Loving Your Enemies

Matthew 5:43-48 is one of the hardest passages in the bible. People usually know two things about Jesus—that he said not to judge, and that he loved people! This is the “he loved people” bit.

The Passage

First, we have Jesus’ statement about a common idea floating around in culture at the time: “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy’” (Mt 5:43).

This is kinda right and kinda wrong. Yes, the bible does speak of loving your neighbor (Lev 19:17-18). And yes—if you squint just the right way you can twist it to support hating your enemies, too. The Psalms have some hard sayings like this: “Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with the utmost hatred; They have become my enemies” (Ps 139:21-22).

There is a right way and a wrong way to understand these harsh psalms—but more on that later. For now, it’s enough to know that God has never wanted us to hate and loathe our enemies. But this is where popular piety was in Jesus’ day = love your neighbor, and feel free to hate your enemies if necessary.

This is wrong. Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has combatted a lawyerly way of reading the bible. This is an approach that always wants to minimize personal responsibility and find loopholes that make compliance easier. It’s a rules-based approach to a relationship with God. It’s the same thing the lawyer tried to pull with Jesus that prompted the parable of the Good Samaritan.

As he does throughout this sermon, Jesus continues his “you have heard … but I say to you” pattern. How does he correct this misreading of scripture? He says: “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you …” (Mt 5:44).

This means what it says. There is no hidden meaning in the original Greek that can give you something easier to swallow. We’ll come back to this in a bit. For now, let’s think about why Jesus gives this command. What’s the purpose of this almost impossible task? Jesus tells us: “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven …” (Mt 5:45a).

What is Jesus saying?

He’s saying that if you don’t love your enemies, you’re not one of God’s children. If you don’t pray for your enemies, you’re also not one of his children.

Why does Jesus say this? “… for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Mt 5:45b). Jesus is saying that God has a common love (or common grace) for everyone—not just his adopted children. So, if we claim to be Christians, we must be the same way. We must have an authentic, baseline love for everyone, not just our covenant brothers and sisters in the faith.

Why is this important?

Jesus explains: “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even the tax collectors, do they not do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Even the Gentiles, do they not do the same?” (Mt 5:46-47).

Being kind and loving to people who already like you doesn’t make you a Christian. There are plenty of non-Christians who do that all the time. Nice people. Kind people. Caring people. That isn’t counter-cultural. It isn’t revolutionary. So Jesus says this isn’t enough. Being a Jesus person means more than that. A lot more.

But this is the cultural attitude Jesus is up against. When a lawyer asked Jesus what he must do to gain eternal life, Jesus recited the two commandments which summed up a believer’s whole duty—love for God and your neighbor. The lawyer agreed, then immediately tried to minimize the command to make his target smaller: “But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” (Lk 10:29).

Jesus corrected this legalistic, lawyerly way of understanding scripture with his famous parable of the Good Samaritan. He said that your “neighbor” was anyone who was in distress—not just your covenant brother and sister.

So, Jesus sums it all up: “Therefore you shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). He doesn’t mean “perfect” in the sense of “without fault” (e.g., “a flawless diamond”). Nobody is without fault! Instead, Jesus means “perfect” in the sense of “meeting the highest standard” (e.g., “my birthday was just perfect!”). The standard at issue here is this baseline, common love for everyone. One British translation does a good job by translating Matthew 5:48 like this: “Therefore, just as your heavenly Father is complete in showing love to everyone, so also you must be complete” (NEB).

Does Jesus contradict scripture?

There are several Psalms that show us raw, honest, unfiltered emotion. They ask why. They ask if God cares. They demand justice for evil. They complain about harm, injury, and heartache. They’re “real.” Read Psalm 109 and see for yourself. This all seems to contradict what Jesus says in our passage. Has something changed?

The best answer is that psalms like these teach us that we can be honest and open with God when we’re hurting. We don’t have to pretend we understand. We don’t need to pretend we accept everything without question. We can ask. We can plead. We can beg for justice. We can want evildoers to be punished. These psalmists almost never beg for the opportunity for personal retribution. Instead, they ask God for justice (see Rev 6:10).

There is a very small, but important, difference between (a) praying for God’s vengeance upon your enemies, and (b) hating them. Jesus is saying we must do more than just pray for justice. We must love our enemies, too.

What does it look like to love and pray for your enemies?

Here is where we need to set aside easy and cheap answers.

• Some people say to love your enemies means giving them the gospel. Yes, but that’s a very safe answer. It’s Christianese. We can do better than that.
• Others say that Jesus is really talking about “enemies” who persecute the church, so we ought to pray for our brothers and sisters who die for their faith around the world. Yes, but that’s too abstract and easy. It’s a cheap answer that doesn’t ask anything from you because you don’t know the people half a world away. This is correct, but it’s not good enough.
• Still other Christians opt for half-measures and try to be kind to everyone, but that’s perhaps the cheapest cop-out of them all. Love is not kindness or a “bless your heart” facade. Jesus is demanding a whole lot more.

“Love” means a deep affection. It’s much, much more than being polite to someone. Jesus is speaking about our attitudes. He tells us to care about and have deep affection for the people who hurt us, who do us wrong. We only wrestle with what Jesus is saying when we apply his words here to the people in our life who are hurting us. Anything else is an evasion.

Jesus says to love and pray for the people who hurt you. As he was crucified, the bible tells us: “Jesus was saying, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing’” (Lk 23:34). As Stephen was being stoned to death he called out: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:60).

Set aside the cheap and easy examples. This isn’t about praying for the person who cuts you off in traffic. This is about the people who actually hurt you, harm you, and are cruel to you.

• We can each think of these people.
• We can hold them in our mind’s eye.
• We can see them right now.
• We remember what they did.
• What they’re still doing.
• How they hurt us.
• How they betrayed us.
• The ramifications of it all.

We remember it, and a sour scowl comes on our face. We shake our heads to banish them from our thoughts. Jesus says these are the people we must love and pray for.

Will we pray for them? Not a gloating sort of prayer (“Lord, I pray for Steve because he’s a no-good son of a you-know-what who needs judgment!”), but a prayer for the person’s salvation and well-bring. For us to not hate. For us to be willing to forgive.

Why does Jesus want us to do this?

So he can change you from the inside out. So people know we’re different. We sometimes forget why we’re here and disconnect Jesus’ commands from the larger picture.

• The Christian story is about God rescuing a family, through King Jesus, to love him and be with him forever. This is the sum of Genesis 1 to Revelation 22.
• Our job is to be a living part of a local church, which is sort of a forward operating base in hostile territory from which we sally forth to convince outsiders to join the Jesus family.
• The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus telling us how to be countercultural—what it means to be Jesus people.

If there is no Jesus counterculture, then there is no Jesus culture at all. If that’s true, then what are we calling people to join?

• Are we here to push truth, justice, and the American way? You don’t need the church for that. Just see the new Superman movie.
• Is it our primary job to love immigrants, help poor people, and foster so-called “inclusion” in society? You don’t need the church for that—just go join an advocacy group.
• Do you want to make a difference in your community? Run for city council.

It isn’t the church’s main job to do any of these things. It is the church’s job to call people to defect from Babylon and join the Jesus family, and that means being part of a Jesus counterculture which trumpets and lives out Jesus values, Jesus attitudes, and Jesus’ message.

If we claim to be Christians, then we must commit to the Jesus counterculture so his message of love and forgiveness has some teeth to it! One of the soldiers for whom Jesus prayed believed in him just after Jesus died! “When the centurion, who was standing right in front of Him, saw the way He breathed His last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’” (Mk 15:39).

The attitude behind everything Jesus says is in our passage: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mt 5:44). If we claim to be God’s children, we must try to make this our attitude, too. It isn’t easy or pleasant. But it is our duty to try.