Loving Our Enemies

by Brian Allred

Certain things are really hard to do. Try saying “eleven benevolent elephants” five times fast. I imagine riding a unicycle is pretty hard. Personally, I find it extremely difficult to hit a golf ball – at least long and straight. Some other things are virtually impossible for us to do like tying our shoes with only one hand or sneezing with our eyes open.

But maybe harder than any of these things is something Jesus requires of his followers. It’s the command to love our enemies. Given that we find it hard enough to love those for whom we have some natural affection and fondness, can we really be expected to love our enemies?  The answer to that question is yes. Jesus says so in Matthew 5:43-48 in the Sermon on the Mount:

With these exceedingly challenging and heart-searching words, Jesus is doing four things.

Jesus Is Offering a Correction

In verse 43 Jesus makes reference to what was evidently a familiar saying to his hearers: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” The first part about loving your neighbor is taught in Leviticus 19:18. But apparently by Jesus’ time, love for neighbor had been restricted to friends and fellow Jews. With this narrowed understanding, the second part about hating your enemy was inferred [2].

But hating your enemy isn’t explicitly taught anywhere in the Bible. The inference may have been drawn from a book included in the Apocrypha called Ecclesiasticus (or the Wisdom of Ben Sirach) that states: “Give to the one who is good, but do not help the sinner” [3]. The Essene community at Qumran, a separatist Jewish group active around the time of Jesus, taught that a neighbor “to be respected and treated fairly was restricted to one’s fellow community members” [4]. This sentiment was likely stoked among other devout Jews during a time of occupation of the land by foreign military powers. For some, hatred of the Romans and Hellenizing forces very likely served as a sign of indispensable religious zeal.

Given that we find it hard enough to love those for whom we have some natural affection and fondness, can we really be expected to love our enemies?  The answer to that question is yes. Jesus says so.

Additionally, hatred of one’s enemies may have been assumed on the basis of the conquest under Joshua when God directed his people to destroy the Canaanites [5]. There are also certain psalms in which the psalmist speaks of his hatred of his enemies [6]. The conquest of the Canaanites, however, is not to be understood as a hate-fueled campaign initiated by the Israelites against her enemies. It was a rather a carrying out of God’s divinely directed judgment against wicked people [7]. Similarly, it should remembered that the psalmist’s enemies are first and foremost enemies of God and his kingdom. The psalmist regards them as his own enemies because they are God’s enemies. This is reflected in the words of Psalm 139:19-21: “Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God! O men of blood, depart from me!  They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?” Granted, this is still very strong language, but the psalms are poetic and, as poetry, we should anticipate the use of exaggerated language on occasion.

At the same time, there a number of texts in the Old Testament that indicate enemies are to be treated with kindness and care. For example, Exodus 23:4-5 says: “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.” There’s also Proverbs 25:21-22: “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.” [8].  Any attempt to justify hating our enemies requires us to ignore such texts.

In case of any lingering doubts about how to treat our enemies, Jesus makes it abundantly clear: we’re to love them. He commands us to do so.

Jesus Is Issuing a Command

A second rather obvious thing Jesus is doing with these words is issuing a command. This is the first time the word “love” appears in Matthew’s Gospel and it’s in the form of a command [9]. And contrary to what we might expect (or prefer), it’s commanded to be shown toward our enemies.

But who exactly are our enemies? How do we identify them? We all likely have some – if we didn’t Jesus wouldn’t be telling us how to treat them. Put simply, an enemy is anyone who seeks to harm or injure you in some way. An enemy is someone who is opposed to you and antagonistic toward your welfare. This can come in various forms. The opposition can be expressed by active hostility or passive neglect. The intended harm can be physical or psychological. Someone who uses you or dehumanizes you or who routinely tries to control or manipulate you through guilt, anger, intimidation, fear, or threats is acting like an enemy. An enemy might try to injure you directly or indirectly. For example, instead of targeting you directly, an enemy might try to get to you indirectly by harming what’s precious to you like your children or other loved ones. An enemy might be someone you live with, a relative, a neighbor, or a co-worker. It could be someone  slandering you, attacking your reputation, insulting you, undermining you, stealing from you, plotting for your failure, or taking credit from you. An enemy can be temporary, like a person yelling (or gesturing) at you in traffic, or someone opposing your welfare for an extended period.

Take a moment and think about the enemies you have in your life. More importantly, think about how you respond to them in the face of their mistreatment. Do you obey Jesus’ command to love them? Well, surely Jesus goes too far and expects too much, doesn’t he? Does God really want us to allow an abuser to keep abusing or a slanderer to keep slandering?

Well, no, he doesn’t. Let’s not misunderstand. The command to love our enemies doesn’t prohibit us from acting in self-defense [10], from calling the police when we’re the victim of a crime [11], from pursuing proper legal protection [12], or from seeking to secure justice for ourselves and others [13]. What it does prohibit is seeking personal vengeance through retaliation. When we’re slandered or insulted, we don’t slander or insult back; when we’re abused we don’t abuse back; when we’re hated, we don’t hate back. We don’t repay personal slights with cold shoulders or with demeaning gossip and we don’t respond to violence by becoming violent and adding more ugliness to an already ugly world. Instead, we love. As Martin Luther King, Jr. rightly concluded:

Whatever justice, retribution, and vengeance is to be exacted against wrongdoers is to be left to the proper authority. Ultimately that means leaving justice in the hands of God who reminds us that vengeance belongs to him and promises that he will repay [15]. As John Piper notes, it’s this assurance of divine justice, in due time,  that “sets us free to love our enemies and leave all retribution to the Lord” [16].

When we’re slandered or insulted, we don’t slander or insult back; when we’re abused we don’t abuse back; when we’re hated, we don’t hate back.

In commanding us to love our enemies, Jesus isn’t simply requiring that we refrain from doing them any harm. We are commanded to positively love them. But what does this look like? We can gain some insight by considering a similar passage in Luke. Jesus says in Luke 6:27-28: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” So loving your enemies positively includes doing good to those who hate you, like performing concrete acts of kindness and care. In addition to doing good, loving your enemies includes saying good. Jesus says to “bless those who curse you.” When people speak poorly of you, curse you, or insult you, speak well of them – at least as well as you can [17]. This doesn’t mean you can never criticize or condemn the ideas or methods of your enemies, or that there’s never a proper place for rebuke. Indeed, sometimes the most loving thing we can do is call someone out for their wickedness. But in doing so, we don’t attack them in order to tear them down, demean them, or humiliate them – not in person, not behind their back, and not on social media. Finally, Jesus says to “pray for those who abuse you” [18]. Dietrich Bonhoeffer captured well what happens when we pray for our enemies: “Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead him to God” [19].  

Now it’s important to distinguish between loving our enemies and liking our enemies. Liking someone implies steady affection and warm fondness. Jesus doesn’t command us to like our enemies. In the fight for civil rights, Martin Luther King, Jr. observed: “I’m very happy that [Jesus] didn’t say like your enemies, because it is pretty difficult to like some people. Like is sentimental, and it is pretty difficult to like someone bombing your home; it is pretty difficult to like somebody threatening your children; it is difficult to like congressmen who spend all of their time trying to defeat civil rights. But Jesus says love them, and love is greater than like. Love is understanding, redemptive, creative, good will for all men” [20].  

Jesus isn’t demanding that we like our enemy. He isn’t telling us to agree with them, support their cause, or excuse their evil. And he isn’t calling us to capitulate to them. To the contrary, he orders us to launch a counter assault – by loving them: repaying evil with good, curses with blessing, and hostile hatred with prayer. If you think such a strategy is ill-advised and assuredly ineffective, consider Dan Allender’s provocative question: “Why is it so inconceivable that love, in this fallen world, is a weapon to destroy evil?” [21].  

Maybe at this point you’re still thinking you’d be willing – at least on your good days – to love your admittedly less-than-perfect family members and friends despite some transgressions committed against you. But really – your enemies?

Jesus Is Inviting a Comparison

To drive home the force of his command, Jesus invites us to draw a comparison. He asks in verses 46-47: “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?” Loving those who love you and being nice to those who are nice to you is good and right. But by comparison, “what more are you doing than others?” Even “tax collectors” and “Gentiles” do that. Nothing really sets you apart by loving those who love you. There is to be something radical and manifestly unnatural about the way we as Christians treat other people, respond to other people, and love other people. Jesus isn’t looking for “business-as-usual” reciprocity from those who follow him. He sets the bar much, much higher. We should display an unnatural – supernatural – love not only toward our friends but also toward our enemies.

How might our culture, our social media interactions, our political climate, and our church communities look and sound different if Christians were, in comparison to the status quo around us, known for the love we show to others, including our enemies?

It shouldn’t be difficult to feel the sting of conviction with this comparison. Most of us are pretty quick to excuse ourselves from loving certain people. For some it might be far-left Democrats, progressive liberals, or LGBTQ+ activists. For others, it might be those we label alt-right extremists, bigots, or racist white supremacists. Maybe you exempt yourself from loving militant atheists. Again, while we must be committed to standing for biblical truth and just causes and opposing evil and sinful ideas, Jesus doesn’t give us a pass on loving our enemies. We might prefer to “love people unless,” but Jesus requires us to “love people even if.”

So how do you respond to the person who cuts you off in traffic or makes an obscene gesture toward you? Do you curse them? Do you gesture back? Or do you bless them? How do you treat the person who mistreats your child? Do you seek revenge? Or do you do good to them? How do you relate to those you consider to be political opponents? Do you try to tear them down? Or do you pray for them?  These are not extreme examples. These are the very kinds of people Jesus calls us to love. How might our culture, our social media interactions, our political climate, and our church communities look and sound different if Christians were, in comparison to the status quo around us, known for the love we show to others, including our enemies?

In light of Jesus’ words, Martyn Lloyd-Jones is right to ask: “Is there anything special about you? I’m not asking whether you are living a good, moral, upright life. I’m not asking whether you say your prayers, or whether you go to church regularly … there are people who do all that and are still not Christians. But if that is all, what do ye do more than others, what is there special about you?” [22].

What’s to set us apart as Christians is love [23] – and not just love for our brothers and sisters, i.e., those who love us, but love for our enemies. Admittedly, this kind of love is very unlike the world. But it’s very much like God.

Jesus Is Appealing to Children

The fourth thing Jesus is doing is implied when Jesus tells us why to love our enemies: “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” Jesus uses the language of “your Father” rather than simply “God” in order to make the point that we are to display extraordinary love because we’re children born of our Heavenly Father. Children often bear a remarkable resemblance to their parents in their physical appearance or mannerisms. It’s not uncommon to see similarities in the way they stand, or walk, or talk. As sons and daughters of God, we are to have our Father’s heart in extending love.

God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” God is, in one sense, rather promiscuous and indiscriminate with his love [24]. Jesus is appealing to us as children to display a love that imitates the love of our Heavenly Father – a love that extends not only to the good but to the evil; not only to the just but to the unjust; not only to those who love us but to our enemies.  Our Father is kind to the evil as well as the good, so his children are called to be as well.

I am moved to love my enemy because when I was an enemy, God loved me.

Admittedly, it’s hard for us to respond in love to those who are mean to us, who insult us, and who hurt us. What enables us to demonstrate this kind of love? It helps to admit honestly that we are not as unlike our enemies as we like to think. As George Marsden points out “even though our mistreatment and neglect of our neighbors may not be as notorious or spectacular, we share a common humanity with those whose action we deplore” [25].

But what mainly enables us to love like this is recognizing that we were once God’s enemies because of our sin, and that in his grace, God loved us when we were his enemies. Paul contends that “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us … while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” [26]. Jesus also not only taught this command but, like the Father, demonstrated it by doing good to those who hated him [27], blessing those who cursed him [28], and praying on the cross for those who abused him: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” [29]. I am moved to love my enemy because when I was an enemy, God loved me. To die for a spouse, for a child, for a friend, for a country – that’s heroic. But to die for an enemy? As Alfred Plummer put it: “To return evil for good is devilish; to return good for good is human; to return good for evil is divine” [30].

What more are we doing than others?  Let’s go beyond the status quo by loving our enemies as Jesus says. Indeed, as Jesus did. For us. Let’s love like we’ve been loved.  

---

[1] These verses form the last of six units of instruction that Jesus delivers with the formula “You have heard that it was said … but I say to you …” In none of the units does Jesus contradict the teaching of the Old Testament. Rather, he emphasizes “the heart-level” internal obedience that the law demands. This concern for the heart is why Jesus prefaces these six units with the words of Matthew 5:20 about a righteousness that exceeds the external and hypocritical righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. See Jonathan Pennington, Human Flourishing and the Sermon on the Mount: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), 169-207.

[2] The question of how wide to extend the scope of “neighbor” is posed to Jesus by a lawyer in Luke 10:29. Jesus responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

[3] See Ecclesiasticus 12:7.

[4] Walter A. Elwell and Philip W. Comfort, Tyndale Bible Dictionary (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), 945.

[5] See Deuteronomy 7:1-2.

[6] See, for example, Psalm 26:5; 31:6; 129:5; 139:21-22.

[7] See Deuteronomy 18:12.

[8] However we understand what it means to “heap burning coals on his head,” when the apostle Paul cites this proverb in Romans 12:20 he concludes in verse 21: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

[9] In verse 44 the word “love” (ἀγαπᾶτε) is in the imperative mood. In New Testament Greek, the imperative mood is used to express commands. See Daniel Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 485-493.

[10] See Exodus 22:2-3; Nehemiah 4:4.

[11] See Romans 13:4.

[12] See Acts 25:11.

[13] See Luke 18:1-4.

[14] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/martin_luther_king_jr_101472

[15] See Romans 12:19.

[16] See John Piper, Come, Lord Jesus (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), 116.

[17] Our aim should be to be as charitable as possible when speaking to and about others. But this isn’t a call to use flattery or speak falsely. In the face of evil and vile conduct, the best you can say still won’t be very good.

[18] In Matthew 5:44, Jesus says to pray for “those who persecute you” (Greek. διωκόντων). Luke’s account uses the much less common “those who abuse you” (Greek ἐπηρεαζόντων). The only other time the latter word is used in the New Testament is 1 Peter 3:15-16 where it’s translated “revile” (ESV). The primary connotation is “to mistreat, with the implication of threats and abuse.” See Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York, NY: United Bible Societies, 1996), 756.

[19] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing, 1963), 166.

[20] Martin Luther King, Jr., “Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York, NY: Harper One, 1986), 47.

[21] Dan Allender, Bold Love (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1992), 183.

[22] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 1996), 320.

[23] See John 13:35: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

[24] While some are inclined to assert that God loves everyone, it is evident from the Bible that God does not love everyone in the same way. God is not, for example, indiscriminate with his electing love. God loves the church, his covenant bride, with a particular, singular devotion. 

[25] George M. Marsden, “Human Depravity: A Neglected Explanatory Category,” in Figures in the Carpet: Finding the Human Person in the American Past, ed. Wilfred M. McClay (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 32.

[26] See Romans 5:8, 10.

[27] See Acts 10:38.

[28] See 1 Timothy 1:12-15.

[29] See Luke 23:34.

[30] Quoted in John Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount. The Bible Speaks Today Series (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1978), 122.

---

Header photo by Gerome Viavant of the sculpture “Love” by Ukrainian artist Alexander Milov. Used with permission via Creative Commons Attribution license.

Mountain photo by Daniel Leone on Unsplash