Matthew 7:12 – The Golden Rule
My parents have a grandfather
clock in their living room. I grew up
with its musical chimes and rhythmic dongs.
It chimes every quarter of an hour, and at each quarter it chimes longer
until it reaches the top of the hour when it not only chimes but dongs out the
number of hours. And it can be very
loud, especially if you are not used to hearing it. However, having grown up with it in our
living room, I became totally oblivious to its noises. In fact, I could be sitting right next to it
at the noon hour and never hear it. It
was different with visitors. One time,
we had some visitors stay with us overnight and they slept in the living room. Unfortunately, we forgot to turn the clock
chimes off and so as a result they didn’t get very much sleep that night! What I never heard kept them awake because I
was used to the sounds of the clock and they weren’t.
It’s the same with truth. We can hear a truth so often that we don’t
really hear it anymore. And I wonder if
our text this morning doesn’t fall into that category. We’ve all heard the Golden Rule, and even
society at large would probably agree that it is a good rule to live by. But we’ve heard this clock chime so often
that when we come to a text like this, we don’t really hear it. Whereas the previous verses (7-11) are not
heard because of misinterpretation or a lack of faith, this verse (12) is often
not heard for no other reason than overfamiliarity.
And yet if we stop to really
listen to it, we realize that this is not just another saying from a fortune
cookie. These words are incredibly
important to learn and to live. And we
can see their importance underlined in the phrase “for this is the law and the
prophets.” In Jesus’ day, “the law and
the prophets” was the usual nomenclature for the Scriptures. In other words, the Golden Rule summarizes
the teaching of the Scriptures. So if we
claim to believe that the Bible is the word of God, then we need to listen to
these words.
This is a summary statement of
Biblical truth. Being able to grasp such
statements are incredibly important. You
really cannot say that you understand the Bible if you do not understand those
grand themes and basic truths that unite everything else together. As a teacher of mathematics, I see this all
the time. People will say that they
understand calculus or even that they are good at it, but when you press them
to summarize what calculus is, what
it is about, they have no clue. They
cannot tell you. And, by the way, such
people turn out to not be very good at calculus, and one of the reasons is
because they don’t understand fundamentally what it is all about. The same hold true with the teaching of God’s
word. It is said that someone asked Rabbi Hillel if he could summarize the
whole law while standing on one leg (evidently a Rabbi wasn’t expected to stand
on one leg very long): his response was a version of the Golden Rule.[1] Can you summarize the teaching of the
Bible? Well, our Lord tells us that one
way we can summarize the teaching of God’s Word, at least as it respects our
duty to our fellow man, is by the Golden Rule.
A question that might come up at
this point is, “Why then do we need all that extra stuff in the Bible?” If we can summarize all the Old Testament
teaching on our duty to our fellow man in one verse, why all those extra
commandments? Well, one reason is that
we need “all that extra stuff” because we are so easily tempted to leave these
summary truths unapplied to our lives.
In other words, we need specific and detailed commandments to convict us
and to move us to apply truth in very specific ways to our lives. Our Lord in some sense has already been doing
this in this Sermon. In 5:43-48, he
gives us specific instruction how to do unto others as he would have them do to
us. In particular, he tells us to love
our enemies, because God has been good to us even when we were unlovely. We, who are so glad that God has been good to
us, ought to do good to others, even our enemies. And then we saw that 7:1-5 is another
application of the Golden Rule. We would
not want to be judged by others harshly; we should therefore put away a harsh
and judgmental attitude.
We need summary truths to give us
the big picture and to keep us from legalism.
One way you can define legalism is that a legalist is someone is gets
bogged down in details and forgets the big picture. Like the Pharisees who got so bogged down in
the details of how to apply Sabbath law that they forgot to show mercy. Keeping the overarching truths of Scripture before
us keeps us from becoming unbalanced like that.
On the other hand, specific commandments and instruction are necessary
because they bring conviction for specific sins and keep us from
libertinism. So don’t be like the person
who says that religion really is just about the Golden Rule and therefore there
is no need to read the Bible or listen to sermons or exhortation from fellow
brethren. We need all that. We need both, and we can thank God that he
has given us both in his word.
“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that
men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the
prophets.” It has been often said that
the “Golden Rule” is not unique to the teaching of Christ. However, among all the variants of the Golden
Rule found in the various religions, the words of our Lord are unique in the
sense that his version of the Golden Rule is stated positively, whereas in the
teaching of others it is always stated negatively. For example, Confucius is supposed to have
said, “Do not to others what you would not wish done to yourselves.”[2] It is not quibbling to point out the
difference, for there is a difference.
If you put it only negatively, you are attacking only sins of
commission. But if you put it
positively, you are attacking both sins of commission and omission. In other words, our Lord was not only saying
that we shouldn’t do bad things to other people; he was also saying that we
should always do good to others. To fail
to do good to others, even if you haven’t harmed them in any way, is still a
breach of the Golden Rule as our Lord puts it before us. In other words, once again we see the breadth
of our Lord’s teaching.
What is the connection of this
passage with the forgoing? The word
“therefore” indicates that there is a connection. However, there is disagreement on how it is
connected. Some say that the connection
is not with any specific verse or verses, but with the entire sermon so far. Thus, given everything that our Lord has said
up to this point, it follows that we should do good to others as we would have
them do to us. Others say that this
verse is connected with the first five verses of this chapter. And certainly this verse is tied to those
verses in that 7:1-5 is an application of 7:12. In that case, 7:7-11 would be
read as a parenthesis. And this may well
be true. However, it seems to me most
natural to read 7:12 as a deduction from the previous verses. In other words, our Lord’s promise to do good
to those who seek him leads naturally to the Golden Rule. God does good to us; we ought therefore to do
good to others. Another way to put this
is that we ought to live out the gospel practically in our lives. God has been gracious to us; we ought to be
gracious to others. God has been liberal
with us; we ought to be generous with others.
In other words, the “therefore”
at the beginning of verse 12 points to the motivation
behind the Golden Rule, and this makes this version of it uniquely
Christian. The motivation to do good to
others as we would want them to do to us is not rooted in selfishness but in
our view of God and his grace. We should
not practice the Golden Rule because we think we are much more likely to be
liked (or at least left alone) by others if we practice it. The ultimate motivation is not love for self
but love for God and our desire for others to know him and his goodness and
grace. You see, if all that is
motivating you to practice the Golden Rule is some selfish desire for others to
like you or appreciate you or validate your existence upon the earth, then you
will end up undermining it in your life.
This is because the Golden Rule is primarily selfless, and so if selfish
considerations are what are driving you, those very motivations will end up
undoing it. Love to self is the enemy of
the Golden Rule, not the driving force behind it. On the other hand, love to God and
experiencing his power and grace and goodness in your life is necessary for
living out our Lord’s words.
So do you want to live out the
Golden Rule in your life? Then know
God! Not just in the sense of being a
theologian (though that’s important), but in the sense of experiencing God in
your life. We need to be the kind of
person who lives out verses 7-11. Such a
person who is full of God’s goodness will overflow with deeds of goodness and
kindness and grace to others. The
well-springs behind this kind of life of overflowing love lie in fellowship
with the living God and his Son Jesus Christ.
God is the only one who can sustain this kind of life.
This is why Peter wrote, “As
every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as
good stewards of the manifold grace of God. . . . If any man minister, let him
do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified
through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Pet. 4:10-11). It’s not just that our motivation lies in
God; it’s that our very ability to live this way lies in God. He gives the ability to do it, so that in our
serving others and doing good to them, he may be glorified. We may give to others, but our gift is from
God first of all. We give what we have
first received. Which means that God
gets the glory, not us.
This serves to underline the
importance of never taking a Scripture out of context. There have been many people over the years
who have taken a verse like Matthew 7:12, ripped it out of its context, and
then used it as a way to make the Christian religion nothing more than doing
good to others. And they’ll claim that
it doesn’t matter what you think about God – as long as you are a good person,
then you are being a good Christian. Now,
the Christian religion is of course about doing good to others, but that is not
all that it is. As our previous considerations
make clear, it does matter what you think about God, it does matter that you
have a relationship with him through his Son Jesus Christ. And if you do good to others all your life
and yet turn your back on the Son of God, you are yet in your sins and without
hope.
“Therefore all things whatsoever
you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them: for this is the
law and the prophets.” These words are
very similar to our Lord’s answer to the question: “Master, which is the great
commandment in the law?” (Matthew 22:36-40).
His answer was this: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself.” Love your neighbor as yourself is essentially
the same thing as saying, Do unto others as you would have them do unto
you.
Now we’ve been arguing that
selfish concerns are not a proper motivator to the Golden Rule. However, they are a good rule to follow in applying the Golden Rule. It’s not love to self that ought to motivate
me to do good unto others, but love to self should guide me in doing good to
others. The reason for this is that we
naturally love ourselves. Long ago, the
French philosopher and Christian Blaise Pascal noted that everyone does what
they do to increase their happiness.
This is true even in extreme cases, like when a person commits
suicide. Why do they do that? Because they think they will be better off
dead than alive. And we do what we do to
be happy. And we want to be happy
because we love ourselves.
There is nothing inherently wrong
with loving yourself. What is wrong is
when we love ourselves more than God.
What is wrong is when we put ourselves before others. However, some people come to a verse like
this and draw wrong conclusions from it.
They will point at it and say, “Look, there is a Biblical command to
love yourself.”
Now that is not what our Lord is
saying, and it’s very important to recognize that. It is very troubling to me that people are
taught that their problem is that they do not love themselves enough, and that
if they would just have a better view of themselves then life would get
better. But the problem is not that we do not love ourselves
enough. The problem is almost surely
that we have sinned in some way because we have loved ourselves more than God,
that we are seeking our happiness in something or someone other than God.
Of course people say that they
hate themselves, but what they really mean is they hate what they have done (or
are doing) because of the consequences that they are reaping from it. Again, the problem is not a lack of
self-esteem but sin which stems from a self-love that has supplanted God.
What our Lord is doing in this
text (and with the Golden Rule) is not commanding people to love themselves,
but simply recognizing the fact that people already love themselves. Thy command is to love your neighbor in the
same way you love yourself. And instead
of encouraging people to work on their self-esteem, he is reorienting such
self-love so that it occupies to proper orbit.
God first, above all else. And
then we must love our neighbor (which in Scripture means everyone else) in the
same way (as) we love ourselves.
The problem with this advice to
increase your self-esteem is that is turns people away from God. Now for someone who doesn’t believe in God,
working on your self-esteem is all that you’ve got. The same is true with the oft-repeated advice
to “forgive yourself.” There is no
Scripture that justifies telling someone that they’ve got to forgive
themselves! The only one whose
forgiveness you need is God’s. The
problem with guilt is not a problem with a lack of forgiving oneself, but a
problem with a failure to believe in God’s remedy for sin. Again, if you don’t believe in God, then the
only way you can deal with guilt is to try to forgive yourself. But you will not succeed. God is the only one who can forgive sin. Just as God is the only one who is worthy of your
love above all other things. He is also
the only one who can truly make us happy and satisfy the deepest longings of
our soul.
Finally, note the universality
with which the Golden Rule is stated: all
things. Here again we are faced with
the fact that following Christ requires the commitment of the whole
person. All of our life is to fall under
his jurisdiction and we are to put every aspect of our life under the rule of
Christ. Moreover, all of our life is to
be under the obedience of Christ at all times.
It is not a part-time job. We are
not to seek to live out the Golden Rule on Sunday only to turn into a
completely self-oriented person on Monday.
We are not to seek to apply the Golden Rule merely in ways that please
us and with which we are comfortable, but we are to apply our Lord’s words even
when we don’t want to because it is hard on the flesh. And especially, we are not meant to live out
obedience to our Lord’s command only when it will be recognized and appreciated
by others. We are to do unto others,
beginning in our living rooms with our spouses and our children. Then we are to apply it to our friends and
our co-workers, and to our brothers and sisters in Christ.
The greatest example of this is
our Lord himself. He did not come to be
served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. He came so that others could experience the
love of the Trinity forever. What he had
experienced from eternity, he wanted for his people. And so he came to earth to be despised and
rejected of men, to be crucified and to have their sins placed upon his
shoulders so that they might have eternal life and enjoy the fellowship of
Father, Son, and Spirit in increasing and never-ending joy. The good he had so long enjoyed he gives to
others. It was not easy to get
there. For our Lord, doing good unto
others meant the cross. And now he calls
on us to mimic him, to be his followers in this way. Do unto others, as you would have them do
unto you.
Comments
Post a Comment