God’s Word for You
Galatians 5:13-15 Love your neighbor as yourself
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, August 6, 2024
13 My brothers, you were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful flesh. Rather, serve one another with love. 14 The whole law is summed up in a single sentence: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
To be called to freedom is to be called out of the slavery of the law. We are out from under the law, and in the open air of the freedom of grace. How does the law enslave? Through threats and the desire for rewards on account of obedience. But the law only condemns, it does not reward, since no one could ever keep it. Even as simple a request as “watch with me” from Jesus on a spring evening was not kept by his closest friends and apostles (Mark 14:37). But now that we are set free from the law, we have to be warned not to use our new freedom to sin, “to indulge the sinful flesh.” Paul told the Romans, “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!” (Romans 6:15). So while we are no longer compelled to keep the law perfectly, that doesn’t mean that we throw it away, since the law, the Ten Commandments and the moral law, is the will of God. No, we should study it and learn its great depth, and how it teaches us to love. Jesus explains this in the Sermon on the Mount. He shows that hatred and a lost temper condemns us under the Fifth Commandment (Matthew 5:22). He explains that lusting over anyone who is not your spouse condemns us under the Sixth Commandment (Matthew 5:28). He explains that while divorce was permitted by Moses, to divorce for any reason apart from unfaithfulness is also a sin of adultery (Matthew 5:32). Jesus teaches us that to love your neighbor also means to love your enemy and to pray for his good (Matthew 5:44).
Paul warns that indulging the sinful flesh is always sinful. The flesh will take over as soon we let it: give an inch; it will take a mile. For when we let our sinful nature get behind the wheel, we know for certain that it’s not about to drive us to church, but to the seediest parts of town.
Paul quotes the moral law: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If we kept this one law, we would be keeping all of it. We should not object that loving God above all things is more important than loving our neighbor, since loving my neighbor is something I can only do if I love God above all things. And the reverse is true: Loving God is clearly shown by loving my neighbor, whoever that neighbor is. Only love for God will spur me on to loving those who hate me, who belittle me, who have no respect for me; those who despise me.
God does not tell me just to be civil to my neighbor, or to be courteous to him. Why not? Because I would look for a way to be civil or courteous to his face and still hate him behind his back. God bypasses all of the loopholes my sinful nature would look for, because I would try to find a way to keep anger or bitterness or even revenge tucked away in my heart for someone who openly or secretly hates me. But God will allow none of that. He tells me to throw away every sinful, spiteful thought and emotion, and he says “Love your neighbor.” And that doesn’t leave room for anything.
Luther said to his students that this love “is felt within; it is alive, and it teaches most effectively, not with letters, not with words, and not with thoughts but with the actual feeling of experience. For who is not vitally aware of how he loves himself, how he seeks, plans, and tries everything that is beneficial, honorable, and necessary for himself? But this whole awareness is a living indication, an inward reminder, and a proof immediately at hand of what you owe your neighbor. You owe him exactly what you owe yourself, and you owe it from the same disposition of the heart” (LW 27:351).
So if we fail, or we let the sinful flesh steer the ship of our lives and do whatever it pleases, then we will find that everyone will respond to us in the same way. Pretty soon nobody would be loving anyone anymore, and we would all be only “biting and devouring one another,” snarling and gnashing our teeth like the damned as they are sentenced (Matthew 24:51). For pride gets in the way of everything and leads to destruction (Proverbs 16:18). The early church taught: “Do not be proud, for pride leads to murder,” and again: “From the evil angel comes… desires for women, covetousness, great arrogance, pride and whatever else resembles or is similar to them. Whenever these things enter your heart, know that the evil angel is in you.” And David warns: “In his pride the wicked does not seek God; in all his thoughts there is no room for God” (Psalm 10:4). Solomon’s words are meant to sooth the hothead: “The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride” (Ecclesiastes 7:8). God tells us to throw away our pride, and to love.
To love is to wish and seek the best for someone. Consider the risen and ascended Christ. He could simply act as judge. But what did he do when an opponent rose up, tearing apart families, arresting and even killing Christians? Did he judge that man? No, he loved him. He appeared to him and called him to repentance, and that very man, once the enemy of the church, served Christ for the rest of his life. He learned to love his enemies, even praying for them, “Do not let it be held against them” (2 Timothy 4:16). And that man was the Apostle Paul.
Teach us to love, O Lord. Forgive us for unloving and sinful thoughts, and teach us to love, because “love covers over a multitude of sins.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.