Golden Rule

The Golden Rule, which is found in the seventh chapter of Matthew, verse 12, is probably the most universally praised statement that Jesus ever made. It has been called “the topmost peak of social ethics… the Everest of all ethical teaching.”

At this point, then, we have actually reached the first great statement of the solution to the problem of human morality. But before we pursue it, it is necessary to see that the major effect that the Golden Rule was intended to have on human goodness was to condemn it. It wipes it out. By this standard, all natural human goodness is condemned, and being weighed in the balances, is found wanting.

Yesterday, we concluded by saying that if we think of a ruler as a straightedge, as the British call it, we then have the idea that what we call the Golden Rule shows us how morally crooked we are, compared with the perfect straightness of God’s moral purity.

Now at this point many very good studies would stop. For this is the Christian Gospel, and it lies at the heart of all Scripture. It is a good place to end. However, I believe that if I were to end here, I would be untrue to this text before me. For the Sermon on the Mount was given, as we saw in one of our earlier studies, not merely to drive a man to Christ (although that is the first thing necessary), but also to set forth that standard of morality to which God is constantly leading the Christian.