Love Your Enemies...The Wonderful & Impossible Command Of Christ

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Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.  44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;  45 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.  46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?  47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?  48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.  (Matthew 5:43-48)

In the time of Jesus, there was obviously a belief that one should love his neighbor and hate his enemy.  Where did this idea come from? It can be seen in some places in the Old Testament where David specifically spoke of hating some people (Ps. 139:21-22).  But most scholars think that when Jesus said "you have heard that" he was referring to the Manual of Discipline of the Essenes.  In an official translation by Geza Vermes published in 1962, it states that the members of the community should "...love all the sons of light, each according to his lot in God’s design, and hate all the sons of darkness, each according to his guilt in God’s vengeance." Doug Ward in an article answering the question as to where this saying Jesus quoted came from says:

The Qumran sect noted that the instructions in Lev 19:17-18 are directed toward "your brother", "the sons of your people," and "your neighbor." For them, brethren and neighbors were members of their own community. On the other hand, community members were not to correct or rebuke outsiders, including fellow Jews whom they saw as apostate. Harboring hatred in one's heart toward outsiders was permitted. Chapter 9 of the Community Rule specifies that the leader of the community "shall not rebuke the men of the Pit nor dispute with them." Later in the chapter comes the declaration, "Everlasting hatred in a spirit of secrecy for the men of perdition!" The sectarians arrived at their narrow interpretation of Lev 19:17-18 by comparing these verses with Nahum 1:2, which states that "the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies."3 While it is wrong to hate or practice revenge against a brother, they reasoned, hatred against an enemy is endorsed by God's example, which they were called to follow (Lev 19:2).

There is no idea like this mentioned in the writings of the Pharisees or the later Rabbis.

God also speaks of hating individuals (Hosea 9:15; Malachi 1:3) but it can be argued that man is not God, therefore, he should leave this kind of hate to the Lord.

According to the words of Jesus in this gospel, loving one's enemies was a unique feature of the children of God. Even in the world today, a person who consistently follows this commandment of Jesus stands out from the rest.

Most people behave like the publicans did in Jesus' day. The average person loves his family, loves his friends, loves those who seem to value and think about society as they do. Indeed, it is EASY to love those who are like you, because it is like loving one's self. But Jesus calls more from his children than this normal state of affairs. He calls forth from his children the UNNATURAL, in fact, the SUPERNATURAL. The most natural thing to do is to love those who love us. The hardest thing to do is to love those who hate us. The hardest thing to do is to love those who don't care enough to hate us but are only using us for their own selfish purposes, whether they be emotional purposes, financial purposes, political purposes or, merely to satisfy their own egos. But it is those, who the children of God must focus on and love! They must pray for them every day. They must ask for the Lord to bless them and their families. They must pray for their prosperity and well-being. If this strikes the reader here as completely crazy then he has understood the true power of the command.

Perhaps the words of Martin Luther King Jr. express the impact of this command. He spoke in the context of his day, but it is still very relevant to Christians today.

As Joel Osteen explains, God can use enemies to bless believers.  God uses the enemies of believers to make them stronger, increase their faith and prepare them for his kingdom.

And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope.5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. (Romans 5:3-8)

David, centuries earlier, had said the same thing when he wrote in Psalm 119:71:

It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes. 72The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.

The Publicans

It must have been ironic to Matthew, himself a publican, to quote Jesus here.  He must have reflected on his own life as a servant of Rome.  What were publicans to the Jews of Jesus' time?  Alfred Edersheim in his famous book titled The Life And Times Of Jesus The Messiah states:

We know much, and yet, as regards details, perhaps too little about those ‘tolls, dues, and customs,’ which made the Roman administration such sore and vexatious exaction to all ‘Provincials,’ and which in Judæa loaded the very name of publican with contempt and hatred. They who cherished the gravest religious doubts as to the lawfulness of paying any tribute to Cæsar, as involving in principle recognition of a bondage to which they would fain have closed their eyes, and the substitution of heathen kingship for that of Jehovah, must have looked on the publican as the very embodiment of anti-nationalism. But perhaps men do not always act under the constant consciousness of such abstract principles. Yet the endless vexatious interferences, the unjust and cruel exactions, the petty tyranny, and the extortionate avarice, from which there was neither defense nor appeal, would make it always well-nigh unbearable. It is to this that the Rabbis so often refer. If ‘publicans’ were disqualified from being judges or witnesses, it was, at least so far as regarded witness-bearing, because ‘they exacted more than was due.’2461 Hence also it was said, that repentance was especially difficult for tax-gatherers and custom-house officers.

According to Edersheim, Matthew was the worse of the two kinds of publicans:

It is of importance to notice, that the Talmud distinguishes two classes of ‘publicans:’ the tax-gatherer in general (Gabbai), and the Mokhes, or Mokhsa, who was specially the douanier or custom-house official.  Although both classes fall under the Rabbinic ban, the douanier - such as Matthew was - is the object of chief execration. And this, because his exactions were more vexatious, and gave more scope to rapacity.

Edersheim goes on to say:

...the Mokhes might inflict much greater hardship upon the poor people. There was tax and duty upon all imports and exports; on all that was bought and sold; bridge-money, road-money, harbour-dues, town-dues, &c. The classical reader knows the ingenuity which could invent a tax, and find a name for every kind of exaction, such as on axles, wheels, pack-animals, pedestrians, roads, highways; on admission to markets; on carriers, bridges, ships, and quays; on crossing rivers, on dams, on licences, in short, on such a variety of objects, that even the research of modern scholars has not been able to identify all the names. On goods the ad valorem duty amounted to from 2½ to 5, and on articles of luxury to even 12½ per cent. But even this was as nothing, compared to the vexation of being constantly stopped on the journey, having to unload all one’s pack-animals, when every bale and package was opened, and the contents tumbled about, private letters opened, and the Mokhes ruled supreme in his insolence and rapacity.

As to the very meaning of the Hebrew word Mokhes Edersheim explains:

The very word Mokhes seems, in its root-meaning, associated with the idea of oppression and injustice. He was literally, as really, an oppressor. The Talmud charges them with gross partiality, remitting in the case of those to whom they wished to show favour, and exacting from those who were not their favourites. They were a criminal race, to which Lev. xx. 5 applied. It was said, that there never was a family which numbered a Mokhes, in which all did not become such. Still, cases are recorded when a religious publican would extend favour to Rabbis, or give them timely notice to go into hiding. If one belonging to the sacred association (a Chabher) became either a Gabbai or a Mokhes, he was at once expelled, although he might be restored on repentance. That there was ground for such rigour, appears from such an occurrence, as when a Mokhes took from a defenseless person his ass, giving him another, and very inferior, animal for it. Against such unscrupulous oppressors every kind of deception was allowed; goods might be declared to be votive offerings, or a person pass his slave as his son.

PRAYING FOR YOUR ENEMIES

Jesus expects more from his children than the same behavior as the tax collectors of his day which everyone despised.  This is why he refers to them as showing favor to those they love.  Christians, in reality, have no enemies.  They have only people they need to pray for. Of course, there is a sense that Christians do have enemies.  They need to have them to know who to pray for.  
What do you pray for?  You must pray that the Lord bless them and their family.  You must pray that they prosper.  You must pray for their salvation if they are not professing believers.  You must pray for God's protection on them.

BLESSING THOSE WHO CURSE YOU

Perhaps our Lord Jesus best exemplified this command by examples in his own life.  By far, the greatest crime and injustice in world history was the crucifixion of the Holy Son of God.  Yet even as he lay dying, an innocent man, he prayed for all who witnessed this crime.  He prayed for all those mocked him, who gambled for his clothes, who reviled him, for the one who gave him vinegar when he asked for water, for the thief who mocked him saying deliver yourself and us if you are the Son of God. What did he pray to his father for?  He prayed forgive them, Father, for they know what they are doing.  Was this not blessing? Did his Father not grant the request of his most precious and only begotten son?

LOVING YOUR ENEMIES

This would seem to be most difficult of the comands of Jesus.  It might be thought that it is easier to pray for someone, to bless them when they curse you, than it is to love them. Loving someone takes a concentrated effort.  Loving someone means that you have to think positive thoughts about them.  Martin Luther King Jr. said these words that reflect the words of our Lord:

A second thing that an individual must do in seeking to love his enemy is to discover the element of good in his enemy, and everytime you begin to hate that person and think of hating that person, realize that there is some good there and look at those good points which will over-balance the bad points.
I’ve said to you on many occasions that each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality. We’re split up and divided against ourselves. And there is something of a civil war going on within all of our lives. There is a recalcitrant South of our soul revolting against the North of our soul. And there is this continual struggle within the very structure of every individual life. There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Ovid, the Latin poet, "I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do." There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Plato that the human personality is like a charioteer with two headstrong horses, each wanting to go in different directions. There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Goethe, "There is enough stuff in me to make both a gentleman and a rogue." There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Apostle Paul, "I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do."

 So somehow the "isness" of our present nature is out of harmony with the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts us. And this simply means this: That within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals. The person who hates you most has some good in him; even the nation that hates you most has some good in it; even the race that hates you most has some good in it. And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls "the image of God," you begin to love him in spite of. No matter what he does, you see God’s image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never sluff off. Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude.

Those who spend their time hating others and disregard this command have no claim to the name Christian.  No believer should ever say he hates anyone.  The words in the Song Of Solomon 8:6 explain it well:

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm; for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

Jealousy cannot be had without hate.  They are twin sisters always together.  Where you find one you will find the other.  Here again, the words of King echo the same thought:

...hate distorts the personality of the hater. We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. You just begin hating somebody, and you will begin to do irrational things. You can’t see straight when you hate. You can’t walk straight when you hate. You can’t stand upright. Your vision is distorted. There is nothing more tragic than to see an individual whose heart is filled with hate. He comes to the point that he becomes a pathological case. For the person who hates, you can stand up and see a person and that person can be beautiful, and you will call them ugly.

For the person who hates, the beautiful becomes ugly and the ugly becomes beautiful. For the person who hates, the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good. For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That’s what hate does. You can’t see right. The symbol of objectivity is lost. Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater.

Christianity in its radical departure from the typical approach of many other religions shows its supernatural origin by asking believers to do things which would require divine presence in their heart to accomplish. This requirement to love your enemies, bless those who curse you and pray for those who persecute you is that transformed the Roman Empire from a power that inimical to Christianity to an empire that was conquered by it.  It is this command that most indicates to a believer that this must be a religion of divine origin and not invented by the mind of man.