“We Must Extinguish Our Resentments!”
On the last morning of his life, April 14, 1865, Good Friday, Abraham Lincoln had a meeting with his cabinet and General Ulysses S. Grant. The Civil War had officially ended five days earlier on April 9 when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse just outside of Lynchburg, Virginia.
Lincoln’s discussion that morning with his cabinet was about reconstruction, about rebuilding a nation devasted by Civil War. Lincoln said, “The great question is before us, we must soon begin to act.” The “great question” was regarding what to do with the Southern States who’d seceded from the Union but were now defeated and decimated after the war.
Lincoln told his cabinet and General Grant that he didn’t want them to persecute the Confederates States. Speaking of the Confederate leaders he said, “None should expect that I will participate in hanging or killing of these men, even the worst of them. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and Union.”
At his final cabinet meeting, Lincoln was referring to people who’d sought to destroy the Union and fought a war against his government for four years at a cost of over a million lives in terms of forgiveness and reconciliation: “We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and Union!” Many wanted to give the Southern States what they deserved but Lincoln said they needed to be welcomed back like brothers.
An Upside-Down Ethic
In the politics of this world, the assumption is that people should get what they deserve. But in the politics of the new world, Jesus says his followers should give people what they don’t deserve.
Jesus’ ethic is upside-down in the world’s eyes because reciprocity is a governing assumption in our hearts. People should get what they give, should get what they deserve. If someone helps me, I’m obligated to help them. If someone hurts me, I must hurt them. Reciprocity is arguably the world’s governing ethic. Equality is king.
But if you believe that Jesus is King, then your ethic is the opposite of reciprocity. Followers of Jesus live under the rule of mercy, under the rule of giving people what they don’t deserve.
This is Jesus’ instruction for us this morning in Luke 6:27-36. The main point of this text is that God’s mercy toward us changes the way we treat others. Jesus tells us, first, to give people what they don’t deserve (vv. 27-34), because, second, God gave us what we don’t deserve (vv. 35-36).
Give People What They Don’t Deserve
First, in verses 27-34, Jesus tells us to give people what they don’t deserve. Jesus’ addresses this teaching to “you who hear” (v. 27). This “hearing” is more than catching syllables. The CSB says, “you who listen.” Jesus’ words are to those who’re open to being led by him. Jesus’ teaching is for those who believe that the kingdom of God makes claims that supersede all other claims.
Our hearts have to be truly receptive to Jesus because what he’s about to tell us to do is arguably the hardest command he gives his followers: “Love your enemies.” This command feels unattainable because it goes against everything we think and feel is right. But whatever we may think or feel, Jesus calls us to love our enemies.
Two Kinds of People
The context of this command is important. Jesus has called twelve men to be his apostles and begins to teach them and other disciples what it means to follow him. Last week we saw Jesus pronounce four blessings on his followers, on anyone willing to suffer for his sake, and four woes on self-satisfied people living for the pleasures of the moment.
Jesus sees two kinds of people in the crowd he’s teaching: those who’ll suffer for his sake and have his blessing and those who’ll live for themselves and come to an unhappy end. But how should the first group relate to the second group? How should true disciples of Jesus respond to people who persecute them for following Jesus?
The natural response of Jesus’ followers would be to hate and hurt those who hate and hurt them, or at the least, to stay away from them. But Jesus commands something unexpected and radical: “love your enemies.” Jesus’ followers are to show deliberate affection to people who hurt them.
We all have enemies. Some of them are public, like the greedy corporations who’re committed to the bottom line over the well-being of their employees or customers, or the politicians who introduce ungodly legislation, or the dictator who persecutes the church, or the terrorist who brings war and destruction. But others are more personal, like the demeaning boss, scheming coworker, angry neighbor, hostile spouse, or former friend who’s grown distant over a disagreement. Who is your enemy? Whoever it is, they’re the ones Jesus is calling you to love.
Act, Speak, Pray
Rather than being generic and superficial, Jesus then explains what this love looks like (vv. 27-28). Notice the progression here. To “do good to those who hate” is love with actions. To “bless those who curse” is to love with our speech, using gentle words of grace when people speak to us in anger. To “pray for those who abuse you” is to love with our hearts.
The way we love our enemies is through actions, words, and prayers. It can be good to work through this list to test ourselves to see whether we’re really loving our enemies. What good have we done for our enemy? What words of encouragement have I spoken to them? What prayers have I prayed for them?
Dr. Phil Ryken says that loving our enemies often begins with prayer. He says, “We cannot long continue to hate someone who we are constantly bringing before God’s throne of grace. As we pray, we begin to recognize that our enemies need the same things we need: forgiveness for sin and the power to lead a holy life. This gives us more sympathy for their situation, enabling us to love.”[1]
It’s significant that Jesus says to pray for those who “abuse you.” Some forms of mistreatment, for example, physical abuse within a marriage, are too dangerous to endure. In these cases, we have a God-given mandate to protect and preserve life, including our own. Wisdom calls us to sometimes love our enemies from a safe distance. Even in these cases, we must pray because no form of hostility against us excuses us from Jesus’ command to love our enemies.
Turn the Other Cheek?
But then Jesus says something in verse 29 that seems to contradict what I just said about self-protection. Some understand this to mean that those who suffer abuse, whether it’s a wife from her husband or a child from a bully at school, that they have to keep taking it.
This interpretation is wrong for many reasons. Jesus isn’t saying that his people should allow evil to have its way. Other places in Scripture teach us that we have a God-given responsibility to make sure that evil is dealt with by the proper authorities (Rom. 13). Jesus even rebukes the priests for hitting him without cause (Jn. 18:22-23).
Confronting abusers is love, both for them and for those they’re hurting. By caring enough to confront, we may help an abuser see their sin and repent, and we offer the victim the protection and support they need to heal. Sometimes love demands that we get the civil authorities involved. John MacArthur says this, “The turn-the-other-cheek rule cannot be meant to keep civil government from punishing evildoers. To apply these principles in the civil arena would be to surrender society to chaos…Reporting crime is both a civic responsibility and an act of compassion…To fail to protect the innocent is itself a serious evil.”[2]
If turning the other cheek doesn’t mean tolerating physical abuse, what does it mean? Remember the context: Jesus is teaching his followers that they’ll suffer for following him. Here he’s saying they must endure this suffering without fighting back.
This is the principle of non-retaliation. Some disciples and communities of faith will be persecuted because of Jesus, so they must know what the cost of following Jesus is before they sign up. But, as one commentator says, once they have “opted for the consequences, they must be prepared to accept them. Retaliation would defeat their profession of faith.”[3]
It was incredibly insulting for a Jewish person to be slapped in the face (v. 29a). But Jesus says that his followers must be willing to be humiliated again and again, for his sake. Rather than retaliating or taking revenge, Jesus’ followers endure insults with patience, just as he did: “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Pet. 2:23).
Give and Give and Give
Then Jesus says that we’re to love our enemies even if it means the loss of our property (vv. 29b-30). Jesus says that if someone is desperate enough to take our jacket, then we should give them our shirt too. Even if people mistreat us, we should give them above and beyond what they need. The idea is that we should care more about helping other people than the protection of our property.
The word for “beg” in verse 30 is actually “ask.” Jesus isn’t talking about giving money to panhandlers or to those who’ll use it on a self-destructive lifestyle. He’s talking about giving to people with legitimate material needs without demanding anything in return.
The idea at the end of verse 30 is about borrowing, not just stealing. Sometimes people borrow things without returning them. Jesus says that we don’t make them pay but are ready to forgive the debt. Again Ryken says, “As disciples of Jesus Christ, the question for us is always ‘What can I give?’ and never ‘What will I get in return?’”[4] Jesus is telling us that some things in life outweigh material considerations. Instead of viewing these things as an imposition, we’re to see them as an opportunity for generosity.
What is the Lord calling you to give? What has someone taken from you that he’s calling you to let go of? Sometimes we’re so concerned about somebody taking advantage of us that we won’t give anything to anyone. But Jesus says his followers always err on the side of generosity, that they’re ready to give and give and give out of love for those in need.
The Golden Rule
Everything Jesus is saying about loving our enemies is summarized in verse 31, or “The Golden Rule.” Other ancient teachers gave similar counsel as this, but they usually put it in the negative, “Don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you.” But what Jesus says is more positive, and more demanding.
Jesus says it’s not so much what you don’t do but what you do that defines your love. We should do everything we can to bless our enemies, even if we’re fairly sure they’re going to keep mistreating us.
The Golden Rule is very different from the rule we usually follow, whether we’re closing a business deal or arguing with our spouse or dealing with conflict at church. We typically operate under the rule of, “Do whatever you can get away with,” or “Do to others what you have to do to get what you want from them.” But Jesus says, “No, do to others, even your enemies, what you want them to do to you.”
Three Comparisons
We may protest, saying, “Do you have any idea how I’ve been mistreated? Why do I have to go beyond the call of duty for someone so undeserving?” And Jesus is ready with an answer in verses 32-34.
In these three comparisons, Jesus is essentially saying to his followers, “You’re not like your enemies; you’re my disciples and I expect more from you.”
Even among sinners, a balanced reciprocity is the lowest common ethical denominator. Those far from God know how to love and do good and give to people in order to get back the equal amount given. But if the expectation for Jesus’ followers is that minimal, such that even unbelievers can do it, then what sets them apart as citizens of the kingdom of God?
In each of these three comparisons, help is offered on the assumption of reciprocity. Jesus is saying that anyone can love like that because it’s motivated by self-interest. Anyone will love people who love them back, will do good to people who’ll return the favor.
“I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” is the mantra of modern commerce and isn’t necessarily wrong when negotiating business deals. But the love Jesus calls us to is much more radical. It’s not based on self-interest. Where does love like this come from?
God Gave Us What We Don’t Deserve
This is what verses 35-36 are saying, namely, that God’s mercy toward us changes the way we treat others. Verse 35 is a summary statement of the whole section, but it ends with the reason why we should live this way. Jesus’ logic is simple: Because God has been kind to evil and ungrateful people like us, we should also be kind to evil and ungrateful people.
And then there’s the promise that if we do live this way, “your reward will be great” and “you will be sons of the Most High.” Jesus doesn’t specify what the reward is for those who love their enemies, but he says it’ll be “great.” If you know how to give good gifts to those you love, imagine what a “great” gift from a great God would be like.
But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He also says that loving our enemies proves that we belong to God, that we’re “sons of the Most High.” Those who love their enemies reveal that they’re children of God. The principle, “Like father, like son” holds true here. If we’re truly related to God through faith in Jesus, we’ll start to act like him.
As one writer says, “While the people of the world operate on the basis of liability and credit, Jesus and his disciples live by the mercy of a God who chooses to be kind even to ‘the ungrateful and the wicked.’”[5] The reason why Christians can love their enemies is because they have something the world doesn’t: mercy from God.
Freely Received, Freely Given
Do you see how the idea of loving our enemies takes us to the heart of the gospel?
The gospel teaches us that we’re far worse than we think we are. It teaches us that we’re so bad that we deserve to be cast into hell forever because of our sin. It teaches us that we’re so bad that Jesus, the Son of God, had to die for us. Our sin has hurt others and ourselves and has offended the God who made us. He said, “Love me above all else and live this way,” and we say, “We’ll honor you with religious words and live a moral life but we don’t believe we’re that bad.”
Do you believe that you need mercy from God? Or do you assume that your sins are fairly pedestrian and haven’t really hurt anyone in your opinion and you’re definitely not as bad as others, so you’re good with God? But what if your self-righteousness is more of a stench in God’s nostrils than the unrighteousness of others?
Jesus’ point is that you’ll never live this way if you haven’t tasted God’s mercy, and you’ll never taste God’s mercy if you assume you don’t need it.
How do you know if that’s you? Last week in our Training Class on church membership, I talked about “fortress church members” who serve others in the church but are never in need themselves, so they never let people in to help them. They love to visibly serve but aren’t vulnerable with anyone.
But those who’ve been mercied by God realize they have nothing to prove to anyone because they’re accepted by the only person in the universe who’s acceptance really matters.
Do you see how the place we learn to love our enemies is the cross, where Jesus died to forgive his enemies? We could never obey the command to love our enemies on our own. To keep the command we have to stay close to the cross, remembering the love Jesus showed us there.
Jesus lived the love that he commanded, and he’ll give us the love he lived as we stay close to his cross. Who are the enemies God is calling you to love? Freely we’ve received mercy, freely we must give. Or, as John says, “We love because he first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19).
[1]Philip Graham Ryken, Luke, Volume 1: Luke 1-12, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2009), 271.
[2]Quoted in Ryken, 272.
[3]Frederick W. Danker, Jesus and the New Age: A Commentary on St. Luke’s Gospel, rev. ed. (Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1988), 144.
[4]Ibid., 273.
[5]Diane G. Chen, Luke, New Covenant Commentary Series (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017), 90.