Summary
Love Who?
The call to love permeates Holy Scripture. Leviticus 19:18 commands, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus declares in John 15:12, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." And 1 John 4:7 urges, "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God." Straightforward enough—until we start to ask whom we are bound to love, and discover how easily this clear command gets twisted.
In Matthew 5:43, Jesus addresses exactly that distortion in the Sermon on the Mount: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'" The people had heard it, but it had never been said in Scripture. The rabbinical teaching of the day had bolted "hate your enemy" onto the Law and shrunk the meaning of "neighbor" down to one's own kind. Yet Leviticus forbids vengeance and grudge-bearing, and Exodus 23:4-5 requires that even an enemy's wandering ox be returned and his burdened donkey relieved. Biblically, a neighbor is anyone in need.
Jesus then drives the command into territory the world finds impossible: "But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven" Matthew 5:44-45. We do not become children of God by loving our enemies; rather, when by grace we love them, we give evidence of the Father to whom we already belong. He sends sun and rain on the evil and the good alike—the common grace of God—and our love for all people reflects that same indiscriminate kindness. The pointed questions follow: if you love only those who love you, what reward is that? Even tax collectors and Gentiles—the very people the crowd despised—manage that much. The bar is set higher because the Father is higher.
This is agape love—the highest form, self-sacrificial love. It may carry emotion, and it certainly involves attitude, but it always issues in action. The fifteen characteristics of love in 1 Corinthians 13 are all verbs. 1 John 4:9-11 shows the pattern: "God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world." Sent. An action. The parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 makes the same point with another despised category: a Samaritan—an enemy in Jewish eyes—is the one who binds wounds, pays the innkeeper, and proves himself neighbor.
The deepest ground of this command is the gospel itself. Romans 5:8-10 declares, "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." That is who we were by nature—enemies of God—and yet Christ bore our sin on the cross. He loved His enemies, and by His blood He has reconciled them. So when Jesus concludes, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" Matthew 5:48, the word strikes us first as Law—exposing how far we fall short—and then as Gospel: in the waters of baptism we are cloaked in Christ's righteous garment, and the Father looks upon us and sees the perfection of His Son.
So, “Love Who?” Even the difficult people. Even those whose personalities grate, whose politics differ, whose priorities are the inverse of ours. Even the ones we simply don't like. We will fall short of this often—simul iustus et peccator, saint and sinner at once—and God keeps coming with His word of grace, lifting us up and shaping us into a different people in the world: His people. The love that reaches enemies is not something we can manufacture; it is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and when it appears in us it brings glory to the One who first loved the likes of us.
Video citations
- “Love Who?” 9-17-23 — Would you open your Bibles, please, with me, to the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew for our study this morning? Matthew the fifth chapter if you're using a Pew edition of Holy Scripture,…