Matthew 5:44-48
‘Love your enemies; bless them who curse you; do good to them that hate you!…. So that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven…. Therefore, be perfect! Even as your Father Who is in Heaven — is perfect!’ Matthew 5:44-48.
Calvin comments: “He who shall bring his mind to love those who hate him — will naturally refrain from all revenge; will patiently endure evils; will be much more prone to assist the wretched…. ‘You shall love your neighbour, as yourself!’ (Matthew 22:39)….
“No man will ever come to obey this precept, till he shall have given up self-love…. Till men, all of whom God had declared to be connected to Him, shall be held by him in such estimation that he shall even proceed to love those by whom he is regarded with hatred….
“Believers ought…to ‘bless their enemies’…. They do not fail to commit their cause to God, till He takes vengeance on the reprobate…. They desire, as far as lies in them, that the wicked should return to a sound mind…. And thus, they endeavour to promote their salvation….
“He expressly declares that no man will be a child of God, unless he ‘loves those who hate him’…. Whoever shall wish to be accounted a Christian — let him ‘love his enemies!’…. The example of God is held out for our imitation…. It is His will, that we should imitate His fatherly goodness and liberality…. Christ therefore proves from the effect, that none are the children of God but those who resemble Him in gentleness and kindness….
“‘You shall be the children of the Highest!’ Not that any man acquires this honour for himself or begins to be a ‘child of God’ when he ‘loves his enemies.’ But because…Scripture…represents as a reward, the free gifts of God….
“‘He makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust’…. The divine kindness toward us…are…common to all…. This very participation, excites us the more powerfully to act in a similar manner toward each other….
“‘You, therefore, shall be perfect!’ This ‘perfection’ does not mean equality [with God], but relates solely to resemblance. However distant we are from the perfection of God, we are said to be ‘perfect as He is perfect’ — when we aim at the same object which He presents to us in Himself…. The ‘perfection’ of God means first that free and pure kindness which is not induced by the
expectation of gain — and secondly that remarkable goodness which contends with the malice and ingratitude of men.”
Calvin also says in his Institutes II:8:57: “‘Love your enemies; bless them that curse you!’…(Matthew 4:44-45)…. This…makes it plain that these are not exhortations — but precepts!”
Be perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect! You too!
