Matt 5:43–48 — Love Your Enemies

In January 1956, five American missionaries—Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Peter Fleming, and Roger Youderian—were killed while seeking to bring the gospel to the Huaorani people of Ecuador. The world regarded their deaths as a tragic waste. Yet two years later Elisabeth Elliot and Rachel Saint returned to live among the very people who had killed the men they loved. They learned the language, taught the Scriptures, and became instruments through whom God transformed the community.

One of the killers, Mincaye Enquedi, came to faith in Christ and became a respected church elder and preacher. His story vividly displays the command in Matthew 5:43–48: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” We will consider the duty of enemy love, God’s own demonstration of it, and the grace required to practice it.

The Duty of Enemy Love

As Jesus has been doing throughout the Sermon on the Mount, he quotes from the Old Testament. For example, in his very first antithesis, he says in verse 21, you’ve heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder. And here he quotes from the Old Testament.

You’ve heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor. But then he adds, and hate your enemy. The question is, where does that second part come from? The first part, you shall love your neighbor, is clearly from the Old Testament. Leviticus 19 verse 18 says, you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. But where does hating your enemies come from? It is nowhere commanded in the Old Testament in exactly those words. However, it is implied, isn’t it? It’s implied by the context of this word neighbor.

In Leviticus 19.18, it says, as I just read, you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people. Notice that phrase, the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. In the context then, loving your neighbor is restricted to loving the sons of your own people, that is the nation of Israel. So even though it is nowhere commanded that you shall hate your enemy, it’s implied by that God commands the Israelites to love their neighbors only. And that makes sense because in the context of God’s giving the law to Israel at Mount Sinai, When he’s teaching them all of these things, Leviticus 19 is in the context of God teaching the commandments to Israel, Moses expounding the commandments. There’s also this anticipated reality that this nation that God has created by redeeming them out of Egypt is going to go into the land and that they are going to be commanded not because of their own feelings of hatred towards the Canaanites, but because of God’s holiness, they’re commanded to destroy the Canaanites who live in the land.

There is a sense in which they are being commanded to hate not just their personal enemies, but the enemies of God. We see this in the Psalms. For example, in Psalm 26, verse 5, it says, I hate the assembly of evildoers. In Psalm 31, verse 6, it says, I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols. And this is all part of that the Mosaic law, as it was given to Israel in the Old Covenant, contained within it a republication of the works principle given to Adam in the garden. It commanded obedience and offered life to those who were obedient. Long life in the land. It condemned those that were disobedient. It brought a curse upon those who were disobedient.

Idolatry was to be rooted out, not only in the sense of destroying the Canaanites out there, but even within. If anyone within the people of Israel was found worshiping an idol, they were to be stoned to death. That they were to receive the hatred of God’s people because they were expressing God’s wrath towards His enemies. It’s not so much that the Israelites were to hate their personal enemies as it was that they were to make God’s enemies their own. We see this in Psalm 139, verses 21 through 22. 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 complete hatred. I count them my enemies.” That must have been a difficult thing for the people of God in the Old Testament. In fact, we know that they had a hard time doing this, and many times they held back.

story in 1 Samuel where King Saul was holding back from destroying the Canaanites, from doing what God had commanded him to do? And he received God’s judgment as a result, and the kingdom was taken away from him. They were to count God’s enemies as their enemies, and they were to express God’s righteous indignation against sin through this reality of spiritual warfare, of going into the land and condemning those that were wicked in God’s sight. Don’t think of this though as if it was some genocide, because God warned the Israelites that they too would experience the same thing if they started to follow the practices of the Canaanites. God even warned them and said, just as the land is going to spew out the Canaanites because of their sin, so also the land will spew you out too. If you compromise and worship other gods. And in fact that’s what happened at the end? The whole story of Israel is that they did fail and that they were removed from the land just like the Canaanites were. So it had nothing to do with racial animosity or genocide. It had to do with this reality of God’s law being expressed historically in type and shadow. The land was a picture of heaven? And so who can dwell in God’s heaven? Only those who are righteous. And those who are wicked must be removed from the land. But now Jesus is talking to his disciples and he says, you have heard that it was said Of course, Jesus is not negating the first part, which is love your neighbor. He’s not saying that part is negated, but he is seriously qualifying the second part, hate your enemies.

It signifies a shift in redemptive history from an earthly kingdom of national Israel in the land to a heavenly kingdom, the kingdom that Christ is bringing in. Going back to Matthew chapter 4, after Jesus was baptized, he began to proclaim repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And he began to call the disciples to enter into that kingdom of grace and to become followers of him, to enter into the kingdom of salvation that he is announcing. And so this, of course, means because of this shift from an earthly kingdom to a heavenly kingdom, to a spiritual kingdom, to a kingdom of salvation and grace in Christ, this means that our enemies change. Who your enemy is depends on which kingdom you’re a part of.

The Jews of Jesus’ day were likely to think of the Romans as their enemies. And of course, we know that not long after Jesus, finished his earthly ministry in the year A.D. 70, so let’s say 40 years later, we know that the Jews revolted against the Romans, and through the zealots and their desire to get rid of the Roman occupation and to reclaim this earthly kingdom that God had set up in the land, they ended up hating their enemies in a literal way, taking up the sword against the Romans. Of course, it didn’t work out for them. The Romans won and put them down and destroyed the temple as a result. But Jesus here is announcing a new kingdom. He’s announcing the dawn of a spiritual kingdom. And therefore, those who enter this kingdom have new and different enemies.

Notice how in this verse here, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, Jesus is picking up on something he had said earlier in the Sermon on the Mount. If you go back to the Beatitudes and verses 9 through 12, he says, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So this keyword persecute, which is used in verse 44, is picking up on the word persecute that was used in verse 10 and again in verses 11 and 12.

This kingdom that we are now a part of in Christ is a kingdom that changes our loves and changes our hatreds. We once loved the world, but now we hate the world. We once hated Christ and his people, and now we love them. And so we have new friends and we have new enemies. And those that do not appreciate this kingdom that Christ is offering, those who are opposed to Christ and his people, they become our enemies, and they persecute us. They say all kinds of evil things about us, and they hate us because of our identification with Christ. So that is the first point, the duty of loving our enemies.

Jesus is calling us to love these new enemies, not the enemies that the Jews thought they had, the Romans, or perhaps even the collaborators such as the tax collectors who were trying to side with the Romans against their own people. No, those are not your enemies anymore. The enemies that you now have are the enemies of Christ and his kingdom. And rather than seeking their destruction, we are seeking their salvation.

We love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. The very word pray, the very concept of praying for your enemy implies that you’re hoping that they would be saved, that they would change their opposition to Christ and his kingdom, and that they would become Christians as well. But that leads us then to the second point, the demonstration of enemy love in verse 45. Jesus says to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that, verse 45, you may be sons of your father who is in heaven.

The Demonstration of Enemy Love

For he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. God himself demonstrates this reality of enemy love by loving his own enemies. And although for a time it seemed as though in the Old Testament God was hating his enemies when he was calling the Israelites to go in and destroy the Canaanites, there is actually a broader context besides God’s specific command to Israel to hate their enemies. There was also God’s love to all mankind shown in the covenant of common grace.

Remember back the story of the flood in Genesis 6 through 9. The sinfulness of humanity stood out in the eyes of God. It says that the Lord saw the wickedness of man, that it was great on the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And so the Lord regretted making man, and he said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land. And so God sent the floodwaters. This is an expression of God’s wrath against man for their sin. And God judged mankind. But after doing that, after destroying mankind in the flood, God promised in the Noahic covenant of common grace that he would delay the judgment and he would provide common grace benefits to sinful humanity.

He said in Genesis 8 verse 21, I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. Is that not what Jesus is alluding to here in verse 45? That God the Father in heaven makes his son to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust?

He’s recalling these words in Genesis 8 verse 21 and 22 about God’s common grace benefits to all mankind. And God’s common grace benefits indicate God’s attitude toward humanity prior to the Day of Judgment. Yes, the Day of Judgment is coming. And the command that God gave to the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites was a warning of that reality of coming judgment. And so was the flood itself. It was a picture of that coming judgment. And yet, God has also delayed that judgment in order to show his attitude towards humanity prior to the day of judgment, which is that he desires that they would repent, that they would be saved.

God’s common grace benefits, sending the rain and the sunshine upon the just and the unjust alike, is an indicator of God’s general attitude towards humanity, which is one of benevolence, one of desiring that no one would perish, but that all would reach repentance, 2 Peter 3.9. Common grace is not just for the purpose of, and the end is not its own thing of just sending the rain and sending the sun. It’s not just these earthly benefits as if they’re an end in themselves. It is a sign of something greater, a sign of something deeper.

In fact, God’s common grace benefits the delay of judgment and the opportunity for repentance was purchased by the cross. Christ purchased common grace by his death upon the cross, and therefore it anticipates and sets the stage for the free offer of the gospel. That’s why we sang Psalm 67, because even in the Old Testament, in spite of that God commanded the Israelites to exterminate the Canaanites as a sign of God’s judgment, in spite of the flood that came and destroyed all humanity in the days of Noah, in spite of those anticipations of judgment, there was also this hope, this expectation that even the nations too would be invited to enter into God’s kingdom and that they too would receive God’s mercy. Even in the Old Testament, there is the free offer of the gospel. There is this anticipation of the reign of the coming Messiah. There would be a universal reign in which both Jews and Gentiles would be brought into the kingdom of God.

God’s common grace benevolence towards his enemies, causing the sun to rise in both the evil and the good, sending the rain on both the just and the unjust, is a sign of God’s attitude of kindness towards fallen, rebellious mankind. God’s kindness in allowing man to live every breath that a wicked person takes is undeserved and is a result of God’s mercy And God’s kindness is intended to have two effects. Either on the one hand, it will lead men to repentance, as Paul says in Romans 2, 4. Do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? Or, God’s kindness will harden men in their sin and increase their guilt, as Paul says in the very next verse, Romans 2, verse 5. But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

The second point, the demonstration of enemy love, is that God the Father himself has set the example, and we are to imitate God by having this same attitude and this same stance of enemy love. We’re to have this same attitude towards our enemies, just as God has towards those who hate him. Jesus said that we are to have that same desire that they would repent and turn from their sin because Jesus not only said to love our enemies, but to pray for them. And that implies that we’re praying that their hearts would be changed, that they would come to know the Lord Jesus Christ and that they would be saved. We’re praying for their conversion. We’re praying that God would soften their hearts. We’re praying that God’s attitude of love and benevolence that he’s showing to all mankind would waken them up and cause them to turn again to the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you have any people in your family that don’t know the Lord, many of us do, or covenant children who have wandered away from the Lord, It’s painful and it’s hard to think about that perhaps they are God’s enemies and perhaps one day they will be judged by God, the last day. But they haven’t passed away yet. They haven’t died yet? There’s still hope. And so we can pray for them. We can love them and pray for them and pray that God would change their hearts and that God would have mercy upon them. The third point is the difficulty of enemy love. And I get that from verses 46 through 47. Notice what Jesus says here.

The Difficulty of Enemy Love

If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? So he’s not specifically talking about the difficulty of enemy love.

Jesus is describing how easy it is to love those who love you. It’s so easy to love those who love you, those who are nice to you. Hey friend, it’s great to see you slapping each other on the back? We love each other because you love your friends because they love you. And so it’s easy to greet your brothers. But Jesus points out that’s a very easy thing to do. Even unbelievers do that. Even tax collectors and Gentiles, they do that as well.

It’s much harder to love your enemies. When you are the recipients of scorn and hatred, we naturally feel this urge to retaliate with scorn and hatred in return, don’t we? We take it personally. When we’re attacked, we take it personally. We forget that this is a spiritual battle. It’s not about you and your friendships and your relationships. We forget that we’re part of a spiritual kingdom.

It’s easy for us to wish evil on the person who hates us rather than wishing their spiritual good. We should wish their spiritual good. That is, we should wish that they would see the error of their ways, that they would turn to the Lord and be saved.

I believe, personally, just looking at all of these six commands that Jesus gives here, beginning in verse 21, when he talks about anger, but he says, don’t be angry in your heart. Then he goes and talks about lust in verse 27 and so on. Of all these commands that Jesus gives, there are six of them. Anger, lust, divorce, oaths, retaliation, and enemy love. This sixth one might be the hardest one of all. The most difficult, to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you. It goes against our flesh. It goes against our natural impulse.

It’s impossible to do this apart from the grace of God. It’s something that you cannot achieve in your own strength. The only way you can do it is if you have a heart that’s been renewed by God’s grace. In fact, that’s the point of what Jesus is saying in all of these six commands. You’ve heard that it was said, but I say unto you, you shall not commit adultery, but I say unto you, anyone who looks at a woman, or you shall, you’ve heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you, don’t resist the one who’s evil. All these commands are very difficult. In fact, they’re impossible apart from the Spirit, apart from a changed heart, and that’s why Jesus is giving these commands to show us that this is what we need, that we need this new heart, this new motivation that comes from being a member of the kingdom of Christ. Where do we get the power to love our enemies? The only way we get that power and strength to do that which is totally contrary to our natural impulse is through Christ and through the gospel.

As Paul says in Romans 5, For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, We were reconciled to God by the death of his son. Much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

When we look at the cross, we see our sin and we see our need. We see how weak we are, how helpless we are. We even see that we were God’s enemies. And then we realize that even when we were God’s enemies, God loved us, God reached out to us in grace, and he had mercy upon us. While we were still sinners, Christ laid down his life for us. While we were enemies, God reconciled us to himself through the death of his son.

This is the only way we can be empowered to do the impossible, to love our enemies. And that is by looking at the cross and looking at what Christ has done for us. God loved you even when you were his enemy. How much more then ought we to do the same to our enemies? And when you think about the disparity between what we experience from our earthly enemies versus what God experienced in his reaction against our sin, the infinite gap between our sin and God’s holiness is nothing compared to the slight and momentary hatred that we feel from our enemies.

We look at the gospel, we look at the cross of Christ, and then we see that there is a way for us to also show enemy love. Not in our own power, but in the power that Christ himself gives us when we see what he has done for us. And there’s another important distinction as well that the gospel shows us, and that is this. The gospel shows us that a distinction can be made between the sinner and their sin.

That is the key thing? We often hear this trite phrase, but it’s true? We should love the sinner, but hate the sin. Hate the sin, but love the sinner. We should make that distinction between the sinner and their sin. Because that implies, right, that they can be changed. It implies that they don’t know what they’re doing, but God, by His grace, can transform their hearts and bring them to repentance so that they can be forgiven. The gospel makes that very clear because we see it in ourselves. We see that God hates our sin, but yet he loved us in Christ. And so we see that because there is this distinction between the sinner and their sin, that gives us the strength to be able to love sinners. We’re not loving their sin, we’re not condoning their sin, we’re not saying that what they’re doing is right, but we are able to still love them and to pray for them and to pray that God would change their hearts.

Perfect as Your Heavenly Father Is Perfect

In verse 48, Jesus summarizes the entire message that he’s been making beginning back in verse 17. This whole section where he says, don’t think I’ve come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And then he goes through different commandments and shows how they’re fulfilled. This whole section from 517 to verse 47 is summarized in verse 48.

You must therefore be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. And at first that sounds somewhat confusing because does that really mean we have to be sinlessly perfect? And he’s not talking about sinless perfection. All of us sin. None of us are perfect. No one is perfect. But what he is saying is that we are to be progressively transformed into the image of Christ. And we are to be like God. And so he’s focusing upon likeness to God?

Remember he said in verse 45, so that you may be sons of your father. A son is like his father. The son bears the image of his father. And so when we love our enemies, we are being like our father. We are being sons of our father. And that is the goal of sanctification, is that we would be transformed progressively, not perfectly, but progressively into the image of Christ. That’s what it means to be perfect, to be perfect even as our Heavenly Father is perfect. And we can see that by God’s grace as he is working in us, that likeness to himself. I began with that story of Mincaye, the tribesman who was one of the spearmen who killed those five missionaries. I’ll keep reading the story.

Years later Mincaye met Steve Saint, the young son of the man he had killed. Because he had killed Steve’s father, Mincaye felt a special responsibility for him. A kinship bond formed, and Mincaye adopted Steve as his tribal son. When Steve later brought his family to live with the tribe, Mincaye regarded Steve’s children as his grandchildren.

Mincaye testified that when he killed Nate Saint, his heart was “black and sick in sin.” Then he learned that God had sent his own Son, whose blood washed his heart clean. In time Mincaye baptized Steve, Steve’s sister, and later Steve’s children in the same water near the beach where the missionaries had died.

They regarded one another as family and harbored no resentment. Steve never forgot the pain of losing his father, but he also called Mincaye one of his dearest friends. What the tribesmen meant for evil, God used for good. This is the power of grace: God loved us while we were his enemies, and through the gospel he enables us to love ours.