Jesus Christ and Loving Our Enemies, Part 1

In these verses we come to our Lord's sixth and final "but I say unto you" declaration. The scribes and the Pharisees had, ironically, handled and taught the written Law of God in a most unlawful and hypocritical way. But our Lord overthrew their lawless interpretation without overthrowing even a jot or tittle of God's written Law. The religious elite of Jesus' day had added an extra-Biblical injunction, "you shall hate your enemies" to the Old Testament commandment to "love your neighbor". By narrowly defining who was included as "your neighbor" they had tried to give Divine warrant to their hatred of their enemies. Yet once again our Lord shows that the righteous requirement of the Old Testament Law is to love our enemies, not to hate them. Our Lord's command remains binding upon us today.