Deep Dive into Perfect Love for Enemies: Reflecting the Father’s Character (Matthew 5:43 –48)

The standard of love set by Jesus in the kingdom ethic is the perfection (teleios) of love, defined as the wholeness or completeness that reflects the impartial goodness of the Heavenly Father. This demand stands in stark contrast to the distorted scribal teaching, which had narrowed the command to love only one's "neighbor"—interpreted as one's own people—and justified the hatred of enemies through human inference, a tribal ethic that rationalized selective love.

The Father’s impartial goodness serves as the model for this standard. This goodness is exemplified by His indiscriminate distribution of essential blessings, or common grace. He makes His sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. God dispenses these gifts without discrimination, sustaining all people regardless of their moral or spiritual state, revealing a holy love that does good even to His enemies.

Believers must imitate this impartial goodness to demonstrate the family likeness, proving they are truly sons of the Father. This requires enemy-love, which is a love that is qualitatively different from natural human reciprocity, often referred to as "tax collector love." Natural reciprocity—loving only those who love you—is the lowest common denominator of human behavior, requires no grace, and offers no evidence of kingdom belonging.

The love demanded of disciples is agapaō, which denotes a deliberate, active seeking of the other’s good rather than a mere feeling. The concrete test of this active love is prayer for those who persecute you, which requires the surrender of vengeance and the desire for the enemy’s repentance and blessing. This crushing standard ultimately exposes human inability, driving believers to Christ, who alone perfectly embodies and fulfills this impossible command.

Reformed Theologian GPT: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-XXwzX1gnv-reformed-theologian

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