During the course of COVID, one of the most complicated ethical questions the church has faced is, “How should we love our neighbors?”

Careful reasoning will see that “love your neighbor” never stands alone in the Bible. Two phrases qualify it: “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind” and “as yourself.” These two qualifiers turns the second greatest commandment from a blunt object into a sharper ethical principle that guides us in obedience to our Lord without burdening the consciences of his people.

How do these qualifiers do that? Let’s begin with those important words, “as yourself.” These two little words add an important limitation to the demands of love. To what lengths can people go to demand of us, “You must love your neighbor?” Jesus gives a limit: we are only obligated to love people as ourselves.

In the time of COVID, the anxieties of an unbelieving world are screaming demands at us. As Christians, the key question is: how do I want people to love me as an uncontrollable virus runs through our society? For example, if I were an elderly or high risk person, would I want whole church communities down the road to shut down their life together because the virus might get passed along to me? I really don’t think I would. I understand that other anxious people without the hope of Christ might make such a demand. But most Christians wouldn’t. So that is not what the law of love requires of Christians.

Now to be clear, if I were elderly or vulnerable, flippancy about the virus from people in my immediate presence would disturb me. If someone came to my house with symptoms and didn’t tell me, that is not how I want to be loved. The law of love will definitely impact our lives because of COVID. But this is a very different thing than fearing that a church-goer will pass the virus to someone else who will then pass it to someone else and eventually it somehow gets to me. The person three degrees from me was not being flippant.

In fact, many older and vulnerable people don’t expect whole communities to shut down to keep them safe. Others even want to enjoy the final years of their life, and so have embraced the risks that come with seeing other people. Most have adopted some level of caution. But also some of these people have died because of risks they took. Others want to take greater precautions because of these risks, and of course they may be wise to do so.

Please don’t hear this as a lack of sympathy or grief at the devastation caused by COVID. I sincerely grieve the lives it has taken. This year and a half has been tragic. I grieve it alongside the many sad realities of living in a fallen world.

My only point is that if we don’t accept our personal limits in loving a fallen world, we will only add to the curse and misery. Our love falls short of ultimate control. Try to control a selfish person, you will make them worse. Try to control a dysfunctional family, you will make it worse. Try to control a sinning spouse, you will make them worse. Try to control a pandemic, you will make something worse. As Chesterton said, “The mere pursuit of health always leads to something unhealthy.”

The Sermon on the Mount is clear about the obligation the Lord places on us: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 7:12).

The law of love cannot be used as a way of imposing the anxieties of an unbelieving world on Christians. We believe that to live is Christ and to die is gain. We believe death is tragic and an enemy of God, but we also believe that the sovereign God has numbered our days on this earth and conquered death in Christ. We trust him. These truths all shape how we view COVID. So we are bound to love our neighbors as we would want to be loved, in accord with our worldview, not as the world’s anxieties demand.

But this raises an important question: what if your wants are sinful? What if your desires for yourself are not good? Should they shape how you are going to love others? Well, Jesus offers another qualifier for neighbor love.

The second commandment about loving your neighbor is first qualified by the greatest of all commandments. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” If the qualifier “as yourself” puts a limit on the demands of neighbor love, the first commandment puts a limit on the demands of my own heart. Neighbor love assumes a “self” whose heart, soul, and mind have first been shaped by love for God and his word. So no, the sinfulness of our heart’s desires shouldn’t shape our love for others.

The limitation “as yourself” can’t be used as a technicality to justify ourselves. This is not a loophole. God’s word shapes the heart of a believer in countless ways. He has laws both about safety and the importance of weekly worship. He has laws about contagion, quaratine, and the importance of singing praise. All should be studied with care. The Sermon on the Mount says to let ourselves be wronged and to go the extra mile for our neighbors (Matt. 5:39–41). The second greatest commandment flows from the first.

As God’s people face the complex ethical questions of this world, the Lord makes his demands doable by limiting them. This is a grace. His commandments are not burdensome (1 John 5:3). We don’t have to love humanity or America in the abstract. We have to love our neighbors, the people God has placed in our lives and in our paths. We don’t have to do whatever our neighbors demand of us, we must love them simply as ourselves. But remember: our selves can’t always be trusted. They must be selves who first love God in heart, mind, soul, and strength. With such love, we can walk through the complicated ethics of a fallen world with the prudence and love of the One who first loved us.