A Lawyer Had a Question | Oikonomia Network

Note: From Reforming Criminal Justice (Crossway 2023). Reprinted by permission of the publisher. Citations have been omitted.

A lawyer had a question. In Luke 10, we read that Jesus was speaking privately with his disciples when a lawyer interrupted. His inquiry wasn’t a genuine one, we are told by Luke. The lawyer was not truly perplexed. Rather, he wanted to play a trick.

“Teacher,” he asked, “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25). What made this seemingly innocent question a ploy was that it was posed by a lawyer – literally, an expert in the law. His query wasn’t born of ignorance of the law’s requirements. He knew full well what the law demanded that one “do.” He was asking the question to test whether Jesus would stumble in the answer, perhaps offering a response inconsistent with the law.

Luke reveals that the lawyer knew the answer to his own question because, when Jesus turned the quiz back on him, the lawyer quickly answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). The lawyer didn’t pull this answer out of thin air. His answer came from the Jewish law – the first part from Deuteronomy 6:5 and the second part from Leviticus 19:18.

Christ Had Answers

What’s fascinating is Christ’s response: “Do this, and you will live” (Luke 10:28). Do. And you will live. In one sense, Christ was laying before the lawyer the impossibility of the law’s demand if he wished to achieve eternal life by doing. Perfection was the standard. Christ doesn’t invite an honest effort, a sincere attempt or a good college try. Do – the unstated implication is do perfectly – and you will live (cf. Leviticus 18:4-5). And because obedience will always be imperfect, obedience will never be such that it can merit eternal life.

But in another sense Christ was, by connecting doing and living, invoking the Old Testament definition of life as obedience. Obedience to God was the good life offered in the beginning, squandered in the fall and now graciously reoffered through faith in the Son of Man. Jesus was not teaching that obedience would earn salvation. He was repeating what the story of the Old Testament had long taught: obedience is that to which we are saved. Again, this is not an offer of life on the condition of just living. It is a definition of life as just living.

It is unclear whether the lawyer understood the latter sense in which obedience is life. But he certainly understood the former sense of perfect obedience required. Grasping the impossibility of the law’s demand, he sought to “justify himself.” “Who is my neighbor?” he asked (Luke 10:29). There would need to be some narrowing of the definition of “neighbor” if he was to accomplish obedience, perfect obedience, to the law. In that day, some Jews excluded certain groups such as Samaritans, foreigners, apostates, and resident aliens from the command to love one’s neighbor. So perhaps the lawyer was hoping Jesus would endorse such teaching. Regardless, the lawyer knew that some redrawing of the neighborhood boundary was needed. And so he asked, “Who is my neighbor?”

One Small Phrase

We will return in the next chapter to Jesus’s answer to the lawyer’s second question. For now, let’s pause on the lawyer’s answer to his original question. He plucked two commands – love God and love neighbor – from the entire Old Testament law and deemed those two verses alone the keys to eternal life. And Jesus agreed. The command of Leviticus 19:18 to “love your neighbor as yourself” is repeated verbatim seven times in the New Testament (Matthew 19:19; 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8). In six of those instances, we are told that the whole law is captured, in some sense, in that one small phrase. The Old Testament contains page after page of commands; the New Testament tells us that the essence of all those mandates can be captured in a sound bite.

What does any of this have to do with a Christian ethic of criminal justice? The key point is this: the Old Testament law was based on love (Matthew 22:40). Its foundation was love. Its central premise was love. All its commands – forbidding all manner of conduct and declaring penalties for offenders – were a manifestation of love. Everything about God’s law was based on love; in particular, love for God and likewise love for neighbor. To obey the law is to live life as it is meant to be lived, and the entire law is about love of God and neighbor. To live, truly live, then is to love.

Every command of the law is a way to love God and neighbor alike. The details of the law are simply applications of the command to love. The command not to murder is a command to love your neighbor. The command not to steal is a command to love your neighbor. The command not to commit adultery is a command to love your neighbor and his or her spouse. Our just God’s good law can be summed up in what is, in effect, one command: love God and your neighbor as yourself. God’s just law embodied love for others. That’s what just laws do.

Later, Paul discusses the command to “love your neighbor as yourself” in Romans 13. This passage is most frequently cited for the obligation of citizens to their government. Our governing authorities act on behalf of God, Paul tells us, and we are morally obliged to obey them (Romans 13:1; Titus 3:1). Often overlooked in Romans 13 is that the government Paul envisions is a good government. God ordained government “for your good” (Romans 13:4), Paul writes, echoing the good dominion that God assigned to man in Genesis 1. Government rulers are God’s servants or ministers (Romans 13:4, 6) “not [as] a terror to good conduct, but to bad” (Romans 13:3). Peter echoes that the role of government officials is “to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good” (I Peter 2:14). They are intended by God to promote what is good for our good.

God’s Grace of Government

Both Paul and Peter, then, tell us that God ordained an institution – government – administered by men and women, many of them unregenerate, to work God’s justice in this world. Government officials who act rightly are doing God’s work of justice. The unavoidable implication is that individual conversion through gospel proclamation is not God’s sole means of accomplishing justice in this life. Preaching the gospel and seeing people come to faith in Christ is a means, but not the only means, that God uses to promote the good and restrain the evil today. God’s love is displayed as well in his common grace of government. Faithfulness to Scripture requires that we affirm the God-ordained role of human legal institutions to bring about some measure of justice, however imperfect, for those who suffer wrongs. Our answer to the injustice experienced by our fellow image bearers cannot be “just preach the gospel” because God’s answer is not “just preach the gospel.” His answer is also a just government.

Obviously, just government is not descriptive of what government has always, or even usually, been. History is replete with examples of governments that were precisely the opposite, celebrating or perpetrating evil acts and punishing conduct that is good and honorable. What the apostle Paul is describing in Romans 13 is the ideal. Or better, it’s the God-assigned “job description.” [Jonathan Leeman, Authority: How Godly Rule Protects the Vulnerable, Strengthens Communities, and Promotes Human Flourishing, p. 198] His reference point is good, moral government, which all too frequently is not the government we have. But that is no reason to abandon God’s description of good government any more than my moral failures are reason to abandon pursuit of increasing sanctification. We should strive for God’s ideal, both individually and collectively. And what Paul holds out in Romans 13 is an obligation not only of obedience by citizens to government but also an obligation of goodness by government toward its citizens. Government is intended to do good for those whom it governs.

Notice also that Paul tells his audience that a citizen who does good will receive the government’s approval (Romans 13:3). Again, this is obviously not always how government has functioned. Today, as in Paul’s day, governments murder Christians for practicing their faith. Today, as in Paul’s day, governments celebrate and promote acts that are wicked. What Paul is describing is neither the way things were in his time nor the way things are today, but rather the way things should be. He has in view the good, the ideal, the job description. Paul’s vision for government is that its laws will give approval to the good behavior of its citizens, and then Paul reminds his audience that the good behavior of those citizens can be “summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Romans 13:9).

A Law of Love

In other words, Paul has in mind a just government with laws that approve of the good. And what does Paul mean by “good”? Loving your neighbor as yourself. That’s the sum of the law, as Jesus told us. Both the government and its subjects are to be seeking the same good end – love of neighbor. This is a critical point for our purposes. Paul expects the Christians at Rome to love their neighbors as themselves. But just as importantly, Paul has in mind a government with good laws that likewise advance the love of neighbor more than self. In this just society that Paul envisions, the citizenry will have no reason to fear government. The laws will be written with love of neighbor in mind, and the citizenry will live out that love of neighbor the law demands. In this arrangement of mutual love, the government will be a threat only to those who fail to display neighborly love, not to those who exemplify that love.

Paul also includes an admonition we must not overlook if we are to rightly understand justice. He instructs the believers at Rome to “owe no one anything, except to love each other” (Romans 13:8). In other words, love is something we owe our neighbor. We tend to think of love as a gift; Paul viewed love as an obligation. Our neighbors are entitled to our love. They have a claim on our love. Love is their right – you might even call it their civil right. It is not within our discretion to dispense and withhold our love as we see fit.

This insight is crucial to a biblical conception of just government. Augustine defined justice as “giv[ing] everyone his due.” [City of God, p. 951] This definition of justice has persisted, in Christian thought at least, for two millennia. What Paul contributes to this definition of justice is the startling declaration that what our neighbors are due is our love. If we understand that love of neighbor is a command not an option, if we grasp that love is obligatory not voluntary, then we see that a government that embodies love for neighbor does so not merely as an act of charity but as an act of justice.

Government that acts on the principle of love for neighbor is government to which the citizenry is due as a matter of justice. A government that does less than love its citizens – all of them – is a government that is less than completely just. For a government to do justice by giving its citizens their due, its decrees, its laws, its rulings and its judgments must exemplify love for the entire body politic. So while Romans 13 certainly states our obligation as citizens to obey government authorities, the passage is also a reminder to those who have a hand in governing that they act on behalf of a good God who requires that they do justice by promoting love of neighbor. Good and just government, in other words, is government that operates on the principle of neighbor love.…

Government understood as love of neighbor points to a solution to the conundrum the believer faces when it comes to criminal justice. Scripture tells us that physical violence against fellow human beings is immoral, yet God has ordained government to use physical force (the “sword”). What Paul’s teaching in Romans 13 offers is a way to reconcile this seeming conflict: the state’s use of physical force can be moral when its use is both motivated and restrained by the principle of neighborly love. Paul’s teaching in Romans 13 has in view what is, in effect, a governmental system of criminal justice that punishes wrongdoers with physical force, and Paul believes that this governmental use of physical force can be moral when used in service of neighbor-love. “That is, love motivates a concern for the innocent and vulnerable that subsequently justifies….state coercion on their behalf.” [Eric Gregory, Politics and the Order of Love, 188] And this use of coercive force is also justified by love for the wrongdoer. Commenting on Romans 13, Augustine observes that those “who cause fear [i.e., governing authorities] are ordered to render love to those who fear [i.e., wrongdoers]” and they do so by using “fear to check the evil deeds of men.” [“Letter 153”]

Matthew T. Martens, partner, WilmerHale