Anyone who might be tempted to think he can actually keep the Law of Moses is bound to come to grief over this passage. Who can possibly love his enemies? Who would even want to?

No, we don’t even think of love in this way. Instead, we love those who we expect to love us in return. And that’s because love always involves vulnerability in one way or another. We are selective about whom we love because it just makes sense to protect yourself against potential heartbreak. So why would you want to open yourself to someone you know is going to hurt you? No, when it comes to love, deep down in our hearts, we think the tax-collectors and Gentiles are right (vv. 46-47).

But in verse 45, Jesus says that only indiscriminate love, only self-sacrificial love is anything like God’s love. For after all, that’s exactly the love that Jesus has shown to all of us. He knew exactly what was going to happen to Him when He took on flesh and came into this world. He knew the pain and the shame that the cross would bring – David had predicted it all 1000 years before (Psalm 22:16-18). He knew He would be despised and rejected by His own people – Isaiah had explained it all some 700 years before (Isaiah 53). He even told all of His disciples that they would run off and leave Him the night that He was betrayed (Mark 14:27).

And yet Jesus went to the cross anyway, for those who abandoned Him and for those who crucified Him. And why? John 3:16 tells us – it was because God loved the world that He gave His only son for us. God doesn’t love in the selfish way that we do – instead, He sets His love on desperate, rebellious sinners like us.

So if we want to show the love God has for us, if we want to be like our Heavenly Father (v. 48), this is the kind of love we must show to others. Let’s pray that Christ would fill us with His Spirit so that He might love even our enemies in this way.

Matthew 5:43-48 (NAS)

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’
44 “But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you
45 in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
46 “For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same?
47 “And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
48 “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.