Was Jesus' death on the cross the most selfless act ever? Or the most selfish?
Christ is the pinnacle of selfish humility toward his friends. Consider a few verses to this end. First, Jesus himself states, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). So we admit that Christ love for his friends is greater than any other love. It is so great that he laid his life down. Second, Hebrews 12:2 explains further why Jesus did this: “Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus laid down his life for his friends out of love “for the joy” before him. The most humble act of all time was in fact a selfish act for Christ’s own joy.
This is further reinforced by Paul’s words in Ephesians:
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body” (Ephesians 5:25-30).
What Paul is saying is that Jesus’ friends, those for whom he laid down his life, are cleansed by His blood, they become part of the church, which Jesus will purify and present to himself as his own body. Therefore, similar to a husband loving his wife because he loves himself, Christ loves the church because the church is his body. So in the end, Christ’s death for his friends was out of love for himself.
This attitude is passed on to Christ’s disciples in the second greatest commandment. Jesus says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). Jesus begins with an assumed love for oneself. There is innate in each creature a love for oneself that causes a desire for sustenance, companionship, and shelter. Certainly it is abused in our fallen world, but we find it clearly before the Fall as well. God put trees “pleasant to the sight and good for food” (Genesis 2:9) in the Garden of Eden with Adam. He admits that “It is not good that the man should be alone” (2:18), and so he creates Eve. It is an abuse of the love of self that Satan uses to tempt Adam and Eve, which causes pride to continually be the root of sin in this world. Nevertheless, the love of self was created in man from the very beginning and it is what Jesus uses as the basis for loving your neighbor. We are to love our neighbor with the same fervency, creativity, and endurance as we love ourselves. It is in friendship that this love is most accessible.
To prove this, let us consider one of the greatest Biblical examples of friendship, that of David and Jonathan. I Samuel states, “As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul” (18:1). As we see with David and Jonathan, their souls were so closely knit in friendship that each loved the other as he loved himself. This fulfills the second greatest commandment and gives us a clear picture of selfish humility in Spiritual friendship.
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