Luke 6:32-34 For if you love them which love you, what thank have you? for sinners also love those that love them.… I. Let us consider why SINNERS LOVE THEMSELVES. It is plainly supposed in the text that sinners love themselves, for they are said to love those that love them, which could not be accounted for if they were wholly destitute of love to themselves. In other passages of Scripture, they are said to be lovers of their ownselves, and to seek their own things and not the things of others. But this is too evident from experience and observation to need any proof. Sinners certainly love themselves. But why? Every creature, perhaps, whether rational or irrational, takes pleasure in receiving its proper food; but this love to its food is not love to itself, or selfishness. The saint and the sinner may equally love honey, because it is agreeable to the taste; but this love to honey is neither interested nor disinterested love, and of course is neither virtuous nor vicious. Men never love any particular food from a moral motive, but from the constitution of their nature, in which they are passive, and have no active concern. The case is different in loving themselves. In this they properly act, and act from a moral motive. Sinners love themselves not because they are a part of the intellectual system, nor because the general good requires them to regard their personal happiness, but because they are themselves. They love their own interest because it is their own, in distinction from the interest of all other created or uncreated beings. This is a free, voluntary exercise, which is contrary to their reason and conscience, and which they know to be in its own nature wrong. Their interest is really no more valuable for being theirs, than if it belonged to others; and they themselves are no more valuable than other creatures of the same character and capacity. To love themselves, therefore, because they are themselves, is to love themselves from a motive peculiar to selfish creatures. II. We are to consider WHY SINNERS LOVE OTHERS. Our Saviour said to His disciples, that if they were of the world, the world would love them. And He said in the text that sinners love those that love them. For the same reason that sinners love themselves, they naturally love those that love them and are disposed to do them good. As they love their own interest because it is their own, so they love every person or object which serves to increase or preserve their own interest. They do not value and love others because they are valuable and worthy to be loved, but merely because they view them as means or instruments of securing or advancing their own personal happiness. They value their fellow-men for the same reason that they value their own houses and lands, flocks and herds. III. It remains to inquire WHY THERE IS NO MORAL GOODNESS IN THE LOVE WHICH SINNERS EXERCISE TOWARDS THEMSELVES AND OTHERS? Christ supposes that they all know the nature of their love, and that there is nothing virtuous or praiseworthy in it. "If ye love them which love you, what thank have ye?" We never thank men for loving themselves, nor for loving us merely for their own sake. It is the unanimous sentiment of mankind that there is no virtue in that love which flows entirely from mercenary motives. But why? Here then I would observe — 1. That there is no moral goodness in the love which sinners feel and express, because it is not a conformity to that love which God feels and expresses. He is good unto all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. He seeks not only His own glory, but the real good of others. It bears no conformity to the love of God, which is the standard of all moral perfection. 2. The selfish love of sinners has no moral goodness in it, because it is no obedience to the Divine law. This law requires them to love God with all the heart, and to love their fellow-men as themselves. But when they love themselves because they are themselves, and love others only because they have received or expect to receive benefit from them, do they obey the Divine law? 3. There is no moral goodness in the selfishness of sinners, because it is the very essence of all moral evil. All the wickedness of Satan consists in his selfishness. He loves himself because he is himself, and loves only those who love him, because their love serves to promote what he considers as his cause and interest. IMPROVEMENT: 1. If sinners may love themselves and others from mere selfish motives, then it is easy to account for all their kind and friendly conduct towards their fellow creatures, consistently with their total depravity. 2. If the moral depravity of sinners consists in selfishness, then the moral depravity of Adam consisted in selfishness, and not in the mere want of holiness. 4. If sinners are constantly under the governing influences of selfishness, then they must experience an essential change in their affections, in order to be saved. 5. If sinners love themselves because they are themselves, which is selfish and sinful, then after they experience a saving change from selfishness to benevolence, they love themselves in a manner totally different from what they did before. They love themselves in the same manner that God loves them. 6. Finally, it appears from this discourse that it is highly necessary to explain and inculcate the total selfishness of sinners. They never will believe that they are totally depraved, until they see wherein total depravity consists. (N. . Emmons, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. |
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