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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
‘I say unto you, Love your enemies.’
Mat_5:44
I. Pride and party spirit.—It is difficult for us in these days of Christian toleration to form any idea of the pride and party spirit that raged in the bosom of an orthodox Jew in the days of our Lord. But though the world in the present day is in this respect more enlightened in theory, yet its practice is little better than the practice of the Jews. By the term world we do not mean anything uncharitable. We do not mean that we ourselves are as good as we ought to be, and that others are not. By the world we do not mean this person or that. In modern life, just because everybody is not alike a sincere Christian, there is much bigotry, injustice, animosity, vindictiveness, and party spirit about in the air, and whole classes of people are infected by these evil passions, and do not seem to know that they are unchristian. Great, very great is our danger, therefore, lest we, mingling, as we cannot help mingling, in the great currents of feeling which are surging and swaying about us, should unthinkingly give up our hearts to this bitter, vindictive, unfair, malignant way of looking at our fellow-creatures. I do not mean that we are to pretend that what everybody does is right. It is one thing to reprove and confute; another thing to be unfair and to hate.
II. Who is our enemy?—When the lawyer asked our Lord, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ he drew from our Saviour the memorable parable of the Good Samaritan. It is important for us here to ask, ‘Who is our enemy?’ Alas, there is no difficulty in answering that question. Has nobody ever injured you? Have you never been ridiculed? Has none ever said unkind things behind your back which have been carefully repeated to you by candid friends? Has nobody ever played you a mean trick? Has nobody ever passed you by out of partiality for some other? Has nobody ever insulted you, or harmed your friends? Have your plans never been thwarted? Have you never lacked that respect and attention which your self-esteem led you to expect? You must indeed have been singularly lucky if none of these things ever happened to you. Yes, in this life we all of us have our enemies, even if they be not very tremendous foes.
III. Christ’s law of love.—‘I say unto you, Love your enemies.’ A hard task to us in our natural state. Unaided we cannot think kindly of the offender. Our lips would more easily form themselves into a curse than a blessing. The Holy Spirit of God alone can help us to the calm, tranquil, undisturbed feeling of Christian benevolence which our Lord commands. That is why our Lord commands it with such confidence. He is urging it for our own sakes. It is because such boilings of our blood prevent us from being what we should be. They are of the devil, not of God. Christ gives us the reason; ‘That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.’
Are we, like the world, and like the Jews, hating our enemies? or are we struggling, in obedience to our Master, to love them, to bless them, to do good to them, to pray for them? Pray more earnestly than ever before for the conquering, glorious, powerful grace of the Holy Spirit in this thing; that we may reach this happy, unruffled, cheerful, hopeful temper.
Archdeacon Sinclair.
Illustration‘There is no grander story in history than the tale of Fra Giovanni Galberta. He was a cavalier of Florence, and his brother had been killed in a duel by an enemy, and in accordance with the custom of the time it became his duty to avenge his brother’s death, and all his mind was given to tracking out the slayer of his brother, to slay him in turn. For some time he sought for him in vain, until at last, one Good Friday morning, as he was riding up a hill opposite Florence, at a turn in the road that wound up its side, he suddenly came face to face with the man whom he had so long been seeking. He leapt from his horse and drew his sword, and his enemy, being entirely unarmed, could only fall on his knees and extend his hands and implore pardon. Galberta raised his sword above the head of his foe, and as he did so he saw a crucifix set up to mark the road for the pilgrimage to the church, and as he cast his eye on the figure on the cross, he was struck with the likeness between it and the figure that knelt at the base before him. He paused, drew back his sword for a moment, and, gazing still on the crucifix, he seemed to see the figure on the cross bow His head before him. He caught the meaning of the lesson and sheathed his sword, and flung his arms round his enemy’s neck and pardoned him, and they swore eternal friendship, and there and then agreed to withdraw from the world with all its malice and hatred, with all its ungodliness and untruth. They withdrew from the world, and founded the great monastery of Vallombrosa. How beautiful a story, showing how the power of the cross has brought peace into the world at every age, how the pleading figure of our Lord bids us to lay aside all malice and all uncharitableness. Can we gaze upon the cross of Christ and retain any ill-will or any ill-feeling in the face of that exhibition of boundless forgiveness and love? Cannot we cast ourselves before it and strive to roll away the oppressive, the unspeakable burden of an unforgiving spirit?’
WHO ARE OUR ENEMIES?
One result of this is that our Lord’s command to love our enemies has become somewhat vague to us. ‘Who are our enemies?’ we ask. We begin almost to doubt whether the command has any real meaning for us, just because we feel that all the world is at peace with us. But this would be a shallow view of the matter. A Christian must have enemies. If he is honestly trying to live up to the standard which has been set him by Jesus Christ, he must be brought into antagonism with those whose standard of duty falls short of the Divine ideal.
In asking ourselves how we may best interpret the phrase ‘our enemies’ under the conditions of modern life, we have to take two things specially into account—politics and religion.
I. Political opponents.—Some people regard their political opponents as enemies in a very definite sense. Fortunately it is not very common for political antagonism to degenerate into personal animosity in England. But we all know of cases in which some burning political question has permanently broken up old friendships. Men sometimes feel so strongly the harm to the country which the other side is doing that they cannot help introducing a touch of personal enmity into their relations with their opponents. That is perhaps natural. But our Lord says to us, emphatically, Love your enemies. Love your political enemies. Protest as much as you like by all fair methods of argument and in all constitutional ways against their principles and their policy, but do not misrepresent them, do not malign them, do not impute to them motives which they would disavow. Show that you love them by being willing to meet them on neutral, non-political ground, in a spirit of kindliness and goodwill. Whatever our party views may be, we shall all be the better for being reminded from time to time how clear our duty is in this respect.
II. Enmity amongst Christians.—It is, however, in matters of religious controversy that our great difficulty lies nowadays in obeying the command to love our enemies. Let me put aside altogether any question of our relations towards other branches of the Christian Church. It is so unnatural, so unjustifiable, so plainly contrary to the Spirit of our Founder for any Christians to regard other Christians as enemies that we may refuse to consider the command from this point of view. However great our differences may be, nothing can excuse our supposing that Christ intended any reference to those who like ourselves are His followers, when He bids us love our enemies.
III. Relation between Christians and non-Christians.—But the relation between Christians and non-Christians is a very different thing. In a sense, and with certain qualifications, those who do not accept Christianity are the enemies of Christians. Sometimes the enmity of the anti-Christian element in modern society is very strongly emphasized. Very different from this small body of extremists are those who in far greater numbers accept the Agnostic position. These are, many of them, surely enemies whom, as Christians, we can without any hesitation love. If there be sometimes traceable in some of them a spirit of semi-contemptuous tolerance for the weaker natures which still cling to the old traditional beliefs, how many of them there are with whom we can feel much sympathy. They are the enemy, indeed, but they are ‘our friend the enemy.’ They are not entirely with us, and yet they can barely be said to be against us. They go with us as far as they can; they would like to go even further if they could. They have a deep reverence for the character and teaching of Jesus; they have a firm belief in the truth of God’s presence in the world and of man’s communion with God. Nothing can be of more moment to the future of Christianity than the relations which we establish with these men and others more or less like them. Now let us be quite clear on one point: in our desire to be on sympathetic terms with those who do not accept Christianity in our sense, we must not juggle away our own beliefs, we must not blur the outlines of our Christian creed. Nothing is gained by starting a so-called new theology, which does not really evade difficulties and cannot, strictly speaking, claim to be new. But this point made clear, let us try to establish close personal relations with those who are outside the pale of the Church.
The Rev. H. G. Woods, d.d.
Illustrations(1) ‘There is a striking passage in the Talmud, dealing with the creation of man, which bears on the question of forgiveness and mercy. “When God would have created man He called before His Throne the council of the highest angels. ‘Create him not,’ said the angel of justice; ‘he will be hard and cruel to those weaker than himself; he will be unforgiving and unjust to his brother man.’ ‘Create him not,’ said the angel of peace; ‘he will redden the earth with human slaughter, with confusion, horror, and war; the first-born of his race will slay his brother.’ ‘Create him not,’ said the angel of truth; ‘he will lie for his party, he will lie for his religion, he will lie for his gain, he will lie most of all for envy and malice.’ And they would have said more, but there stepped forth and kneeled before the Throne the angel of forgiveness and mercy. ‘Create him,’ she prayed; ‘create him in Thine own noble image, and as the object of Thy love; when all others of Thy ministers forsake him I will be with him, I will lovingly aid him, I will touch his heart with pity, I will make him forgiving and merciful to the unfortunate and to those weaker than himself.’ ” ’
(2) ‘The story is told of Archbishop Cranmer that if one would be sure of having him do a good turn, it was necessary to do him some ill one, for though he loved to do good to all, yet especially would he watch for the opportunity to do good to such as wronged him.’