Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - May/64

Contributor - Rev. H. Van Essen

Title - Love Thy Neighbour As Thyself

Topic - Youth

In these days and years I find a dangerous idea going around, which in effect says that individuality is a thing not possible, or rather, not wanted anymore. There is a saying in English which is not known so much in Europe as over here, "sticking your neck out". This is done in business quite often, but in other fields, for instance in new architecture, theology, you are sticking your neck out if you take an extra-ordinary position (the implication in the expression is of course that you may have your head chopped off).

To have an independent opinion, and to stand up for that opinion, is a thing hardly possible. This is true in every area of life practically today. In unions one must usually vote by raising of hands, no secret balloting; in politics you may recall that the present minister of Finance, Mr. Gordon, at one time was a member of a Royal financial committee, and advocated while in that committee a certain financial policy. However, when some years later the Prog. Cons. Government proposed and brought about this policy, while Mr. Gordon was a member of the Legislature for the Liberals, could Mr. Gordon praise the P.C.'s? No, all he could do was go along with the party line, talking it down.

All this has something to do with loving your neighbour as yourself. His commandment recognizes the individuality of a human being. We are not just so many spokes in a wheel, all exactly the same, but we are individuals. Slowly on this world is growing into a mob affair. For years the idea of collectivism has gone around, and in Europe, and here. In Europe it came earlier. We saw a product of it in a guided economy - which in itself was and is a masterpiece. The trouble however is, that it becomes so difficult to keep your individuality in a collectivistic society. For the rule is that that is good which is good for the greatest number of people those greatest number of people. Those who suffer, suffer for the good of the majority. And this, take a good look, is in principle the same idea as that by which Russia and Red China are governed, the greatest good for the greatest number. Man becomes a number; all by himself he does not count anymore. Only in a group, the bigger the better, can he make his influence felt.

Can he really? Or does he loose even his individuality in the group? Is the group he has joined able to drag him along too? 'like the German soldier said, 'Ich habe kein Hasz, gegen keinen Mensch", but nevertheless, he was in the war. The group rules the individual also - you remain a number, one vote!

This, I believe, has come for-tn out of a misunderstanding, or a misuse of the Biblical idea of self-denial, giving yourself up for the good of your neighbour(s), for Christ's sake. The idea has been taken over without the latter part, for Christ's sake. And therefore it has accomplished the very opposite it sought to do: it destroyed the consciousness of being an individual, instead of restoring it. We read and believe that the Lord Jesus Christ humbled himself even unto death, for the sake of a world, a humanity, lost in sin. This is the case of self-denial. Yet there is no sign that the Lord ever denied his individuality. He was no vague somebody, a moving carcass of flesh and bones. He was a personality, a living person, an individual. And this he remained, and still is! He yields, he submits himself, indeed, but only to One, his Father in heaven. And on account of that submission, he is able and does submit himself to human beings, the Jews, the Roman soldiers, here on earth. He lets himself be handled because his Father asks this of him; but Jesus remains an individual, a person. He does not become depersonalized. An example of this is found in the history of the cleansing of the Temple, which does not reveal Jesus' divinity, but the fact that he remains an individual personality. No doubt, this market place within the walls of the Temple had been a sore point with many a true, devout Jew; but the majority, or the power group ruled. What would an individual do? Yet Jesus cannot deny himself, when this would mean to deny his Father in heaven, and acts.

And this is also true in Martin Luther: "Here I stand, I cannot else". He could not deny himself, for this meant denying his Lord. The commandment Love thy neighbour as thyself is the second one; the first commandment, to love the Lord thy God is the first and great commandment; and it lays the basis for the second.

While loving his neighbour as himself, a person will retain his individual personality, indeed, but only in so far as this is a personality before God in Christ, when a person is reborn! For only then can he deny himself for his neighbour without becoming a nothing. The Lord Jesus Christ, could only act that way because he lived before God. The love of God was in his heart, and no matter what happened to him, he would remain. But the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan realized that helping the wounded man would mean running risk of being wiped out. There was only the earthly existence for them, and they protected that. The person who has been made alive in and through Jesus Christ is able to deny himself for his neighbour, because he lives, and always will live before the Lord.

In this world of ours the daily call is to unite, to give up our differences, to become a brotherhood, etc. And it is amazing how often this happens. A few are the leaders, and the rest seems to follow doggedly. The daily news papers control the people, no matter how much they write about freedom. The same is true of the other mass media, radio and T.V. They manage the news for us. And the poor individual is caught between his boss, the union, the finance company and the taxes, and cannot do much else but follow the leader. The example of a Hitler, in a much more careful hidden, even more effective way, you could almost say, is being followed. There is no Hitler here, but the masses sure are. The individual can only mean something when he joins a group, otherwise he becomes a scab, and outcast even. Yet the moment he joins the group, he also loses his individuality, as they say, for the good of the majority of the group.

This all is also true in church life. One of the presidents of the National Council of Churches in the U.S.A. said a year or so ago, that freedom will be found "only in that society in which individual and powerful groups put the interest of the whole ahead of their individual interest". I maintain that this statement is incomplete if not wrong. There can only be freedom when the interest of God is put ahead of all interests in the world. We cannot fulfill the second commandment when we do not have Christ as our Saviour and when we do not have self-respect, yea, even self-love.

If I hate myself, I will not love my neighbour very much, but probably I will be crabby to him too. There is a love for ourselves possible, which does not allow me everything, and does not look upon everything I do or am, as lovable, but which even condemns the wrong. I must be glad that I am, because in Christ there is a glorious future. I am not satisfied with what I am, but this does not mean that I should not take care of myself. Must I not feed, clothe, myself? Would I do this if I was thoroughly, forever disgusted with myself? If I cannot have any self-respect, if I cannot be myself in anyway, if I would be a piano played by the consistory and congregation together, would I still be human? but instead I thank God, that I am a human being, a living soul, and in Christ Jesus I am a new creature. As such I may rejoice in the fact that I am. And I rejoice in the Lord; only one is my Lord, even Christ Jesus; I recognize none other.

I am myself, not a nothing, but a new creature in Christ. And only thus am I able to love my neighhour as myself. For I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me (Gal. 2 :20). I will do for my neighbour what is good for myself, what I want to do for myself as a servant of Christ. Then I will do many things, but I will never deny God for the love for my neighbour; indeed I cannot, for the two are a contradiction of terms. I can only in this sense deny myself to love my neighbour, as Christ loves him. Then indeed the words of Paul are understood in the right manner, when he says that he has become all things unto all men, that by all means he might save some. nut Paul always remains Paul; he Fan even become angry at his brothers (as with Peter), because he loves them so much, because he loves the Lord so much. Without the Lord we have died already; we as an individual are a nothing; but through Christ we may become living souls, individuals over against the Lord, because He knows us.

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