#10 Love Your Enemies
Matthew 5:43-44 says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ 44“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
A. Learn what the words mean.
1. The “You” in “You have heard” refers to the people of Galilee, the twelve Apostles, and some Jews from Jerusalem.
2. The words “It was said (or heard) by those of old time” refer to the teachings of the Doctors of the Law from the time of Ezra (535 BC) until the ministry of Jesus (30 AD.) Those who explained the teachings of the Doctors at the time of Christ, were the Scribes and Pharisees. A common word or phrase for the total of those sayings of old time was “traditions of the elders.”
3. The phrase “But I say to you” in Matthew 5:44, refers to the Lord Jesus Christ and His teachings. He takes the people back to the Old Testament – to the time before Ezra, when some accepted the Scriptures rather than the Traditions.
4. The Lord Jesus Christ teaches that the Tradition of the Elders, who counselled the Jews to hate their enemies, was wrong. Jesus said that they must love their enemies.
5. The people had heard the Pharisees’ teachings, but Jesus authoritatively told them to love their enemy. In this, He did not deviate from the teaching of the Old Testament. Jesus taught against the false doctrine comments on the Word of God that the Pharisees had popularized. He constantly said to the people, “You have heard… but I say.”
B. The Uniqueness of Jesus’ teaching
1. The ancient doctors had said that love for neighbor implies hate for enemy.
2. Leviticus 19:18 says, “'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people but love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh.”
3. For years, the Jews believed this Scripture. They understood that a grudge was a sin.
4. But the Doctors of the Law after Ezra, taught that love for neighbor implies hate for enemy, since the opposite of love is hatred. Also, they defined the neighbor as a fellow Jewish person, and not a Gentile. They said that Leviticus 19:18 only forbids to hold a grudge against a Jewish brother, rather than against anyone else, like a Gentile. Jesus taught that any grudge is sinful, even if against one who is killing you.
5. Even though it does forbid holding a grudge against a Jewish person, yet Jesus looks back to the Garden of Eden, where everyone is in the image of God. It is murder for an individual to kill one who is in God’s image.
6. Jesus put His teaching into practice by praying for His executioners, praying, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
7. The Jewish False Doctrine on this issue ended up destroying the entire nation, because their hatred for God’s Son resulted in God destroying their nation, temple, and sacrificial system, by the Romans in the year 70 AD. God took vengeance on them.
8. Christians believe that to fail to love one’s enemy is a repudiation of the cross of Christ. The message of the cross is love. Only Christians love our enemies.
9. Most of today’s Muslims and Jews retain the same belief as Jewish tradition. They believe in hating their enemies.
C. The Nature of Love
1. Love can be two things. It can be the heartfelt emotion, and it can be the action resulting from love. Both are involved in loving the enemy.
2. Jesus taught that to love one’s enemy means to do good to your worst enemies.
3. In Matthew, Jesus illustrated this truth by His Father’s actions. He defined love as an action word.
4. Jesus said that God the Father causes His sun to shine on both the evil and the good. He does not discriminate when it comes to kindness to sinners. Matthew 5:45 says, “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” He says to pray for those who persecute you.
5. Leviticus 19:18 expressed this truth all along. It said, “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people but love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh.”
6. Nowhere in the Law or the Prophets does God say to hate your enemies. Verses like Psalm 139:21 say, “Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD, and detest those who rise against You.” But this is joining God in His righteous indignation against sin. It is not a personal grudge. God also loves them as made in His image. He even protects them by capital punishment.
7. The Old Testament does teach the danger of hating enemies. Amnon was the Crown Prince of the nation. He raped his sister, Tamar. For that, Absalom held a grudge against Amnon which ended in murder. 2 Samuel 13:22 says, “And Absalom never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad; he hated Amnon because he had disgraced his sister Tamar.” Finally, Absalom’s hatred turned into the murder of Amnon.
D. Application of this Truth to Personal Life.
1. Hatred for your enemy will destroy you.
2. God says “Vengeance is mine. I will repay. It is God’s exclusive right to retaliate.
3. God has given the right to end life to government, but not to individuals. It is right to do it if the government takes revenge. In that, the State occupies the room of God.
4. Exodus 21:22-24 says, “If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. 23“But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty, life for life, 24eye for eye, tooth for tooth….” Notice the phrase “as the judges decide.” Lex talionis or the “law of retaliation” must be fulfilled by the government and not by the individual.
5. We are faced with a Communist takeover of our nation. It is wrong to become so incensed with murderous Socialists that we begin randomly killing them.
6. If we are in a duly constituted army, that is different, because it is an arm of the State. But individual retaliation is not in God’s will. As individuals we must do good to these evil people.
7. We must not use the sword of our tongue against them either. But we do have the divinely given right to denounce their sins. And God, via human government, gives us freedom of speech. We should use it.
8. As God gives them sunlight each day, so we must compartmentalize them as “made in the image of God.” We must be civil to one another. We are a nation of laws.
9. Vengeance is God’s prerogative. He can and will judge them. But we must treat them with the same patience and respect that God uses toward them while they live.
