Leviticus 19:18:  One Half of the Law’s Summary

לֹֽא־תִקֹּ֤ם וְלֹֽא־תִטֹּר֙ אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י עַמֶּ֔ךָ וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵעֲךָ֖ כָּמ֑וֹךָ אֲנִ֖י יְהוָֽה׃

You shall not take vengeance,

And you shall not bear a grudge against the sons of your people.

But you will love your neighbor as yourself.

I am the LORD.

This verse is well-known to students of the New Testament. Jesus quoted it in Matt 19:19 and Mark 12:31. In Luke 10:27 it was quoted to Jesus with His approval. These New Testament passages have this verse as half of the summary of the Mosaic Law: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor and yourself.

I think we don’t listen to this closely enough when we read Jesus’ words in the Gospels. The Law, while it could not save (Gal 2:16), was itself righteous and good. It kills because it shows man his sinfulness, but it is not legalistic. Legalistic (=sinful, arrogant) people through the centuries have abused the Law; they have misinterpreted it and misapplied it, but their errors do not diminish the excellence of God’s self-revelation at Sinai.

It is right to draw a distinction in “these last days” between the administration of the Law over Israel and God’s administration of the Church under the heading of Grace. The labels we use to describe God’s various administrations of man do not suggest that the Law was ungracious. It was and is God telling man about Himself, and that makes it wonderful. That makes it freeing and precious. In fact, the Law is “profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16).” As Paul says, it must be used “lawfully,” or according to the purpose for which God intended it. That’s in 1 Timothy 1:8-11.

So sermons in churches on Leviticus may be rare because of trans-dispensational issues, but I think this verse teaches us something that never changes across the ages of God’s march through history. Can you imagine a national constitution whose summary is that the citizens are responsible to love God with all of themselves and one another as they love themselves? I think there has been nothing like this Law in history. Today we have a new law. Now that Christ has fulfilled what God gave Israel through Moses, we see a similar responsibility in the Law of Christ, “Love one another as I have loved you (Jn 13:34).”

Leviticus 19:18 has three commands, and they all arrest us with their value for applicable in making peace between human beings. First is the prohibition to taking physical vengeance. This is to act out on impulses of revenge. Second is the command not to bear a grudge. Those are the impulses themselves! Can you see how the Law was written to address both the root and the fruit? The grudge goes to our hearts; the vengeance is bringing the grudge to our hands.

You shall not take vengeance,

–>PHYSICAL or OVERT SIN

And you shall not bear a grudge against the sons of your people.

–>NON-PHYSICAL or IN-THE-HEART SIN

I marvel at how God’s Law went to the heart. There was no separated, inner thought-life privacy from God’s demands. God was not content with man’s outward obedience, in mere behavior. God’s way is to insist we conform to Him in our attitudes, motivations, thoughts, desires, appetites. Here is a great distinction between the religions of the world and the worship of Yahweh in the Old and New Testaments. He claims our hearts and our hands, showing us how these are related as cause and effect.

As we watch the way God delivers commands in the Bible, there are really two broad categories, and this verse showcases both. First you have prohibitions, “thou shalt not.” Disobeying this kind of command is doing something we are told not to do. The second kind, which really grabs my attention these days, are the commands for action or performance. These are the “you shall’s,” the commands to do something. Notice the power of the affirmative command at the end of this verse:

But you will love your neighbor as yourself. I AM YAHWEH.

–>Starts as a requirement for the HEART but goes to the expression of the heart in the OVERT ACTIONS.

Are you aware of the overt, giving requirement in the Law for loving your neighbor as yourself? Jesus taught this meaning to the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:21: ^“Jesus said to him, ‘If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’” The young legalist thought he had really kept the Law until Jesus told him to love the poor overtly. Incidentally, only Jesus ever kept the Law as given by God. Only Jesus could not be condemned by the “Law of sin and death” because He had no sin or consequent death.

Maybe this is your first exposure to the teaching of love from the Old Testament. Maybe you have heard that God is tough and mean in the Old Testament but meek and loving in the New Testament. Actually, the one God we serve has always been love, and we see His magnificent, loving character in the Law of Moses. A lot of misunderstanding about God comes from our inability to recognize the relationship between judgment and love. In our brokenness we think they are opposites or contradictory; actually one requires the other.

Paul takes us beyond the instructions of God through Moses to a higher responsibility. “Against such [fruit of the Spirit] there is no Law (Gal 5:23).” In the power of the Spirit we are able to love to God’s own standard of excellence, in the very power and pattern of Jesus Christ. “A new commandment” in John 13:34-35 is the “Law of Christ” in Galatians 6:2. Only by God’s grace extended in God’s power through the indwelling Holy Spirit can you and I demonstrate our being disciples of Jesus by loving as Jesus loved.

Moses was given instruction that the people of Israel were to treat one another with the same care that they gave themselves. Jesus’ radical advance on that command takes us to disregard of self, putting the other higher, not merely equal. Thus a disciple of Jesus follows him by “deny[ing] himself, tak[ing] up his cross, and following [His pattern] (Mt 16:24).” You and I will never pay for the sins of others with our perfectly sinless lives. We cannot because we are not qualified, and that is not the point. Jesus’ sacrifice was for all men at one point in history; there is no adding to that sacrifice. However we are required to sacrifice our own concerns for those of our brothers and sisters in Christ. That daily cross may mean a little temporal discomfort in order to bring comfort to others. This kind of thought-process is what happens when we move from asking, “What is everyone else doing?” to, “What does God tell me to do in His Word?”