiritual ones should aid in the restoration of those who have yielded to temptation. Furthermore, Matthew 7:21 give us the key to judgemental matters, saying, "By their fruits ye shall know them." But a critical nature uncontrolled develops bigotry and is most unbecoming of a disciple of Jesus Christ. Our progress is to be made through prayer (verses 7-11) not through criticism, a point about which preachers and writers need also to be reminded. And if this is true in our relation to non-believers, how true it is concerning those linked with us in the Kingdom. David's heart smote him after he had cut off part of Saul's robe while they were in the cave, David's hiding-place. So should ours when we attack in others the works and position of which such robes speak. "But if ye bite and devour one another," says Paul, "take heed that ye be not consumed one of another" (Gal. 5:15).

Put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint against any...

(Col. 3:12, 13).

The dual effect of this is outlined by Paul in Romans 14:

Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge ye this rather, that no man put a stumbling block in his brother's way, or an occasion of falling... For he that herein serveth Christ is well-pleasing to God, and approved of men (vv. 13, 18).

Moral discrimination is necessary, but it must work in conjunction with love, and whoever converts a sinner from the error of his way saves a soul from death and covers a multitude of sins says James (Jas. 5:20). Peter joins the thoughts:

above all things being fervent in your love among yourselves; for love

covereth a multitude of sins (I Pet. 4:8).

Cast not your pearls before swine

The covering of sins, however, does not give permission to the unbelieving to treat precious things as paltry. Neither dogs, nor those so-called in scripture (compare the use of dogs and swine in 2 Pet. 2:22) have an appreciation of holy things; nor do swine value either pearls or those who offer them.

Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged (1 Cor. 2:14).

What the natural man can see is the very practical translation of Christ and His word through our lives as we treat others as we would be treated.

Ask, seek, knock

Christlikeness will demand prayer. Peter reminds us of the Lord's attitude throughout His life here, culminating in His crucifixion, in all of which He left us an example that we should follow His steps: reviled, yet unreviling, threatened, yet unthreatening (I Pet. 2:21-23). But prayer is more than taking one's frustrations to the Father. In Luke's fourteen references to Christ in prayer there is not one hint of this. Indeed, He calls on His Father to forgive the very ones crucifying Him; and instructs the disciples to pray, forgiving others, that their own debts might be forgiven. Consistent and continuing communication with the Father is the very essence of Christlikeness. With due regard to the Greek tenses, Wuest amplifies verses 17, 18 this way:

Keep on asking for something to be given and it will be given you. Keep on seeking, and you shall find. Keep on reverently knocking, and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who keeps on asking for something to be given, keeps on receiving. And he who keeps on seeking, keeps on finding. And to him who keeps on reverently knocking, it shall be opened.

If we who are evil know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more does a heavenly Father know how to dispense good and unhurtful gifts? The culmination of this, the supreme Good Thing given to His own is the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13). It is significant that the "Golden Rule" verse comes where it does after the parenthetical account of prayer. What is more, the word therefore indicates that the good we do for others is to be patterned on what we have received from God. Alford says:

... give that which is good for each, to each, not judging uncharitably on the one hand, nor casting pearls before swine on the other.

That is, we do for others not what suits us, making ourselves and our tastes the standards by which others must receive, but rather we do what we might have reason to believe they would like to have done unto them. And this standard of behaviour is not to be used with the idea of obtaining for ourselves our own desires from another. The exhortation is not seen to be manipulative, either in Matthew 7:12 or in Luke 6:31. It is a guide, not a goal for one's actions:

Let us each one please his neighbour for that which is good, unto edifying. For Christ also pleased not Himself (Romans 15:2, 3).

Nevertheless, God is debtor to no man. When Job prayed for his three friends so that they would not be judged according to their folly, God not only answered his supplication on their behalf, but also restored to him what he had lost, and doubled the amount. As we fulfil the royal law there will be blessings which also accrue to our account down here. Christlikeness brings with it present as well as future blessings: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness; faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. It brings the security and fellowship that such qualities imbue, and reciprocal blessings coming from others who will react in kind to the Christian treatment accorded them.

Anxiety

On a very practical note, much of the anxiety that unfortunately at times characterizes human behaviour will disappear as we observe the Lord's teaching. Worry changes nothing but the worrier, and that not for the better. It cannot change yesterday nor tomorrow; its only power is to rob the present of much of its potential. Be not therefore anxious, for though each day has its share of evil, this very practical sermon on the mount speaks blessing upon blessing to all who will seek first His kingdom, and His righteousness. In our doing as we would have done to us, we both glorify God and bring manifold benefits to the lives of others and our own.

Matthew 7:12, through its fulfilment of the law and the prophets has a parallel with the love commandments of Matthew 22:36-40. Our correct horizontal relationships, man with man, as we live as sons of the kingdom, must flow out of that great vertical relationship of love we have with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Edwin Neely, Brantford, Canada | Oct 1984
The Sermon On The Mount