Love Your Enemies?
- Scriptures: Matthew 5:43-48; Exodus 23:4-5; Proverbs 25:21-22; Luke 23:34
- Right From the Beginning in a World of Wrong
Transcript
Kerry Duke: Hi, I’m Kerry Duke, host of My God and My Neighbor podcast from Tennessee Bible College, where we see the Bible as not just another book, but the Book. Join us in a study of the inspired Word to strengthen your faith and to share what you’ve learned with others.
I think you would agree with me that most people have heard the words “Love your neighbor” or “Love your neighbor as yourself.” I believe that most Christians understand those words. I think that most Christians are able to take those words and explain them and apply them and teach these words to other people. I don’t think there’s any problem with that.
But Jesus also said, “Love your enemies.” I think that you would further agree with me that most of us have a little bit harder time explaining what Jesus means by that statement. So let’s look at where Jesus says that in Matthew chapter 5 verses 43 through 48.
Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to you, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
This ends a very important section in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is showing that the scribes and the Pharisees, who were the popular religious teachers of his time, had mishandled the Bible. The scribes and the Pharisees were partial in how they taught the Old Testament. They were selective. They picked out certain verses and taught them, but they neglected other verses.
And this is example number six that we’ve just read about. The first example that we studied, of course, was in verses 21 through 26. There’s where Jesus showed that the scribes and Pharisees taught the Jews not to murder, but they weren’t teaching about hate and contempt toward their fellow man.
The second example is in verse 27 through 30. That’s where the scribes and the Pharisees taught the Jews not to commit adultery, And yet, they had ignored verses in the Old Testament that taught against adultery in the heart, that is, lust.
The third example is in verse 31 and 32. There’s where the scribes and Pharisees said if you get a divorce you have to write this bill of divorcement because, of course, the Bible says in Deuteronomy, chapter 24, verse one, that that was a part of the law. At the same time, they ignored what the Bible said in passages like Malachi 2, 13 through 16, where God said you can’t just put away or divorce your wife for any cause.
The fourth example is in verses 33 through 37. The scribes and Pharisees rightly told the Jews that if you take a vow, if you make an oath before God, don’t break your word, you keep your word. You do what you’ve promised to do. At the same time, they took that too far, and they ignored what the Old Testament said about simply being honest.
Example number five is in verses 38 through 42. The scribes and Pharisees said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. In other words, they taught justice. They were correct in doing that, but they totally overlooked and ignored what the Bible said about showing mercy to others and that’s what that passage is about.
Now then we come to verses 43 through 48 and we have here a blatant case of how they twisted the scriptures. Notice what it says. In Matthew chapter 5 verse 43, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’”
The Old Testament never commanded the Jews or anyone else to hate their enemy. We’ll talk about that more as we go on. But let’s go back and look at the original context of this statement, “You shall love your neighbor.” What does that involve? Let’s go back to the section Jesus is quoting from. It is in Leviticus chapter 19. Leviticus chapter 19 instructs the Jews about how to live their everyday life. Moses is telling the Jews that when they get into the promised land, they’re not to live like these Gentiles lived. He says, you’re supposed to live a sanctified life, which means you’re to be separate from them. You’re not to conform to the ways of the world.
Now, the word that he uses in Leviticus chapter 19 is the word holy. He says, “Be holy, because the Lord your God is holy.” Peter quotes that in I Peter chapter 1 verse 16. And I would say that if you want a good commentary on 1st Peter 1:16, “Be holy for I’m holy,” just read Leviticus chapter 19 because he gives all kinds of detailed examples about how you’re to live your everyday life and really, truly be holy in the sight of God.
Now let’s look at the verses in Leviticus 19 that talk about loving your neighbor and what that means. In Leviticus chapter 19 verse 16, the Bible says, “You shall not go about as a talebearer among your people, nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor; I am the Lord. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance Nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.”
That’s the passage Jesus was quoting. He said that the scribes and the Pharisees were teaching this to the Jewish people and Jesus had no problem with that. There was no problem with the scribes and Pharisees quoting Scripture or reading Scripture to these people, especially those words.
As a matter of fact, you probably remember one of the scribes coming to Jesus and asking him this question: “Which is the first commandment of all?” In other words, which of all the commandments in the Law of Moses, in the Old Testament, is the most important? Do you remember what Jesus said? He said, “The first of all the commandments is, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second like it is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. And you might remember later that the Apostle Paul said these words in Romans 13, verses 9 and 10. He said, “For the commandments, You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet, and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.”
Paul says that when you say the words “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are in a sense saying don’t commit adultery, don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness, don’t covet, because if you truly do love your neighbor as you love yourself, then you’re not going to commit adultery. You’re not going to murder. You’re not going to steal. You’re not going to bear false witness against a neighbor. You’re not going to covet something that your neighbor has. Why? Because you love your neighbor as yourself. So that’s why Paul says that all these commandments are summed up, that is, they are summarized in this one statement, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” So, there was nothing wrong with the scribes and Pharisees telling the Jews to love their neighbors as themselves because Jesus himself said that’s commandment number two as far as importance is concerned.
But the scribes and Pharisees took it out of context. They blew this all out of proportion, and they twisted the scriptures. They taught the Jews, and rightly so, to love their neighbor, but what they meant was, love your Jewish neighbor. You see, that explains why the lawyer said what he said to Jesus in Luke chapter 10. Because he came to Jesus, and he said, “What do I have to do to have eternal life?” And Jesus said, “What is written in the law? How do you read?” And then he answered, “Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and love your neighbors yourself.” And Jesus said you’ve answered correctly, you’ve answered rightly. Do this and live. But then the Bible says that this lawyer, this man who was supposed to be a scholar in the law of Moses, was willing to justify himself and he said, “And who is my neighbor?” As if that’s a really hard word to understand, especially for a man like him, this lawyer in Luke chapter 10, who’s supposed to be a Jewish scholar. Then, right after this man asked that question, Jesus taught the story of the good Samaritan. He was teaching this man. He was answering this man’s question.
He showed that the word neighbor even includes this hated group of people called the Samaritans. So the scribes and the Pharisees had just completely twisted what the Bible said about loving your neighbor as yourself. A neighbor, in this sense, is anyone you’re near to, especially someone that you have the opportunity to do good to. That’s the meaning of the word neighbor in the Bible. We are so accustomed and so conditioned by the way that we have heard this word used for years that we sometimes have trouble seeing this. We’re used to hearing people talk about a neighbor as being somebody that lives next to them. We think of our neighborhood. We think of our next door neighbors, and we’re thinking in terms of just those people that live around us.
In the Bible, it means much more than that. It includes that, but it means much more than just someone who lives in a close proximity to you. A neighbor is someone that is near to you. A neighbor is someone that you have physical contact with. A neighbor is someone that you have the opportunity to do good to or for. That’s the meaning of the word neighbor in the Bible. So this is really the golden rule said in other ways. The Bible says, “All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew chapter 7 verse 12).
So this is a very important commandment. Jesus said it’s number two on the list. But the scribes and the Pharisees not only said, “Love your neighbor,” and twisted the meaning of those words, but they then added these words that were not in the Old Testament, and that is, hate your enemy. The Old Testament did not command that.
As a matter of fact, it taught the Jews just the opposite. In Exodus chapter 23, verses 4 and 5, Moses said this, “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again.” Now, just picture that situation in your mind. Here’s an average everyday Jew. He’s walking about in his everyday activities, and the Bible says that he sees an ox or a donkey that has gotten loose. This ox or this donkey has gone astray. He looked at that ox or that donkey long enough to recognize who it belongs to. It belongs to a man who is his enemy. So now this average everyday Jew has to make a decision. Does he say to himself, “I’m not going to help him. I’m not going to return that ox or that donkey to him. He wouldn’t help me if he was in my position.” Or he could say, “Even though he doesn’t like me, even though he’s my enemy, I’m going to do the right thing because I would want him to treat me this way.”
Moses said, do the right thing. You shall surely bring it back to him again. He doesn’t just say, you shall bring it back to him again. There is an intensive way of saying this in the Hebrew that comes out in the translation here. You shall surely bring it back to him again. There should be no question about this. This is the right thing to do and you need to do the right thing.
In verse 5 he gives another scenario. He said, “If you see the donkey of one who hates you…” So here’s a person that you know hates you, and the donkey of this person is lying under its burden. Verse 5: “If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden…” What’s happened here, of course, is that donkeys back in those days were used to transport. They were used to haul goods from one place to another. So this donkey is carrying such a heavy load that it gets him down. He’s lying down and he has this burden, that is, all these goods, whatever they are, on top of him. And this time, the donkey has not gotten loose. The owner of the donkey is there with him because of what’s said right after this. The man is leading this donkey around. The donkey has collapsed under this burden. And this Jew sees that man and his donkey. And he says if you see that donkey lying there (and of course, the man who hates you owns that donkey and is there as well) and he says, “and you would refrain from helping it.” When he says you would refrain, that means that’s really what you want to do. Your feelings would drive you in that direction. You really don’t want to help him because this man hates you and maybe he would not help you if you were in his shoes, but that doesn’t make any difference.
Moses again says, you do the right thing. Even though he hates you, you help him. He says, “You shall surely help him with it. Help the man that hates you because it’s the right thing.” That’s what the Bible says about your enemy in the Old Testament. Now, let’s look at a story in the Old Testament that is a great example of someone who learned to love his enemy, to do good, in spite of the fact that this enemy was trying to destroy him.
I’m talking about the long story that we don’t have time to read, and that is the story of Saul and his son in law, David, who became the king. The Bible says that King Saul was trying to kill David. You read about that story in I Samuel chapters 18 through the rest of that book. Now, there were two times in the book of I Samuel where David had the opportunity to kill Saul, but he wouldn’t do it. He refused both times. Those are in 1 Samuel 24 and in I Samuel chapter 26. There’s a statement made in I Samuel chapter 26 that’s very interesting. Now, again, David has the opportunity here in this cave to kill Saul. Saul doesn’t know that he’s there. David has the perfect opportunity to take the life of the man that was trying to kill him.
And as a matter of fact, one of David’s men came and he said, “Let me strike him at once with a spear right to the earth. And I will not have to strike him a second time.” In other words, Abishai, one of David’s men said I’ll take care of him. I’ll kill him right now. But the Bible says in 1 Samuel 26, verse 9, “But David said to Abishai, Do not destroy him, for who can stretch out his hand against the Lord’s anointed and be guiltless?”
The Lord’s anointed means that Saul was the king. God had given him that position. And David said, this is not right. Regardless of what he’s doing, it’s not right for us to take his life. Listen to what David also said in verse 10. David said, “As the Lord lives, the Lord shall strike him, or his day shall come to die, or he shall go out to battle and perish. The Lord forbid that I should stretch forth or stretch out my hand against the Lord’s anointed.” So David said I’m not going to kill him. He is the rightful king even though he’s an evil man. God put him in that position, and I have no right to do this.
So, David said, if I don’t do it, maybe as the Lord lives, maybe something else will happen to him. I’m not going to take his life, but perhaps something else will happen. Number one, he said, maybe the Lord will strike him. Maybe the Lord will take his life. That could have been in any number of ways, but he said, that’s a possibility. Number two, he said, his day shall come to die. Now, that would be by natural causes or by an accident, by disease or something like that, by old age. He says, maybe his day will come to die. Or, number three, he says, maybe he’ll go out into a battle and perish. Maybe he’ll get killed in a battle. But regardless of how he dies, he’s I’m not in a place to do that. David is a great example of a man who loved a man who hated him. David is a wonderful example of someone who did good to a man who despised him.
Let’s go next to Proverbs chapter 25. Proverbs chapter 25 verses 21 and 22: The Bible says, “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat. And if he is thirsty, give him,” that is, your enemy, “water to drink. For so you will heap coals of fire on his head, and the Lord will reward you.” These are just a few of the Old Testament verses that show that God did not teach these Jews, God did not command these Jews, to hate their enemy like the scribes and the Pharisees were teaching when Jesus was on the earth.
But let’s raise a few questions about what we’ve been talking about. First of all, didn’t God separate the Jews from the Gentiles in the Old Testament? Yes, He did. He selected the Jewish people to be His own special people, so the Hebrew people, the Israelite nation, were His chosen people.
But that doesn’t mean that God didn’t love the Gentiles. It didn’t even mean that the Gentiles couldn’t be saved. In Romans 2, 14 and 15, the Bible shows that the Gentiles could have known, and some of them did. They could have known that God existed, and they could have known some things about right and wrong.
That’s what they were accountable for in their lives. Romans 2:14 says the Gentiles, which have not the law, did by nature the things contained in the law, that is the moral principles of the law. There were some good people among the Gentiles. You read about the centurion in Matthew chapter 8 and you read about one Cornelius in Acts chapter 10.
So it’s not that the Gentiles were just totally abandoned by God and they didn’t have any light at all or any means of knowing right from wrong. God never wanted the Jews to hate or to mistreat the Gentiles.
Question number two. Didn’t God tell the Israelites to wage war on the Canaanites, that is, on these Gentile people? The answer is yes. God did tell the Israelite nation to destroy the Canaanites. You read about that in Deuteronomy chapter 3, Deuteronomy chapter 7, Deuteronomy chapter 9, and many other places in the Old Testament. Now to some, that’s a stumbling block. There are some people that don’t believe the Bible because of stories like that.
But you have to understand why God told the Israelites to wage war on the Canaanites. It’s because the people in the land of Canaan had become so wicked that God said this is enough. And if you want to see just how wicked these people were in the land of Canaan, just read Leviticus 18, 19, and 20. When we say that the Canaanite people were wicked, we’re talking about child sacrifice. We’re talking about incest, homosexuality, bestiality, and every kind of evil imaginable. So what God did in pouring out his wrath on the Canaanite people is not really any different from what he did in the flood. The world had become so wicked that God destroyed them with a flood. It’s not really any different from what we see in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis chapter 19.
God said enough is enough and He destroyed them. The land of Canaan is no different. These people had become so perverse in their ways that God said, I’m going to destroy, I’m going to exterminate these people so that the Israelite people can come in and have their land. That’s the justice of God.
Sometimes people say, “How could a loving God do that?” Well, it’s because God is not just a loving God. He is a just God. But as we look at the question of the Israelite wars against the Canaanites in the Old Testament, we need to remember that that’s not the context of what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 5, verse 44.
We covered this in the previous lesson. But I just want you to notice again in Matthew 5, verse 44, what Jesus is talking about and what he’s not talking about. He says in Matthew 5:44, “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you,” not those who are trying to kill you. He says, Do good to those who hate you,” not those who are trying to physically harm you and “Pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.”
These are personal attacks. They are not physical attacks. In Matthew 5:44, when Jesus said to love your enemies, He’s not talking about the war issue. He’s not talking about capital punishment. He’s not even talking about the issue or the question of self-defense. He’s talking about these personal attacks.
Another question that’s probably more common is, “How can I love my enemy? How is that possible? What does that even mean?” The key, of course, is the word love. Most people today use the word love merely as a feeling. They just think of some kind of sentiment or some kind of emotion. And, of course, if you look at it in that way, it’s not natural to feel all warm and fuzzy and sentimental toward an enemy.
But love in this verse, and love in several verses in the Bible, does not emphasize the feelings. It emphasizes the choice. It’s more a matter of the will than it is emotion. It’s love of the will, not your affections. It’s love of the head, as we would say, and not of the heart. This love is doing right to someone because it’s right.
That’s the kind of love that Jesus is talking about here. Notice again what Jesus says in verse 44 when he says, “Love your enemies.” He doesn’t describe that in terms of feelings. He says, “Love your enemies,” and the first thing that He says is, “Bless those who curse you.” That is saying something. Then He says, “Do good to those that hate you.” That, again, is doing something for them. He says to “pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.” So love is action here. Love is based on the will. When people talk about love today, it’s such a fleeting, spontaneous, and changeable and unpredictable emotion that you really can’t depend on it.
That’s not what Jesus means when he says to love your enemies. That’s really not even what the Bible means when it says to love, period. Love in the Bible is a choice. Sometimes people say that you don’t have a choice about love. You just fall in love and out of love and all that kind of thing. But the Bible says that love in the biblical sense is a matter of the will. It is a matter of choice. It is something that can be taught. It is something that can be learned and should be learned. That’s the Bible meaning of the word love.
So when we look at this passage and we see Jesus saying that we’re to love our enemies, that is not a feeling that arises. That is a decision that we make in our minds that is based primarily on our actions, not our feelings.
Now, obviously love does involve feelings. Husbands and wives love each other. Parents love their children. Children love their parents. Christians love each other. Christians love God. That involves our emotions on a very strong level. But at the same time, it’s more than just feelings. It’s a commitment. It is a choice. It’s an act of the will. And that’s what a lot of married people today don’t understand. Sometimes the feelings in marriage subside. Sometimes there are conflicts in marriage and you don’t feel a whole lot toward the other person. There are seasons like that in any marriage. There are times like that in any kind of relationship, in the church, in the home, or anywhere else.
But love, in the biblical sense, means even though the feelings are not there, the commitment should be there. That’s true biblical love. You don’t just fall in love and out of love. It doesn’t just arise because you happen to feel that way one day and not the next. It is a commitment that you make in spite of or without the feelings that normally are there.
And Jesus shows us how important this is in Matthew chapter 5, beginning in verse 45. He said you need to have this kind of love, even to love your enemies, not just somebody that you consider to be a neighbor, but you need to love your enemies so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. In other words, You need this kind of love to be like God Himself, and He explains.
He says God makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good. He sends rain on the just and on the unjust. God gives these blessings to everybody, not just the people that love Him, not just the people that thank Him for these things. There’s a beautiful way that Jesus said this in Luke chapter 6, verse 35. He said, “But love your enemies, do good and lend, hoping for nothing in return, for your reward shall be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the unthankful and evil.” So Jesus is saying that God does the very thing that He’s telling us to do here. God is kind to the unthankful and the evil.
And that’s just one way. Jesus talks about the physical blessings, the blessings of nature that God gives to us every day, whether we’re good or bad. The Bible also says in Luke chapter 23, verse 34, that Jesus prayed for His enemies. He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” How many of us could utter a prayer like that? How many of us would have that willpower?
And then listen to what the Bible says in Romans chapter 5 about His death on the cross. Romans 5 verse 6: “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than, having been now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” That’s the kind of love that God had. That’s the kind of love that Jesus has and Jesus is telling us that we need to have that same kind of love in our lives.
Now as you look at Matthew chapter 5 remember the scribes and Pharisees were teaching and practicing a partial religion. Jesus shows in Matthew chapter 5 that they would pick some verses of Scripture and leave out others. Here, in this part of Matthew chapter 5, He shows that the scribes and the Pharisees would pick out some people to do good to and leave others out. They were very selective, and they were very partial in their religion, and it was wrong.
So, remember what Jesus said in the beginning of this section? He said, your righteousness has to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, and that perfectly fits with how he ends this chapter. He says in verse 46 if you only love people who love you, what kind of reward do you have? You’re just trading. You’re just swapping. Real love is not just loving people who love you in return. Real love is doing what Jesus says here.
He said even the tax collectors or the publicans love people that love them. That’s just a trade that’s swapping out. Jesus said, you have to do better than that. Now remember that many of these tax collectors or publicans were not good people. They were dishonest. They were greedy people. They overcharged the people many times. There were some that were good. You read about Matthew the Publican, of course. You read about Zacchaeus the publican. But many of these tax collectors had a reputation that they deserved.
That’s how Jesus is using this word here. And in verse 47 He said if you only greet your brethren, if you only speak to them, if you only salute them, what are you doing more than any other people do? Which shows that Christians are to do more. They’re to do better than most other people do. He said the tax collectors do that as well.
So Jesus is teaching us not to draw a circle around just the people that we know, just our family, just our race, just our nationality, just people of our own income level or any other kind of social or human characteristic and say, “I’m going to speak to these people, but not anybody else.” God’s people are not cliquish.
God’s people are kind to, and greet, and speak to, and try to love and be friendly to other people. Period. Not just people that they have arbitrarily drawn a circle around.
Jesus said in verse 48 to be perfect just like your Father in heaven is perfect. Many people look at that and say, “Well I can’t be perfect because that would mean that I would have to be sinless.” The word perfect there means complete. It means to be full and not partial. Do you see how that fits with the scribes and the Pharisees? The scribes and the Pharisees were practicing a partial religion, not a full, complete religion. Jesus said you have to be complete. You can’t just pick out some verses in the Bible and then ignore the rest. You can’t just pick out some people to love and then despise everybody else. You’re to practice a full and complete religion. That’s what Jesus means when he says to be perfect.
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