From Matthew 7:12 / The Golden Rule – No one argues that this simple statement originated with Jesus. As Don Carson notes, it is found in a variety of contexts and times. He cites a story (legend or not) that the Rabbi Hillel around 20 AD was challenged by a plucky Gentile to summarize the teaching of the Law so succinctly that he could recite it while his interlocutor was standing on one leg. The story goes the Hillel replied: ““What is hateful to you, do not do to anyone else. This is the whole law; all the rest is commentary. Go and learn it” _{Carson, D. A.. Matthew (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary) (p. 452). Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition.}  And that is the way we ordinarily read it. Jesus however does not cast it in the negative, but in the positive. His is not simply – don’t do what you wouldn’t want someone else to do – but DO what you WOULD want others to do you.

This is a much higher and narrower call; to truly love our neighbor as we love ourselves. The implication being that we really do love ourselves – at the bottom of everything. Even those who claim to hate themselves show their anger and disappointment in not seeing themselves more favorably; which is what they desperately want.

J.C. Ryle writes insightfully here: “This is a golden rule indeed! It does not merely forbid all petty malice and revenge, all cheating and overreaching. It does much more. It settles a hundred difficult points, which in a world like this are continually arising between man and man. It prevents the necessity of laying down endless little rules for our conduct in specific cases. It sweeps the whole debateable ground with one mighty principle. It shows us a balance and measure, by which every one may see at once what is his duty.—Is there a thing we would not like our neighbor to do to us? Then let us always remember, that this is the thing we ought not to do to him. Is there a thing we would like him to do to us? Then this is the very thing we ought to do to him.—How many intricate questions would be decided at once, if this rule were honestly used!” _{Ryle, J. C. Expository Thoughts on Matthew. Robert Carter & Brothers, 1860, p. 66.}

What we can miss in the way Jesus articulates it is how it is meant to establish Believers as grace based, not Law based. We are to be a blessing people, not merely non-retaliatory. For this is the heart of the Father – giving to, providing for and blessing even His enemies. All of which calls us to greater and greater dependence upon the indwelling Spirit of Christ. If we attempt such love out of our own resources, we would quickly find them woefully inadequate.

And what a call this is to go back constantly and plumb the depths of His great love for us, so that we have a bottomless reservoir to draw from. A call to drink deeply and constantly at that fountain. For one who is full finds it easy to give. One who is thirsty themselves will resent giving of what little they perceive they have.

Christian, as Jude had to remind his readers when tested by the influx false teachers and their impact on the local assembly – “keep yourselves in the love of God.” For if we are not constantly refreshed there, not absolutely certain of the depths of His great love for us in Christ, we will either constantly be found trying to earn it somehow, or secretly fret over whether or not it is true, or grow to doubt it altogether and resent its absence. Fix your heart on the Cross. There, is limitless love placarded to all who put their trust in Jesus.