What is the Golden Rule?

The Golden Rule in Matthew 7:12

You know the Golden Rule, right? Whoever has the gold makes the rules. I'm sorry, that's not right. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. There we go. That's from the Bible. Only it's not quite worded like that.

Matthew 7, 12. So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them. For this is the law and the prophets. Now some skeptics have tried to claim that the Golden Rule is not exclusive to the teachings of Jesus.

It's actually so common and so basic a principle that many moralistic teachers have said something similar even way before Christianity. For example, Confucius, 500 years before Christ, said what you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others.

Jesus' Golden Rule as a Call to Action

But when you look at those two versions of the Golden Rule, they're actually very different. Jesus had this way of taking common principles, stuff that people had been repeating for hundreds of years, and probably didn't follow it, they just liked saying it.

And Jesus took it to a whole new level. Confucius and others like him were merely saying, don't do to anyone what you wouldn't want done to you. How is Jesus' statement different? It's a call to action.

He said, do to others what you would have them do to you. In other words, just as you want others to treat you better than you deserve, so you should treat others better than they deserve. How is this the law and the prophets?

The Golden Rule as the Shape of God's Mercy

Because it's exactly the way God treats us. We don't deserve His mercy and grace. What we deserve is death for our sin. But because He loves us, we become fellow heirs with Christ, everyone who follows Him.

All of the scriptures point to that very thing when we understand the text.