Love Your Enemies
by Gary McDade
The gentle Savior pled with the human family to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27). And in this, His teaching was, and still is, revolutionary today. Revolutionary: “involving or causing a complete or dramatic change.” Emerging from Old Testament teaching was the concept of being saved from your enemies, or delivered from them.
Consider Numbers 10:9, “And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you, then ye shall blow an alarm with the trumpets; and ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies.” Also look at II Kings 17:39 in this connection, “But the Lord your God ye shall fear; and He shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.” Fearing God instead removes the fear and danger emanating from enemies; this is the deliverance promised here.
The obvious question is, “How could anyone possibly love their enemies?” The word “how” is defined as “By what way or manner; by what means?” Did you know that Jesus actually answers this very question? He said, “But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil” (Luke 6:35). Many people depart from Christ simply because they do not want to do what He is teaching His disciples to do. Yet other reasons exist for why everyone should love their enemies.
Why should everyone love their enemies? Because the opposite of love is hate, and hate is destructive. Not only will it keep a person from being a follower of Christ and being saved eternally, but it will also destroy a person from within, giving the enemy victory over the child of God. The deliverance from the enemy spoken of earlier in the Old Testament will no longer be possible. Love of enemies is done by those who “shall be children of the Highest.”
A further incentive exists for all to love their enemies from the warning of the inspired apostle Peter, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world” (I Peter 5:8-9). Simply put, Paul taught, “But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him” (Colossians 3:8-10).
The Bible urges, “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:18-21).
