One Reformed Man On Matthew 5:44-45

 

[Source: The Reformed Witness Hour, March 5, 1995 (No. 2721), “Righteous in Loving Enemies”]

 

 

The desire to seek revenge is very natural to every human being. We always want to “get even.” Generally, we want to get even by getting others back even worse than they got us.

The child of God, the one who has the life of the Lord Jesus Christ in him, is going to conduct himself, however, differently. He is going to be grieved at finding the desire of revenge rising within himself. He is going to obey the command of his Lord to resist that desire to get even.

But our Lord Jesus Christ goes even further. He not only tells us that we must resist not evil, but He also tells us that we must love our enemies. We must not only put up no resistance to personal insults and to non-life­ threatening charges, but we must truly overcome evil with good instead of being overcome with evil.

Jesus, in the last part of Matthew 5, is repeatedly condemning, not the law of Moses, but rather a Phariseeistic, traditional interpretation of the Jews common in His day, of the law of God through Moses. Moses had written, by the command of God, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor.” The Phariseeistic tradition that prevailed in the day of Christ taught that the neighbor was to be restricted to the physical, to those who literally lived around them. And those who literally lived around them were always fellow Jews. So we must love our neighbor. And the tradition went thus: fellow Jews are our neighbors, we must love them. But the command to love our neighbor does not apply to those who live beyond our neighborhood. So the Pharisees of Christ’s day said that love for the neighbor does not apply to the Gentiles. They could, they said, hate them.

This contrasts most sharply with our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus does not interpret the word “neighbor” literally, as being only the person who is living right next to you. Jesus gave the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:30ff. There Jesus taught that the neighbor of the Samaritan was the wounded Jew whom he helped. Thus Jesus taught that our neighbor is anyone with whom we come into contact. Even if we do not come into contact with them personally, but they pass through a doorway the same time we do, or they are on the same road as we are, or they cut us off when they are on the road. That is our neighbor. Anyone whom God puts into our path. This includes any personal enemies: those who hate us and whom we are inclined personally to hate.

That the interpretation of Christ is correct is obvious when we look more carefully into the Old Testament law. You see, Jesus said, “Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you. Pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you” (Matt. 5:44). And Jesus made it that broad because a neighbor refers to anyone and everyone. God’s law specifically commanded them that their neighbor could be an Egyptian. When the Israelites, we read, were taken from their neighbors (Ex. 11:2), then that means that they were taken from among the Egyptians. God’s command that they are not to covet their neighbor’s wife or their neighbor’s possessions may not be limited just to Jews for them, or Americans for us, but rather our neighbor’s wife is anybody’s wife, obviously. Besides, God very specifically gave a command to His people through Moses that they were to love the stranger in the land as well as their fellow Jews (Lev. 19:33,34). Love the stranger in the land.

This is why Jesus says, Though you have heard it said, Love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy, I say to you, Love your enemies. The Pharisees might have concluded that they were allowed to hate their enemies if they were to love their neighbors. But God’s law expressly forbids that kind of hatred. In fact, Exodus 23:4 and 5 commands the Jews that they are to care for their enemy’s ox or ass when it goes astray. Also, God forbids the people of God to rejoice when their enemy falls, for such an attitude displeases God (Prov. 24:17,18). And when our enemy is hungry, we are commanded to feed him (Prov. 25:21). All of these commands stand.

Thus our neighbor is all-embracing. Our neighbor includes our personal enemies. Maybe I should put it this way: our neighbor especially includes our personal enemies. That is precisely Jesus’ point. Love your enemies. Jesus repudiates our right to hate them. Instead, we must do the opposite: love those who hate us.

This love is to be a holy, spiritual affection and emotion which expresses itself in good and kind acts towards them. This love is that which arises out of a motivation to reflect what God has done and what He continues to do for us and all those who hate Him. You see, Jesus is demanding love for personal enemies because the righteousness of the citizens of His kingdom far exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. And it does so in this area of life as well.

The love of God’s children is to be superior to the natural love which an unbeliever may have. This is what Jesus points out in Matthew 5:46, 47. He says, “If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?”

The ungodly, those without any faith whatsoever, love their rela­tives, their brethren. Even some animals will love their children. But such love is not influenced at all by God’s commandments. Such love has no concern at all for the real things of life, for the spiritual and eternal welfare of the one whom we love. The love that God requires is holy, it is pure. The love that God requires is spiritual. Even the love that we have for our husbands and wives and for our children must be holy and pure and spiritual. It must be, first of all, a concern that they do that which is right in God’s eyes. Secondly, it must be a great concern for their eternal well-being, for where they will spend an eternity (in heaven or in hell). Our love for our neighbor must be a desire to see them repent and believe. If we only love our brethren, our relatives, then we are doing no better than the ungodly. The righteousness that belongs to the child of God must exceed that.

And the ungodly love those who love them. Jesus does not, of course, forbid us to love those who love us, but He condemns loving them for carnal and selfish reasons. We must not hug in order to get a hug. We must not kiss in order to get a kiss. Rather, we must give unselfishly. To love those who love us is merely selfish. We are to love our mates and our children in the Lord, even as we love God.

But secondly, Jesus says, we must do this higher righteousness and love our enemies because by doing that we will reflect and resemble the attitude of our Father which is in heaven. Jesus says this in verses 45 and 48 of Matthew 5: “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.... Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” As children of the Father, we are to resemble Him in appearance, in our actions that will identify us as being His children. The character of the conduct of God towards those who hate Him is that He continually supplies them with good things.

This is not to be defined as God’s love when He gives them good things. This is not what is called “common grace,” but rather this is simply God’s providence (which is always good), constantly giving good things. This attitude of God that gives good things is not described in the text. It simply says that God makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and He sends rain on the just and on the unjust. It simply tells what God is doing. It does not tell us what lies behind that, what attitude and motivation lies behind that. Romans 9:22 and Psalm 73 tell us what God’s attitude is behind the “good things” He bestows upon the ungodly wicked. Romans 9:22 tells us that God is longsuffering to the vessels of wrath. Psalm 73 says that the attitude of God is that He considers their end. And we can understand God’s attitude if we consider where they are going with all their peace and plenty and prosperity, with all their gifts of good rain and good sunshine. Psalm 73 says that God sets them in slippery places and He casts them down into destruction (He does not set them, He casts them). It is as if the good things that He gives them only speeds their way to greater condemnation.

Now in Matthew 5:43-48 Jesus commands us to resemble our Father. Our God’s perfect activity of His providence in giving good things to those who hate Him is to be our example. Towards that perfection we are to strive. Even if we may not realize it in this life, we still have to strive for it. In that way we will be resembling our Father which is in heaven.

Our Lord’s command to be perfect even as our Father which is in heaven is perfect is defined by loving our personal enemies. The kinds of people we are to love is described in verse 44 as those who are our enemies, who curse us, who hate us, who despitefully use us and persecute us. Our attitude towards them is to be one of love. You see, God’s attitude can be different because He knows whom He has elected and whom He has reprobated. We do not know. We cannot tell people’s eternal predestination by looking at them. We do not know where they are going to spend an eternity, either in heaven or in hell. Our giving of good things to them is to be an expression of an attitude of love. We are to bless them, do good things for them. We are to pray for them and thus overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:20). Bless them that curse you. “Bless them” means “speak well of them,” wish them well, talk to others about them in a manner which does not bring up their evil against us but only how good they are. Speak well of them. Do good things to them that hate you. Continue to supply them with good things. Take care of their ox or ass if it goes astray. Bring their dog or cat back to them if it is in your yard. And do it kindly and generously. Feed it if it is hungry and feed them if they are hungry, even if they have just previously done something terrible to hurt you. Maybe the key to our attitude as Jesus commands us is that we “pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us.” Pray for them. Maybe the way in which we can bless them and do good things for them would be easier if we would find it in ourselves to pray for them. Pray for our enemies. Pray for those who have just persecuted us. Pray that we may be overcome with good towards them instead of being overcome by evil. Pray that we will not show a desire for revenge, but rather generosity. Pray for them and their eternal and spiritual well­ being. Pray. That is our Lord’s command. That is His example. And that is to be our example.

Is this impossible? Is Jesus asking too much of us? Do you find yourself resenting such a high demand, that you love your enemies? I know that the desire for revenge is strong. We instinctively resent all ill treatment. We immediately believe that we have the right to hate those who hurt us. But the command of our Savior, while it may seem to be impossible, is the right thing to do. The command of our Savior is not ridiculous. If we consider it to be ridiculous then it only proves bad things about us. It proves that our carnal mind is enmity against God and is dominating us at that time. That desire to do bad things to our enemies shows that we are slow in obeying the duty of love. So God presses this duty upon us again and again. Not only are we to pray for those who hurt us and hate us. But we are to salute (greet) them when they cross our paths. We are wrong to treat them as total strangers, something that is so easy for all of us to do. That would not evidence that we are the children of our Father which is in heaven.

Jesus turns this around in such a way that when we obey the command to love our enemies and to do good to them and pray for them, then we can find, for ourselves, an assurance that we are God’s children, an assurance of our own salvation. You know that you are a child of the heavenly Father if you love your personal enemies. There is no reward in loving or greeting those who love or greet you. As Jesus says. What do ye more than others? But saving faith produces a different fruit. Saving faith produces a fruit which distinguishes it from the unproduc­tive faith of those who just say that they are saved.

We, who have been given so much by our heavenly Father, should love. We are loved. We are loved in spite of the fact that many times we hate Him, or we misuse Him. But our Lord Jesus Christ is continually interceding for us. The Spirit that is within us intercedes constantly, even with groans that no human voice can utter.

By not retaliating, by not seeking to get revenge, we are being perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. Then we give evidence that He is our Father; This is not in order to become the children of the heavenly Father. We are that already. But this is the way to show that we are God’s children. Maybe sometimes we lack assurance of salvation because we are filled with hatred, because we hate our personal enemies. Then we are not going to have that assurance of salvation because we are not obeying our dear Savior’s command and we are not following our heavenly Father’s example. If we are only busy serving ourselves, seeking our rights, instead of denying ourselves, then we certainly are going to lack assurance. The way for God’s Spirit to witness with our spirit that we are the children of God is in the way of our being very diligent to love our enemies.

Do you love your enemies?

Let us pray.

Gracious and merciful Lord, we pray Thy blessing upon us by causing Thy Spirit to apply this passage of Thy Word, these Words of our Savior, unto our hearts. Forgive us for seeking revenge in the past. Forgive us for not loving our enemies but instead hating them. Bless us so that we may be diligent in our willingness to obey our Savior’s command who, when He was reviled, reviled not again but committed Himself unto Thee because He knew that Thou art the one who judges all things in perfect righteousness. Bless us now as we continue through the rest of this day. Forgive us of our sins, for Jesus’ sake, Amen.