The Christ taught His disciples to love their enemies. Why is this? The Christ also taught that His yolk was light. How can that be if one is to love one’s enemies? In this work, I explore the concept of the believer in the Lord called to love the nonbeliever, being the wicked. I consider Christ speaking on loving one’s enemies by examining some examples of Christ and His disciple Stephen loving the wicked. I also consider that a person can soundly reason that, given the Lord’s gospel, they truly should love their enemy.
Jesus Christ taught, “But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat”. How is it that Christ’s teaching to love one’s enemies doesn’t fall on foreign ears regardless of who the listener is? How radical of a teaching is it and does the Christ mean it to be taken literally? If so, are there examples in Scripture of one loving one’s enemies?
We see an example of Jesus Christ loving His enemy when He corrected Peter for having cut off the ear of Malchus. We learned from the Scripture that the Christ prayed to His Father three times that the cup that was given to Him be taken from Him but it wasn’t. Surely Malchus was working in the capacity of an enemy to Christ by looking to have Him taken into captivity and punished. Why would the Lord have Him healed him in the manner in which He did if He was not being loving to His enemy? The Scripture taught, “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” Was it that Malchus was a member of the world that God had intended to be saved through the Christ and had yet to come to believe upon him as Lord and Saviour?
An example of one of Christ’s disciples loving his enemies can be seen with the stoning of Stephen. The Holy Ghost had been speaking through Stephen and the people’s response was to behave as enemies towards Stephen as …”they were cut to their heart, and gnashed on him with their teeth.” Is it that Stephen loved them when he, “being filled with the Holy Ghost,” said,”Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God,”? The enemies to Stephen and the Lord would not listen anymore to them and mobbed Stephen, casting him out of the city and stoning him. The Bible reports that Stephen “…cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” Is it that Stephen both knew very well why to have love for his enemies and did love his enemies unto death?
Why should a believer love his enemies? The obvious answer to this is because the good Lord has commanded him too. Is there reasoning behind loving one’s enemies though? Is it that, at first notion, one might consider the idea of loving one’s enemies as being radical to the point of perverse and going hand in hand with being an enemy to oneself. Is it that many believers hear that it is for them to love their enemies but fail to take this command literally for they see no reasoning behind it and look to shrug off the command as though it doesn’t apply to them? Do they consider they sense it to be too heavy a burden? Could it be that it doesn’t make sense to the believer?
Is it that to appreciate the teaching that one is to love one’s enemy one is best to take into consideration salvation? Consider the salvation of the saved and the condition of the lost with respect to eternity. For instance, someone who has believed upon the sinless blood of Jesus Christ and thus has been saved is no longer of the lost. The person who has been saved is a person of the greatest privilege for they have come to believe upon the life of God’s only begotten Son who willingly gave His sinless life on the cross and one reason for which being that the sins of the world could be forgiven. If someone be lost, they have yet to believe upon the Lord, if ever they will, and while lost they are in danger of eternal damnation. Is it for the believer to recognize this and think and behave accordingly? Methinks it is.
Christ taught to fear not thy enemy but rather to fear God who has the power to cast one’s soul and body into the fire of hell. Salvation is of utmost importance to the believer yet how many believers have truly considered their salvation with fear and trembling? How many believers give daily thanks for the salvation that only the Holy Lord can provide? How many believers recognize that they are saved by God’s grace and love and that there is not one believer that is worthy of Jesus Christ and the sinless life that He lived? Is it for he that doesn’t appreciate salvation that to love one’s enemy makes no sense whatsoever?
For the believer, the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ has shined into him thereby giving him the gift of eternal life. The wicked, on the other hand, have yet to receive that light, if ever they will. If one is to realize this, would it be that one’s enemy takes on a different dimension? That is to say, is it that one’s enemy appears to be different than they had previously appeared to be? Could it be that the enemy appears now to be a person in the gravest of dangers and thereby a person of the gravest of misfortunes? Is it for the believer to have feelings of true sympathy for all of those humans that have not come to believe upon the risen Lord Jesus Christ?
To love thy enemy is a teaching of Jesus Christ. The teaching can sound radical and at times how is it that it doesn’t appear to be the last thing a person can or wants to do? Given a richer appreciation of what it means to be a believer in the Lord’s gospel can help one overcome these hurdles to fulfilling Christ’s command of loving one’s enemy. By abiding by the command of working out, “your own salvation with fear and trembling.” one can possibly get this richer appreciation and thereby come to a deeper understanding of what their enemy truly is and how they should be accordingly treated.
