Today we continue in our study of the Lord's teaching. And we return again to the parables of the Lord, the parables of our Lord Jesus. Now, not very long ago, we completed our study of the parables of the Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter 13. And only last week we concluded what is not strictly a parable, but the Lord's words concerning the scribes of the kingdom of heaven. And today we will continue to study the parables of the Lord Jesus, but this time the Lord's parables in the Gospel of Luke. Remember that all the parables we studied so far were in the Gospel of Matthew. And now we turn to the Gospel of Luke.
But before we do this, I would like to read some words to you from Matthew chapter 15, because it has quite a lot to do with our passage. In Matthew chapter 15, verse 1 onward, we find that the Pharisees and scribes — and last week we studied a lot about who are the scribes, and so I hope that now you know all that is important to know, at least, about the scribes. We saw that they were students of the law, they studied the law, and then they were also teachers of the law, and they were also appliers of the law. That is why they were called lawyers. Matthew 15, verse 1. I shall not be teaching on this passage, but I just would like to read it to you, because, as I say, it has a lot to do with our parable today.
"Then the Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 'Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.'" I should mention to you that the washing of hands has nothing to do with hygiene here, in case you think that the disciples are so neglectful of hygiene that they never wash their hands. That is not the point here. The washing of hands here has to do with the ceremonial washing of hands, not with hygiene. Ceremonial washing of hands is that even though your hands are very clean, but if you touch certain things which are unclean, then your hands are ceremonially unclean. For example, if you go to the marketplace and you touch something that was sold by the Gentiles — in fact, anything that has to do with the Gentiles, that is, the non-Jews, is unclean. For example, if a Gentile had touched this hymn book, then for a Jew to touch this hymn book would make him unclean, even though this hymn book is perfectly clean. But if a Gentile had touched this hymn book, and then a Jew touches this hymn book, then the Jew becomes unclean. What has he got to do? He's got to wash his hands. So the washing of the hands here has nothing to do with dirt on the hands, but it has to do with ceremonial uncleanness.
Then verse 3: "He answered them," that is, the Lord Jesus answers the Pharisees and scribes, "And why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?" What tradition? The tradition of washing hands. This has nothing to do with the commandment of God. It is a man-made requirement. "Why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of tradition? For God commanded, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die.' But you say, 'If anyone tells his father or his mother, "What you would have gained from me is given to God"'" — the technical word for that is korban, an offering — "he need not honor his father."
And here I should explain what this means. The Jews had a rule that if anything was offered to God — that is, it was said, "I will offer this thing to God," it is a promise — then it does not need to be given to one's parents anymore. Supposing you were going to give, or you were expected to give, $100 to your parents. And then you think about it, and you decide that you are not going to give this $100 to your parents. How to get out of it? Very simple. The human religious position had already provided a way. You will declare that this $100 is korban. That is, it is an offering to God. Now does that mean you have to give it to God? Now that's a strange thing. You don't have to give it to God. You don't have to actually offer it. But because you've declared it is korban, it means that you don't have to give it to your parents. Now you have to be somewhat of a Jewish legal specialist to understand this business. How is it that you can say that this is korban, an offering, and yet you don't have to give it to God? I don't quite figure this thing out. But because it is declared to be an offering, you don't have to give it to your parents anymore. This is exactly what the Lord Jesus is saying. You use your human traditions to nullify the Word of God.
So here the Lord Jesus goes on in verse 6: "For the sake of your tradition, you have made void the Word of God." Verse 7: "You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men'" — the washing of hands. How far can you walk on a Sabbath day? You may walk a thousand two hundred cubits, but you may not walk beyond that. You may walk a thousand seven hundred yards, but you may not walk beyond this. If these are human regulations and doctrines brought in, by which then the commandments of God are nullified — how would it nullify the commandment of God? Supposing somebody was in great need, great distress. Well, you can say, "Well, today is the Sabbath. I cannot go to you because the Sabbath law says that I can walk only a thousand two hundred cubits, or about a thousand seven hundred and fifty yards." And therefore, I cannot come to you because it is beyond the limits prescribed by the tradition. In this way, we nullify the commandments of God.
With this in our minds, let us now turn to the parable of the Lord Jesus in Luke chapter 10, verse 25. Luke chapter 10. And this is the well-known parable of the Good Samaritan. It is well-known, but is it well-understood? That is the question. Luke chapter 10, verse 25 onward, reading all the way to verse 37, which I shall read to you now. Notice that the first line tells us about a lawyer, the scribe that we studied last week.
"And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, 'Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' He said to him, 'What is written in the law? How do you read?' And he answered, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.' And he said to him, 'You have answered right; do this, and you will live.'
But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'
Jesus replied, 'A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, "Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back." Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?' He said, 'The one who showed mercy on him.' And Jesus said to him, 'Go, and do likewise.'"
Now, this parable must be very familiar to you, especially if you were brought up in Sunday school. Everybody knows the parable of the Samaritan. But how many understand it? To know is one thing. To understand is something else. How many things we knew! How few did we understand? I would like, first of all, for you to observe that this parable is very important because it has to do with the question of how do you inherit eternal life? It is a question about eternal life. And too often, when this parable is taught in Sunday school, no connection is brought up between the story of the Good Samaritan and the matter of eternal life. It becomes a sort of example about being nice to people, of being kind to people, but no question has been raised as to what was the connection with the question about eternal life. What is the connection of the parable to eternal life? Because the parable is an answer to that question. Strange how often we teach a passage or a parable entirely out of its context. I was never told that the Good Samaritan had anything to do with the question of eternal life. I thought it was just a lesson on how to be nice to people, how Christians should behave. But that's not the point of the Lord's reply. The Lord's reply is the answer to that question.
Look again at this question. And the question is well stated. It is stated by a Bible expert, a scribe, who has spent all his life studying the Bible. He really knows how to put his question. The question cannot be faulted in any way. The question is well stated theologically. The question is not how do you earn eternal life or how do you merit eternal life. That's not the question. The question is, how do I inherit eternal life? To inherit eternal life — to inherit anything, you have to be a son. You have to be a child. The question then is, how do I become a child of God so that I may inherit eternal life? Very well stated, that nobody starts saying that the Jews are talking about salvation through works or salvation through keeping the law alone in some such way. Because unless you are a child of God, you are not even under his law. And then to talk about keeping the law is beside the point. If I am not a citizen of Canada, it does not raise the question of whether or not I have to keep Canadian law. If I live in England, Canadian law is irrelevant to me. I live under the law of England, not the law of Canada. And so to raise the question of how do I keep Canadian law is beside the point. Because if I am in England, I am not in Canada. And so if I say to you, you have to keep the law of England, you would say, "Ridiculous! I don't live in England. I live in Canada. The law of England is irrelevant to me." So then, unless I am a child, unless I am a citizen, the laws of God — they may apply in some sort of way because God is God of heaven and earth, he is king of all — but the question that the lawyer takes is far more clear and more subtle than that. He is saying, how do I inherit? What must I do so as to be in a position to receive from God eternal life? What must I do to qualify as a child of God so that God may grant to me eternal life? Indeed, a question worthy of a scribe.
And so the Lord Jesus replies to him. What is his reply? The Lord Jesus counters his question with another question. "Well, you are a Bible scholar. You are an expert in the Bible. What is written in the Bible? What is written in the law? How do you read there?" Well, the scribe replies. He says, "Well," he says this in verse 27: "What the Bible says is, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.'" Oh, he is really a good Bible scholar. He really knows his stuff. He does not miss the mark by one iota. He hits it straight on the head. He hits the nail right on the head. This is a perfect answer, and the Lord Jesus says so right away, in verse 28: "You have answered right; do this, and you will live."
Now what is the Lord's answer? What is the answer to his question? The question and the answer are both very similar to the question asked by the rich young ruler, as you may remember, in Luke chapter 18, verse 18, further on. The rich young ruler asked the same question: "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" And the Lord Jesus gave the rich young ruler exactly the same reply as his. What then is the reply? What is the Lord Jesus' answer to this important question of how do you inherit eternal life? Now you would have expected an answer like this: "Believe in me and you have eternal life." Strangely enough, that was not the answer here. In these two occasions, we would have both expected the immediate answer which, as Christians, we would have given, and said, "Believe in me and you have eternal life." But that's not the answer. "Go and fulfill what God requires of you" is the answer. Go and do it. That's quite a shock to us.
Now does the Lord Jesus never say we need to believe in him for eternal life? Certainly he says so. He says so in John chapter 11, for example: "He that believes in me shall never die. He has eternal life. He that believes in me has eternal life." But all right then, if this is the case, we have a problem on our hands — an exegetical problem. Or is it a problem? Because on the one hand, we are to believe in him for eternal life; on the other hand, we are to fulfill the requirements of God's command. So which is right? Which of these two answers is correct? Are these two different answers? Are we to believe in the Lord Jesus and have eternal life, and also to keep the law in order to have eternal life? How do you put these two answers together? That is a very important question. Or is it up to us to choose which answer we prefer?
Now I think that is exactly what many Christians have done. We have decided we prefer the answer "Believe in me and you shall never die. You have eternal life." We prefer that answer. As for these answers, we will just forget it. We will just drop the answer. We will just say, well, it has nothing to do with us. If we do that, then we are picking and choosing from the Word of God what we like and dropping what we don't like. We have decided what will be the path of eternal life, or how we are going to understand the words "believe in me." The only way correctly to do this is to put these two answers side by side and ask, what is the relationship of the one to the other? How does the answer "believe in me" relate to the question "What does the law say?" — "You shall love God with all your being," and the Lord Jesus says, "Go and do it." So how are we going to put this question together? The answer, "Love God with all your heart, if you do that you will have eternal life," and, "If you believe in me, you will have eternal life." Which is the right answer? Or have you already made up your mind in advance? Or can it be that there is an internal relationship between the answer "believe in me" and "love God with all your heart"? Maybe these two things mean exactly the same thing. In which case, this very important parable becomes a definition of the meaning of the words "believe in me."
If I ask you what does it mean to believe in Jesus, I wonder what your reply would be. That's very important to get the answer right, because eternal life depends on it. Do you know what it means to believe in Jesus? I know already the standard answer: we believe that Jesus died for us. We believe that he rose from the dead. That is what believing in Jesus means. But all that you say to me in this is simply basically a mental exercise and a religious mental acceptance of certain facts. Is that what Jesus meant? We must let him define what he means by "believing in me." It is not up to you and me to decide what "believe in me" means by ourselves, importing the meaning into those words. He is the Lord. He is the one on whom our eternal life depends. Therefore he is the one who must decide what the word "belief in me" means. And thanks be to God, he has not left us in the dark.
Let us now look at this parable again as we ponder this question. Here we see in this parable that the Lord Jesus is saying, in reply to that question, basically this: you need to go forth and love God with all your heart, your mind, your soul, your strength. If you do that, you will inherit — you will not earn it, you will not merit it, but you will inherit eternal life, because then you will prove yourself to be a true child of God. Oh! But when we look at this reply, it rather frightens us. First of all, we see that there is a total commitment involved. Four times the word "all" is used. You shall love the Lord your God with all you've got — your whole being. You cannot get more total than that.
Secondly, it means that not only you will love God but you will also love your neighbor if you truly love God. Now loving God seems to be a lot easier than loving the neighbor. After all, God is so nice to us, he is so kind to us, he is so generous to us. And my neighbor — he is so nasty, and therefore I don't love my neighbor. I love God, okay, that's fine. I mean, "Jesus came out of the ivory palaces" — I mean, if you don't love him, there is nobody else worth loving in this world. But my neighbor? No thanks. I cannot do without my neighbor. He is a nuisance to me. He is always doing things which are most inconvenient. He has a party next door, banging on drums, I can't go to sleep at night. God never does such things to me. But the neighbor — he is impossible. And you know, this neighbor of mine, he leaves his garden full of dandelions. And the dandelions grow everywhere. You know, dandelions — there is a very terrible weed. It has those long roots down there. And every time the wind comes over, it blows all his dandelions into my garden, and my garden turns into one mess of dandelions. It is completely ruined because this neighbor of mine never does anything about his dandelions, you see. God never lets dandelions come into my teeth. But this neighbor is completely thoughtless, and so on. So love God — that is okay. But loving the neighbor — that is not for me.
And then here we find this terrible thing. The terrible thing is that in the commandments of God, he has tied the love of neighbor to the love of God. Why don't we separate these things? We can say, "Lord, let's just put these things separate, okay? I love you, that's fine. But don't require me to love my neighbor." Now you see, it's precisely this second part that is the problem. Did you see that? That's what the scribe is saying. He doesn't raise any questions or problems about loving God. But then he's troubled about this point about loving his neighbor. Because like most of us, he has a rather troublesome neighbor. And so he decides that he has to ask another question: "Well, who is my neighbor?" Don't tell me this guy with all those dandelions — I have to accept as my neighbor? But on the other side, this fellow who is beating the drums — is he my neighbor? After all, he's on the other side of the street, you see. So a neighbor cannot have to do with the other side of the street. It must be the guy next to me. So he says, "Who is my neighbor?" And the Lord Jesus replies to him and says, "Now let me tell you a story."
There was this Samaritan, you know. Samaritan — the Jews hated the Samaritan. They despised the Samaritan, you see. These Samaritans were people who were mixed breeds. They were the people who were low down. The Jews loved to speak about their racial purity — pure Jew, whatever that means (like there's no pure anybody), but they're pure. But the Samaritans — they are mixed. They compromised with the world. And the Lord says — just choose a Samaritan! Oh, if you had talked about neighbor, I mean, talk about some nice Jew. But of all things, to pick as an example — some Samaritan!
So having got this Samaritan there, the Lord says, "You know, there was this man who was going down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho." Now any Jew knows the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It's not very far away. Jericho is not far from Jerusalem. But it is a hilly road, a mountainous road, and a place where lots of robbers hide up. A good place for ambush, to attack somebody traveling down the road and relieve him of his goods. And so this man, this Jew, is traveling down this road, and he gets attacked by this bunch of robbers. Who do you think the robbers are? Fellow Jews, of course. What else? This is inside Israel. And so he gets attacked by his fellow countrymen, who rob him and beat him up and leave him half dead.
And what happens is, there is a Samaritan traveling this way. And what does he see? He sees this man beaten, left half dead. And of all things, he has compassion on this man. A Samaritan having compassion on a Jew, his enemy! But you know, he says, before that happened, there were two other Jews who went by. One was a priest. Or you might say, a pastor. After all, let the pastors get a dose of this medicine that they dish out. So here was this pastor coming by, this priest, and he walks down the road, and what does he see? He sees this fellow lying there on the roadside, half dead. In fact, the truth is, when a person is half dead, you don't know whether he's alive or not. He's unconscious, and he's bruised, he's bleeding, and he's lying there. And the pastor decides that he has to get to his service. I mean, all these people are sitting in church waiting for him. How can he not turn up? All these people have to have the Word of God. You're not going to stop to minister to this guy by the roadside when all these people in church are waiting. He looks at the time. Service is going to begin at 2 o'clock, and he has to get to church. And therefore — sorry, poor guy. I mean, anyway, he might be dead. No use wasting time with him. And so off goes the pastor. In fact, I'm drawing it in more terms of a modern picture, but that's roughly the idea.
The priest — what is he doing? He's going to the temple. He's there to carry out his priestly function. But you see, in a way, something affects the priest that doesn't affect the pastor, and that is the fact that a priest who is going to minister in the temple must remain ceremonially clean. If he is ceremonially unclean, he will not be able to minister in the temple. And one way he becomes ceremonially unclean is to touch a dead man. If this person is dead — and how would he know, without finding out? I mean, you have to take his pulse. You have to see whether he is alive or dead. If this person is dead, then the priest will be ceremonially unclean and will not be able to function as a priest for that day. So he thinks the matter through and decides that he is not going to take this risk. And so he leaves this man by the roadside. He has to go on to his priestly functions. There are higher things to do for God than worrying about some guy who is lying by the roadside who might in any case be dead.
How do you think — does he have a good case? Doesn't he? The priest has a case there. And after all, not only this — you think that he has to minister for God on this day, and the time factor is important. It's important to be punctual, to arrive at this time to minister to God. And he is going to lose time sitting around there looking after this guy. And what is more, he has got a wife and kids to think about at home. Because if he is ceremonially unclean, he cannot carry out his priestly function. If he does not carry out his priestly function, he will not receive of the tithes of the temple. And if he does not receive of the tithes of the temple, which is his income, then his wife and children are going to go hungry. Oh, there are so many considerations. Life is so complicated. You cannot oversimplify life. Life is very complicated. And having given this whole matter some thought, he decides, well anyway, God's work comes first. What is God's work? God's work is to go and minister in the temple. And so therefore he must remain clean, and off he goes.
There comes along a Levite. A Levite is not a priest but is a priestly layman. He also works in the temple, but not as a priest. He is a kind of church caretaker, depending on what his function is in the temple. Levites had different functions. Some of them were musicians in the temple. Some of them might be rather like our worship and song team — they have a function in the church to do. And others were looking after the various departments in the temple, the buildings. And others were looking after the details, supplying the wood for the sacrifices. They were officers of the temple. And so the Levite comes by, and he also has to stay clean in some ways, and then he comes by and he sees this fellow there, and he thinks much the same thoughts as the priest thought. And having thought the matters through, he also went on his way.
And you can see why we read that portion just now in Matthew chapter 15. What is more important? What are your priorities? What are the commandments of God? Is there something more important than compassion? The priest thought so. He thought that the other things were more important than this guy lying by the roadside. He had put his own traditions first. His traditions prevented him from helping that person. That is the point of the Lord's word: "You have made void the commandments of God." What is God's commandment? God's commandment is that you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You shall love God and you shall love your neighbor. That is God's commandment. But you have made void his commandments because you are more concerned about ceremonial cleanness or uncleanness. You are more concerned about that kind of thing than about the commandments of God. And so they left the man. They denied the commandments of God for their traditions.
But now consider the Samaritan. The Samaritan comes by, and he is moved by compassion. It's true this fellow is a Jew, and he doesn't like Jews. But he still has compassion. The better of it — love. Compassion is love. Love is working in his heart. He wants to go by. He says, "That's a Jew. Jews are never nice to us. They are impossible, arrogant people. We don't want to have anything to do with Jews." He wants to walk by. But love — oh no, that's hard. So he turns back again, and he looks at him, and says no. He wants to walk on again, and again the love pulls him back. The struggle of love in his heart.
So let me tell you something. The Samaritan did this at great personal risk to himself. There are three things about it. First, we've already seen that that road from Jerusalem to Jericho is full of robbers. A dangerous place to hang around too long. The sooner you get going, the better. And you don't want to wait around — it's even worse. Time is important. Let's get moving. And so it's dangerous to hang around. What is more, if this person is not dead and is revived, he could act as a material witness by identifying who were his attackers. And therefore anyone trying to help him could be in great personal danger. You know, gangsters are always afraid of the people who could identify them and say, "I saw you doing this and that and the other thing," or, "You were the one who attacked me. I recognized your face." And so they could be in trouble with the law, with the police in Israel. And so anyone reviving him would be immediately the object of the hatred of those gangsters who robbed the man. And supposing this person was revived and did indeed identify the gangsters — you see, even then in the future, how dangerous it would be for the Samaritan, since the Samaritan was the one who revived the person so as to identify the gangsters. So he could become the object of a vendetta, of a revenge by the gangsters in the future. There are so many considerations. Life is very complex.
The second thing about this — not only his personal danger, but the second thing about it is, as we have already seen, his personal revulsion for a Jew. Samaritans had no patience with a Jew. You remember, in fact, that a Samaritan...
# The Parable of the Good Samaritan — Part 2 (Luke 10:25-37)
Bill. But he landed. Nowadays the hospitals are pretty expensive. There's no reason to think that hospitals were cheap in those days. And he could be landed with a big bill in the future as to looking after this fellow, paying his bill for him. I mean, it's good enough to take him to the inn and say, okay, you do with him what you want. But he goes still further. He says, "I will pay the bill for this guy. I see his condition. He has no money. And I'm not going to leave him here." And what is more, as a Samaritan, he has no hope whatsoever of compensation. That is to say, if this fellow who was attacked and injured was in fact quite wealthy and was able to afford to repay the Samaritan, the Samaritan was legally in no position to get the money back from him, even if that man could afford it. Why? Because the Samaritan had no standing in this Jewish court of law. He could not come back to Israel and take this Jew to court and say, "Look, I paid all your hospital bills for you. It is only reasonable that you pay back to me what you owe me. I'm not asking for interest. I ask only for the money that I paid for you." But he could not do it. In other words, he was going to pay this money with no thought of getting anything back again. There was no hope of recovery.
These three things one has to understand about this Samaritan. That's so beautiful. That is love. Love which fears, regardless of danger to oneself, regardless of personal feeling for the other person, and regardless of whether or not you will get any compensation for your actions. That is so beautiful. And so the Lord Jesus, having described this to this lawyer, says, "You go and do likewise." Did you ask me how to have eternal life? How to inherit eternal life? Well, I have just told you. You go and do that.
That is really going to be something. That means to say, you go forth there, no regard for your personal safety. You go forth there and have no regard for nations and nationality and strife. You don't ask, is that person Canadian or Jewish or British or French or African or whatever that person may be. You may not like that kind of person. If you love the person, you will love because you love the person. Love and like has nothing to do with each other in the Bible. And finally, you go and help that person, not thinking to yourself what benefits you might get in return. He says, now, you don't understand now what love is — you go out and do it. You do it and you'll inherit eternal life.
Now what then does the Lord Jesus mean? Does he mean that we are saved by the law, by the keeping of the law? The answer seems to be yes. Is it not? Can you think of another answer? But you say, "Paul never taught such a thing. No, no, no. We are justified not by works of the law, but only by faith alone." You think that's what Paul taught? Let me surprise you a little bit. Let me read to you Paul's own words. Romans chapter 2, verse 7. Romans chapter 2, verse 13. Romans 2, verse 13. That's what Paul says here: "For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified." Did you know that Paul wrote such words? It is the doers of the law who will be justified. That is a surprise. And that is Paul writing. Of all places, in Romans, the great letter on salvation. Look at those words carefully again. This requires no commentary and requires no explanation. The words are plain for themselves. Absolutely plain. The doers of the law will be justified.
But then you say, what is the law that you may do it in order to be justified? What is the law? Well, let's see Paul's own answer again in Romans chapter 13, verse 8. Romans 13, verse 8. And here reminds us exactly of the Lord's teaching in the parable of the Samaritan: "Owe no one anything, except to love one another. For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law." He who loves — at all we are not saved by the law. Why should we care whether we fulfill the law or not? Paul cares whether you fulfill the law or not. Surprising. Now this is reading, in Romans, Paul's basic exposition on salvation. He says, "Owe no one anything, except to love" — exactly as the Lord Jesus is saying — "for he who loves his neighbor," that's exactly what the parable of the Samaritan is saying, "has fulfilled the law." And then he goes on to say, the commandments, verse 9: "You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet," and any other commandments are summed up in this sentence, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Verse 10: "Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."
Now he has made himself perfectly plain. And he is speaking here to Christians. And he is saying, love is the fulfilling of the law. And he said in Romans chapter 2, verse 13, as he taught that it is he who does the law and not just he who hears the law who will be justified. Justification by the doing of the law, in Paul. How astonishing. And how do you do the law? By love.
You say, "Well, this is truly surprising, truly amazing." Now there is a very twisted kind of teaching going around today which suggests that somehow to do good works is bad. It's bad to do good works. I don't know how one works that out. It is bad to fulfill the law in order to desire eternal life. It is bad to keep the law. Oh no, we should never do that. Strange. Have we misunderstood Paul? Just now in those passages we read, why is Paul concerned that we fulfill the law through love? Now if you think that Paul regards the law as bad and therefore we should not keep it, you have not understood Paul at all. Let Paul speak to you for himself. Let me read to you Romans chapter 7 and tell you what his concept of the law is. Romans 7, verses 12 and 14. Let's read verse 12: "So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good." Does Paul regard the law as bad? Not at all. He regards the law as holy and just and good. And then verse 14: "We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin." What is the law? The law is spiritual. So Paul has four things to say about the law in this passage. The law is holy, it is just, it is good, it is spiritual. So what can be wrong with desiring to fulfill the law when the law is all of these things?
I wonder if you can see clearly this matter and understand it deeply. The Lord Jesus says exactly the same thing. He makes it plain to us in Matthew chapter 5, verse 19, that if anyone teaches any relaxation of the law — not abolishing the law, not cancelling of the law, but just relaxing one of the least commandments of the law — that person will be ranked lowest in the kingdom of heaven. Notice, he did not say not to do the law. He only relaxed it a little bit. And he relaxed not an important commandment, but one of the least, only one, and one of the least of the commandments. Such a person will be the lowest in the kingdom of heaven, as the Lord Jesus says in Matthew 5:19.
What does all this mean then? Does it mean then that we can save ourselves by keeping the law? Is that the case, that somehow we can save ourselves by keeping the requirements of the law? The answer to that is no. Funny — I thought you just said the law is good. That's right, the law is good. But have you not read that last verse in Romans 7, verse 14? "The law is good." The problem is with me, not with the law. I am bad. And because I am bad, I cannot fulfill the law. That's the whole problem. The law is very good. Is there anything wrong with desiring to fulfill the law? Absolutely none. We must desire to fulfill the law of God, to love him with all our being, to love our neighbors as ourselves. The problem is, I can't do it. I just cannot attain to it.
But first let us be clear about this very thing: in the whole of the Scripture, whether in Old Testament or New, the law of God is very good. And blessed is the man who desires to fulfill it. That is the whole Old Testament. The whole of the Psalms. Do you not read the Psalms? The Psalms are constantly speaking that the man of God desires with all his heart the law of God and to fulfill it. When we come to the New Testament, there are some people who vainly imagine that the law has been abolished. The law has been abolished? Not the moral law. Nowhere is the moral law being abolished. Have you read anywhere that the Ten Commandments have been abolished? Nowhere can you find that in Scripture. And yet there are some people who vainly imagine that that is what happens. Nowhere in Scripture is the law abolished. On the contrary, the law is firmly established.
Let's put it like this. If God could abolish the law — if that were even a possibility, which of course it is not — but if God could abolish the law, the right time to abolish it would have been, in the first place, either not to have established it at all. It saves a lot of trouble to establish a law and then having to abolish it. But then if you are going to abolish it, when would be the best time to abolish it, what time do you think? Surely before the Lord Jesus had to go and die. Let's put it like this. Suppose I am a judge. Suppose I am a lawmaker in this land. And my son is condemned in the death cell, on death row. He is waiting sentence of execution for violation of the law. When would be the good time to abolish capital punishment? The best time to abolish it would be before my son gets executed. When my son has gotten executed and I abolished the law, I am too late. He is already dead. If God wanted to abolish the law, the best time to abolish it was before Jesus went to the cross. Then he wouldn't have had to die. That's very easy to understand. But to abolish the law after Jesus died — what's the point? He's already dead. What's the point of abolishing the law? The whole point is that once he has already died, he not only does not abolish the law, but he vindicates the law as being unchangeable. It cannot be removed. The law of God cannot be cancelled. The moral law of God! Ceremonial laws can pass away. Those don't matter too much. I mean, whether cars are allowed to be parked on this street or not is a small question. The question of whether the fundamental moral laws of the land can be changed is a very different question. Maybe one day you put the parking meters on this side, and if you park on that side you will be in violation. But another day the law changes it so you can park on this side. These are small things, comparable to ceremonial laws. It doesn't matter what you do with these, because no moral issues are involved. But moral issues are the kind where the country can allow crime from now on to be legalized. That becomes a fundamental moral issue. If crime can be legalized, if bad can become good — to change the law is to change it before your son has to get executed for doing what is bad, or for dying on somebody else's behalf, whatever. The result is the same — he died. Nowhere, I repeat this to you again, in the Bible is the moral law of God abolished. In fact, as we read Romans 2, we understand that the judgment will be carried out according to the moral law of God on the day of judgment. If it's been abolished, by what is God going to judge you? How are your works going to be judged? No, no, nowhere in the Bible do you see any abolition of the law. The law of God stands. That's why the Lord Jesus says, the law must be fulfilled. Not one iota, not one dot of the law will pass away. It will all be fulfilled.
It leaves us with this: are we then still going to be saved by the keeping of the law? By no means. Why? Because we cannot keep it. That's the reason why. And so we come to this very important observation of the scriptural teaching, and it is this: what is the Lord's teaching? What is Paul's teaching? Let me move backwards from Paul's teaching to the Lord's teaching, and you will see they are in absolute accord with each other in every detail. He does not differ from the Lord's teaching so much as by one comma, if I can put it in my hyperbolic way. You already saw that he says that only through the fulfilling or the doing of the law is a man justified, in Romans chapter 2, verse 13. He goes on to say in Romans chapter 13 that it is through love that the law is fulfilled. So the logic of it is very plain: the only way to be justified is to fulfill the law, and the only way to fulfill the law is by loving. And we cannot love because we are by nature selfish.
So where does that leave us? The answer then is that salvation comes only from God, who is able to make us love, who is able to shed his love into our heart. Now that's exactly what Paul says in Romans chapter 5, verse 5, that God has caused his love to be poured in abundance — not just by a few drops, but pouring forth — his love into our hearts, so that we might fulfill the law. Isn't that remarkable? And how does he do this? By the Holy Spirit. So that love is the fruit of the Spirit.
Now notice: neither the question of the scribe, the Bible scholar, nor the answer of the Lord Jesus, is saying that we can inherit — that we can earn eternal life or merit eternal life. As we saw right at the beginning, I said that the scribe was too well instructed in the Bible to make such a mistake. He knows very well that we cannot merit it, we cannot earn it. God's standard is simply too high. He has already read Isaiah: his ways are above our ways, his thoughts are not our thoughts, they are high above our thoughts. I can't attain to these things. They are too wonderful for me. How can I keep his standards? They are too high for me. My question — the scribe's question — was this: how do I inherit, not how do I earn? The discussion is not about earning at all. Neither the Lord's answer nor the question has anything to do with earning. It has nothing to do with a works salvation. And what has the question got to do with? The question has to do with a new kind of life — the life of God in you. That is what salvation is about.
So Paul is saying exactly the same thing. How will I be able to be justified? I will be able to be justified only by keeping the law. But what is keeping the law? Keeping the law is to love. But I cannot love. So what shall I do? Thanks be to God, the answer is in Christ. He gives me the Holy Spirit, by which I am able to love, because the Holy Spirit pours his love into my heart.
So we see the answer, the amazing answer. The Lord Jesus' answer is exactly the same. But again, let us stay with Paul for a moment. Paul says in Galatians chapter 5, verse 6, how are we going to be saved? He says, "In Christ neither circumcision avails for anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love." What avails? Faith alone? No. But faith working through love. Now this is so amazing. Consider: neither circumcision — circumcision is the keeping of the law, to be circumcised, which is the law — nor uncircumcision, that means to say, just trusting Christ without any circumcision at all. Notice the whole discussion of this context in Galatians 5:6 is "in Christ." That is, in Christ, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails. If you are in Christ, circumcision — that is not the point. Neither uncircumcision — neither faith nor works. Oh, that's amazing. What avails then? But faith and works in love. Faith working through love.
What does that mean? Paul again does not leave us in the dark. He explains himself even more fully in Galatians 6:15, using exactly the same words so that we can put them side by side and see what it means. In Galatians chapter 6, verse 15, Paul says virtually the same words as in 5:6, but with one important change. In Galatians 6:15 he says that in Christ neither circumcision avails for anything, nor uncircumcision avails for anything — that is, neither works avails for anything, nor faith avails for anything — but a new creation. A new creation. Now why did he say this? You see, love is the key to the whole matter of salvation, both in the Lord's preaching and in Paul's. Why? Paul explains this thing very beautifully to us too.
He said, did you not say just now that neither faith nor works avails? I did say so. You see, how can you say that? I say so on Paul's very authority. And he said, you know 1 Corinthians 13 — everybody reads 1 Corinthians 13 at a wedding. Do you understand what you read? Then let us read 1 Corinthians 13, and let Paul explain it to you himself. 1 Corinthians 13 reads like this: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love" — which the whole parable of the Samaritan is about — "I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." I think you know what gongs and cymbals are. We Chinese invented the gong. Even the word "gong" has a Chinese sound about it. As you beat the gong, it makes an awful lot of noise. If you know, it's one thin metal sheet. It makes a tremendous amount of noise.
Paul himself says that even if you have all faith, that faith will not save you unless it is working through love. Faith alone will not avail. That is scriptural teaching. Paul didn't say faith. He says faith working through love — that's what matters, in Christ. But if you have even all faith and you do not have love, you are nothing in God's sight. That means you are zero. Nothing at all. And what about works? The same trouble with works. Verse 3: "If I give all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned" — well, what more can you ask of a fellow, to give all that he has and even his own body — "but have not love, I gain nothing." Nothing at all. So works are nothing and faith is nothing, as far as salvation is concerned. And what about putting faith and works together then? Still nothing. You could add zero plus zero, you've still got zero. Nothing there either way.
But what avails then? You see, the scriptural teaching is much deeper than all this. Much deeper than all. What avails? A new creation. You see, let's ponder this for a moment. We can give our body to be burned for various reasons. We may fight for a cause or an ideal. I have seen — I mean, I have lived in China, I have lived under the Kuomintang, under the Communists, I know what it is. People who are willing to give everything and to be burned alive as necessary, to fight for a cause. What is it? Is it love that motivates such a person? Not necessarily. It is very glorious. It is very heroic. It is very beautiful. I always admire this kind of heroism. But it is not necessarily motivated by love. In fact, it can be motivated by hate. Hatred of the enemy. And then you may have all these prophetic powers.
But let me say, this is what Scripture makes very plain: you can have faith without love, as Paul says here. But you cannot have love without faith. That is why faith working through love is so much deeper. I repeat this again: you can have faith without love, as Paul says here. But you cannot have love without faith. There is no way you can love without faith. Where there is love, there must be faith. If you understand this, you will understand that. That is why faith must be present where there is love, because there is no way you can love without having faith, without God enabling you to love. There is no way you can do it. It is not native to the human heart. It does not grow in the human heart. It comes from God. It is poured into our hearts by his Spirit.
What it means then is this: if you love, it means that you have become a new person. Otherwise you couldn't love. That in fact is the whole meaning of the First Letter of John. You need only read the First Letter of John. The whole of the First Letter of John is on this very point: that whatsoever is born of God loves. But if you are not born of God, you cannot love. But if you are born of God, born from above, born again, only then you can love. That is why Paul says neither circumcision avails anything — works — nor uncircumcision — faith — avails anything. But a new creation. Or rather, faith working by love. Love. Because it is of God. That is why John says, love is of God. It is not of man. It comes from God. And therefore faith and works neither are of any use unless it is working through love, because love means that God is there doing his work in us.
Can we understand this? So the scriptural teaching on salvation has nothing to do either simply with what you believe only. Which you need to believe — that is important. As we said, love implies faith. Faith does not necessarily imply love. So you need to have faith. But faith by itself doesn't avail. So you say, okay, faith plus works then. Faith and works still don't avail. You say, "I am surprised." You are surprised. Yes. Because unless God is there, unless the Holy Spirit is there, you can work as much as you like. You can believe as much as you like. Neither will get you anywhere. But it is not what you do, or what you believe. In other words, the Bible teaching is: what you are that matters. To be a new creation. To be like Christ. Because Christ has made you a new person. And that new person, the apostle Paul says, is created in the image of Christ.
So then, here we conclude, and we see the answer. The beautiful, deep, profound, powerful answer that the Lord Jesus gives. He says, you love. Why? Because he knows that love can only come from God. And you can only love when you become a new creature. So how can this be done then? Only through Christ. Now we can see the answer to the question we asked in the beginning. Which is the correct answer to the question, how do I inherit eternal life? By saying, believe in Jesus? Or, fulfill the requirements of love? It is not either-or. It is both. There is no way you can separate them. Because unless you believe in Jesus, you can never love. Unless Jesus comes into your life and makes a new creature of you, you cannot love. Because you cannot love, you cannot fulfill his commands. Because you cannot fulfill his commands, you cannot inherit eternal life.
In other words then, we are saved not because God abolished the law. Not because God sort of carries us around the law, like a student having to take an exam — he cannot pass the exam, so he gets his big brother to take his exam for him. How would you like that? Would that be alright? In China we call that — I don't know what the word in English is — cheating. No, no. What the Bible does is not that you can't pass the exam, so Jesus takes the exam for you. That's not acceptable, even by human standards. But what he does is that he gives you the equipment, the mental and spiritual equipment, that you go and take the exam in his strength, in his grace, by what he has supplied to you — his knowledge, his wisdom, his power — and you pass the exam. That's the way the Bible does it. Now that is really wonderful. There is no cheating involved. It is simply like you helping your younger brother. You don't go in and take the exam for your younger brother just because you look like your younger brother. I've heard of twins taking exams for each other. But you helping your younger brother, saying, "Okay, you failed the exam before. Now I'm going to help you. I'm going to work with you. I'm going to give you everything I've got so that you pass the exam." That is not a very good example, of course, but it is just a little illustration.
What the Lord then helps us to do in relation to the law is not that he cheats regarding the law, or that he sort of carries us over the law, or he takes the exam for us. But what he does is he gives us his Holy Spirit. He lives in us. He supplies us with the power. And we take the exam, and praise be to God, we pass by his grace. So we are saved by grace. It is not of works, but it is of grace, by making us a new person — the kind of person who delights to fulfill his law, fulfill his commandments.
And so in 1 John chapter 5, we read this in relation to our parable. Does John, the apostle John, say anything about abolishing the law? Not at all. But what he does say is this: that God has so put his love into us, by making us new creatures, that we find his commandments very delightful, not burdensome in the least. And so chapter 5, verse 1: "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God. And everyone who loves a parent loves a child." How do we know this, that we believe in Jesus? By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commands, his law. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For whatever — verse 4 — is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world: our faith.
So we find that faith and love, love and faith, are constantly going around in each other in the scriptural teaching. We are born of God, therefore we love. Because we love, we fulfill his commands. His commands are not burdensome. And all this is done through our faith. And now here we come to that final destination of faith: faith itself is defined in terms of love. That is saving faith. There are various kinds of faith that we talk about, but the faith that is prepared to love God with all the heart, with all the mind, with all the soul, and the strength — that is saving faith, because that faith in fact is simply defined in terms of love. Now this may be confusing to you, but I would like to stress to you again: there are many kinds of faith in the New Testament, and I have preached on that before. Suffice it to know now that when faith is defined in terms of love — a faith that works by love — then we are talking about saving faith.
So then, here we conclude this very important point. And I would like you to remember just one thing, if you cannot remember all that we have said. Remember just one thing: we are saved not merely by what we believe, not merely by what we do, but by what we become through the power of God and through the grace of God. "I am what I am by the grace of God." We are saved. And this is a wonderful teaching of salvation in the Bible. Not just by saying to somebody, "Do you believe that Jesus died?" He can believe, but he doesn't have one iota of love in his heart. Just look at the way Christians behave today. Or even less — you say, "Go out and do this good and do that good." You are not going to be saved by doing this good or that good, because you can do these things with no love in your heart at all. But the Bible teaches that we are saved by becoming a new person, into whose heart God pours his love by the Holy Spirit. You are saved by becoming a new person. That's what the Lord Jesus was teaching in the parable of the Good Samaritan. May God help us fully to understand his words. Let us now be quiet before God.