As a teenager, I had a page from Parade Magazine pinned to my bedroom wall. I was not a believer and had read an article by Erich Fromm about his principles for living. It was a list of thought-provoking quotes by Fromm that somehow resonated with me. God was drawing me, even in those days, but I’m thankful He did not draw me in that direction. These quotes appealed to me as an unbeliever because they were rooted in self-love.

Is self-love even biblical? Many Christians will say, “Of course it is; Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself. And how can you love others unless you first learn to love yourself?” But is that what Jesus meant?

The most comprehensive description of love is found in 1 Corinthians 13. These truths are contained in the Apostle Paul’s treatise on spiritual gifts of chapters 12-14. We must remember that Chapter 13 is essential to understanding the purpose and role of these gifts. They are for the “common good” and for the building up of others in Christ’s church. Love is the most crucial element of spiritual gifts; for without love, they are useless. Everything else Paul says in these chapters is a moot point unless all is unreservedly grounded in love.

But it is the nature of love that answers the question about self-love. Love is always other-oriented. Since spiritual gifts are about serving others, love and edification go hand in hand. Self-centeredness is the opposite of biblical love, for love is never about self.

And yet, our culture is awash with everything self. Consider the many “self” words common in our culture (this is not exhaustive): self-centered, self-absorbed, self-confident, self-help, self-made, self-sufficient, self-care, self-esteem, self-expression, self-image, self-respect, self-importance, self-regard.

Then, of course, what defines the spirit of our age: “the selfie.”

The church should never go with the prevailing views of culture. We will always be counter-cultural. Self-love goes against the grain of the whole of Scripture, the teachings of Jesus, the ethics of the law, and the Gospel.

But Christians have bought into this idea of loving oneself first. How did this idea of self-love invade the church?

The idea of self-love is relatively new. In The Danger of Self-Love, Paul Brownback explains that before the 1970s, self-love was unheard of among evangelicals. And the first instance of misinterpreting Jesus’ command to love your neighbor as yourself did not come from a Christian. The modern idea of self-love was born by Erich Fromm.

Fromm was a self-avowed secular humanist psychologist in the Frankfort School (surprise!). The Frankfort School of the early 20th Century is the source of cultural Marxism and Critical Theory that has given birth to Critical Race Theory.

The idea of self-love does not come from the Bible and was absent from Church History until the 20th Century. Rather than the Bible, the concept of self-love comes from secular psychology. Unfortunately, the church adopted this secular idea via the secular counseling philosophies Christian counselors began to embrace in the 1960s. Thus, self-love found its way into the church.

For some reason, in 20th Century America, “experts” determined that we had a problem with self. That is, not that we were preoccupied with self, but that we weren’t. All of the ills of our society were laid at the feet of low self-esteem. Even popular Christian writers told us so. Crime, divorce, family problems, violence, etc., resulted from low self-esteem. If we could only help people understand their worth, they would not do the bad things they did.

But the Scriptures are clear we have the opposite problem. Sin is about self. As John MacArthur says, “The primary sin of the human heart is pride and self-will.” The primary impulse of the human heart is pride. Self, not others, is our natural bias. This is not love; it is its opposite. The vehicle for sin is our flesh, characterized by self-centeredness, self-interest, and selfishness. Thus, self-love is diametrically opposed to biblical love.

That’s not to say that self-love is not in the Bible. It appears in the Bible, not as a philosophy to live by, but as a sin to avoid.

“For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.” - 2 Timothy 3:2-5

It’s pretty telling that Paul simultaneously describes these men-to-be-avoided as “lovers of self” and “unloving.” To be a lover of self is to be unloving to others.

But what of Jesus’ words to love our neighbor as ourselves? He said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37-39).

Note what Jesus does not say. He does not say, “You shall love God, and you shall love your neighbor, and you shall love yourself.” He says pretty clearly, there is a great commandment and a “second” commandment (but not a third).

Jesus gives two commands and a qualifier for each.

Love God.

How? With everything you’ve got.

Love your neighbor.

How? With the same regard you have for yourself.

We naturally care for ourselves. Jesus means simply that we are to love others in the same manner that we care for ourselves.

Thus, there is no command in Scripture to love yourself. It is unfortunate that in the interest of helping people, they are often told to do the very opposite of what Jesus taught.

Jesus never ever gave any teaching or example that He loved Himself. In fact, Jesus was so characterized by selflessness that the very idea of Jesus loving himself grates against our souls. The Apostle Paul went from “I am the least of the apostles” to “the least of the saints,” to “the foremost of sinners,” to “nothing good dwells in me.” 

Are we then to think meanly of ourselves? Are we to adopt the notion that we have no value or worth? No.

The issue is from where we draw our worth. It is not in ourselves but always in Christ. “We love because He first loved us.” We do not love ourselves first—He did. We are His beloved, redeemed, prized possession, and the apple of His eye.

Our value is derived from God’s love for us, demonstrated in Christ’s death on our behalf. Beloved, you are a child of God, redeemed, chosen, sanctified, glorified, protected for the day of salvation, God’s own possession. He is the source of our worth. Like the doctrine of justification in which we have Christ’s righteousness imputed, so our value is derived from the work of Christ in creating and redeeming us.

Only when we grasp this concept—that we are God’s possession, that this is our source of self-worth—can we fully love others. We have a love that is undeserved and a forgiveness that is undeserved; neither is found in ourselves. Our value and others’ value are not defined by works but by the finished work of the cross. This is what truly frees us up to love, encourage, and edify others. This is not self-love but a selfless love.

Beloved, let us love one another, 

for love is from God; 

and everyone who loves 

is born of God and knows God. 

1 John 4:7