In Matthew 5:43-44, Jesus tells His hearers to love their enemies: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
I see several reasons why God would want us to love our enemies.
1. He knows our tendency as angry human beings to do worse to our enemies than they deserve. Our hatred is seldom bothered by ideas like fairness. Example out of a newspaper clip: There was an argument at a party in L.A. where a person heatedly goes home, returns with a gun, and shoots the other person. Really?
2. Hatred destroys us from within. Jesus came to save us, and that includes not to just “go to heaven when you die,” but to save from the sinful thoughts and intents of the heart that lead to destruction of the inner life — the temper tantrums, bitterness, anger, violence, and prejudices exhibited by those who harbor hatred.
3. We already know how to hate; we already know how to love conditionally — “you rub my back and I’ll rub yours.” So the verse quoted above continues: “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers,fn what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” (Matthew 5:46-47).
We don’t naturally know how to love with God’s love. To command us to love our enemies forces us to think about love in a whole new way, and to seek God for help in ways different than we’re accustomed to. We tend to seek help for things and situations; here, we are directed to seek help for the inner issues that prevent this love.
4. Jesus’ words continue: “so that you may be sons of your Father who is 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. You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:45, 48).
God is forming a people for his kingdom, and wants vessels who will demonstrate a love for humanity that wasn’t clearly seen in the OT until Jesus came and died for our sins. Through love, the church is supposed to show others what God is really like. Through love, God may move through his body on earth. Therefore through love, we become more like Him, who died on the cross for His enemies.
God has the prerogative of hating his enemies. He has set the bar of goodness high and hates what enemies to his ways have done to corrupt the entire earth. God saw the wickedness of man was great upon the earth I Noah’s day and it never got better. He waited in patience until there was one last righteous man standing, Noah.
God hates anyone who would usurp his program to save us gloriously, even to warn us that it would be better for a millstone to be tied to our necks and be cast into the sea than to rob the faith of one of the little ones. Yet, through love we can redeem such ones and restore them; through hate, we’ll harden them.
