Love Your Neighbor (Moyer)

by Doy Moyer

Jesus taught that the two greatest commandments are first, to love God with all the heart, soul, strength, and might, and second, to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:36-40). These commandments are the basis for everything else God commands. It’s not hard to see in the structure of the Ten Commandments that loving God and loving others is easily outlined. We are told that the whole law is “summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:8-10).

The link between loving God and loving others ought to be clear. We cannot love God if we do not love our neighbor. John shows how loving others is based on God’s love and demonstrates that we are born of Him: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (I John 4:7-11).

The command to love one's neighbor as oneself comes from Leviticus 19. This is significant because the purpose of Leviticus is to show how those guilty of sin can once again draw near to God. Sacrifice and holiness are the keys (cf. Leviticus 11:44-45 and 17:11). The interesting point about loving neighbor in this context is that love displays both sacrifice and holiness. Consider how Leviticus 19 begins: “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). In this context, “I am the LORD your God” occurs several times to emphasize the holiness of God. Profaning what is holy to God means being cut off from His people (Leviticus 19:8 ). From here, a number of actions relating to how they were to treat others are given, culminating in the statement, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:18). Notice how that statement is completed with “I am the LORD.” This underscores holiness.

The context of Leviticus shows that loving neighbor is grounded in God’s holiness. People are made in God’s image. There is a sacredness about humanity because of who God is and what He has made humans to be. Profaning humanity is to profane what is holy, even more so than profaning physical articles that God declared holy. We are not told to love things, but to love people. Not to do so disrespects God who made them. To mistreat people is to profane God Himself. James said that to use the tongue to curse others is to “curse people who are made in the likeness of God,” and, “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so” (James 3:9-10). To love one's neighbor as oneself is to respect what is holy because it is a direct reflection of how we think of God. Always keep in mind that phrase, “I am the LORD.”

The context of Leviticus also shows that loving neighbor is sacrificial. Read Leviticus 19:9-18 again, and you’ll find principles of sacrificial giving to others and of treating them with dignity and respect. It would be difficult to show that we love others if we are unwilling to sacrifice anything for them.

Jesus came to fulfill the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17). He did this through showing what loving God and loving others looks like, and He did it with perfect holiness and by His sacrifice. The mind of Christ, Paul shows, was demonstrated through humility and the self-emptying sacrifice of His life for the sake of others (Philippians 2:1-8).

Jesus taught the principle many times, but think of these two passages:

1. Matthew 7:1-12, where He taught that we will be judged by the same standard of judgment we use for others. Therefore, we are to reflect the principle, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
2. Luke 10:25-38, where He taught the parable of the good Samaritan based upon the efforts of the lawyer to justify himself by questioning who his neighbor was. In this case, Jesus shows that being a neighbor to others is not passive, but active. Who “proved to be a neighbor to the man” in trouble?

To be holy as God is holy requires that we love our neighbors as ourselves. To love others is to deny self and sacrifice for their good. It is very much a part of loving God, and love is holy.