In our pursuit of what it means to love what God loves and hate what He hates, we have discovered that loving our enemies is not about being infinitely nice, but about representing God’s character, in this case, His mercy. And we have found that the plan is not make the world like us so much that everyone wants to become a Christian, but to validate our message with a unique unity among believers, borne out of love. More needs to be said on this last point, but we will get to it in due time.
In the meantime, doesn’t Jesus’ story of The Good Samaritan indicate that we should generally be loving to everyone we can? The short answer is, “Yes.” But I think the model presented is somewhat different than the efforts we see carried out in the name of redeeming our culture.
Let’s begin by considering the situation that prompted Jesus to tell the story. In Luke 10:25, an expert in Hebrew (Old Testament) Law sets out to test Jesus by asking how to inherit eternal life. This is effectively the same question dealt with in the Sermon on the Mount — What level of righteousness is required?
Jesus turns the question back on this lawyer. “What does the Law say?” The lawyer replies, “Love God with all your being, and your neighbor as yourself”, which summarized the whole Law. In effect, the lawyer’s answer was “keep the Law perfectly”. Jesus responds by affirming that the full righteousness mandated by the Law is required, just as in the Sermon on the Mount.
Now the lawyer feels the need to justify himself (Luke 10:29). He knew he didn’t measure up to the requirements of the Law, particularly in how he treated others. How to deal with such inadequacy? Redefine “neighbor” so that it only applies to a narrow group of lovable people. To that end, the lawyer asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” As an answer, Jesus holds up the Good Samaritan.
The story is familiar. A man is beaten by robbers in the wilderness on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, and left for dead. The cream of the crop of Jewish religious leaders – a priest and a Levite – both go out of their way to avoid him. Then a despised half-breed – a Samaritan, comes along, renders first-aid, transports the victim to a place where he can be cared for, and assumes responsibility for all the costs to get him back on his feet.
Again, Jesus puts the question back on the lawyer – “Which one of these proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber’s hands?” Take careful note of the lawyer’s answer – “The one who showed mercy toward him.” Where have we seen that before? Yep, the “love your enemy” part of the Sermon on the Mount.
Now, it’s tempting to go right to application and identify ethical principles based on the story. But before you do that, let me ask you a question. What was the issue that prompted the story? Stop for just a minute, and get that clear in your mind.
Now then, how does the story answer that question?
The question was, “Who do I have to love to fulfill the requirement of the Law and inherit eternal life?” The answer – “Everyone that you have the opportunity to show mercy to.”
Why did the lawyer raise the question? Because he wanted to justify himself. Did he succeed? He did not. Just like we saw in the Sermon on the Mount, if you want to inherit eternal life, it will require righteousness equal to God’s, that is, we have to look like God and manifest His character.
Now, even if we take just one of His attributes – say, mercy, we fail miserably. Because it is not enough to do it just one time, as the Samaritan did. He serves as an example of what it looks like to love your neighbor. But he is not the standard. The Law is. And one failure is enough to condemn us. So, even if we were to start today with the mission to show mercy to everyone we meet, and if we were able to do that flawlessly, we are doomed. Because of past failures. Which is why the imputed righteousness of Christ, received through faith is so awesome, and so crucial.
Does that mean that we can’t learn about how we can practically express God’s mercy through the story of the Good Samaritan. I think we can. We’ll look at that in Part 2.
Quote….”The question was, “Who do I have to love to fulfill the requirement of the Law and inherit eternal life?” The answer – “Everyone that you have the opportunity to show mercy to.”
Garth, did Jesus really answer his question? We might say, not exactly. Was the man asking Jesus to give him a more strict and narrow definition of the term
“neighbor” – a definition which he would have been able to use to “let himself off the hook? Could he have had a deep sense of his own shortcomings in this area and hoped to ease his feelings of guilt by reducing love to a simple, comprehensible, controllable task that he could easily claim to have fulfilled?
Could it be said that Jesus knew that this was not what he needed? What He gave him instead [by way of the “Parable of the Good Samaritan”] was a challenge to think creatively about the unexpected ways in which he might begin to show practical love to the most unlikely people. The man wanted to know, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus turned around and asked him, “How do you think YOU can BE a neighbor to those in need?
Doesn’t this express to us that we should love sacrificially? Just as God “so loved the world” that He sent Jesus to set us right with Himself. As disciples, shouldn’t we so love the world that we endeavor to reach the lost by presenting the truth with gentleness and respect? This is not to say that we should edit the message, but present the entire truth, with all it’s grace and wrath so that we might win some and/or point those willing to continue along the narrow path? Without the promise of judgment, there’s no need for a savior….
Adam,
I want to respond to your comments completely and accurately, so I will take them a paragraph at a time.
In the first paragraph, you said –
Garth, did Jesus really answer his question? We might say, not exactly. Was the man asking Jesus to give him a more strict and narrow definition of the term
“neighbor” – a definition which he would have been able to use to “let himself off the hook? Could he have had a deep sense of his own shortcomings in this area and hoped to ease his feelings of guilt by reducing love to a simple, comprehensible, controllable task that he could easily claim to have fulfilled?
The first thing to clarify is that the lawyer does not come to Jesus seeking answers for needs he has. Verse 25 says plainly that his intention was to put Jesus to the test. His purpose was to evaluate Jesus, not gain understanding. So, he asks Jesus the question that would reveal whether Jesus’ doctrine was orthodox or not – “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” At the very minimum, the test was whether or not Jesus would quote the Law, or introduce some new doctrine. Jesus’ response did two things. First, by appealing to the Law, He revealed that He was completely in line with all God had said in the Old Testament. Second, by turning the question back on the lawyer, He rejected the role of a subordinate being examined, and took on the status of One speaking with authority. Verse 28, then, indicates that His answer is, “Keep the Law and you will live.”
As someone who was familiar with the Law, and who had had conversations like this before, the lawyer recognized the impossibility of this requirement, if it was taken at face value. This is exactly the effect that the Law was intended to have. It was always intended to show us our sin. God never hoped or intended that we would be able to keep it well enough to inherit eternal life.
But rather than acknowledge his own sin, verse 29 indicates that the lawyer tried to justify himself; rather than let the Law have its intended effect, he sought self-righteousness. So, the question, “Who is my neighbor?”, is not about getting Jesus to give him anything. It is an attempt at self-justification. The question does not change the subject, but continues the discussion of the requirements for obtaining eternal life – “In the requirement to ‘love my neighbor’, who exactly is included in the category of ‘neighbor’?”.
So, the definition of “neighbor” is critical to the question “What is required for eternal life?”. If “neighbor” can be defined narrowly enough, then the requirement of the Law is manageable, and the lawyer can claim justification, and as such, is “off the hook”, and has eternal life. And this is the issue that prompts Jesus to tell the story of the Good Samaritan.
In your second paragraph, you said –
Could it be said that Jesus knew that this was not what he needed? What He gave him instead [by way of the “Parable of the Good Samaritan”] was a challenge to think creatively about the unexpected ways in which he might begin to show practical love to the most unlikely people. The man wanted to know, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus turned around and asked him, “How do you think YOU can BE a neighbor to those in need?
If I understand your point, you are suggesting that Jesus wanted the lawyer to know that his need was not resolving his guilt, but thinking creatively about how to love people.
There are several problems with this.
1. The lawyer does not come to Jesus as a disciple. As we have already said, he comes to test Jesus. When faced with the requirements of the Law, he felt the need to justify himself. He is still under the condemnation of the Law. He is not a believer. To say that his need was to love more creatively implies that his problem was performance-oriented, and that if he learned to perform better, everything would be good. In the context of his dialogue with Jesus, which deals with the path to eternal life, that would mean that eternal life can be achieved through loving people better – through performance.
2. There is nothing in the passage to support the idea of “thinking creatively”. The Samaritan did not do what he did because he “thought creatively”. If you see a guy lying on the side of the road, beaten so badly that he is just laying there, it doesn’t require any creativity to know what to do. The religious types (priest and Levite) who passed by didn’t ignore the guy because they lacked creativity. His need was obvious.
3. In the story, the priest’s and Levite’s status as religious leaders puts them in the position of experts on the obligation to “love your neighbor”. They would have prided themselves, not only in knowing the Law, but also in keeping it perfectly. They could only ignore a man in such obvious need by rationalizing away their obligation in that particular situation. As such, they represented those, who, like the lawyer, sought to justify themselves in the eyes of the Law, rather than acknowledge their guilt and trust God. The story of the Good Samaritan is given to demonstrate the hypocrisy in this approach.
In the story, there an unexpected flip related to the use of “neighbor”. In the question, the neighbor is the “one who is to be loved”. In the story, “neighbor” ends up being the “one who loves”. While this is surprising, it is not really a problem, because “neighbor”, like “brother”, is a reciprocal term – you can’t have a neighbor, without being a neighbor. The shift is necessary to address the issue under discussion. Remember, the lawyer did not ask the question looking for a definition. As verse 29 says, he uses the question to justify himself. He wants to make it about the other guy – “Who is my neighbor?”; Jesus shows him that the problem is within himself. It is exactly this issue that Jesus addresses with the story – the hypocrisy of self-righteous religious types, who pursue righteousness through rationalization and legal hair-splitting.
In your third paragraph you said –
Doesn’t this express to us that we should love sacrificially? Just as God “so loved the world” that He sent Jesus to set us right with Himself. As disciples, shouldn’t we so love the world that we endeavor to reach the lost by presenting the truth with gentleness and respect? This is not to say that we should edit the message, but present the entire truth, with all it’s grace and wrath so that we might win some and/or point those willing to continue along the narrow path? Without the promise of judgment, there’s no need for a savior….
I do believe that, as disciples, we can gain insight from this passage about loving our neighbors. But as disciples, the issue is not our obligation to the Law. That has been satisfied in Christ. But the character of God revealed in the Old Testament, through the Law, is the same character that we are being transformed into as believers. So, we love our neighbors, not in pursuit of justification, but because we are being transformed reflect God’s character. This is the topic that we are going to look at in the second part of the discussion in the next article.
However, in this passage, we must be careful, because, as we have shown, it does not address the responsibilities of one who has acknowledged Jesus as The Christ, but one who is still under the condemnation of the Law. As such, there is nothing in this passage that links loving the lost with our responsibility, as disciples, to proclaim the Gospel. Yes, we should present the truth with grace and gentleness. But that is not in this passage. To introduce that here is speculative, at best, and relies on a method of interpretation that imposes our ideas on a passage, rather than letting the passage speak for itself. This is most dangerous since God is the Author behind every passage of Scripture. If we impose our message onto His words, it has the effect of drowning out His agenda to promote our own.
Also, as I was completing my daily read this morning, I was in Deuteronomy 10 and came across what seems is a related passage. In Deut 10, we have the remaking of the stone tablets, which were broken when Moses came down and found the Israelites worshiping the golden calf. Then at the end of Deut 10, we see the Israelites instructed to fear the Lord. In verses 18 & 19, we have the following:
18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. 19 And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.
In what way does this relate to our current discussion and how would it apply to us today, if at all?
Adam,
The passage in Deuteronomy 10 is relevant to our discussion. It fits into the question of widows and orphans that I raised at the end of the article – “But Won’t They Know We Are Christians By Our Love?“. Right now, my plan is to get to that discussion in two or three more articles.
I’m eagerly awaiting part 2 of this post–thank you Garth. Is there a way to get the emails/RSS feed to send word when there are comments posted to the entries? If not, I’ll continue to go back and review. Personally, the questions, responses, and expansive content provided in the comments section are proving beneficial as well.
Alexis,
Glad you are benefitting from the discussion. I really do want this to be interactive, so I appreciate the comments as well. I am finding that they help me refine my thinking as well.
On the RSS question, there are a couple of ways that you should be able to get updates. At upper right side of each screen is a place that you can sign up for updates by entering your email address. It is just below the header on each page. I think that is simplest. But you can also click the “RSS Feed” button on the black bar across the top of the header of each page. This gives you more options, but I am not familiar with any of them other than the one to get the feed delivered through email. If you have already done either of these, as I suspect you might, and are still having problems, give me a call, and let me know the specifics. I am going to be meeting with someone to address some issues with the site this week, and I will see if we can’t get that resolved.
Alexis,
Sorry, I mis-read your question on RSS the first time. Let me see what I can find out about getting the feed to notify of comments.
Alexis,
Found out the answer to your question about getting the RSS feed to send word when comments are posted –
On the black bar across the top of the header on each page of the TrueQuest website, to the right of the “RSS” button is another button labeled “Comments” with the same icon on it as the RSS button. I had assumed that it simply took you to the comments. Turns out, it does exactly what you were looking for – click it to get RSS feed of comments posted. So, thanks for your question. I learned something about how my website works!
Thanks for the detailed response Garth. This discussion is a blessing and continues to expand and deepen my understanding of scripture. So, thanks for taking the time for a detailed response. I too would like to respond to a few things in your reply:
1. The first thing to clarify is that the lawyer does not come to Jesus seeking answers for needs he has. Verse 25 says plainly that his intention was to put Jesus to the test. His purpose was to evaluate Jesus, not gain understanding. It’s true the man, a lawyer who’s an expert in the Mosaic Law, intended to test Jesus’ understanding of the Law, but that doesn’t imply hostility. He could have been seeking Jesus’ opinion on how He understands the Law, just as we are discussing our understanding of Scripture. Further, we’re called to test all things in light of scripture, just as the Bereans were commended by Paul for testing what he said to be true. I’m not saying he wasn’t hostile, but I don’t find that here in this verse, and I’m not sure if you are.
2. As someone who was familiar with the Law…to the end of your first response – All 3 paragraphs make the exact point I was making. The lawyer knows the Mosaic Law, and instead of trying to keep the Law, he hopes to redefine it more narrowly in order to have kept or fulfilled the law. That would be my “give” here. He hopes Jesus will “give” him a different, narrower definition, one that he has already “checked off” his list and has DONE, done-meaning a one time action. He has a deep sense of his own shortcomings (your-the impossibility of this requirement) in this area and hoped to ease his feelings of guilt by reducing love to a simple, comprehensible, controllable task that he could easily claim to have fulfilled.
Regarding the second paragraph reply:
1. The lawyer doesn’t come as a disciple – See 1 above. Regarding “to love more creatively implies his problem was performance-oriented”, I would say that’s one of the issues Jesus is addressing here. The lawyer is looking to justify himself how? By showing those he can, the long list of things he has DONE, or as we often say, his completed “check list”. My use of the word “creative” is addressed at the lawyer, that he needs his definition of neighbor broadened, or for him to think more creatively than a check list mentality. Jesus is showing him what he needs to DO, as a continuous, ongoing way of life.
2. There is nothing…of “thinking creatively” and the Priest and Levite’s statue – Both of these support my contention that Jesus is trying to “open the eyes” of the lawyer to see the hypocrisy, prejudice, and limited understanding of the Law that they have. Let’s be clear, all three – the lawyer (Jew and expert in the law), priest (Jewish religious figurehead), and Levite (Jew and descendant of Levitical Priesthood) all know beyond a shadow of the doubt that they are constrained by the text of the Old Testament to stop and render aid in this situation. Why wouldn’t they stop or question “who” to help, just as you stated – through rationalization and legal hair-splitting – my point exactly.
3. Speaking of legal hair-splitting, this gets to my point of a definition. I believe the lawyer was asking for a definition for “neighbor” in order to justify himself. That’s what the text says. In other words, Jesus tell me your definition of a neighbor, which corresponds to mine – a neighbor is a fellow Jew. The lawyer’s view of “neighbor” was too limited. Jesus corrects that thinking! He tells the story to correct the lawyer’s false understanding and to clarify his duty to his neighbor.
In light that I may be jumping ahead of your discussions, I’ll put this out there.
I would point out again that the lawyer asked what must I DO to inherit eternal life. And you would know more than I, but I understand this “do” as a request of a singular, one time and it’s over and done with, action item. And I would say Jesus answered the question in as far as you can get in the verbal tense from a singular event. He said in answer to what most I do to inherit eternal life, go and DO (continually, over and over again, every time the issue comes up) likewise! At every juncture, every time, show mercy to those that you can. This is the heart of Matthew 5:46-47 and 1 Peter 2:19-23. Show mercy to those that have been hateful to you, pray for those who persecute you, show love to those who hate you (which is what the Samaritan did – loved who hated him). Just as Jesus lovingly prayed for His executioners even as they drove spikes through His hands and feet.
If anyone ever had a reason to be arrogant, segregated, and uppity with all human kind it was Jesus. He was perfect, righteous, holy, and yet being hated, which is what sin is – hatred for God, rebellion against Him – and all of the “religious actions” were powerless to do us, just as the lawyer, any benefit. And at this point, the Bible says the sweetest thing, and while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
I believe the Samaritan didn’t wait to hear the beaten Jew say, “Hey, we ought to get over this hatred thing we have for one another.” But got down off the donkey, fixed his wounds, took him to the inn, paid the bills, and was ready to cover any extras through unconditional, unmerited love. God showed us mercy even in the midst of our animosity, and it changes our hearts so now that we’ve been show mercy, we have no option than to show mercy at every juncture to those who are like us and to those who are not. Once we’ve experienced the mercy of God, that transforming power, and look upon someone who is afflicted, despised, beaten down, and left for half dead, we have no other viable response other than to show mercy to them.
Please note that I am reposting this reply. We have been making some changes to the site to enhance the performance, and in the process, a couple of my replies disappeared.
Adam,
As I read your comments, it seems that all of our discussion flows out of two fundamental questions in this passage –
1. The spiritual condition of the lawyer
2. The nature of the question that Jesus and the lawyer were discussing
So, let me address these issues and then see where that leaves us.
The Spiritual Condition of the Lawyer
There is strong evidence in the passage that the Lawyer comes to Jesus as an unbeliever – specifically, an self-righteous religious leader seeking to test Jesus publicly, not as a believer, humbly seeking answers from Jesus. At least three things stand out:
1. Luke says he came to test Jesus. While the term used for test, in and of itself, does not have to be seen in a negative light, in the other three places it shows up in the New Testament (Matt 4:7; Luke 4:12; 1 Cor 10:9) it always denotes testing God, in a bad way. So, unless there is strong evidence in this passage that it should be seen differently here, we should see the term as reflecting opposition here as well.
2. Luke identifies him as a Lawyer. The term “lawyer” shows up 6 times in the Gospels. One is in Matthew, the other 5 in Luke, including this passage. In Matthew (22:35), the lawyer is a Pharisee who is part of a plot to trap Jesus (22:15). Note that their strategy was to publicly ask Jesus questions to trip Him up. Every other time Luke uses the term, a lawyer is part of an identifiable group that is at odds with Jesus. Unless there is strong indication in this passage that Luke wanted us to see this lawyer differently, we should take it the same way here. Consider the other places Luke speaks of lawyers:
~ Luke 7:30 – The lawyers are grouped with the Pharisees as those who rejected God’s purpose for themselves.
~ Luke 11:45-46 – They group themselves with the Pharisees as those who are opposed by Jesus. Jesus‘ response to them confirms this opposition.
~ Luke 11:52 – Jesus condemns the lawyers as those who take away the key of knowledge – they had not entered God’s kingdom, and in fact, were hindering those who had been entering.
~ Luke 14:3 Jesus directly challenges the lawyers and Pharisees as those who clearly oppose him.
3. The fact that he sought to justify himself in the eyes of the law. This, by itself, is very strong evidence that the man was an unbeliever. Consider. While we may tend to think of believer as a New Testament concept, Scripture does not. In Romans, as Paul is explaining the Gospel, he holds up Abraham, as the model for being justified in God’s sight. Paul quotes Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Note that Abraham was credited with righteousness because he believed God. Thus Abraham is the model believer for all who desire God’s righteousness. This didn’t mean that Abraham believed random truths about God – He believed that God would fulfill His promise to give Abraham a Seed through Whom blessing would come, in place of the curse. Remember that Abraham preceded Moses and The Law by several hundred years, so righteousness was never dependent on the Law. As the two-thousand years, or so, between Abraham and Jesus passed, God revealed more and more about this One who would come – Abraham’s seed. He became know as the Messiah (Christ), who would bring blessing in place of the curse, suffer for the healing of mankind, and establish a Kingdom of unparalleled righteousness and peace. Also during this intervening time, the Law was added, to show us our guilt and convict us of our need for the Messiah. So, by the time we get to the Gospels, a righteous man would still be a believer. What would characterize His belief at that point? Two major things would stand out. 1) He would believe God’s promises to send the Messiah who would bring blessing in place of the curse, suffer for our healing, and establish the Kingdom, and be looking for His arrival. And 2) he would believe what God says about our guilt in the Law. He would agree with God about his own inadequacy to live up to the requirements of the Law. We can see this attitude in the people Jesus addressed in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-11) and his invitation to all who are weary (Matthew 11:28-30). By contrast, the lawyer does not acknowledge his inadequacy. Instead, he seeks to justify himself. He does not believe God – does not agree with Him, choosing rather to deflect guilt by trying to redefine the standard to something he can achieve through his own effort. So, he is an unbeliever.
The Question Being Discussed
Given the identity and orientation of the lawyer, he cannot be coming to Jesus looking for Jesus to give him anything. He is not a spiritual seeker looking for relief from the guilt that he feels, he is a religious leader in opposition to Jesus, seeking to publicly discredit Jesus. So, the question is not a personal one in which the lawyer is looking for answers to his personal struggles. The question is a question of doctrine and truth. Jesus has been doing things that are odds with the establish orthodox religious practices of the time, and is attracting a lot of attention and a following. The lawyer asks Jesus a question that he expects will reveal that Jesus does not hold to orthodox doctrine, thus discrediting Him. The question is “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”, meaning, “How can one attain righteousness?”. The default position of the Pharisees and lawyers, the political “establishment” of the day, was to pursue self-righteousness. They did this through the legal hair-splitting and gymnastics we have already referred to. In this encounter, Jesus used the story of the Samaritan to reveal the hypocrisy of their approach.