32  Love Your Enemies  (5:43-48)

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (5:43-48)

In His sixth, and last, illustration contrasting the false righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees with the true righteousness of God, Jesus contrasts their kind of love with God’s. Nowhere did their humanistic, self-centered system of religion differ more from God’s divine standards than in the matter of love. Nowhere had God’s standard been so corrupted as in the way the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees viewed themselves in relation to others. Nowhere was it more evident that they lacked the humility, mourning over their own sin, meekness, yearning for true righteousness, mercy, purity of heart, and peacemaking spirit that are to belong to God’s kingdom citizens.

As with the previous illustrations, we will look at the teaching of the Old Testament, the perversion of rabbinic tradition, and the perspective of Jesus Christ.

TEACHING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

You shall love your neighbor. (5:43b)

That phrase is the only part of the tradition that was adapted from the Old Testament. Leviticus 19:18 requires that “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” a command often repeated in the New Testament (Matt. 19:19; 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Rom. 13:9; Gal. 5:14; James 2:8). Love for others, shown in sympathetic concern and actual care for them, had always been God’s standard for human relations.

In Deuteronomy the Israelites were commanded to help their fellow countrymen by returning a lost ox, sheep, donkey, or other such animal to its owner. If the owner was not known, the animal was to be kept and cared for until the owner was discovered. Likewise, a countryman was to be helped when his animal fell down or was injured (Deut. 22:1-4). But God’s people were also commanded to do the same favors for an enemy. “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey wandering away, you shall surely return it to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying helpless under its load, you shall refrain from leaving it to him, you shall surely release it with him” (Ex. 23:4-5).

As in all the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is speaking here about personal standards of righteousness, not civil law. The “enemy” spoken of in Exodus 23 is not the enemy soldier met on the battlefield, but an individual—whether fellow countryman or foreigner—who in some way or another is antagonistic. God has never had a double standard of righteousness. His “commandment is exceedingly broad” (Ps. 119:96), and in the fullest sense an Israelite’s neighbor was anyone in need whom he might come across in his daily living. (See our Lord’s answer to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” in Luke 10:30-37.)

Job testified, “Have I rejoiced at the extinction of my enemy, or exulted when evil befell him? No, I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking for his life in a curse” (Job 31:29-30). He did nothing himself to harm his enemies and he did not rejoice when harm came to them from any other source. In other words, he did nothing, said nothing, and thought nothing against his enemies. Job did more than simply refrain from doing others harm; he gave them help. “Have the men of my tent not said, ‘Who can find one who has not been satisfied with his meat’? The alien has not lodged outside, for I have opened my doors to the traveler” (vv. 31-32).

Job lived in the patriarchal period, perhaps during the time of Abraham and certainly hundreds of years before God gave his written law to Moses. Yet at that time God’s standard of righteousness included merciful, kind, and loving care for others, a trait that characterized Job, who “was blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil” (Job. 1:1).

David prayed, “If I have rewarded evil to my friend, or have plundered him who without cause was my adversary, let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it; and let him trample my life down to the ground, and lay my glory in the dust” (Ps. 7:4-5). David knew it was wrong to do evil against someone who had wronged him, just as it was wrong to do evil against a friend. In another psalm he said, “They repay me evil for good, to the bereavement of my soul. But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer kept returning to my bosom. I went about as though it were my friend or brother; I bowed down mourning, as one who sorrows for a mother. But at my stumbling they rejoiced” (Ps. 35:12-15). David grieved over and prayed for his enemies when they were sick and in need, despite the fact that they repaid him “evil for good” and rejoiced when he himself was in trouble.

Those were not mere words for David, because we know he lived out that spirit of love. When Saul was seeking to kill him, David had an easy opportunity to take Saul’s life. To relieve himself, Saul went into a cave near Engedi where David and his men were hiding and became unknowingly at David’s mercy. David stealthily cut off a piece of Saul’s robe, but he was so sensitive about doing Saul any harm that “it came about afterward that David’s conscience bothered him because he had cut off the edge of Saul’s robe.” His men interpreted the situation as a fulfillment of God’s prophecy to give David’s enemies into his hands; but David knew better. “So he said to his men, ‘Far be it from me because of the Lord that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, since he is the Lord’s anointed.’ And David persuaded his men with these words and did not allow them to rise up against Saul” (1 Sam. 24:3-7). David would not harm Saul directly, and he would not let anyone else do so in his behalf. David’s conviction was deep and sincere. Though he had every human reason to hate Saul, David refused to return evil for evil. He would not hate his enemy.

On another occasion, after David had become king, a relative of Saul named Shimei threw rocks at David and cursed him. Again David would not retaliate or allow his men to do so on his behalf. Shimei was not God’s anointed, and yet David refused to harm him or even give an angry retort. As king he had the legal right to kill Shimei on the spot, but his devotion to a higher law prevented him. In amazing humility he said instead, “If he curses, and if the Lord has told him, ‘Curse David,’ then who shall say, ‘Why have you done so?’“ (2 Sam. 16:5-10). David gave Shimei the benefit of any doubt, suggesting that Shimei may even have been acting on the Lord’s behalf.

In Proverbs we read, “He who rejoices at calamity will not go unpunished” (Prov. 17:5). “Do not say, ‘Thus I shall do to him as he has done to me’” (24:29); but, “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink” (25:21). Throughout the Old Testament, God’s standard for His people was to treat even their enemies like their friends and families.

THE PERVERSION OF RABBINIC TRADITION

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.” (5:43)

As in each of the five preceding illustrations, Jesus repeats the essence of the contemporary traditional teaching, in this case the teaching about love. Love, said the ancients, was to be reserved for those you get along with. Enemies were to be hated.

Satan’s perversions of God’s revelation almost always touch on the truth at some point. A little truth makes deception more believable and acceptable. The rabbis and scribes had kept a part of God’s truth about love. As already indicated, You shall love your neighbor is a clear teaching of the Old Testament. “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord” (Lev. 19:18).

In spite of such clear revelation, rabbinic tradition had perverted Old Testament teaching both by what was omitted and by what was added.

PERVERSION BY OMISSION

Omitted in the tradition was the phrase “as yourself,” which was a key part of the Leviticus text but could not possibly fit into their scheme of proud self-righteousness. It simply was inconceivable that they should care for any other person as much as they cared for themselves.

The complete text of Leviticus 19:18 obviously was well known to the scribes and Pharisees. They were the supreme students, preservers, and interpreters of the law; and when copying or reading directly from Scripture they were meticulously accurate. The scribe who asked Jesus which was the greatest commandment confirmed Jesus’ answer. “Right, Teacher,” he said, “You have truly stated that . . . to love one’s neighbor as himself is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mark 12:32-33). On another occasion, when Jesus asked a certain lawyer, “What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?” the lawyer accurately quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 and the end of Leviticus 19:18, including “and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:26-27).

The words of Scripture were fully known but only partially taught and practiced; frequently they were even contradicted by rabbinic tradition. As with other scriptural standards that seemed too demanding, the one concerning love of neighbor was reduced to a humanly acceptable level.

The scribes and Pharisees knew how well they loved themselves. They loved to be honored, praised, and respected (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16; etc.), and believed they deserved it. The Pharisee who thanked God that he was “not like other people” (Luke 18:11) was typical of most Pharisees.

He was also typical of most people throughout history. For the natural man, and unfortunately for some Christians, self-love is real, active, and quite noticeable. Most people spend their lives doing and seeking things that are primarily in their own interest—their safety, comfort, income, pleasure, health, personal interests, and so on.

But the standard God had given the Jews was supernatural rather than natural, and they must have chafed under it, because they knew they could not live up to it in their own power. Besides that, they did not want to live up to it, and therefore simply excised “as yourself” from God’s standard of love.

Along with that significant omission, tradition had narrowed the meaning of neighbor to include only those people they preferred and approved of—which amounted basically to their own kind. Such obviously profane people as tax-gatherers and ordinary sinners were despised as outcasts and as not being worthy even to be considered Jews.

Tax-gatherers were renegade Jews who had sold out to the Roman oppressors and made lucrative livings by extorting excessive taxes from their fellow citizens. “Sinners” were those such as criminals and prostitutes who were publicly known for their immorality. They were the “swindlers, unjust, adulterers,” and such that the Pharisee thanked God for not being like (Luke 18:11). One of the things about Jesus that disgusted Jewish leaders the most was His open willingness to associate with, eat with, and even forgive such obviously unrighteous people (Matt. 9:11).

But even that restriction of neighbor was not narrow enough. The scribes and Pharisees also despised and looked down on the common people. They dismissed those who believed in Jesus by saying, “No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he? But this multitude which does not know the Law is accursed” (John 7:48-49). Ironically, the proud and arrogant religious leaders who knew, but perverted, the law disdained as “accursed” the common people who they felt did not know it.

PERVERSION BY ADDITION

Rabbinic tradition also perverted the Old Testament teaching about love by adding something to it: hate your enemy. Their addition was even more perverse than their omission, but it was the logical extension of their all-consuming self-interest.

It goes without saying that Gentiles were not considered neighbors. A saying of the Pharisees has been discovered that reads, “If a Jew sees a Gentile fallen into the sea, let him by no means lift him out, for it is written, ‘Thou shalt not rise up against the blood of thy neighbor,’ but this man is not thy neighbor.” It is little wonder that the Romans charged Jews with hatred of the human race.

One excuse the Jews may often have made to justify hatred of Gentiles was based on God’s command for their forefathers to drive out the Canaanites, Midianites, Moabites, Ammonites, and other pagan peoples as they conquered and possessed the Promised Land under Joshua (Josh. 3:10; cf. Ex. 33:2; Deut. 7:1; etc.). But those ancient inhabitants of Palestine were among the most vile, corrupt, and depraved known to history. They were unbelievably immoral, cruel, and idolatrous. Human sacrifice was common among them, and even one’s own children were sometimes burned alive as an offering to their pagan deities. They were a cancer that had to be cut out in order to save God’s people from utter moral and spiritual corruption.

“The wars of Israel,” writes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “were the only ‘holy wars’ in history, for they were the wars of God against the world of idols. It is not this enmity which Jesus condemns, for then He would have condemned the whole history of God’s dealing with His people. On the contrary, He affirms the Old Covenant” (The Cost of Discipleship, trans. R. H. Fuller [2d rev. ed.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960], p. 163).

Israel’s harsh dealing with those people was entirely as the instrument of God’s judgment. God’s people were never to return evil for evil, cruelty for cruelty, hatred for hatred. The idea that Gentiles, even wicked ones, were to be personally despised and hated originated from the heretical Jews’ own pride and self-righteousness, not from God’s Word.

Rabbinic tradition no doubt also tried to justify hatred of enemies on the basis of the imprecatory psalms. David wrote, “May their table before them become a snare; and when they are in peace, may it become a trap. May their eyes grow dim so that they cannot see, and make their loins shake continually. Pour out Thine indignation on them, and may Thy burning anger overtake them” (Ps. 69:22-24).

Such words did not represent David’s personal vendetta but his concern for God’s holiness and justice to be executed on those who despised the Lord’s glorious name and persecuted the Lord’s people. The basis for David’s imprecations is found in verse 9 of that same psalm: “For zeal for Thy house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach Thee have fallen on me.” David was angered because of what was done against God. When Jesus cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem, “His disciples remembered” David’s words, “that it was written, ‘Zeal for Thy house will consume me’” (John 2:17). David and Jesus shared the same righteous indignation.

When David’s own son Absalom raised an army and rebelled against his father, David prayed, “Arise, O Lord; save me, O my God! For Thou hast smitten all my enemies on the cheek; Thou hast shattered the teeth of the wicked” (Ps. 3:7; see also the superscription at the beginning of the psalm). David loved his son dearly and wept bitterly when he learned of his death (2 Sam. 18:33), but he knew Absalom was ungodly and the enemy of God’s people and of His anointed king. As such, Absalom deserved defeat—and to that end his father David prayed.

The apostle John experienced similar tension of feelings when he “took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it.” “It was in my mouth sweet as honey,” he said, “and when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter” (Rev. 10:10). He was glad because he knew the Lord would be absolutely victorious over His enemies; but he was sad because of the millions who would be destroyed because they would not turn to God.

It is one thing to defend the honor and glory of God by seeking the defeat of His detracting enemies, but quite another to hate people personally as our own enemies. Our attitude toward even the worst pagans or heretics is to love them and pray that they will turn to God and be saved. But we also pray that, if they do not turn to Him, God will judge them and remove them in order to prepare the way for His Son Jesus Christ as the rightful ruler of this world.

We are to share God’s own balance of love and justice. God loved Adam, but He cursed him. God loved Cain, but He punished him. God loved Sodom and Gomorrah, but He destroyed them. God loved Israel, but He allowed her to be conquered and exiled, and He set her aside for a while.

The scribes and Pharisees had no such balance. They had no love for justice, but only for vengeance. And they had no love for their enemies, but only for themselves. After David declared of God’s enemies, “I hate them with the utmost hatred; they have become my enemies,” he also prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way” (Ps. 139:22-24).

The scribes and Pharisees, by contrast, knew nothing either of righteous indignation or righteous love. Their only indignation was that of personal hatred, and their only love was that of self-esteem.

THE PERSPECTIVE OF JESUS CHRIST

But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (5:44-48)

In five ascending statements Jesus proclaims the kind of love that God has always required of His people and that must characterize everyone who goes by the name of the Lord.

LOVE YOUR ENEMIES

But I say to you, love your enemies. (5:44a)

Here is the most powerful teaching in Scripture about the meaning of love. The love that God commands of His people is love so great that it even embraces enemies.

William Hendriksen comments,

The scribes and Pharisees were proud, prejudiced, judgmental, spiteful, hateful, vengeful men who masqueraded as the custodians of God’s law and the spiritual leaders of Israel. To them, Jesus’ command to love your enemies must have seemed naive and foolish in the extreme. They not only felt they had the right but the duty to hate their enemies. Not to hate those who obviously deserve to be hated would be a breach of righteousness.

Jesus again sets His divine standard against the perverted human standards of that heretical Jewish tradition and reinforces it with the emphatic I. In Greek verbs a pronominal suffix indicates the subject, as here with lgo (I say), and the separate pronoun I would not have been necessary had Jesus intended simply to give information.

But here, as in each preceding instance in the sermon (w. 22, 28, 32, 34, 39), the emphatic form (eg … lgo) gives not only grammatical but theological emphasis. In placing what He said above what tradition said, He placed His word on a par with Scripture—as His hearers well understood. Jesus not only placed emphasis on what was said but on who said it. It was not just that His teaching was the standard of truth, but that He Himself was the standard of truth. “Your great rabbis, scribes, and scholars have taught you to love only those of your own preference and to hate your enemies,” Jesus was saying. “But by My own authority, I declare that they are false teachers and have perverted God’s revealed truth. The divine truth is My truth, which is that you shall love your enemies.”

As we have noted, the Old Testament concept of neighbor included even personal enemies. That is the truth Jesus expands in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The point of the parable is not primarily to answer the lawyer’s question, “And who is my neighbor?” though it does that, but to show that God’s requirement is for us to be neighbors to anyone who needs our help (Luke 10:29, 36-37).

The human tendency is to base love on the desirability of the object of our love. We love people who are attractive, hobbies that are enjoyable, a house or a car because it looks nice and pleases us, and so on. But true love is need-oriented. The Good Samaritan demonstrated great love because he sacrificed his own convenience, safety, and resources to meet another’s desperate need.

The Greek language has four different terms that are usually translated “love.” Philia is brotherly love and the love of friendship; storg is the love of family; and ers is desiring, romantic, sexual love. But the love of which Jesus speaks here, and which is most spoken of in the New Testament, is agap, the love that seeks and works to meet another’s highest welfare.

Agap love may involve emotion but it must involve action. In Paul’s beautiful and powerful treatise on love in 1 Corinthians 13, all fifteen of the characteristics of love are given in verb form. Obviously love must involve attitude, because, like every form of righteousness, it begins in the heart. But it is best described and best testified by what it does.

Above all, agap love is the love that God is, that God demonstrates, and that God gives (1 John 4:7-10). “The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us…[and] God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:5, 8). Because of His love, we can love, and “if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:11-12).

When Jesus told the disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you” (John 13:34), He had just finished washing their feet as an example of humble, self-giving love. The disciples had done nothing to inspire Jesus’ love. They were self-centered, quarrelsome, jealous of each other, and sometimes even argued with and contradicted the One whom they confessed to be their God, Savior, and Lord. Yet everything that Jesus said to them and did for them was completely and without exception for their good. That was the kind of love He commanded them to have for Him and for each other. And that is the kind of love He commands all of His followers to have even for their enemies.

The commentator R. C. H. Lenski writes,

Love’s question is never who to love—because we are to love everyone—but only how to love most helpfully. We are not to love merely in terms of feeling but in terms of service. God’s love embraces the entire world (John 3:16), and He loved each of us even while we were still sinners and His enemies (Rom. 5:8-10). Those who refuse to trust in God are His enemies; but He is not theirs. In the same way, we are not to be enemies of those who may be enemies to us. From their perspective, we are their enemies; but from our perspective, they should be our neighbors.

In 1567 King Philip II of Spain appointed the Duke of Alba as governor of the lower part of the nation. The Duke was a bitter enemy of the newly-emerging Protestant Reformation. His rule was called the reign of terror, and his council was called the Bloody Council, because it had ordered the slaughter of so many Protestants. It is reported that one man who was sentenced to die for his biblical faith managed to escape during the dead of winter. As he was being pursued by a lone soldier, the man came to a lake whose ice was thin and cracking. Somehow he managed to get safely across the ice, but as soon as he reached the other side he heard his pursuer screaming. The soldier had fallen through the ice and was about to drown. At the risk of being captured, tortured, and eventually killed—or of being drowned himself—the man went back across the lake and rescued his enemy, because the love of Christ constrained him to do it. He knew he had no other choice if he was to be faithful to His Lord (Elon Foster, New Cyclopedia of Prose Illustrations: Second Series [New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1877], p. 296).

The Scottish Reformer George Wishart, a contemporary and friend of John Knox, was sentenced to die as a heretic. Because the executioner knew of Wishart’s selfless ministering to hundreds of people who were dying of the plague, he hesitated carrying out the sentence. When Wishart saw the expression of remorse on the executioner’s face, he went over and kissed him on the cheek, saying, “Sir, may that be a token that I forgive you” (John Foxe, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, ed. W. Grinton Berry [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978], p. 252).

Our “enemies,” of course, do not always come in such life-threatening forms. Often they are ordinary people who are mean, impatient, judgmental, self-righteous, and spiteful—or just happen to disagree with us. In whatever personal relationships we have, God wants us to love. Whether a conflict is with our marriage partner, our children or parents, our friends and fellow church members, a devious business opponent, spiteful neighbor, political foe, or social antagonist, our attitude toward them should be one of prayerful love.

PRAY FOR YOUR PERSECUTORS

and pray for those who persecute you. (5:44b)

All men live with some sense of sin and guilt. And guilt produces fear, which in its ultimate form is fear of death and of what is beyond death. In various ways, therefore, most people have devised religious beliefs, rituals, and practices they are convinced will offer them some relief from guilt and judgment. Some people try to get rid of guilt simply by denying it or by denying the existence of a God who holds men accountable for sin.

Throughout history the worst persecutions have been religious. They have been the strongest against God’s people, because the divine standards He has given to them and which are seen in them are a judgment on the wickedness and corruption of false religion. God’s Word unmasks people at their most sensitive and vulnerable point, the point of their self-justification—whether that justification is religious, philosophical, or even atheistic.

Because persecution is so often the world’s response to God’s truth, the Lord assures us that, just as He was persecuted, so will we be (John 15:20). Therefore His command for us to pray for our persecutors is a command that every faithful believer may in some way have opportunity to obey. It is not reserved for believers who happen to live in pagan or atheistic lands where Christianity is forbidden or severely restricted.

Jesus taught that every disciple who makes his faith known is going to pay some price for it, and that we are to pray for those who exact that price from us. Spurgeon said, “Prayer is the forerunner of mercy,” and that is perhaps the reason why Jesus mentions prayer here. Loving enemies is not natural to men and is sometimes difficult even for those who belong to God and have His love within them. The best way to have the right attitude, the agap love attitude, toward those who persecute us is to bring them before the Lord in prayer. We may sense their wickedness, their unfairness, their ungodliness, and their hatred for us, and in light of those things we could not possibly love them for what they are. We must love them because of who they are—sinners fallen from the image of God and in need of God’s forgiveness and grace, just as we were sinners in need of His forgiveness and grace before He saved us. We are to pray for them that they will, as we have done, seek His forgiveness and grace.

Our persecutors may not always be unbelievers. Christians can cause other Christians great trouble, and the first step toward healing those broken relationships is also prayer. Whoever persecutes us, in whatever way and in whatever degree, should be on our prayer list. Talking to God about others can begin to knit the petitioner’s heart with the heart of God.

Chrysostom said that prayer is the very highest summit of self-control and that we have most brought our lives into conformity to God’s standards when we can pray for our persecutors. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the pastor who suffered and eventually was killed in Nazi Germany, wrote of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5:44, “This is the supreme demand. Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God” (The Cost of Discipleship, trans. R. H. Fuller [2d rev. ed.; New York: Macmillan, 1960], p. 166).

MANIFEST YOUR SONSHIP

in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (5:45)

To love our enemies and to pray for our persecutors shows that we are sons of [our] Father who is in heaven. The aorist tense of gensthe (may be) indicates a once and for all established fact. God Himself is love, and the greatest evidence of our divine sonship through Jesus Christ is our love. “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). “God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (l John 4:16). In fact, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (v. 20).

Loving as God loves does not make us sons of the Father, but gives evidence that we already are His children. When a life reflects God’s nature it proves that life now possesses His nature by the new birth.

One of the commonest and most damaging criticisms of Christianity is the charge that Christians do not live up to their faith. Even though the world has a limited and often distorted idea of what the gospel is, they know enough about the teachings of Christ and the life of Christ to realize that most people who go by His name do not do all that He commanded and do not live as He lived.

But even a person who has never heard of Christ or the teachings of the New Testament would suspect there is divine power behind a life that loves and cares even to the point of loving enemies—simply because such a life is so utterly uncharacteristic of human nature. A life of self-giving love gives evidence of sonship of the Father who is in heaven. That phrase emphasizes the heavenly realm in which the Lord dwells, the realm that is the source of this kind of love.

Those who are God’s children should show impartial love and care similar to what God shows. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Those blessings are given without respect to merit or deserving. If they were, no one would receive them. In what theologians traditionally have called common grace, God is indiscriminate in His benevolence. His divine love and providence in some forms benefit everyone, even those who rebel against Him or deny His existence.

An old rabbinic saying tells of the drowning of the Egyptians in the Red Sea. As the story goes, when the Egyptians were destroyed the angels began to rejoice; but God lifted up His hand and said, “The work of My hands are sunk in the sea and you would sing?” (William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, 2 vols. [rev. ed.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975], 1:176).

“The eyes of all look to Thee, and Thou dost give them their food in due time,” the psalmist testifies. “Thou dost open Thy hand, and dost satisfy the desire of every living thing” (Ps. 145:15-16). There is no good thing—physical, intellectual, emotional, moral, spiritual, or of any other sort—that anyone possesses or experiences that does not come from the hand of God. If God does that for everyone, His children should reflect that same generosity.

EXCEED YOUR FELLOW MEN

For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? (5:46-47)

If the scribes and Pharisees were certain of any one thing it was that they were far better than everyone else. But Jesus again cuts through their blind hypocrisy and shows that their type of love is nothing more than the ordinary self-centered love that was common even to tax-gatherers and Gentiles—to whom the scribes and Pharisees thought they were most undeniably superior.

Those were probably the most devastating and insulting words these religious leaders had ever heard, and they must have been enraged. Tax-gatherers were traitorous extortioners, and almost by definition were dishonest, heartless, and irreligious. In the eyes of most Jews, Gentiles were outside the pale of God’s concern and mercy, fit only for destruction as His enemies and the enemies of those who thought they were His people.

But the love of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus said, was no better than the love of those whom they despised above all other people. You love those who love you, and that is the same type of love that even the tax-gatherers and the Gentiles exhibit. “Your righteousness,” He charged, “is therefore no better than theirs.”

The citizens of God’s kingdom are to have a much higher standard of love, and of every other aspect of righteousness, than does the rest of the world. Christians should be noticed on the job because they are more honest and more considerate. Christians should be noticed in their communities because they are more helpful and caring. Christians should be noticed anywhere in society they happen to be because the love they exhibit is a divine love. “Let your light shine before men,” Jesus had already said, “in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). As J. Oswald Sanders comments, “The Master expects from His disciples such conduct as can be explained only in terms of the supernatural.”

BE LIKE YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER

Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (5:48)

The sum of all that Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount—in fact, the sum of all He teaches in Scripture—is in those words. The great purpose of salvation, the goal of the gospel, and the great yearning of the heart of God is for all men to become like Him.

Teleios (perfect) basically means to reach an intended end or a completion and is often translated “mature” (1 Cor. 2:6; 14:20; Eph. 4:13; etc.). But the meaning here is obviously that of perfection, because the heavenly Father is the standard. The “sons of [the] Father” (v. 45) are to be perfect, as [their] heavenly Father is perfect. That perfection is absolute perfection.

That perfection is also utterly impossible in man’s own power. To those who wonder how Jesus can demand the impossible, He later says, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26). That which God demands, He provides the power to accomplish. Man’s own righteousness is possible, but is so imperfect that it is worthless; God’s righteousness is impossible for the very reason that it is perfect. But the impossible righteousness becomes possible for those who trust in Jesus Christ, because He gives them His righteousness.

That is precisely our Lord’s point in all these illustrations and in the whole sermon—to lead His audience to an overpowering sense of spiritual bankruptcy, to a “beatitude attitude” that shows them their need of a Savior, an enabler who alone can empower them to meet God’s standard of perfection.