YE HAVE heard that it hath been said ‘THOU shall love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy’. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you”. – Matt. 5:43, 44 (KJV).
The injunction. “love your enemies” (Matt. 5:43) is the very climax of our Lord’s teaching on Christian living, and, one of the greatest and most glorious things that can be found, even in the teachings of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It is one of the six illustrations Christ used to explain and display His teaching on the meaning of God’s holy law for man.
Before going further with the exposition on this subject, it is important to dismiss one textual point which tends to create a seeming disparity in the rendition of this passage in versions of the Bible. In the Revised Version there is a slight difference in Verse 44. In the Authorised King James Version one reads: “But I say unto you love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you” In the Revised Version it is just: “Love your enemies and pray for them that persecute you”. The Authorised Version is therefore fuller than the Revised Version, and contains a number of clauses which the Revised Version lacks. The explanation is simply, a matter of textual criticism. There are many ancient manuscripts containing the gospels with slight variations among them, which, however, do not affect any matter of vital doctrine. Many of the recognized manuscripts do not contain this fullness found in the Authorised Version, and that accounts for the absence of such details in this passage in the Revised Version. However, in dealing with this topic, it appears better to adopt the rendition of the Authorised Version.
This passage, (Matt. 5:43, 44) became necessary to correct the error of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Scribes under Juduisim which taught “Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and late thine enemies” this immediately raises the question of where did they find this in the Old Testament, since they eloquently claim to be learned in the law and the prophet. Of course there is NO such a statement throughout the OT. In their nature they insisted that the ‘neighbour meant only an Israelite, so they taught the Jews to love the Jews and to regard every other person, not only as an alien but as an enemy. This, they further taught as a patriotic duty to hate all non-Jews. The proof of this can be found in secular history of the hatred and the bitterness which tore the ancient world apart the Jews regarded all other people as dogs and many Gentiles despised the Jews thus a terrible ‘middle wall of partition’ divided the world causing intense animosity. They thought they were honouring God by despising every non-Jew, claiming that it was their duty to God to hate their “enemies”. Clearly no such statement or injunction can be found anywhere in the OT.
However, there are a number of events and statements in the Scriptures that seem to encourage people to hate their enemies. This is not intended to be any defence or justification or mitigation of the ungodly act of hating anybody friend or enemy at all. It is considered necessary to throw some light on this issue because it has often caused, and is still causing considerable difficulties in the minds of many Christians. But it must be emphasized that, nowhere in the OT, do we find: “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy” some of such statements and events include:
1. When the Jews entered the Promised Land of Canaan, they were literally commanded by God to exterminate the Canaanites. This was because of the sins of the Canaanites which subsisted for ages (see Ex. 23:23).
2. They were told not to treat the Amorites, the Moabites and Midianites with kindness.
(a) THE AMORITES under King Sihon with his capital at Hesbon in the East Jordanic country had refused the Israelites permission to pass through their territory when the Israelites were nearing the promised land. King Sihon gathered the Amorite army and attacked the Israelites (Num. 21:21), but this was to be the King’s last battle for he and his army were destroyed and lost their possession to Israel in C 1401 BC.
King Og of Bashan another Amorite king, ruled over sixty cities (Num. 21:23; 32:33; Deut. 4:47; 31:4). He assembled his army which attacked Israel. This led to Israel’s immediate possessing their territory (Deut. 3:8-10) Israel’s next encounter with the Amorites was with the anti-Gibionite confederacy of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jermuth, Lachish and Eglon (Josh. 10:1-43). The last hostile stand of the Amorites against Israel was in the northern confederacy in which the Amorites were annihilated in C 1400 BC. near the waters of Maron (Josh. 11:1-14)
(b) The Moabite and their Midianite kinsmen co-operated peacefully with the Israelites when they entered Canaan, but as time progressed they drew the Covenant children of Abraham into Idolatary through adultery and fornication with their heathen daughters and the anger of God was kindled against them (see Num. 25:1-18).
2. In the later history of Israel’s entry into Cannan there is the story of God instructing the Israelites to blot out from under the heaven, the memory of the Amelekites, who were always bitter enemies of Israel. Their first attack on Israel was made (in time of Israel’s distress) at Rephidim in a battle in which the Amelekites were doomed to utter destruction. Their remnant rose again against Israel in the days of King Hezekiah and were finally annihilated (1 Chro. 4:43).
3. It was God’s law that if any man murdered another, the relative of the murdered man was allowed to kill the murderer, if he could catch him before he entered one of the six cities of refuge (see Num. 35:19).
However, the main difficulty encountered by Christians with this subject is the whole problem of the so-called imprecation Psalms in which certain Psalms which express vehement anger and curses (imprecations) against enemies and evil-doers. There are also occasional shorter passages of a similar nature elsewhere in the Psalms. These have been a sore perplexity to many a reader. They include: Palms 35; 58; 59; 69; 73; 109; and 137. The lesser passages include Ps. 5:10; 6:10; 28:4; 31:17, 18; 40:14, 15; 41:10; 55:9, 15; 70:2,3; 149:7-9.
To some minds, these imprecatory psalms and passages are perhaps a more difficult abstacle than any other in the way of a settled confidence in the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures. There can be little doubt or question that it was such OT imprecations that seemed to justify such injunctions, as while they were to love their neighbours, they must hate their enemies.
Perhaps, it might be reasonable to regard all the Jewish various injunctions including the imprecatory Psalms, as always being judicial and never something individual.
In writing the Psalms, the Psalmist is not so much writing about himself, as about the church; and his Psalms are very much concerned in every single instance in the imprecatory Psalms, with the glory of God, as he writes about the things that are being done to Him, he, in the same Palms, writes about things being done to God’s people and to God’s church. He is more concerned about the honour of God. He, it is evidently clear, was moved to write the Psalms by his zeal for the house of God.
To reject the principle of judicial character of the imprecatory Psalms is to, at once be involved in insoluble problem with regard to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Here, He is telling us to love our enemies. In Matt. 23 he lists a number of woes on the Pharisees and Scribes for their perverse teaching on this subject. How then does one reconcile the exhortation to love one’s enemies with those woes and all other things He said about them, if one does not give His words a judicial character?
(To be continued)
