The Law of Love (Part 1 of 2)

Music playing. Some people are easy to love. Other people can be quite challenging. Jesus, however, calls us to love even our enemies. Now, that kind of love may seem totally unnatural, but it is entirely possible. We'll discover the source of this kind of love today on Truth for Life.

Alistair Begg is continuing our Encore 2022 series with the popular message titled, The Law of Love. Last time, we noted that Jesus said that there was a blessing which attended the poor, hungry, sad, and hated, but that he pronounced a wall on those who were rich, well-fed, happy, and popular. And we asked the question, Which would you rather be—rich, well-fed, happy, and popular, or poor, hungry, sad, and hated? And before you answer, what if your eternal destiny hinged on the correct answer to that question?

And before you answer, please know that it does. That was distinctly uncomfortable. I came last week saying, I don't remember the last time I studied such an uncomfortable passage. If that was last week, this is this week. This week is much harder than last week.

This week is dreadful in its implications. Do you ever feel that you're maybe not a Christian at all? When you read the Bible, and it describes Christianity, and you look at that, and you look at yourself, or you reflect upon the previous week or the previous day or the previous hour, whatever it is, you read what it says, you look at yourself and say, You know what? I don't know if I'm a Christian at all. And when you have that experience, don't be too quick to go in the flyleaf of your Bible and pull out some little baptismal certificate. Don't be too quick to go somewhere and remember that on the third of February, on a cold evening in 1947, when the pastor said you ought to raise your hand, that you raise your hand. I'm glad of what's in your Bible, and I'm glad of what happened in 1947, but that may not be the issue.

Have you ever considered that? That the very things that we are tempted then to hang onto when it comes to our saying, Oh, yes, I'm a true believer, may be the kind of things that the New Testament nowhere encourages us to hang onto. Indeed, may actually be things that never ever appear in the New Testament.

You say, Well, now, this is distinctly uncomfortable. Where are you going with this? Well, I hope I'm going the same place that Jesus is going, by going to the Bible and seeing what it is that he's saying. Because the fact of the matter is that when John provides for the believers evidences of genuine Christian assurance, he does not take them to events in the past, but he asks them to look for characteristics in the present.

Not that there are no events in the past, but that events in the past have relevance, provided those past events are evidenced by present characteristics. Now, that is not to say that the ground of our salvation is to be found in our ability to manifest these characteristics. The ground of a person's salvation is in what Christ has achieved upon the cross, and that it is by grace alone, through faith alone, that we trust in Christ's work. However, as the Reformers pointed out, it is grace alone that saves, but the grace that saves is not alone. And so when we come, for example, to a challenging passage of Scripture like this, let us not be too quick to set aside the insistent, nagging, unsettling, uncomfortable question, which says to you, Alistair, in relationship to what you are reading, what you are teaching, where are you?

And sometimes it makes me feel like maybe I'm not a Christian at all. Now, you see, pastors, they're not supposed to say this, because people run out the door going, do you know what? The pastor's been doubting his salvation. He's come from a week of doubt.

You know, we must pray for him. No, I haven't come from a week of doubt. I've come from a week of studying my Bible. And when I see what Jesus says here, and when I see what I'm like, I'm just saying there's a major gap. And since I'm not as weird as you think, and there may be a few more like me, you may get the same feeling.

So, get as comfortable as you can for a moment or two, because that's about as comfortable as you're going to be. Because just when we might anticipate that Jesus' teaching could not get any more challenging, could not become any more convicting, he actually turns the temperature up. And having given these words expressly to his disciples, he now addresses those who are hearing him. But you, I tell, the ones hearing, love the enemies of you.

That's to translate the Greek literally. Of course, Jesus spoke it in Aramaic. "'I tell you who hear me,' said those of you who are listening, with all the ears of your heart, "'love your enemies.'" Now, can you just imagine somebody in the crowd saying to his friend, Did Jesus just say what I… Did he just say what I think he said? Did Jesus just say you're supposed to actually love your enemies? And the person says, wait a minute, you're missing the rest of it.

He's saying more. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who ill-treat you.

Now, let me try and summarize this whole paragraph in a sentence or two, so that we can then fly over it, as it were, at 33,000 feet, and we'll descend at various points, but not very often, because we'll have to come back to it in more detail later. What does this paragraph say? What is Jesus' teaching here? He is teaching, you will notice, that his followers are not simply to do what is right, but they are to do what is good.

Not simply to do what is right, but to do what is good. And they are to act in this way, not only towards those who deserve it, but towards those who don't deserve it. And, says Jesus, this kind of love—and this is way down in 35 or so—this kind of love will not go unrewarded, but the essence of this kind of love is that that must never be the motive for practicing it. In other words, that while we will be rewarded for this kind of selfless love, the reason that we engage in this love is not because of a reward that comes, but because it is an expression of the character of God, who is our Father, and kids ought to be like their dad. Indeed, it is completely incongruous, if not impossible, for those of us who declare ourselves to be the Father's children, not to manifest the mercy of a merciful God, and not to display a love for our enemies, which is akin to the approach of Jesus who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return, but committed his cause to him who judges justly.

1 Peter chapter 2. So the issue, then, is love, first of all. Love. Of course, everyone has something to say about love—poets and songwriters. It's not unusual to hear people say, as a sort of platitudinous explanation of the predicaments we face, well, all you need is love, you know, as the great book says, or something as people say that now.

Of course, it wasn't a great book. It was Lennon and McCartney said that. All you need is love. And people have said it again and again. And people say, well, I agree with that entirely, you know. And there's a sense in which it's true. We certainly need love more than we need hate. When we see what hate has done to our world, what it is doing in various parts of the Muslim world, what it is doing in race relationships in our own country, we certainly need love rather than hate. But it's one thing to sing it, it's another thing to understand what Jesus is saying, and it is yet another thing to actually put into practice the command of Jesus here. Now, I think we'll be helped by doing a little refresher course on love. A refresher for some, a news for others.

Just apply it as necessary. The word that we find in our Bibles in the New Testament for love is a translation of one of three Greek words for love, and there are actually four Greek words for love that are translated by our English word love. The significance of this is to be found in the fact that it's always simply translated love.

And we have no way of knowing, apart from the understanding of the original text, exactly what word is being used here. So, for example, there is the word storge. Storge, which is the Greek word for natural affection. It's the kind of affection that should exist between two sisters in a family.

There is a natural dimension to it. They love each other. It is a storge kind of love. There is the word eros, which is a romantic or a sensual love, the love between a man and a woman, that provides for as our English words. Then there is philia, or phileo, which is the word that provides part of the name of Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. And this doesn't have to do with the natural affection of people within the same family, but it has to do with a sense of brotherliness and camaraderie, in the way that guys on a sports team or in an exercise club may have an affection for one another. Now, none of those words is used here. The word which is used here is the word agape, A-G-A-P-E, if you want to write it down.

And this is radically different. Because unlike these other words for love, this is a love which is not drawn out by the attractiveness or the merit of the one we love. So Jesus is calling for a love for people that is in no way related to the loveability, if you like, of those whom we are to love. It's not that we look at them and go, Oh, this is a lovely person.

I must show some natural affection towards them. No, it is not on account of their attractiveness or on account of their merit. Now, the reason we know that this is the love of God in Christ is because that is exactly how God has loved us. Not because we had cleaned up our act, not because we were perfect, not because we merited his attention, not because we were predisposed towards him. None of these things contributed to the love of God for us. It was a self-engendered love for those who were his enemies. Isn't that what it says in Ephesians 2? We are by nature the objects of his wrath. We are dead in our trespasses and in our sins. And yet God has come to those who are his enemies and loved us with an everlasting love. Now, this helps us stay away from the mistaken notion that what Jesus is calling for here is for us simply to hang with people that we like, to manifest towards them a kind of human infection, hopefully to have some warm feelings towards him.

Jesus is not saying here that the agape love of the Christian is blind. It's a kind of woozy, daft sort of love. You know, sort of like, Oh, I just love you. I love you. Ooh, ooh.

You know, that kind of pathetique in a sort of French way. And love, it's not that at all. Love is blind. Human affection is blind.

Likeability is blind. It overlooks things, but agape love is not blind. Jesus is not saying here that the reason we're able to exercise this love for our enemies is because we're blind to their offenses against us, or because somehow or another love takes over and we don't see them as they really are.

He's not saying that at all. He's saying we see them exactly as they are, in all of their ugliness, in all of their spitefulness, in all of their cursing, in all of their hatred, and in all of their unwillingness to pay us what they owe us and to pay their debts and to do whatever it is. Seeing all of that, says Jesus, I want you to love your enemies.

So, there you have it. This love is intelligent, it is a love that is marked by comprehension, and it is a love that is purposeful in its application. Lenski, the commentator, puts it like this. This love may see nothing attractive in the one loved, nor is this love called out by anything that is attractive.

Its inner motive—be the object worthy or not—is to bestow these blessings upon the one loved and to do him the highest possible good. So here Jesus goes again. And he takes conventional human wisdom, and he turns it completely on its head. In fact, in Matthew, he records the fact that Jesus actually establishes the antithesis by saying to the people, You have heard that it was said, you should love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

That's the standard approach. Everybody understands that. You like people you're supposed to like, and you hate people you're allowed to hate. You get the enemies, you can hate them. You get the neighbors, you can love them. Jesus says, You've heard that that's what's been said, but I want to tell you something. You've got to love your enemies.

Let me, he says, turn this completely the other way up. Now, Jesus, in making that statement, is not contradicting the Old Testament Scriptures, as I sometimes hear people mistakenly saying. Of course, Jesus corrected the Old Testament, because in the Old Testament it said, You can love your neighbors and hate your enemies. No, it doesn't say that in the Old Testament at all. That was the nonsense that the Pharisees made of it. Let me show you where it comes from in Leviticus 19 and verse 18. God's word through his servant Moses to his people, Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge.

Now, there's enough right there, isn't there? Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge. Loved ones, some of us have got grudges that don't just go back months, they go back years. And we carry them around in our briefcase. We nurture them, as if somehow or another they were comfortable little toys to be taken on business trips with us.

We're happy to have them and stroke them and cajole them, and it's nice every so often to bring it back out so we can re-examine it. Doesn't it make you wonder sometimes if you are a Christian? Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people. But love your neighbor as yourself.

I am the Lord. So where does it say anything about hating your enemies? Nowhere.

Right? So how did they get hate your enemies, love your neighbors? Let me show you. They took the little phrase, one of your people, and they elevated the phrase, one of your people. And they took the notion of comprehensive love, and they shrunk it. And as a result, they managed to create a situation whereby it became commonly accepted practice to determine who one of my people is. And as long as you were one of my people, then I loved you. But if you're not one of my people whom I'm supposed to be paying attention to, then frankly, I might just hate you. So Jesus says, it's been going around that you can love your neighbor and hate your enemies. I want you to understand that you're going to have to love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. I have to constantly stop myself from going down all these different rabbit trails that come across my computer screen. But here's one.

I'll try and go down it and come straight back up. Do you think that on average, a person in the United States of America would regard conservative evangelical Christianity as being at the forefront of this principle? Or do you think it is distinctly possible that people have the perspective that conservative Christianity is directly related to a political view, which if endorsed, you may be loved, and if set aside, you may be disregarded? That conservative Christianity bears a certain kind of face, that it has a sort of inner circle, and if you're in the inner circle, then you may be embraced and loved and cared for.

But if you're outside the circle, if your sexuality is up the creek, if you don't happen to fit the same color bar and color code, if you don't have the same background, if you don't have whatever it is, do you think there's at least a possibility that the average student on a university campus may have to conclude that conservative Christianity has completely missed this point? Be honest now. There's no question. There is no question.

We've got our heads so far underneath one of our arms that it's not even funny when it comes to this. People are not flocking to the people of God on account of the fact that they have come to wrestle with the implications of this, and they're taking it seriously. We are as guilty as the individual a few chapters later who interrupted Jesus, came to him with a question in Luke chapter 10, and let me just go forward to Luke 10. On one occasion, an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. Luke 10 25. Stood up to test Jesus. He wasn't there to ask a question.

He was there just to test him. And he asked, What must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus replies with an ad hominem argument. What is written in the law, he says?

How do you read it? The man says, Well, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. You've answered correctly, Jesus replied.

Now you go ahead and do this, and you will live. Now the man, if he'd been smart, would have quit at that point, but he wasn't smart. And we're told by Luke that he wanted to justify himself. In other words, he wanted to know who was in the circle. Tell me who my neighbor is. Tell me how limited the circle is so that I can just love the people that are in the circle.

Who is my neighbor? Jesus says, Well, let me answer that question for you. And then he says, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his raiment and departed, leaving him half dead. Do you remember how these three individuals come down? You can see the people with their ears flapping in the breeze as they listen to Jesus. A priest happened to be going down the road, and he went by on the other side.

The people are listening. I wonder where this story is going. And Jesus says, And then a Levite, he came.

How do we look at him? And then he buzzed off as well. And they must have been saying to one another, I know who he's going to be. Jesus is going against the establishment of religion, and he's going to go for, but a carpenter or a plumber came along. He's going for the laity.

We're going to look good in this. And they're waiting for him to say, But it wasn't a Levite, and it wasn't a priest. It was just one. And he says, But a Samaritan. He's going, Samaritan?

That's it? Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers? The expert in the law replied, The one who had mercy on him. Jesus said, Exactly.

Now you go and do the exact same thing. And you will see that that is exactly how he finishes here in verse thirty-six. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Well, at least we're able to say this, are we not? That the love of which Jesus speaks here redefines the boundaries. Does not allow the follower of Jesus to determine who he's going to love. Does not allow us to do the us-for-no-more-shut-the-door trick. We can't do that. Not if we are the followers of Christ. We cannot simply isolate the little group of people that fits within our comfort zone and say, Now, we're going to love these people, but anybody who fits without the circle, frankly, we don't have to really worry about them at all. No, Jesus says, You can't do that.

Let me tell you what you need to do. You need to love your enemies and do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who ill-treat you. So the distinctions of race, nationality, political affiliation, age, sex, background, etc., are blown away in the words of Jesus here.

As we read the Bible, it's pretty clear there are no boundaries on who we're called to love as Jesus loved. We're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life. Whether you are brand new to reading the Bible or you've been reading the Scriptures for a long time, it can be challenging to understand what you're reading, especially in particular books of the Bible that seem less straightforward. Well, there's a book we're recommending today that will help you with that. It's called Read This First. The subtitle is A Simple Guide to Getting the Most from the Bible. The author is Pastor Gary Millar. He offers guidance on how we can best navigate the various genres and sections of the Bible, how to understand the prophetic books or the poetic books or the wisdom literature, the New Testament letters. You will benefit greatly from the helpful instruction that is provided in this book.

You'll also appreciate the tips this book offers for what to do when you feel stuck. Request your copy of Read This First when you give a donation today. You can visit us online at truthforlife.org slash donate. Or feel free to give us a call at 888-588-7884. You can also mail your donation along with your request for the book. Write to Truth for Life at post office box 398000 Cleveland, Ohio.

The zip code is 44139. And if you'd like to purchase extra copies of the book Read This First to share with others, you'll find them along with other books and resources in our online store. They're available for purchase at our cost while supplies last. If you'd like to see what is currently available, visit truthforlife.org slash store. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow we'll find out why Jesus requires a love that defies logic. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.