Jesus Christ · The Sermon on the Mount
Love Your Enemies
The sixth “ye have heard… but I say” teaching goes further than any of the five before it. Not just refusing revenge (5:38–42) but actively loving the people who wish you harm — blessing them, doing good to them, praying for them. Jesus does not ground this in how the enemy behaves. He grounds it in how the Father behaves: sun and rain on the evil and the good alike.
The Text
— Matthew 5:43–48You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and ‘Hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,The old saying corrected — love your enemies, not just your neighbor.
that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.The reason: to look like the Father, who is good to everyone.
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even Gentiles do the same?Loving back is easy — even tax collectors and pagans do that.
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.The whole passage's summary word: be perfect, as your Father is perfect.
This is the sixth and last of the “ye have heard… but I say” sayings (5:21–48), and the sermon's hinge verse (5:17–20) already told us where they were headed: not lowering the Law's bar but going to its root. Here the root is reached. Loving people who are kind to you is not a root; anyone does that.
The Sun and the Rain
— Matthew 5:43–45 — the old saying, the new command, and the pattern behind itYE HAVE HEARD · 5:43
“thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy”
BUT I SAY UNTO YOU · 5:44
“love your enemies, bless them that curse you”
ON THE EVIL… / THE UNJUST
…AND THE GOOD / THE JUST
HE MAKETH HIS
SUN TO RISE
AND SENDETH
RAIN
Read the chart by looking for a difference — there is none. Same sun, same rain, both columns, full strength. The command of 5:44 asks the disciple to give the way the columns receive.
What He Is Saying
— a practiced goodwill, not a feeling“Love” here is not a warm feeling toward people who threaten you — Jesus never asks for that. It is a practiced posture: bless them, do good to them, pray for them. Three concrete actions, aimed at people with hostile intent, and modeled directly on the Father's own character rather than on how those people treat you back.
Not in the Old Testament“hate thine enemy” — a popular saying, not the Law
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy” sounds like one commandment, but only half of it is. Leviticus 19:18 commands love of neighbor — it has no matching clause commanding hatred of an enemy. The “hate” half was a popular assumption of Jesus's day, not a line from Moses. A version of it survives outside the Bible: the Dead Sea Scrolls' Community Rule instructs members “to love all that He has chosen and hate all that He has rejected” (1QS 1:3–4) — evidence the idea was in the air among Jesus's contemporaries. Jesus is correcting a popular misapplication of the Law, not the Law itself.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy - The command to love our neighbor was a law of God, Lev 19:18. That we must therefore hate our enemy was an inference drawn from it by the Jews. They supposed that if we loved the one, we must of course hate the other. They were total strangers to that great, special law of religion which requires us to love both.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, Matt 5:43
What does “perfect” mean here?teleios — complete, not sinless
“Be ye… perfect” translates the Greek teleios— complete, mature, having arrived at its intended goal. It does not mean sinless perfection in the modern sense; it names a finished, whole character, the kind a well-made tool has when nothing about it is missing. Here it points straight back to 5:45: a life that has come to resemble the Father's own indiscriminate goodness. (John Wesley read this verse as pointing to his own doctrine of Christian perfection — entire sanctification — a distinctive emphasis of his own tradition, named here rather than folded silently into the wider reading. See his quote below.)
The Voices on Loving the Enemy
— the church hears Matthew 5:43–44If God's grace and goodness are (as they certainly are) his glory, then the glory of the gospel is the glory that excels, for grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, 2 Cor. iii.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), Matt 5:43–48
For without this love, wherewith we are commanded to love even our enemies and persecutors, who can fully carry out those things which are mentioned above? Moreover, the perfection of that mercy, wherewith most of all the soul that is in distress is cared for, cannot be stretched beyond the love of an enemy; and therefore the closing words are: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect." Yet in such a way that God is understood to be perfect as God, and the soul to be perfect as a soul. That there is, however, a certain step [in advance] in the righteousness of the Pharisees, which belongs to the old law, is perceived from this consideration, that many men hate even those by whom they are loved; as, for instance, luxurious children hate their parents for restraining them in their luxury. That man therefore rises a certain step, who loves his neighbour, although as yet he hates his enemy. But in the kingdom of Him who came to fulfil the law, not to destroy it, he will bring benevolence and kindness to perfection, when he has carried it out so far as to love an enemy. For the former stage, although it is something, is yet so little that it may be reached even by the publicans as well. And as to what is said in the law, "Thou shalt hate thine enemy," it is not to be understood as the voice of command addressed to a righteous man, but rather as the voice of permission to a weak man.
Augustine of Hippo· Sermon on the Mount 1.21.69–70 (on Matt 5:43)
See how He hath set the highest pinnacle on our good deeds. For this is why He teaches not only to endure a blow, but to offer the right cheek also; not only to add the cloak to the coat, but to travel also two miles with him who compels thee to go one; in order that thou mightest receive with all facility that which is much more than these. "But what," one may say, "is more than these?" Not even to count as an enemy him who is doing these things: or rather even somewhat else more than this. For He said not, "do not hate," but "love;" He said not, "do not injure," but "do good." And if any one should examine accurately, he will see that even to these things somewhat is added, much greater than they are. For neither did He simply command to love, but to pray. Seest thou how many steps He hath ascended, and how He hath set us on the very summit of virtue? Nay, mark it, numbering from the beginning. A first step is, not to begin with injustice: a second, after he hath begun, to vindicate one's self by equal retaliation; a third, not to do unto him that is vexing us the same that one hath suffered, but to be quiet; a fourth, even to give one's self up to suffer wrongfully; a fifth, to give up yet more than the other, who did the wrong, wishes; a sixth, not to hate him who hath done so; a seventh, even to love him; an eighth, to do him good also; a ninth, to entreat God Himself on his behalf. Seest thou, what height of self-command?
John Chrysostom· Homily on the Gospel of Matthew 18 (on Matt 5:44)
Many measuring the commandments of God by their own weakness, not by the strength of the saints, hold these commands for impossible, and say that it is virtue enough not to hate our enemies; but to love them is a command beyond human nature to obey. But it must be understood that Christ enjoins not impossibilities but perfection. Such was the temper of David towards Saul and Absalom; the Martyr Stephen also prayed for his enemies while they stoned him, and Paul wished himself anathema for the sake of his persecutors. (Rom. 9:3.)
Jerome· Catena Aurea by Aquinas (on Matt 5:44)
Love your enemies - This is the most sublime piece of morality ever given to man. Has it appeared unreasonable and absurd to some? It has. And why? Because it is natural to man to avenge himself, and plague those who plague him; and he will ever find abundant excuse for his conduct, in the repeated evils he receives from others; for men are naturally hostile to each other. Jesus Christ designs to make men happy. Now he is necessarily miserable who hates another. Our Lord prohibits that only which, from its nature, is opposed to mans happiness.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1832), Matt 5:44
The Voices on Sun and Rain
— the church hears Matthew 5:45–47That ye may be the children - That is, that ye may continue and appear such before men and angels. For he maketh his sun to rise - He gives them such blessings as they will receive at his hands.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), Matt 5:45
The imitator of God and Christ makes the sun of his word and the brightness of his righteousness to shine on both evil and good people, and the rain from his mouth falls upon both the righteous and the sinful.
Theodore of Heraclea· Fragment 42 (c. 355, on Matt 5:45)
The meaning, then, is, "In loving those who love you, there is no evidence of superior principle; the worst of men will do this: even a publican will go that length."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), Matt 5:46
Verses 46–47 close off the easy exit. Loving people who love you back is not a distinctly Christian achievement — Jesus names two groups his first hearers looked down on, tax collectors and Gentiles, and says even they manage that much. The bar he sets is higher precisely because it costs something.
“Be Ye Therefore Perfect”
— 5:48 — the summary word for the whole passageVerse 48 is not a new command tacked on at the end — it is the reason for everything just said. Enemy-love is the test case for what a complete, Father-resembling character looks like in practice. The church's teachers have read the word “perfect” carefully here:
Therefore ye shall be perfect; as your Father who is in heaven is perfect - So the original runs, referring to all that holiness which is described in the foregoing verses, which our Lord in the beginning of the chapter recommends as happiness, and in the close of it as perfection.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), Matt 5:48
Be ye therefore perfect ... - The Saviour concludes this part of the discourse by commanding his disciples to be perfect. This word commonly means finished, complete, pure, holy. Originally, it is applied to a piece of mechanism, as a machine that is complete in its parts. Applied to people, it refers to completeness of parts, or perfection, where no part is defective or wanting … Be not religious merely in loving your friends and neighbors, but let your piety be shown in loving your enemies; imitate God; let your piety be complete, proportionate, regular.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, Matt 5:48
Manifestly, our Lord here speaks, not of degrees of excellence, but of the kind of excellence which was to distinguish His disciples and characterize His kingdom. When therefore He adds, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect--He refers to that full-orbed glorious completeness which is in the great Divine Model, "their Father which is in heaven."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), Matt 5:48
Where It Points
— the command, lived outBless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse.Paul repeats the command almost word for word: bless those who persecute you.
Falling on his knees, he cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.Stephen, dying under stones, prays for the men throwing them.
Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up His garments by casting lots.Jesus Himself, on the cross, prays for the people crucifying Him.
The command does not stay theoretical. Jesus keeps it Himself from the cross, and the first martyr keeps it under a hail of stones, in language that echoes his Lord's. Paul then hands the same command to every church he plants. What Jesus asks for in Matthew 5, Scripture shows actually being done.
Closing
Every antithesis before this one closes a loophole. This one opens a horizon. Jesus does not stop at telling His disciples what not to do to an enemy — He tells them to bless, to do good, to pray, until the family resemblance to their Father is unmistakable. That is the “perfect” this passage is after: not flawless, but finished — a love that has run all the way to its goal.