Who is my neighbour? - Chris Hampton (Reprinted)

GODISNOWHERE.org - Ministry of Truth & Challenge

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In Romans 13:8-9, Paul tells us to "owe no one anything except to love one another." He says all the commandments are summed up in this saying: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

In Matthew 18:21-22, Peter asks Jesus, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Our Lord responded, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven."

So the question arises, "Who is our neighbor?" All people in the world? Or some smaller subset of the world? How do we discern whom we should treat like a "neighbor?" We need to know where to draw a line, if at all, so that we can relate to others based on a biblical perspective rather than our own assumptions or personal preferences. This topic paper will attempt to answer that question from a biblical perspective and by rightly dividing the word of truth as it proclaims the correct relationship and divisions between believers, the world and unbelievers.

Paul begins to clarify this for us in Romans 14 where he teaches us to "Receive one who is weak in the faith." He continues on to teach us to avoid disputes over those secondary issues that could cause a weak brother to stumble. Paul further strengthens this example in Romans 15 where he calls for us "to bear with the scruples of the weak" and "Let each of us please his neighbor for good, leading to edification."

The answer to the question is that our neighbor is our fellow brother in Christ. Jesus Himself lays down this same premise in John 13:34-35.

John 13:34 "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another"

John 13:35 "By this, all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

The world will know we are of Christ because of the love we have for one another, and not the love we have for the world.

So the world of unbelievers is not our Neighbors?

Idolaters, God-haters, false prophets and the followers of these are not our neighbors. We do not honor God by showing tolerance and love towards these people. We honor God by loving our neighbor, which is one another in the Body of Christ. Our love towards the world is that of warning, that of preaching the "Bad News" which is the condemnation of Law, and by offering God's gift of reconciliation through Christ and Christ alone (the "Good News"), as the solution to that condemnation.

It does no good to put our love and God's grace upon unbelievers. This will only give them a false sense that the life they are living and the darkness they love is valid in our eyes and in God's. The only outcome will be that these people will remain in the darkness and will remain under the wrath of God.

The Law is for the unrighteous and the wicked

What is the purpose of the Law? Why did God give the Law to man? To bring life… or death?

Gal 3:19 Why then the Law? It was added because of transgressions, until the Seed should come to those to whom it had been promised, being ordained through angels in the Mediator's hand.

The Law was given for our transgressions, until Christ came. Once we come to Christ we are no longer under the Law. However, those not in Christ are still under the Law.

Gal 3:24 So that the Law has become a trainer of us until Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

The Law is a tutor for the unbelievers to point them towards Christ. The law was made for the unrighteous and the wicked, and it should be used to elicit the desired effect, which is the destruction of the flesh and the realization of the failing of one's own system of justification.

1Tim 1:8 But we know that the law is good if a man uses it lawfully,

1Tim 1:9 knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous one, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,

1Tim 1:10 for fornicators, for homosexuals, for slave-traders, for liars, for perjurers, and anything else that is contrary to sound doctrine,

The Law should be applied to the unbelievers in the world, for it is made for them! We should not reach out and tolerate, or embrace, or love the world of unbelievers, but we should teach the Law and apply it to their actions and lifestyles. This is the only hope for unbelievers to come out of the darkness, to look into the mirror of the Law and see for themselves that they are sinners and that they are under God's wrath.

Paul used the law in this way on the false believer in 1 Corinthians 5:1-13.

1Cor 5:1 On the whole it is reported that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not even named among the nations, so as one to have his father's wife.

1Cor 5:2 And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, so that he who has done this deed may be taken from your midst.

1Cor 5:3 For as being absent in body but present in spirit, I indeed have judged already as though I were present concerning him who worked out this thing;

1Cor 5:4 in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, with my spirit; also, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ;

1Cor 5:5 to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

1Cor 5:6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

1Cor 5:7 Therefore purge out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For also Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

1Cor 5:8 Therefore let us keep the feast; not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

1Cor 5:9 I wrote to you in the letter not to associate intimately with fornicators;

1Cor 5:10 yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then you must go out of the world.

1Cor 5:11 But now I have written to you not to associate intimately, if any man called a brother and is either a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one not to eat.

1Cor 5:12 For what is it to me to also judge those who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside?
1Cor 5:13 But God judges those who are outside. Therefore put out from you the evil one.

Paul makes the case clearly that the church was in grave error in the tolerance, love and even boasting of the man within their midst who was living a life of unrepentant sexual immorality. Paul calls for this man to be removed from the church and delivered over to Satan or the world for the destruction of his own flesh. Paul further judges this false believer and calls him evil and wicked.

How do we as believers interact with the world and unbelievers?

As believers in Christ, we stand justified before God our Father. He calls us to be sanctified through Christ, for "I no longer live, but Christ lives in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Gal 2:20

As believers, we must hold to all that is true, all that is good and all that is righteous. Part of our sanctification is our separation from the world, not a separation of contact and sharing in truth but rather a separation in thought, desires, motives and morality. We now live for God, and we stand for his truth, against the world of which we used to be a part.

We must be able to judge the sinful acts of both unbelievers and believers as evil. We must take a stand for everything that is Good. We fight against abortion, torture, pornography, rape, homosexuality, etc. When we are in the presence of evil, we must be ready to call out that which is evil, without pause.

We do not sit with lying or wicked men

Psa 26:3 For Your loving-kindness is before my eyes; and I have walked in Your truth.

Psa 26:4 I have not sat with lying men, neither will I go in with hypocrites.

Psa 26:5 I have hated the congregation of evil-doers, and will not sit with the wicked.

We will not set any wicked thing before our eyes

Psa 101:3 I will set no wicked thing before my eyes. I have hated the work of those who turn aside; it shall not hold on to me.

We will hate every false way (Righteous hatred)

Psa 119:103 How sweet are Your Words to my taste! More than honey to my mouth!

Psa 119:104 Through Your Commandments I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.

We fear God, which means we hate evil, pride, arrogance and evil ways (Righteous fear)

Prov 8:13 The fear of Jehovah is to hate evil; I hate pride, and arrogance, and the evil way, and the wicked mouth.

Psa 139:21 O Jehovah, do I not hate those who hate You? And am I not grieved with those who rise up against You?

We have no fellowship with the Darkness but rather expose it

Eph 5:6 Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience.

Eph 5:7 Therefore do not be partakers with them.

Eph 5:8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light

Eph 5:9 (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth),

Eph 5:10 proving what is acceptable to the Lord.

Eph 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

We avoid those who cause division and make offenses contrary to the doctrine

Rom 16:17 And I exhort you, brothers, to watch those making divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them.

Rom 16:18 For they who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches they deceive the hearts of the simple.

We will not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers (this is not about marriage)

2Cor 6:14 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship does righteousness have with lawlessness? And what partnership does light have with darkness?

2Cor 6:15 And what agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what part does a believer have with an unbeliever?

2Cor 6:16 And what agreement does a temple of God have with idols? For you are the temple of the living God, as God has said, "I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people."

2Cor 6:17 Therefore come out from among them and be separated, says the Lord, and do not touch the unclean thing. And I will receive you.

We do not love this world, or the things in the world

1John 2:15 Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him,

1John 2:16 because all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

We won't take into our home or even greet he who doesn't bring the teaching of Christ

2 John 1:9 Everyone who does not abide in the teaching of Christ but goes beyond it does not have God. The person who abides in the teaching of Christ has both the Father and the Son.

2John 1:10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your home or even greet him,

2John 1:11 for the one who greets him shares in his evil deeds.

We will preach the Word, and we will rebuke and judge

2Tim 4:2 preach the Word, be instant in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.

2Tim 4:3 For a time will be when they will not endure sound doctrine, but they will heap up teachers to themselves according to their own lusts, tickling the ear.

Jesus came to divide, and we must love Christ more than even our mother or father

Matt 10:34 Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth. I did not come to send peace, but a sword.

Matt 10:35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

Matt 10:36 And a man's foes shall be those of his own household.

Matt 10:37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.

The world is a highly organized system of evil at constant war with God… and is therefore at war with us

John 15:19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

More than ever today, Christians need to know where they stand in relation to their brothers and sisters in Christ, and in relation to the world. Compromise and postmodern liberalism are infiltrating the Body of Christ at an unprecedented rate. At the same time, the most important responsibility a Christian has today is to share the gospel of salvation by grace through faith, apart from works, to the world around us. If we treat the world the same as we treat our brother and sister, our neighbors… then our evangelical mission as Christians is compromised. If we condone and tolerate and accept the world just as it is, as if nothing is wrong… then we are effectively telling the world that there is no need for any Good News. The Bad News must be preached, before the Good News is relevant; a man won't care how great a doctor is, if he doesn't think he is sick. How would you treat a drug-abusing friend?

Love your neighbor as yourself. Forgive your repentant brother as many times as it takes. But put the Law on the unbeliever, and convey to them the condemnation they are under. The Law is the tutor to bring them to Christ. Once they are in Christ, they will no longer need that tutor.

"When tribulation and persecution arise because of the word, then chiefly the trial is, whether we love better, Christ or our relations and lives; yet even in the days of peace this matter is sometimes brought to the trial. Those that decline the service of Christ, and opportunities of converse with him, and are ashamed to confess him, for fear of disobliging a relation or friend, or losing a customer, give cause to suspect that they love him better than Christ." - from Matthew Henry's commentary on the whole Bible


Chris Hampton