"But I Say Unto You"

Chapter Five
"Holy Hate for 'the Glory of God'"

You have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemies. But I say unto you, love your enemies.... Mt. 5:43,44

There are few passages in the New Testament Scriptures that are as well known as this one, and there are also few passages that have been more misused than this one. The first question to ask is this: Did the Pharisees, and their teachers, have any justification at all for teaching that the Jews should "hate their enemies" or is this an open and shut case of national bigotry twisting and adding to the Word of God? Here is Pink's comments on this passage:

The Pentateuch will be searched in vain for any precept which required the Israelites to entertain any malignity against their foes: thou shalt "hate thine enemies" was a rabbinical invention pure and simple.20

Before we look at the specific Old Testament passages that the Pharisees misused, let us ask a serious question. Have you ever known of a church or preacher that taught his congregation that it was their "duty to Christ" to treat people who left that particular local church as enemies of Christ and worthy of true hatred? We have personally heard that diatribe on more than one occasion, and the reasoning and use of Biblical texts for such an exhortation was no better than that used by the Pharisees to justify their attitude of hatred of their enemies. This is tragic but true.

It is ironical that the very same people who ridicule the Rabbinical distortion of Scriptures will themselves use both the same Scripture verses and the identical method of distortion to justify their own hatred of brethren that dared to question or disagree with the authority structure! History has witnessed some very ungodly behavior that was done under the guise of "love for God's truth." The perpetrators of the cruel deeds may have been sincere, but their hatred appeared to reveal the same attitude as that of the Jews in their treatment of those "dirty Gentiles?" The worst part of this tragic perversion of Scripture is that history is being repeated today. The rationale used by the Pharisees to justify their hatred of the Gentiles is the identical rationale being used by some church leaders today to justify their wrong attitude toward sincere brethren who have refused to "submit to the `God-ordained' authority of the elders" in a local church.

The following application of "God's clear truth" is being used by "duly authorized servants of God" when someone leaves a local church:

(1) "These people have forsaken Christ's duly authorized Church which is the `pillar and ground of the truth' (I Tim 3:15)."

(2) "Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it."

(3) "In leaving God's duly authorized Church, these people show that they hate the very thing that Christ loves the most."

(4) "The Psalmist said, `I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee' (Ps 139:21), and, `I hate them with a perfect hatred' (Ps 139:22). Since these people have proven their hatred of Christ (by leaving His church), it is our duty to God to hate these people with a perfect hatred because they have left Christ's Church which He loves above all else."

This is the word-for-word rationale used by churches with a cultic mentality for literally forcing their members to despise and shun anyone who dares to leave that particular congregation or group. The only reason these modern day "duly authorized" defenders of the "glory of God's Holy truth" have not run a sword through their enemies is only because they do not have the civil authority to do so!

Lloyd-Jones takes several pages in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount to discuss how the Jews may have misconstrued God's command to kill all the inhabitants of Canaan as a command to "hate them as enemies." He also discusses the imprecatory Psalms where David "hated the enemies of God." In no way is Lloyd-Jones justifying the Pharisees, but he is attempting to state the case fairly. He emphasizes that both the Canaanite incident and the imprecatory Psalms are to be considered as national and judicial and in no way personal.21 Lloyd-Jones is philosophically right, but at the same time, it seems unlikely that an individual could be "emotionally neutral" while carrying out the wholesale national slaughter of God's enemies. It would have been very difficult for an Israelite to convince either the Canaanite, or his own heart, that he really "loved his enemy" while killing the man and his family.

We have not found one single commentator that used the following passages when discussing the Rabbinical teaching of "hating your enemies:"

Thou shalt not seek their [Ammonites or Moabites] peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever. Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother: Thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land. Dt 23:6,7.

Let us look at this sample passage in the Old Testament Scriptures and apply some of Thomas Watson's rules of interpreting commandments that we listed in chapter three. We will use his rules to extract, or deduce, the "good and necessary consequences" from the specific commandments in Dt 23:6,7. It may help us to see whether the Jews had any reason at all to imagine that it was their duty to "hate their enemies." Let us restate, in abbreviated form, Watson's rules of interpreting commandments in Scripture:

Rule 2. More is intended than is spoken.

(1) Where any duty is commanded, the contrary is forbidden.

(2) Where any sin is forbidden, the contrary is commanded.

Rule 3. Where any sin is forbidden in the commandment, the occasion of it is also forbidden. Where murder is forbidden, envy and rash anger are forbidden, which may occasion it.

Rule 5. Where greater sins are forbidden, lesser sins are also forbidden.

Rule 7. A commandment forbids not only the acting of sin in our own persons, but being accessory to, or having any hand in, the sins of others.

Now what is the specific thing commanded in Dt 23:6,7? There are two commandments and they both involve the treatment of certain kinds of people. The Jews were commanded to not abhor some people, and not seek the peace or prosperity of some other people.

First thing commanded: "Do not seek the peace or the prosperity of the Ammonite or Moabite." This was in retaliation for their treachery against Israel, vs 3,4.

Second thing commanded: "Do not abhor an Edomite or an Egyptian." This was because of relationship and gratitude vs. 7.

First of all, verses 6 and 7 specifically contrast two different attitudes and treatment of others on the basis of either retaliation or gratitude. Two different attitudes are set forth as opposites of each other. Let us apply Watson's rules to these commandments.

Rule 2 applied to the first thing commanded ("Where any sin is forbidden, the contrary is commanded."): What is the opposite of "seek the peace and prosperity?" The opposite of peace is war and the opposite of prosperity is poverty. The "good and necessary consequences" of Dt 23:6,7, according to Watson's rules of interpreting commandments, clearly prove that it was Israel's duty to seek the destruction of the Edomites and Ammonites. There can be no other conclusion according to Watson's rule that any sin forbidden carries in it the duty to do the opposite. Is this not a true application of Watson's second rule of interpreting the commands of Scriptures? Would not Watson's rules literally make the Jew duty bound to hate the Ammonites and Moabiteas as enemies and constantly seek their destruction?

Rule 2 applied to the second thing commanded: What is the opposite of "abhor?" The opposite of abhor is love. In this specific context "abhor" is set in direct opposition to "seek peace and prosperity." The Jew was commanded to "love" some people, and if Watson's rules of interpreting commandments are correct, "to abhor," or hate, some other people.

Application: If Watson's rules are correct, it is our God given duty to "seek the peace and prosperity" (which means "love") of some men and to "abhor (which means `hate') some other men." We must not hate the Edomites and Egyptians, but we must hate the Ammonites and the Moabites. We dare not "seek the peace and prosperity" of the Ammonites and Moabites, but must actively follow a course of action designed to destroy them. On the contrary, we must do all we can to "seek the peace and prosperity" of the Edomites and Egyptians.

Rule 3. "How can we consistently avoid any and every occasion that might possibly lead to an Edomite or Ammonite enjoying peace and prosperity?" We will let the reader work out a careful and studied approach in every detail of the "total shunning" process towards "God's enemies" who are under Elder discipline.

Rule 5. "What should we include on the list of `lesser' sins so as to think and act under all circumstances to be sure we do not in the least help the Edomite and Ammonite to have peace and prosperity. But to the contrary, we are making sure that he suffers the just consequences of his sin against God and His people"?

Rule 7. "What can we do to make sure that every person over whom we have any influence will also not seek the peace and prosperity of the Edomites and Ammonites, but instead, will also do the exact opposite and seek their destruction?"

Enough is enough. The point has been made. Now we know that the devotees of Covenant Theology are going to smile and say that we are caricaturing and misusing Thomas Watson. We also know that any honest and objective soul will clearly realize that th e Jews had more justification for believing that God wanted them to "hate their enemies" than some of the Reformers and Puritans (Covenant Theologians to a man) had for killing brethren in Christ simply because some of those brethren dared to "re-baptize "believers and rejected the sacral sign (infant baptism) of the state church. It was the Covenant Theology of the Reformers and Puritans that led them to set up governments according to the Law of Moses. They patterned everything after the nation of Israel, especially as it pertained to the duty of the magistrate to punish all those who dissented from the doctrines or practices of the state church in power. This is an indisputable fact written in the book of history with the blood of the baptists, quakers, and others.

The case against the Puritans and Reformers for their atrocities is far more damaging than the case against the Pharisees. The Pharisees had only to distort a few Old Testament Scriptures, but the Puritans and Reformers not only had to distort those very same Scriptures, they also had to contradict both the clear commandments of the New Testament Scriptures that speak about loving the brethren and the whole tenor of Christ's clear teaching in the Sermon on the Mount.

It is impossible to read the history of the vain attempts by Covenant Theologians to make the "fine points of the law" to be the "chief instrument in a Christian's sanctification" without seeing a perfect parallel to both the attitude of the Pharisees and what has been written above. The places, faces and specific issues may be different, but the method of approach and disastrous results are identical. If the Pharisees interpreted Dt 23:6,7 in exactly the same manner that Watson interpreted the Ten Commandments, they would have been more than justified in believing that God's Word literally "commanded" them hate to their enemies.

Most of us have seen church leaders with a cultic mentality exhibiting the same kind of attitudes that we condemn in the Pharisees. The worst part of the tragedy is not the attitude itself but the fact that it was motivated by the identical approach to the Word of God as that used by the Pharisees! Oh, that we could only learn to live and breathe under the freedom of the New Covenant! Oh, that the power of sovereign grace would grip our hearts and fill our souls with the love of Christ that we would not only love our enemies, but we would also be able to love our brethren who disagree with our particular creed!

If we would seriously compare Mt 5:43-48 with the verses in I John that make "love of the brethren" to be the practical test of assurance of salvation, then many great men in history and some at the present time would have a suspect salvation. The problem that produces such a situation is the very thing that we are discussing in this book. When we draw our whole system of conduct out of the Law of Moses, we will always fail to see Christ giving higher and more spiritual rules of conduct. We will become law centered instead of Christ centered. And when happens we will automatically start acting more like God's sheriff than His shepherd. The present abuse of God's sheep by tyrannical Elders is far more than a personality or temperament problem. It s roots is a theological misunderstanding of the very subject that we are discussing in this book.

The Puritans and Reformers, in their own minds, were "sincerely obeying God's commandments" when they persecuted and even killed fellow Christians for rejecting the authorized creed. Those godly men were merely being consistent with the view of authority and law set forth in their Covenant Theology. Burning a witch was in no way the "aberration of a hard hearted tyrant." It was the "good and necessary consequence" of a wrong theology of the relationship between Moses and Christ.

As long as people insist that there can be no real change from the old legal covenant to the new gracious covenant, it will be impossible for them to see and feel the power of the new demands of Christ that are based entirely on pure grace. They must ultimately lock themselves into a legal mentality that cannot help but work itself out in a rigid, self-righteous, condemning attitude. We have heard men infected with this mentality ridicule and mock "love" in an angry screaming voice. Given the authority and opportunity, men with such an attitude and theology can very easily "punish heresy with death" and feel that God is "being glorified and His truth is being vindicated." It has happened before and it will happen again.

We are in no way suggesting that the Rabbinical fathers were even close to correct in making the Old Testament Scriptures teach that it was a duty to "hate your enemies." This is one of the clear instances in the Sermon on the Mount where Christ is showing the distortions of the Pharisees. We believe that Christ was literally accusing them of adding to the Word of God. However, if we are honest with history, we are forced to admit to at least two facts:

One: The Rabbinical leaders' method and logic in using the Old Testament Scriptures to justify their hatred of "God's enemies" (the Gentiles) was exactly like the method and logic that was often used by Rome, the Reformers, and the Puritans to justify their hatred and persecution of sincere Christians who disagreed with the state church in power at the time. Tragically, the same thing can be said about some "duly authorized" church leaders today.

Two: According to Watson's rules of understanding God's commandments, "hating your enemies" was just as clearly a "good and necessary consequence" of some Old Testament texts as were many of the "good and necessary consequences" that were "deduced" by a consistent application of Covenant Theology and then used as the grounds to justify hatred and persecution. As already mentioned, the Pharisees were even more justified than the Covenant Theologians. While the Pharisees only had to distort the Old Testament Scriptures, Covenant Theologians have to misuse the same texts in the Old Testament Scriptures as well as contradict the clear commandments in the New Testament Scriptures. The Pharisees hated the Gentiles and treated them as "God's enemies." The Reformers and Puritans hated and persecuted other Christians as "enemies of God."

20 A.W. Pink, Ibid. p. 129.

21 See Lloyd-Jones, ibid, Vol 1, p 300.