No Action Need be Taken

Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them--this is the Law and the Prophets. – Matthew 7:12 HCSB

Sometimes in large companies, memos are passed around describing action that is being taken or rules that must be considered by various departments. Whether or not they are applicable, all departments receive these memos and so a note is usually attached that says “No action need be taken.”

God’s central demand on humanity (in regards to behavior) is to act ethically. There is a pernicious tendency to think that as long as we get all our ritualistic t’s crossed and our religious i’s dotted, our illicit behavior between worship services will be forgiven.

It’s as though ritual observance, such as saying certain “sinner’s prayers”, getting baptized or belonging to a local church, supersedes basic ethics. I’m beginning to think Christians read through the Bible, see all the ethical teaching there, focus instead on a misunderstanding of grace and think “No action need be taken.”

Jesus summed up all the law into, “Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all you heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is equally important: love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments. No other commandment is greater than these.”[1]

In other words, all of the laws that Yahweh Shaphat gave on Mount Sinai, and all the teaching that He passed on through Moses and the prophets over a period of two thousand years or more could be summed up in a godly fear resulting in ethical behavior.

In today’s passage, Jesus summed it up even more concisely by rewording a principle that exists in most human cultures. Hillel once stated it as, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.” But where Hillel stated the negative aspect, so that it would limit the damage inflicted by one human on another, Jesus went into the positive aspect. It was not enough to simply “do no harm.” We must be positive forces for good within our spheres of influence.

What we would want done to ourselves, we must do for others. If we would like sound advice, we must be sure that the advice we give others is wise and in no way self-seeking.[2] If we would want others to give us the benefit of the doubt, then we must (as much as possible) think well of them.[3]

This is all the Law. All the rest is commentary. Thankfully, our salvation does not depend on our consistent application of ethics for we would all be lost.[4] Yet ethics do sum up God’s requirements as to our behavior. Action most definitely must be taken.

[1] Harmony of Mark 12:28-34 and Matthew 22:34-40
[2] Proverbs 10:21
[3] 1 Corinthians 13:7
[4] Romans 3:10