Love Your Enemies: Not Just a New Testament Commandment

It's Always Been (And Always Will Be) God's Will for His Children

 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 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; 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. For 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? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. 

Matthew 5:43-48 (KJV)

Something New That’s Also Old

Perhaps the most difficult command from Jesus: “Love your enemies.” I’ve often heard this command referenced as revolutionary. However, digging a bit deeper into Old Testament scripture, one will find that Jesus was not exactly teaching something new. Even the teaching he referenced in verse 43 (“…love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy…”) is somewhat questionable. See the following Old Testament scriptures:

“If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it.” (Exodus 23:4-5)

“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.” (Leviticus 19:18)

“If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink.” (Proverbs 25:21)

“Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth.” (Proverbs 24:17)

Given the above scriptures wherein God’s children are called to extend a sort of kindness to their enemies, why would they have been taught to hate their enemies?

I have two general thoughts, one of which hadn’t ocurred to me yet when I made the following video (feel free to scroll passed the video and move on to the rest of this article):

1. The teachings had become corrupt and/or lost their essence by the time of the context in which Jesus was teaching.

2. Hate and love are not so exclusive from one another as might first appear.

I’m going to meditate on the latter since the former is meditated upon in the above-linked youtube video (also found in this podcast episode if you’d rather just listen).

Hate to Love

How on earth could hate and love be compatible? Before we begin working that out, consider the fact that Jesus did say:

“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)

Yet, we are called to love them as well. How can that be?

One sense in which this is understood to be consistent is in the context of “relative to one’s orientation toward God”. That is, one’s love for his father, mother, wife, children, bretheren, sisters, and/or self exceeds their love for the Heavenly Father, then they are essentially worshipping man above God.

I think we can (and possibly should) take it a little further to make it more potently not only reasonably, but necessarily true.

One cannot love his father, mother, wife, children, bretheren, sisters, and/or self maximally if they do not take their immediate/direct love off of those individuals and first direct all immediately/direct love to our Heavenly Father who is, was, and always will be perfectly and unfailingly loving. It is only through doing that that we can both (1) love God maximally and thus (2) love everyone else maximally.

To make a distincly unworthy, yet hopefully illuminating, analog: suppose you are a baseball player. No. Suppose you’re a kid who wants to be a baseball player. You tell mom and dad. The sign you up for a league and buy you the required equipment. The coach calls and says to mom and dad, “Jimmy’s first baseball practice is tomorrow night.” Mom and dad tell you. You say, “But I just want to play baseball. I don’t want to practice. Just tell me when the game is. I’ll go there. Somebody will throw a ball. I’ll hit it. We’ll win. Then, maybe we can have ice cream after.”

No, of course that’s not how it works. Why? Because Jimmy must take the passion that he has for winning the game and filter it through a whole lot of layers. One of the first things he’s got to learn is how to honor the coach. He has to learn to trust the coach. He has to learn to obey the coach and trust that as he does the annoying and boring little practice exercises, he will become a better player. He also has to learn from the coach how to relate to the other players on the team. He has to learn that he has but one role to play, and that each other player has their roles, and that they all fit together in a specific way. Only through learning all these little boring, tedious aspects will Jimmy come to actually love the game (or, he’ll quickly realize he doesn’t love the game at all and he’ll go find something else to do). The fact is, he thinks he loves the game before ever swinging a bat. But he’d do the game no good at all if he were to step out on that field without first having that love for the game filtered through some source that really knows and loves the game.

That, I believe, is what it’s like when I think I can love my father, mother, wife, children, bretheren, sisters, and/or self without first and foremost redirecting that love to God, who will then enable me to truly love them through Him.

Let’s tie this back into Jesus’ command that we “love our enemy”. Remember, He said that it had been taught “love your neighbor and hate your enemy”, and then went on to say that we are called to love our enemy. Recall that the previous verses leading up to this command started with things like “You’ve heard it said that thou shalt not murder” or “shall not commit adultery” and then went on to say that you shouldn’t “commit murder in your heart” or “commit adultery in your heart”. He began with the given outward act, and specified that the inward heart is at least as important as the outward manifestation. I believe this call to love our enemies isn’t necessarily a doing away with the call to hate our enemies. Hate, when done properly and for the right reasons, can ultimately be a necessary stepping stone to greater love. One cannot truly love his enemies before he hates them and until he learns to love them through his first and foremost love of God.

One more meditation on loving our enemies before closing this article out:

God & Man: Agapic Enemies

There seems to be a sense in which God was (and maybe is) each person’s (or an entire people’s - see Lamentations) enemy. That is, to the extent that some part of who we are is incompatible with the character of God (perhaps I am at least partially unloving), then when I am being that part of who I am, I am positioning myself such that I am God’s enemy, and He is my enemy. If I am not inclined toward loving my enemy, that places me in a various precarious position with relation to my Heavenly Enemy. Now, of course, He is ultimately not just my enemy (thank God), and even the very fact of my existing in an enemy relation with God does not preclude me from being loved by Him (and, perhaps, if I am accustomed to loving my enemy, I am able to love God despite perceiving Him as a sort of enemy).

This isn’t just intellectual spiritual gymnastics. If I am engaged in a behavior that I know is counter to God’s will, yet I insist upon continuing that behavior, I am willfully positioning myself (and God) as an enemy. Thankfully, God loves and is merciful toward His enemies. To the extent that I love God despite any way in which I might currently view Him as enemy, I will earnestly seek to reform my will and actions such that they reflect His will and actions more, and thus continue to diminish any degree to which I might place myself in enemy relationship with Him.

Thank you for reading this article. I hope it was a blessing. Please consider subscribing to be notified as more articles are published.

Also, be sure to check out more Agapologia content (and the Agapologia community) at the following links:

Discord Invite: https://discord.gg/BcxtfcEd

YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@agapologia

Spotify Podcast: