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To love one’s enemies is simply not ordinary. Further, such extraordinary Christian behavior requires more than one’s nature possesses. Jesus calls us precisely to that ethic, which is exemplified foremost in how God loves us.
In His Sermon on the Mount, before calling for this beyond-normal ethic toward our adversaries, Jesus sought to return the law to its original meaning. As a prelude to His teaching on loving enemies, He first needed to strip away the smothering scribal oral tradition. Similar clarifications may still be needed today.
prelude to the extraordinary
Jesus teaches that being re-created after the image of Jesus produces love with a different quality and to a greater degree. Christians, simply put, have a love greater than they should have. And it is by grace (not nature) that God gives what is beyond our natural propensity.
This extraordinary love that can come only from God is what Francis Schaeffer called “the mark of the Christian.” True believers will love even their enemies, but first one must die to self.
In Matthew 5:38–42, Jesus teaches us that we are to avoid seeking to exact vengeance on others. Instead of retaliation, as the scribes insisted on, we are to be a giving people. That is the principle taught by Jesus with several subsequent examples to reinforce.
The scribes, however, misunderstood the original scope of God’s law. Rather than mandating retaliation, the “eye for an eye” law was intended to prevent one victim from over-retaliating. The principle is this: If a man has inflicted an injury on another, an equivalent injury (not greater) is to be inflicted on him as punishment. This law was given to prevent excess and to provide justice. Nevertheless, the law with its measurable limit to retaliation never precluded mercy.
The scribes had perverted this original intent, urging the full volume of punishment. That is, they taught that if one were victimized, he should retaliate legally as much as possible. They lived in a litigious society (as do we), which taught that whenever one was wronged, that person had not only the right but also the moral responsibility to sue to the utmost.
practicing the extraordinary
In their legalistic outlook, which thought primarily of their rights, the scribes were therefore guilty of two main errors. First, they turned a negative (limiting) injunction into a positive (mandatory) provision; furthermore, they carried it out themselves, taking justice into their own hands.
Nevertheless, Jesus teaches differently. Rather than imitating this scribal standard and always trying to get even, Jesus’ disciples are to give something to show love to their neighbors (v. 40).
Don’t overlook that Jesus expected His disciples to be victimized, sued, slapped, and stolen from. He knew that they would live in an imperfect world. But in the face of opposition and injustice, the disciple is to persist in loving his neighbor and is not to seek to extract an eye from the offender in all cases.
Jesus, then, provides four illustrations, but we should not absolutize these examples. Instead, we should absolutize the principle. What is taught here is that Jesus’ disciples may often endure personal abuse and need self-sacrifice to follow Him. We are called to extraordinary love, patience, and suffering.
Jesus’ teaching here is that true disciples will exceed the expectations of our enemies. Our enemies expect us to retaliate, countersue, fight back, or resist. We are called by Jesus—who perfectly practiced this even unto death on the cross—to go beyond their expectations, yielding something extraordinary in our lives. This astonishing quality is love for enemies, which cannot spring from our own nature or strength.
The ordinary person responds in kind—like for like, dislike for dislike, love for love, and hate for hate, employing an economic exchange based on earnings. One unit is returned for one unit given. But the extraordinary Christian responds in grace to give love to the enemy who slaps us, insults us, commandeers us, or sues us.
Jesus concludes in verses 43–48 by commanding how we are to love our enemies, contradicting the scribal tradition but not God’s law.
The scribes taught that one was to love his neighbor and hate his enemies. The law of God, however, nowhere commands us to hate our enemies. This was a scribal addition and an unwarranted deduction. The scribes, in seeking to justify their own ill practice, argued that they were not naturally and easily disposed to loving their enemies, and so they added this parasitical growth (Charles Spurgeon’s term): “And hate your enemies.” Moreover, they defined “neighbor” as a small subset of the population—that is, “their own” or those who were kind to them—and presto, they’d fulfilled the law.
They’d compressed the law, and Jesus sought to decompress it, restoring it to its original extent.
reestablishing the extraordinary
Thus, Christ startles audiences by commanding love for enemies (Matt. 5:44). It helps to understand two terms of this command. First, Jesus does not condone our hating, but we do have enemies who hate us. There will always be those who are not satisfied with us or are offended by us. These are the enemies in view. Second, agapē is the word used for “love” here. Although agapē is considered the highest of four Greek words for “love,” it is not the most intensely emotional. That is phileō (brotherly love), a natural good feeling of affection that comes easily. This heartfelt phileō love occurs when we effortlessly like a person. Agapē love, however, refers not to feelings but to our will or commitment for the best of the other. This is like God’s love shown to us in Christ—His active commitment to give us the very best, as He knows the best to be.
On the cross, Christ did not emotionally enjoy the pain of bearing mankind’s massive sin. But His agapē love is demonstrated in that He loved us and died for us—even though it didn’t feel good. That love willed His commitment. This is the agapē love that we are to have for enemies. We may not feel great throes of passion for enemies or enjoy everyone around us, but we are to commit ourselves, by an act of our will, to acting lovingly toward them. “True love is not sentiment so much as sacrificial service,” says John Stott. Furthermore, we are commanded to pray for those who persecute us, which is a signature of love.
Notice what this accomplishes. The result of this extraordinary love for our enemies is that we resemble our heavenly Father (v. 45), who has this kind of love for all His creatures. God, whose love is more expansive than ours, causes the natural elements—sunshine and rain—to fall on all people indiscriminately. He acts in love toward both the just and unjust—both His loving children and rebellious enemies. Thus, we love the unjust and our enemies as He does.
Many take this as a classic passage exhibiting common grace, but the context is more closely associated with forgiving one’s enemies—an area in which both believer and unbeliever alike are impoverished. Spurgeon notes that when God causes His sun to shine on bad people, He is rendering good for evil, wishing well to those who reject Him, and extending favor to those who spitefully use Him. If we view that as the focus of this text, God is not commanding us to do what He will not do Himself. He bids us forgive, signaling that sunshine and showers prove His unparalleled readiness to forgive.
the divine principle as the basis of the extraordinary
God is intent on saving extraordinary sinners by an extraordinary act of love. He loved us when we were enemies (Rom. 5:6–8), adopting us, justifying us, and preserving us by His love.
The result is that God’s children are different from others in the world. We are unlike all the rest. “To the natural man,” wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the very idea of loving his enemies is “an intolerable offense and quite beyond his capacity.” But extraordinary Christianity is different.
In Matthew 5:46–47, Jesus provides an irrefutable argument. He argues that it is easy and natural to love our own (that’s what the scribes did). Even the tax collectors (a despised traitorous group) and pagans are like that. But the Christian is to be different.
It’s hard to argue against this; even murderers, rapists, drug addicts, and non- Christians love people who love them. If you love only those who love you, what is different about you? And if you publicly favor only people in the same class as you or neatly dressed folk or the upper echelon, then what are you doing more than anyone else? How are you extraordinary? It’s easy to love a person who thinks you’re great and who affirms you. But you’re no different from pagans if that’s all you do. It’s easy to love those in whom we delight. It’s difficult to love those who not only are different from us but also use us, hurt us, and seek to take advantage of us. Thank God that the Lord Jesus does not leave us to our own devices, for this extraordinary love, once appropriated, leads us to love our adversaries.