Matthew 5:43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’
Matthew 5:44 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,
Matthew 5:45 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.
The noun form, agapē, is confined almost exclusively to the Bible. The agapē of the NT is love in its highest and truest form, the love than which there is no greater—love that impels a man to sacrifice himself for others (John 15:13). It implies reverence for God and respect for one’s fellow men. It is a divine principle of thought and action that modifies the character, governs the impulses, controls the passions, and ennobles the affections. See on Luke 6:30.
Matthew 5:43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’
To the Jews a “neighbor” was a fellow Israelite, either by birth or by conversion to Judaism. Even the halfbreed Samaritans were excluded, and considered strangers. In the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37) Jesus swept away this narrow concept by proclaiming the brotherhood, or neighborhood, of all men. Christian love seeks the good of all men, whatever their race or creed. “Neighbor” literally means a “near-dweller.”
Hate thine enemy. Hatred or contempt for others is the natural product of pride in self. Thinking themselves, as sons of Abraham (John 8:33; see on Matt. 3:9), superior to other men (cf. Luke 18:11), the Jews looked with contempt on all Gentiles.
It was as if Jesus said, “The law says to love your neighbor; I say, love even your enemies” (see Matt. 5:44). He then goes on to explain why we should love our enemies—because God does so (vs. 45–48) and because we are sons of God (Matt. 5:45; 1 John 3:1, 2).
Matthew 5:44 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,
The command would be impossible if it enjoined men to philein their enemies, for they could not feel toward their enemies the same emotional warmth of affection that they feel toward the immediate members of their families, nor is that expected.
Philein is spontaneous, emotional, and is nowhere commanded in the NT. Agape, on the other hand, can be and is commanded, for it is under the control of the will. To agape our bitterest enemies is to treat them with respect and courtesy and to regard them as God regards them.
Matthew 5:45 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.
The children of God are those who are partakers of His nature. It is not earthly rank, nor birth, nor nationality, nor religious privilege, which proves that we are members of the family of God; it is love, a love that embraces all humanity.
Even sinners whose hearts are not utterly closed to God’s Spirit, will respond to kindness; while they may give hate for hate, they will also give love for love. But it is only the Spirit of God that gives love for hatred. To be kind to the unthankful and to the evil, to do good hoping for nothing again, is the insignia of the royalty of heaven, the sure token by which the children of the Highest reveal their high estate.
The Jews attributed to God the same spirit of hatred for sinners and non-Jews that they themselves felt. But whether it be the blessings of nature or of salvation, “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34, 35).
Matthew 5:46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
What reward have you? That is, “What particular credit is that to you? What is there special about that?”
Matthew 5:47 And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so?
The universal greeting of the Orient, shalom, or salaam, “peace,” includes the express wish that the one to whom it is spoken may enjoy every spiritual and material blessing.
Mat 5:48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
If you are the children of God you are partakers of His nature, and you cannot but be like Him. Every child lives by the life of his father.
If you are God’s children, begotten by His Spirit, you live by the life of God. In Christ dwells “all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9); and the life of Jesus is made manifest “in our mortal flesh” (2 Corinthians 4:11).
That life in you will produce the same character and manifest the same works as it did in Him. Thus you will be in harmony with every precept of His law; for “the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul.” Psalm 19:7 , margin.
Through love “the righteousness of the law” will be “fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Romans 8:4.
Matthew 5:47 And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so?
The word “therefore” implies a conclusion, an inference from what has gone before. Jesus has been describing to His hearers the unfailing mercy and love of God, and He bids them therefore to be perfect.
Because your heavenly Father “is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil” (Luke 6:35), because He has stooped to lift you up, therefore, said Jesus, you may become like Him in character, and stand without fault in the presence of men and angels.
The conditions of eternal life, under grace, are just what they were in Eden—perfect righteousness, harmony with God, perfect conformity to the principles of His law. The standard of character presented in the Old Testament is the same that is presented in the New Testament.
This standard is not one to which we cannot attain. In every command or injunction that God gives there is a promise, the most positive, underlying the command. God has made provision that we may become like unto Him, and He will accomplish this for all who do not interpose a perverse will and thus frustrate His grace.
With untold love our God has loved us, and our love awakens toward Him as we comprehend something of the length and breadth and depth and height of this love that passes knowledge.
By the revelation of the attractive loveliness of Christ, by the knowledge of His love expressed to us while we were yet sinners, the stubborn heart is melted and subdued, and the sinner is transformed and becomes a child of heaven.
God does not employ compulsory measures; love is the agent which He uses to expel sin from the heart. By it He changes pride into humility, and enmity and unbelief into love and faith.
The Jews had been wearily toiling to reach perfection by their own efforts, and they had failed. Christ had already told them that their righteousness could never enter the kingdom of heaven. Now He points out to them the character of the righteousness that all who enter heaven will possess.
Throughout the Sermon on the Mount He describes its fruits, and now in one sentence He points out its source and its nature: Be perfect as God is perfect. The law is but a transcript of the character of God. Behold in your heavenly Father a perfect manifestation of the principles which are the foundation of His government.
God is love. Like rays of light from the sun, love, and light and joy flow out from Him to all His creatures. It is His nature to give. His very life is the outflow of unselfish love.
“His glory is His children’s good; His joy, His tender Fatherhood.”
He tells us to be perfect as He is, in the same manner. We are to be centers of light and blessing to our little circle, even as He is to the universe. We have nothing of ourselves, but the light of His love shines upon us, and we are to reflect its brightness.
“In His borrowed goodness good,” we may be perfect in our sphere, even as God is perfect in His.
Jesus said, Be perfect as your Father is perfect. If you are the children of God you are partakers of His nature, and you cannot but be like Him. Every child lives by the life of his father.
If you are God’s children, begotten by His Spirit, you live by the life of God. In Christ dwells “all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9); and the life of Jesus is made manifest “in our mortal flesh” (2 Corinthians 4:11).
That life in you will produce the same character and manifest the same works as it did in Him. Thus, you will be in harmony with every precept of His law; for “the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul.” Psalm 19:7 , margin. Through love “the righteousness of the law” will be “fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Romans 8:4.