Untitled Sermon
According to a frequently cited rabbinic tradition, Hillel was once asked to recite the entire Torah by a heathen, who offered to become a proselyte if Hillel could make the recitation while the prospective convert stood on one foot. The wise Hillel simply responded: “What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah, while the rest is commentary thereof; go and learn it” (b. Šabb. 31a).
The earliest Greek expression comes from Homer’s Odyssey (ca. 700 BC). Calypso quells Odysseus’ distrust by saying, “I will be as careful for you as I should be for myself in the same need. I know what is fair and right, my heart is not made of iron, and I am really sorry for you” (V.184–91). In Ancient Greece, it was a virtue to do good to one’s friends and harm to one’s enemies. This created feuds between Greek city-states. Seeking revenge often entailed denial of self-interest. The Golden Rule arose from this tradition, though the two were not always distinguishable (see Albrecht Dihle’s Die goldene Regel).
Immanuel Kant critiqued it on the grounds that it does not sufficiently consider different situations. A rebuttal to these critiques is that the Golden Rule implies a consideration for how the other person wants to be treated. Marcus George Singer observed the rule can be interpreted in one of two ways (Singer, The Ideal of a Rational Morality, 270):
1. One can take the rule as advocating one to do specific actions to others that one wants others to do to oneself.
2. One can govern their actions toward general principles that one would like others to apply when acting toward oneself.
Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom does not replace the OT but rather fulfills it as Jesus’ life and ministry, coupled with his interpretation, complete and clarify God’s intent and meaning in the entire OT.
7:12 The word therefore suggests that the “Golden Rule” of this verse draws an application from the preceding section. Since the preceding verse describes God’s gracious and loving provision for others, the conjunction probably implies that following the Golden Rule shows the disciple’s resemblance to the heavenly Father (see notes at 5:44–45; 5:48).
In this context the ‘golden rule’ is not so much a summation of Jesus’ ethical demands, as a bridge which leads men to turn themselves radically toward their fellow-men, as this demand results from the message of God’s eschatological action and expresses itself in practice in the love of enemy and the waiving of one’s own rights. This means then that the good of one’s fellow-man is not an autonomous principle of action within Jesus’ ethics. The radical concern for one’s fellow-man is rather a principle derived from the eschatological proclamation of the kingdom which constitutes the decisive principle of action and bestows on the concern for one’s fellow-man its radical dimension which receives its orientation from God’s concern for men. Only in this context can the ‘law and the prophets’ be fulfilled.9
Jesus’ emphatic insistence on pursuing the good of others, is at the least, extremely rare in ancient sources. Nevertheless, the truly unique aspect of Jesus’ words is his contention that such unbounded love constitutes the interpretive key for correctly understanding God’s will in the “Law and Prophets.” In Matthew’s presentation of Jesus’ teaching concerning the Law one learns that the Law must be read in light of the greater principles expressed in the love command (22:34–40), the “golden rule” (7:12), and God’s desire for mercy not sacrifice (9:13; 12:7).8
Some of the wisest thinkers of today’s church have cautiously concluded that, as God’s kingdom comes, it isn’t God’s will to bring it all at once. We couldn’t bear it if he did. God is working like an artist with difficult material; and prayer is the way some of that material co-operates with the artist instead of resisting him. How that is so we shall never fully understand until we see God face to face. That it is so is one of the most basic Chrisian insights.
Verse 12, in fact, sums up the message so far, the message which began at 5:17–20. Jesus hasn’t come to abolish, but to fulfil, the law and the prophets. How? By teaching Israel who God really is, and what copying him, trusting him, loving and obeying him are really like. And, when it comes to behaviour in the world, and with other people, the whole law can be put into one sentence: do to others what you’d like them to do to you.
Jesus was neither the first nor the last great moral teacher to offer this so-called ‘Golden Rule’, and it sums up a good deal of his teaching. What distinguishes him from the many others who have said similar things is that underneath the moral lesson is the love of the heavenly father. What should distinguish his followers, but alas frequently doesn’t, is that, knowing this love, they should find themselves able to obey this rule, and the other rules that follow from it, gladly and freely. They should then discover that they are able to reflect God’s love and light into the world.
The common description of this saying as the “Golden Rule” is traditionally traced to the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus (AD 222–235) who though not a Christian was reputedly so impressed by the comprehensiveness of this maxim of Jesus as a guide to good living that he had it inscribed in gold on the wall of his chamber. Its influence in Victorian Britain is illustrated by the name given by Charles Kingsley in The Water Babies to the good fairy “Mrs Do-as-you-would-be-done-by” (in contrast to Mrs Be-done-by-as-you-did). As a guide to how unselfish love should work itself out in our relations with other people, this simple principle would be hard to improve on.
the golden rule is probably the most well-known thing Jesus ever said. It is the summit of ethics, behavior, righteousness, and godliness. It is a very practical statement of God’s love; that is, God has done to us just as He wants us to do to Him. God has treated us as He wants us to treat Him (and everyone else).
The golden rule reveals the heart of God. It shows us exactly how God’s heart longs for us to live and act. It is a simple statement revealing what love really is and what life in a perfect world is like. It tells believers that they are to live as the golden rule dictates while still on the earth before being transferred into the heavenly world or dimension.
1) It is more than not doing wrong (lying, stealing, cheating).
2) It is more than just doing good (helping, caring, giving).
3) It is looking, searching, and seeking for ways to do the good that you want others to do to you. It is seeking ways to treat others just as you want them to treat you.
Thought 3. Two simple rules can revolutionize a person’s life (or society itself).
(1) Treating God as we want God to treat us.
(2) Treating others as we want others to treat us.
(6) One way to practice the golden rule is to ask the simple question: “How would I want to be treated?” Then treat the other person that way.
As Mounce explains: “In its negative form, the Golden Rule could be satisfied by doing nothing. The positive form moves us to action on behalf of others.”97
And Barclay says, “With this commandment the Sermon on the Mount reaches its summit and its peak. This saying of Jesus has been called ‘the capstone of the whole discourse.’”26 This statement is no doubt the best known of Jesus’ teachings and is the highest level of His ethical teaching.