Matthew 5:43-48

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? ⁴⁸ Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. 

Commentary

Vs. 43-45 ⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

 Jesus now revisits a commandment that is in the Law (Lev. 19:18) that had become distorted in its interpretation amongst the Jews. Now the reading of it there states: “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.” And so from that command to be forgiving and gracious towards each other (something that applies to us all) the Jews interpreted it to mean, “You shall love your neighbor” (i.e. “the one who is near to you”, i.e. another Jew or someone you care about, easy enough) and then they added “you shall hate your enemy” (also very easy to do, to hate those whom you dislike). Now God never commanded them there to “hate their enemy” and so by basically rewriting the command in such a fashion they left a lot of room for personally defining who ones neighbor is, (as Jesus showed them in His story of the good Samaritan), and who ones enemy is. Now because of the encompassing nature of the Kingdom of heaven, of the Lord Jesus Christ willingness to suffer and die on the Cross for us all, and thus His now inviting and gathering both “righteous” and sinful people from every nation, tribe, and language (Rev. 5:9) such an understanding of one’s neighbor could never stand in the Kingdom of heaven. Therefore instead of reaffirming the Jews misguided understanding of their Law, Jesus now says to us all: ⁴⁴ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ^{vs. 44-45}

Therefore if we are going to be true citizens of the Kingdom of heaven we are going to have to rise higher than simply not bearing grudges against those whom have hurt or wronged us, we are going to have to actively seek the well being our “enemies”, for that is clear when Jesus says to us all, “…love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you…” All which maybe contrary to our selfish sinful human hearts and ways, but is in full accord with Jesus Christ’s and God’s loving heart and caring ways.

And so instead of “hate your enemies” as the Jews taught, (and as people naturally follow and live by), the Lord Jesus Christ says to us all: “love your enemies”, because in doing so we are being like and doing just what God the Father and Christ His Son does towards us all. For when we were still enemies of God Christ suffered and died on the cross for us all. Therefore instead of hating, which is the devils domain, not God’s, we are to love, “for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God” (1 John 4:7). Again the Lord Jesus Christ says, “Bless those who curse you”, not curse back when cursed, but bless, and thus diffuse and deescalate, rather than follow the rising tide of hatred, wrath, and violence which Satan always forwards and promotes amongst people in the earth. Now in commanding that we love and bless our enemies, Jesus is not saying first try to have some warm and mushy feelings towards your enemies as My disciples, rather the Lord Jesus Christ is saying go beyond your own ordinary emotions and feelings and get to the heart of God, and thus “…do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you…” For that is the beginning of the ways of God, to first actively seek out reconciliation (and thus the well being) of those who hate Him (and us), and thus we are to be like our Father in heaven who not only created us all, but has now regenerated us all who believe in His Son, so that we who believe in Him might bear His Son’s Likeness and Love in the earth to one and all. Therefore God has given us His Holy Spirit who not only is sanctifying and transforming us, but it is God’s Spirit who is also actively and abundantly equipping and enabling us to live out His decrees and commands when we ourselves are led by Him.
Therefore the Lord Jesus Christ also says that we are to do these things that He has commanded us to do so “…that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Therefore only in doing good to one and to all do we reveal ourselves as the sons and daughters of God. For as the Lord Jesus says here God makes His sun rise on the evil and the good and He sends rain on the just and the unjust, and so we too should not try to distinguish between our “neighbors” and “enemies” when it comes to dispensing God’s grace and blessings in the earth, because God’s goodness goes out into all the world without partiality and without hypocrisy.

Vs. 46-48

⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? ⁴⁸ Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Therefore simply loving those who love you is living no different than anyone else. Indeed the Lord Jesus says that even the tax collectors do the same. Now tax collectors were those individuals whom Rome employed, specifically here, those Jews who became Rome’s agents for collecting their taxes on their own people, and so tax collectors were often hated and ostracized from their own communities because they not only set the tax levied on families and individuals which they set according to how much they thought they could get for themselves, but by compelling people to pay their taxes to Rome, and thus Caesar, they were thought traitors. Now Jesus is not opposed to our paying taxes, indeed He commands that we all pay our taxes (Matt. 22:17-21; Rom 13). Nor is Jesus opposed to tax collectors (only the manner in which they collect them would bring His disapproval, see Luke 3:12-13; 19:1-10, vs. 9 etc.). And so that is not His point here either. His point in choosing to mention tax collectors here is because of the low esteem they were held in people’s eyes. And so if anyone thought that they were any better than the hated and despised tax collectors by simply loving those who loved them, or greeting those whom they considered their brethren, then they need to think again, because as Jesus says here, they were in reality doing nothing more than those same tax collectors (and sinners) whom they looked down on. Again this all stems from Jesus commanding that we love our enemies, that we do good to those who hate us, and that we pray for those who spitefully use us and persecute us, because this is what God Himself does, for in while we were still enemies of God, God sent His only Son to suffer and die on the Cross for us all (John 3:16). Therefore when we come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ we are not to become a little clique where we only greet our fellow brethren, or show love and concern only to those who love or do good to us, for that would not be living and loving as God in Christ does. Therefore the Lord Jesus Christ calls and commands us all who believe in Him to rise much higher that the self serving standards of this world.

Scripture Quotations
The New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.