July 22, 2000
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The Commands of Kingdom Love - Luke 6:27-28
The Commands of Kingdom Love
Luke 6:27-28
This is often called the Sermon on the Mount. Luke 6:20-49 records what Jesus said that day near the Sea of Galilee. It is the same sermon about which Matthew wrote in Matthew 5-7. Matthew has a much longer treatment of the sermon as he relates much more of what the Lord said. But the Lord said what Matthew recorded, the Lord also said what Luke recorded and the sermon would be the combination of both and probably a lot more...since you could read through both passages in a very few minutes, and it's likely that the Lord preached for a long time. God gave us what He felt we needed to hear. It is an important sermon because it's a sermon about salvation that draws some very clear lines. This sermon draws a simple contrast between those people who are blessed and those people who are cursed. Everybody everywhere who has ever lived either falls into the category of being blessed or being cursed.
If a person looked at religion in the world it would seem that there are very many options, but in fact, there is really a very simple approach to religion. Everybody relates to God in one of two ways...you're either blessed by God or cursed by God. There is only one true and living God and that is the God revealed on the pages of Scripture. There is no other God, there are no other gods. And all men relate to the true and living God one way or another. They are blessed by Him or they are cursed by Him. They are in His Kingdom, or out of His Kingdom. They are His children or the children of Satan. They are in the kingdom of light or they're in the kingdom of darkness. They are citizens of heaven or of hell. And that's how it is. Everybody in the human race fits into one of the two categories.
If God is not your Father, Satan is. If heaven's not your home, hell is. That is not complex, that is simple, that is the message of every prophet of old. the message of Jesus, the message of John the Baptist, the message of the Apostles and the message of every true evangelist since then up to this very present hour. The simple contrast is clear to us throughout all of biblical history and it is crystal clear to us in this sermon which Jesus preached.
How are we to understand who's who? How are we to understand who is blessed and who is cursed? The first way you can tell a Christian is by how he views himself. And inevitably he views himself as a desperate, empty, hopeless, helpless sinner. If you don't view yourself as a helpless sinner, helpless who can't save himself or herself, who is absolutely spiritually bereft and bankrupt in a beggarly condition, doing nothing to earn salvation...if you don't see yourself in that desperation, crying out for mercy from God, then you must see yourself as having some religious merit, having some religious achievement, having some moral works, or ceremonial works, or religious works by which you can gain some favor with God.
That's the way religious people see themselves. Whatever you might be in the world, you either believe you can make no contribution to your salvation and you're hopeless, helpless beggars hungering for what you don't have, dissatisfied and in some ways the off-scouring of the religious world, or you believe that you can make a contribution. The Jews of Jesus' time were into a works/righteousness system. And so Jesus says as long as you view yourself, verses 24 to 26 as rich, well-fed, happy and popular, you're doomed because that's all the comfort you're going to get and you're going to be forever hungry, forever mourning, forever weeping because you're in the same category as false prophets. They were popular, too. But God damned them and clearly the prophets...the true prophets proclaimed that damnation. Those people who are true disciples of Christ, true followers of Christ are known by how they view themselves. And we saw that last time.
I want to move to another category. They are also known by how they view others. You can tell whether a person is a true disciple of Christ, Jesus says here, by how they view other people. Look at verse 27, "But I say to you who hear, 'Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.'" There's a contrast being made here. There's a contrast being made between people who have the ability to hear the voice of God and respond and people who don't. The Lord narrows His audience here and says, "I'm talking to you who can get it. I'm talking to you who have spiritual understanding. The true believer poor, hungry, sad, unpopular...I'm talking to you who are rejected. I'm talking to you who are persecuted. I'm telling you, you are not only known by your hated of sin, mostly in yourself, but you're known by your love of your enemies. This is your character."
Jesus says your relationship to others is not to be one of isolation, it's not to foster persecution. Your relationship to other people is to be characterized by love. No true disciple is going to wallow in his iniquity and cut himself off from the world. He's not going to accept animosity and even try to heighten and intensify that animosity. He's not going to retaliate. There are some who think maybe the just and righteous thing to do is to retaliate against your persecutors. Not to do that either. What Jesus says in verse 27 with that astonishing economy of words with which He always spoke is simply this, "Love your enemies." Why? Because that's not normal. That will be a demonstration that you're not normal because they don't do that. People outside the kingdom don't love their enemies. They basically hate their enemies.
Even in Israel it wasn't normal, and you can't get more religious than they were. In their system, it was a sin to love your enemy. So when Jesus steps in front of the crowd in the Sermon on the Mount and He's got Pharisees there and scribes there, they followed Him everywhere, He's got priests and rabbis and local synagogue rulers and the populous and He says, "Love your enemies," that to the Jews is a statement that is immoral, it is ungodly to say that. That was offensive to them because they tied their spiritual virtue to their hatred.
The Jews of Jesus' day had a direction in which most of their hatred was going. It went toward the Romans. They didn't like to be occupied. They didn't like the Roman presence politically because the Romans had taken away their self-rule and then they had appointed the despicable Herodian rulers and stuck them all around the area of Israel to rule and they were despised Idumaens, not Jews. They had to deal with these usurpers and invaders and occupiers. They hated the Romans because the Romans were idolatrous Gentile pagans. When they came in with their poles on which they had the image of Caesar, that was a violation of the commandment to make no graven images because they worshiped Caesar as a god and so here they had blatant idolatry in the land. Every time a Roman coin passed through a Jew's hand, it was something to spit on because it had the image of Caesar engraved upon the coin and that was an idol. They also had developed a hatred for people who violated the law and traditions. They thought that that was a righteous thing to do. But here Jesus steps into this environment and says, "Love your enemies." This is unacceptable. True disciples of Christ are known by how they view themselves with hatred for their own sin and how they view others is with love. You hate this sinner, you love that sinner.
This section unfolds for us, first of all, with four commands.of Kingdom love. Verse 27 and 28 which I read to you has four simple commands. The first one, love your enemies. That's cultivating an affection. The Essenes who were the most devout, I suppose, in some ways even a step beyond the Pharisees. The Pharisees were fastidious with the law, but the Essenes were the monastics. They eschewed living in social, cultural normalcy and they went out into the desert and they lived down by the Dead Sea. They were monastic, they were the isolationists. They saw themselves as the most devout, sacrificial, unworldly. Here's what the Essenes said, and I quote some of their literature. "Love all that God has chosen and hate all He has rejected." They also wrote, "Love all the sons of light and hate all the sons of darkness." That was prescribed in their ethical, moral, religious code. Hate sons of darkness, unbelievers. In fact, they went to far as to curse all non-Essenes which means hate the Pharisees, hate the Sadducees, hate the Zealots, hate everybody who is a non-Essene, hate them all.
The Pharisees weren't much better than that. I'm quoting from one of the Maxims of the Pharisees. "If a Jew sees a Gentile fallen into the sea, let him by no means lift him out of there for it is written, 'Thou shalt not rise up against the blood of thy neighbor but his man is not thy neighbor.'" Why? Because he's a Gentile, let him drown. It's a sin to lift him out of the water. Don't rescue a Gentile. Now this had become a point of their virtue. In fact, the Romans, you can find in Roman writings, the Romans actually accused the Jews of hating the human race. Nice reputation. We would like to think that Christians are known by their love, in the ancient world Jews were known by their hate. It is not unlike contemporary Middle Eastern and other places in the world Islam. How in the world could they come to this conclusion, they were supposed to hate everybody."
In Deuteronomy 23 God determined that He was going to judge the wicked and so He brought judgment upon the wicked using Israel as an instrument of judgment and brought about the death of idolaters. You have a number of those sort of holy wars, I guess you could call them, which God Himself prescribed, no man could prescribe such action but God Himself can determine to judge who He wants when He wants and in the Old Testament when Israel was the theocracy and the tool of God, there were times when God used Israel as that judge. He also used Assyria as a judge. He used Egypt as a judge. He used Persia as a judge on other occasions. But God could determine to use human agencies, governments, nations as judges, buthey thought that that had somehow been delegated to them, that they had some personal right to act as the judge of everybody, even executioner if need be, which they did in the case of Jesus.
They would also go back to the imprecatory or judgemental Psalms. Psalm 59 calls for God to judge the enemies. The psalmist, very carefully remember this, the psalmist didn't do the judgment, he simply said, "God, these are dishonoring to Your name, these are dishonoring to Your glory, these are blasphemous enemies and they are worthy of judgment. O God, vindicate Yourself and judge them." The Pharisees again had felt that this somehow had been delegated to them so that they could not only act as a nation which God was using as an instrument but they could act as God Himself and bring about their own imprecation upon whomever it was that they desired. Those issues in the Old Testament had to do with a national judgment which God brought. It has to do with a divine judgment which God brought. But very clearly Deuteronomy 32:35 says, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord." When it comes time for that, I will do it, not you. Those were all matters of divine action, not human liberty. But the Jews had put the prerogatives that belonged only to God into operation in their own personal relationships. That was another way in which they had skewed the Judaism of the Old Testament.
This was never Old Testament law. In Exodus 23 it talks about if you see your enemy, his donkey under a heavy burden, go relieve the donkey's burden, help your enemy. Se also Job 31:29, "Have I rejoiced at the extinction of my enemy, or when evil befell him? No, I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking for his life in a curse, it would be a sin for me to curse a man. It would be sin for me to speak evil into his life, to speak judgment on him." That's for God to do, that's not for me to do. All I can do is say to that man, "God will curse you if you reject Him." I can't speak that curse into his life. God will judge you if you turn your back on him. I can't bring that judgment on him.
That's why Jesus in the same sermon as Matthew records had said, "Judge not lest you be judged." That's not your call. Proverbs 25:21 "If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat. If he's thirsty, give him water to drink. For you'll heap burning coals on his head and the Lord will reward you." In other words, show love to your enemy, show good will, benevolence to your enemy. This is what the Old Testament taught. And, in fact, there was a very clear indication of what the Old Testament taught in Leviticus 19:18 "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love your neighbor. But that became an escape hatch...Ah, your neighbor. And then the big question, the big question in Jewish theology was...who is my neighbor? And in, of course, the text of Luke 10:29 the man comes to Jesus and he says, "Okay, I'm supposed to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, supposed to love my neighbor as myself, but who is my neighbor?" Jesus essentially is saying...your neighbor is whoever is laying in the street and needs your help. That's your neighbor. Whoever comes across your path, that's your neighbor without racial, religious distinction. Even your enemy is your neighbor.
They didn't interpret the Old Testament that way. Jesus then has to reassert the truth. And again what we said last time is so true, everything Jesus said was contrary to how they thought, contrary to how people always think, contrary to how people think today...love your enemies? That's the attitude you have toward them. Romans 12:17, "Never pay back evil for evil to anyone." Verse 19, "Never take your own revenge, beloved. Leave room for the wrath of God for it is written," Deuteronomy 32:35, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord." And also as I read earlier, Proverbs 25:21, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him, if he's thirsty give him a drink, in so doing you'll heap burning coals upon his head." Don't allow the evil that person does to overwhelm you, but overwhelm that evil with responding goodness. This is not normal and isn't that the point? That's why down in verse 35 it says, "If you do this, if you love your enemies and do good to them and lend to them and expect nothing in return, your reward will be great and more than that, you will be sons of the Most High." The point being, they will recognize that this is not human and it will become clear that this identifies you as having a preternatural, or a supernatural love.
Secondly, the act...you do good to those who hate you. We do good, kalos, that's inherent good not superficial good, not beauty but good, inherently good. You do what is good and what is ultimately good is what is redeeming, what has lasting goodness. You do for them what can lead to their eternal salvation.
Thirdly...how you speak. Verse 28, "Bless those who curse you." What is to bless? It's to speak goodness into their life, to speak blessing into their life even if they curse you. And, of course, many of the followers of Jesus were vilified and cursed, ostracized, spurned, alienated in an unofficial way. They had to deal with that. The Lord wants them to know because there are going to be Holy Spirit impulses going on in their heart, that they should love these people in spite of this, but the system they had grown up in told them to hate those people. So, you see, the reason Jesus puts this in the form of a command is He wants them to know they can follow the impulse of the new creation and not fall victim to the brainwashing of the religious system they've been in. It isn't right to hate. What you were taught was not right.
Matthew 5:43, Matthew's record of the Sermon on the Mount, he quotes Jesus as saying, "You have heard it said," which means this is the rabbinical tradition, "love your neighbor and hate your enemy," That's exactly what they were taught. Jesus said, "I have to teach you all new again, you've got to start all over again, I have to tell you, you must love that enemy, you must act benevolently to that enemy so that you literally overpower his evil with your goodness, and you must speak blessing into that life, even if you are unofficially cursed. On the other hand, you could be officially cursed. What was that? John 16:2, "They will make you outcasts from the synagogue." They will excommunicate you, they will unsynagogue you. Jesus went further, "They will kill you thinking they are serving God...they'll kill you thinking they're serving God."
What do you do to the people who are going to kill you thinking they're serving God? You speak good into their life. What is that? That's the gospel. You speak that which brings about their ultimate good. It doesn't mean there's no place for warning, how can you speak goodness into their life if they don't understand their sin and judgment? You have to speak about sin and righteousness and judgment as the Holy Spirit convicts that way, according to John 16. You have to warn men that if anyone love not the Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Corinthians 16:22, let him be accursed. You have to say like verse 24, 25 and 26, "Woe to you who are rich and woe to you who are well-fed and laughing and popular," you have to speak that but that's the first part of the good news, isn't it?
Paul gave his life to bring salvation, blessing to the enemies of God, to the enemies of Christ, to the enemies of the gospel, and to his own enemies who eventually took his life because he loved so greatly. He said to the Romans, "I can almost wish myself accursed, I mean, I'd almost take the curse of God if I could bring the blessing of the gospel to my people, Israel." His love for his enemies was not natural. It wasn't part of conventional religion because conventional religion is a reflection of the natural, or the demonic. The love that the Apostle Paul had, the love that true Christians have and have always had is not explained on any natural level, can't even explain the life of the Apostle Paul, a constant life of suffering. Read 2 Corinthians and see the litany of things he endured. Five times at a synagogue the Jews whipped him with 39 lashes. He suffered that because he loved them enough to continue to speak into their life blessing, the blessing of the gospel. There is absent in this any sense of self-interest, self-protection.
Finally He says, "Your attitude toward others involves how you feel, how you act, how you speak and how you appeal...how you appeal." The end of verse 28, "Pray for those who mistreat you." What should be our prayer? Well we could say generically and generally, "God, we want You to reveal Christ and establish the glorious Kingdom and bring evil to an end. We want You to destroy the enemies of the truth. We want You to silence the false prophets. That's for You to do. But there's this person who hates you, hates the gospel and doesn't like me and, God, I want you to save that person." That's the prayer. That's what Jesus did. Jesus didn't act in a judicial fashion on the cross. He acted in a personal illustration and hanging on the cross He said, "Father forgive them." That was a prayer, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing. And Stephen in the seventh chapter of Acts while he's being crushed under the stones that are being pummeled into his body from above says, "Lay not this sin to their charge," which is another way to say, "Forgive them." This is praying for those in the midst of being mistreated. Those are the commands of love.
True Christians are known by two things, how they hate sin mostly in themselves and how they love others. Jesus is then putting the sword through the crowd and separating who the true disciples are from those who are not. Those are the commands of love.
