Luke 6:27-45

Butler's Comments

SECTION 4

Magnanimous (Luke 6:27-45)

27 But I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from him who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30Give to every one who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again. 31And as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.

32 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. 35But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. 36Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

37 Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; 38give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.

39 He also told them a parable: Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40A disciple is not above his teacher, but every one when he is fully taught will be like his teacher. 41Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 42Or how can you say to your brother, -Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,-' when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.

43 For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; 44for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. 45The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil; for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Luke 6:27-36 Toward the Hateful: Magnanimous means, noble, liberal and self-sacrificing. And Jesus characterizes the citizens of His kingdom as magnanimous toward those who hate them. How may Christians be expected to love those who persecute them and hate them and exploit them? Because God loves them! The Greek word for love here is agape. Agape is a love of the will and not necessarily of the emotions. We cannot have the same feelings toward those who hate us as toward our relatives and friends. That would be unnatural and really impossible. But we can decide that no matter how a man acts toward us we will always act toward him for his highest good. Agape-love is the kind of action that can be commanded (John 15:12 ff), because it is not dependent upon how we feel. It is something that we must do in spite of how we feel. A man's mind and will can overrule his feelings.

Jesus is calling for more than stoicism here. The Christian is more than merely passive toward his enemies and those who may exploit him. The citizen of Christ's kingdom goes the second mile (cf. Matthew 5:39-41). Jesus is illustrating the fundamental principle of non-retaliation for personal injury and insult. Christians are not by nature, vengeful, spiteful nor retaliatory. They leave ultimate justice up to the Lord (cf. Romans 12:14-21). But turning the other cheek does not mean that we should be unconcerned about the defense of law and order and human rights. To turn the other cheek, or give up the coat does not mean that it does not matter at all about civil rights and civil justice. The devil is the author of anarchy; he has as his goal a society where evil rules. God has ordained human governments for the purpose of maintaining civil liberties and order. Human magistrates are God's ministers to execute His justice upon criminals (cf. Romans 13:1-7). Human government is ordained to maintain an orderly execution of justice! Without law and order, man's first impulse when struck or robbed is to strike back or retaliate. A society where each man is a law unto himself, executing justice on a personal basis, would be anarchistic. The whole point of Jesus-' instructions here is that the Christian is governed by a higher law than human governmenthe does not even need human government to keep him under control. The Christian goes beyond the law against retaliation. He not only does not retaliatehe shows love toward his enemies. Jesus never intended His statements here to be rigidly codified into some literal behavior. He did not offer His cheek to be struck a second time (John 18:22-23); nor did Paul (Acts 23:3). It would hardly be the highest good to a criminal to allow him to strike a man until he killed him, or rob and extort without any restraint. Someone must call upon civil authorities to put a stop to such actionfor the victim's sake, for society's sake and for the criminal's sake! But the Christian cannot take the law into his own handshe must go the second mile if necessary.

Give to everyone who begs of you. is not a mandate to foster professional begging. Jesus is not encouraging Christians to help frauds, drunkards, the lazy, or professional beggars. The drunkard who begs money is not in need; neither is the man who is too lazy to work if he is able (cf. 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15). What Jesus is telling the Christian here is that he must not be self-centered, greedy and miserly. If any man is in real need, it is the nature of the Christian to help again, and again if he is able to do so. But the Christian must make evaluations and judgments because to give to a professional beggar who might otherwise earn a living would not be helpful. The Christian must please his neighbor for his good, to edify him (cf. Romans 15:1-2). When we give we must not seek a return. Love gives for the sake of giving with no thought of return.

The primary motive for the Christian ethic is, of course, the love of God. We love, because He first loved us (1 John 4:7-19). But a secondary motive for the Christian to go the second mile is that he treats others as he would wish to be treated. The Golden Rule, as Luke 6:31 is called, is uniquely positive. It is not like any other philosophy of ethics in all mankind. Barclay says it so well: The Christian ethic is positive. It does not consist in not doing things but in doing them. Jesus gave us the Golden Rule which bids us do to others as we would have them do to us. That rule exists in many writers of many creeds in its negative form. Hillel, one of the great Jewish Rabbis, was asked by a man to teach him the whole law while he stood on one leg. He answered, -What is hateful to thee, do not to another. That is the whole law and. all else is explanation.-' The Stoics put it this way, What you do not wish to be done to yourself, do not you do to any other. A citizen of the kingdom of God does not just not do bad thingshe busies himself in doing good things.

The Christian is one who goes beyond the expected or the norm in doing good. There is a worldly standard of doing good. Those of the world do good to those who do good to them first; even sinners love those who love them. If one does good to those who have done good to him, he is no different than the rest of the world. It is of interest that Luke used the Greek word charis which is translated credit in the RSV. It is as if Jesus said, What special grace is in that kind of action? It will do no good for the Christian to claim he is just as good as his neighbors; he must be betterhe must go beyond his neighbor in doing good. The Macedonians gave beyond their means, of their own free will to the Judeans (2 Corinthians 8:3-4).

Jesus challenges His followers to go beyond the world's norm because He wants His followers to have the blessedness of being like God. The behavior of the sinner is too low for the Christian to aimhe should aim for the highest. God goes beyond the worldly norm; He actively loves and does good to those who hate Him. God sends His rain upon the just and the unjust alike (Matthew 5:44-45). God is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. If Christian children would imitate their Father (Ephesians 5:1-2) this is how they will act.

In all this discussion about lending is Jesus forbidding the Christian to put his money in banks to earn interest or from borrowing money and paying interest? A fact often overlooked is that in ancient Israel commercial loans were practically unknown. Among the heathen it was a different thing. The Old Testament legislates against usury (Exodus 22:25; Leviticus 25:36 ff; Deuteronomy 23:19 ff). Nehemiah (Luke 5:3-10) condemned wealthy Jews for charging interest to their less fortunate brothers. The Israelites could charge interest to foreigners (Deuteronomy 23:19-21). Wilbur Fields says in Exodus, College Press, pg. 494, In modern times money is usually loaned for commercial purposes, to increase a man's capital, increase his business, or enhance his comfort. It is proper that a reasonable interest or payment be collected for this service. Thus Exodus 22:25 does not mean we should demand that our banks stop charging interest. Jesus himself approved the taking of interest from a bank (Matthew 25:27; Luke 19:23). But this is quite a different thing from making gain out of a neighbor's need or being callous to the needs of a brother in the Lord. If a brother is in need and a personal loan may be given, there should be no interest charged by the brother offering the help. As a matter of fact, the whole point of Jesus here seems not to be in the area of lending but in giving. Christ is telling his followers to give help to one another, expecting no return at all.

Luke 6:37-45 Toward the Heterodox: Judge not, and you will not be judged. Has Jesus forbidden all judgment here? Of course not! As a matter of fact, Jesus commanded judgment at least twice (Luke 12:57; John 7:24). The very fact that God has created us with the ability to choose compels us to make judgments or evaluations. We could never protect ourselves against wrong if we did not judge; we could never help others if we did not evaluate their needs. The apostle Paul told the Corinthian church it would have to judge and excommunicate an immoral member (1 Corinthians 5:1 ff). He also told the brethren they should make righteous judgments between one another when disputes arose and not take their disputes to heathen judges (1 Corinthians 6:1 ff). Jesus warns in this very Sermon (Matthew 7:6; Matthew 7:15-20) that the citizen of His Kingdom will have to judge who the dogs and swine are in order not to cast one's pearls and bread before them; the citizen will have to judge fruit of false and true prophets.

What Jesus is forbidding here is the hyper-critical attitude. He is telling us to be magnanimous toward those whose behavior, though not really sinful, may be different than ours. There must be liberty and charity among citizens of Christ's kingdom in the realm of opinion. Where there are no specific commandments or clear principles stated in the New Testament, Christian brethren must allow one another the freedom to choose and act as their consciences permit them to do so. The New Testament has a great deal to say about this (Romans 14:1-23; Romans 15:1-33; I Corinthians, Chapter s 8, 9 and 10; Galatians 5:1-26).

Jesus is advising us that we should not have a judgmental attitude. The less judging (especially of people) we dp, the better off we shall be. The time will come when we shall be forced to form opinions about people, but we must be very careful not to form prejudicial opinions. We must not prejudge without sufficient evidence; we must not condemn as a sin something that is not a sin; we must not allow our opinions to be formed out of motives of envy, jealousy or our own guilty consciences. We must be very careful not to judge the motives of others for we do not know their heartsonly their actions. We must be sure our opinions of others are formed according to divine standards (the Bible) and not some worldly standards.
Jesus offers a series of mini-parables as cautions against hyper-active and hasty judgments:

a.

... give and it will be given to you . for the measure you give will be the measure you get back. If you give censorious judgment that is what you will get back; if you give good without measure out of a pure motive, you will receive without measure from both God and man. Whatever a man sows, he eventually reaps (Galatians 6:7-10).

b.

Can a blind man lead a blind man? No! they will both fall into the pit. We all have blind areas about our own faultsthus we are not clear-sighted enough to really lead others to the light about themselves. It is hypocritical for us to criticize the blindnesses in others without admitting our own blindnesses. We are all still followersJesus is the Master (Teacher). Were we ever able to be as honest and wise as He, we might be critical of othersbut until then, we must let Him lead us all!

c.

... first take the log out of your own eye. Jesus clearly infers that if we successfully remove the huge impairments which keep us from judging our own spiritual faults, then we might be prepared to help our brother judge his faults. It is interesting that Jesus sees the log in our eye and the speck in our brother's eyewe usually see it the other way! Again we are struck with the emphasis Jesus puts on man's tendency to be self-centered. Self-centered people cannot judge fairly or rightly!

d.

... no good tree bears bad fruit. A hyper-critical attitude betrays a fundamentally evil heart.. for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. That which comes from our mouths reveals what is in our hearts! If we mouth prejudicial judgment it betrays a heart harboring hate. We do not have to compromise truth to put to death slander, gossip, non-factual opinions. There are three other options:

(1)

keep silent about the person

(2)

offer an informal prayer for the person

(3)

utter some known good about the person

The nature of the Lord's kingdom is magnanimity. Because the Lord is that way, He wishes His subjects to be that way. He wishes it for them so they may have the blessedness of holiness and righteousness. If you will treat a man as he is, he will continue to be what he is. If you treat him as he ought to be and can be, then he will more readily become what he ought to be and can be! That is what this Sermon is about; that is how God treats us!