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Mat_5:44. Observe the entire love which is here required: disposition, word, act, intercession; “primo fere continetur tertium, et secundum quarto” (Bengel). But it is as ἀγαπᾶν (to esteem highly), not as φιλεῖν (amare), that we are required to love our enemy. Comp. on Joh_11:5. It rests upon the clearness and strength of the moral will to separate between the person of the enemy and his hostile disposition towards us, so that the latter does not prevent us from esteeming the former, from blessing it, and applying to it acts of kindness and intercession. The Christian receives this moral clearness and strength, and the consecration of enthusiasm thereto, in his self-experience of the divine love of one’s enemy in Christ (Mat_18:21 ff.; Eph_4:32; Php_2:1 f.; 1Jn_4:10 f.).