By: Mike Kelly
Retired Pastor
A friend of mine, Kent Hardy, wrote several Facebook posts in September that caused me to think and consider his viewpoints.
I’d like to share portions of them this month and add additional perspectives. Kent, thank you for allowing me to use your thoughts.
The Golden Rule, as taught by Jesus, is a call to actively seek the welfare of others: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you: (Matt. 7:12).
But as commendable as the Golden Rule is, Jesus does not stop there. On a number of other occasions, he calls his disciples to an even “higher” command: “As I have loved you, you must love one another” (John 13:34). Likewise, Jesus commands us to love our enemies because God also loves his enemies (Matt. 5:43-48). Here, the standard is not human kindness, but divine love.
If left with the Golden Rule alone, we might conclude that ignoring or avoiding our enemies is sufficient. After all, that may be what we want our enemies to do to us.
But Jesus’ new commandment requires us to actively love our adversaries, not merely bypass them. Kent called this The Platinum Rule.
Loving others just as God has loved us is what separates the call of Christ from that of others and what elevates his gospel to a higher moral code than other religious messages. The Golden Rule was a new concept to start with when Jesus presented it. No other religion preached anything like it.
The general principle before was “don’t do evil to another,” which is quite a long way from doing what you would want done to you and even further from doing what God would do for them.
To love others with the same love that our heavenly Father has lavished on us is to bestow a love that is infinite in depth and unyielding in mercy. What a standard to live with.
This higher call requires active love and mercy towards our adversaries, establishing a unique and elevated Christian ethical code based on God’s boundless love for them and for us. Divine love, which is infinite, unyielding, and extended to all, including enemies.
As we look at the Golden Rule, we see that it can be motivated by our human desire for fair treatment, while the “Platinum Rule” is motivated by God’s unconditional love.
And, as always, Jesus seems to expand on even the basics by requiring us to love others as God loves us. And we know that God withholds no good things from his children.
Psalm 84:11 states, “…the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly,” and even more, Mal 3:10b reads “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it (on the faithful).”
Since He blesses his faithful children with all the provisions of his storehouses in heaven, are we…his faithful children… allowed to do any less than he does for us?
Personally, I’m not a big fan of this “love them as God loves them” theology. I have enough trouble just trying to avoid enemies without trying to bless them. But, as usual, God didn’t consult me. He just laid out what He expects of those who call themselves Christians.
We just saw The Thorn in Ft. Wayne the other night and one scene illustrates Christ’s commitment to us and demonstrates how he expects us to serve and sacrifice for others: As Jesus was being lashed with the 39 lashes Pilate ordered, he fell off the stake that had been holding him and instead of staying on the ground, he crawled back to the stake so the Guard could complete the 39 lashes. That’s the kind of love God showed for us, that he gave his all for us. And that’s the sort of love he expects from us.
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Mike Kelly is the founding pastor of Bryan’s Grace Community Church (retired) and Board Chairman of Bryan’s Sanctuary Homeless Shelter and Williams County’s Compassion (free) Medical Clinic.