Verse 12
I. If we look into this precept more closely, and discuss the ground upon which love to our neighbours appears to be made dependent, an objection may be raised which is worth while to notice. The objection is this, that the rule of brotherly love is apparently made by the text a selfish rule; that is, that our conduct towards others appears to be made to rest upon their conduct towards ourselves. To which it may be at once answered, that any notion of limiting our kindness to others by the kindness of others towards ourselves, could never, for one moment, have been harboured in the mind of Him who bids us love our enemies, and do good and lend, hoping for nothing again, after the example of our Father in heaven; who is kind to the unthankful and the ignorant, and makes His sun to shine upon the just and unjust. In this rule our Lord neither recognizes nor fosters any feeling of selfishness properly so called. He only refers to a method of measuring the character of our actions which we may easily perceive to be the only method by which our actions can be estimated aright.
II. He who prefers to this golden rule the harsher rule of leaving every one to take care of himself, of seeking in all things our own advantage, and leaving others to do the same, can hardly remember that parable of our Lord concerning the hard-hearted servant he who had been forgiven a thousand talents laying hands upon his brother, who owed him "an hundred pence." He had a right to the money well but would he have thought the right to have been one which ought to be exercised had he been the debtor instead of the creditor? That was the point which he ought to have considered; there comes in the application of Christ's golden rule.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 6th series, p. 196.
I. Consider the precept itself, and the limitations with which it is to be understood, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Here is the great Gospel legislation, and no rule, it would seem, could be more simple to comprehend or more easy to apply; for in considering how we ought to act towards any person we are just to imagine that we change places with him. We are to be what he is, and he is to be what we are; and this transfer of conditions being mentally made, we are to give just so much as we should like to take, and withhold whatever we would wish to have refused. "Whatsoever ye would." But how if ye would do something which is not right and not reasonable and not consistent, if generally carried out, with the interests and well-being of human society would the rule of our text apply then? Clearly not. A judge, administering the laws of his country, knows very well that if he were in the situation of the prisoner there is nothing which he would desire so much as an acquittal. Must he, therefore, pronounce nothing but pardons? A bold beggar comes to a rich man for alms. Imagine a reversal of their positions, and the rule of doing as you would be done by would require that the rich man should give up the half of his property. These and similar cases, arising out of the necessary dependences and relationships of social life, sufficiently evidence that the rule of our text is to be received with a certain understood limitation, and imply that it is not what we do, or might wish others to do to us, that is to be the gauge of our conduct to them, but only what, according to the principles of equity and fairness and right, we ought to wish.
II. Consider the excellence of this rule, and the grounds on which it claims the respect and homage of mankind. These are (1) its reasonableness, as founded on the original equality of all men one with another; (2) its capability of easy and immediate application; (3) the kindness and beneficence of such rule in relation to ourselves. Self-love itself has made God's standard of Gospel morality: "Love thy neighbour as thyself, and all that the Lord thy God hath required of thee is done."
D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 3,046.
Something like this golden rule was contained in the old writings of the Jews, but mark that wonderful discrimination and wisdom of Jesus, that He should have seized upon it, that He should have taken it out of the great mass of their writings and traditions; that He should have seized upon it and brought it out. With them it was but a negative; now, they said, if there is anything that you do not like, that is very hateful to you, do not do that to another. Jesus Christ comes with the positive, and tells us about the doing: "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."
I. Observe, the teaching of the New Testament is a teaching of general principles assuming a vast variety of complexions, but you are to apply general principles which are laid down. The great thing, therefore, for Christian men is to understand the culture of the conscience, the intelligent training of the moral and spiritual faculties, that there should be in the man, by culture through the truth, by the Divine Spirit and the culture of the finer faculties of his nature, a nice perception of the lights and shades of his moral obligations. The New Testament gives us a grand general rule, and it tells us, as those whose reason is enlightened, whose conscience is educated, and who under the influence of that can apply a general rule, what to do.
II. "This is the law and the prophets." It is the law and the prophets in relation to this matter, in relation to social morality, in relation to the second table of the law; but it is not the law and the prophets with respect to both tables of the law. Our Lord did not come merely to be a teacher of social morality; He did not come to confine Himself to that, but to be a Redeemer and a Saviour, and to teach His disciples in the Divine life, that out of that Divine life should come all social virtue which, coming out of the Divine life and being done unto God, is worthy of being called holiness, something very different from mere social virtue.
T. Binney, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 8.
References: Matthew 7:12 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxix., No. 1723; Preacher's Monthly, vol. i., p. 260; J. L. Davies, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 136.
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