Love For One's Enemies

Jesus never commands people to not have enemies.  God has enemies, and he has legitimate hatred for them (Psalm 5:5-6, 11:5 [1]).  Since we are told to imitate God in his moral character, it cannot possibly be sinful, on the Christian worldview, to have enemies.  It cannot even be sinful to simply hate someone, since hate is just an intense dislike, and thus can coexist with love in the same way that sadness and joy can be simultaneously felt for the same object.

Though Jesus never condemns having enemies or actively disliking them, he does instruct all people to love their enemies regardless of whatever relational difficulties exist (Matthew 5:43-45).  Loving one's enemies means treating them justly, hoping for their salvation (if they are not Christians), and being committed to and concerned with their ultimate wellbeing.  It does not mean anything more.  It does not mean harboring strong personal affections for them or going out of one's way to treat them better than they deserve.  It does not mean tolerance of irrationality and sin.  Affection might be a manifestation of commitment to a personal enemy's wellbeing, but one can care about treating enemies justly without ever feeling positive emotions towards them.

One can hate and love the same person or thing at the same time, so Jesus is in no way denouncing mere hatred when he commands people to love even their enemies; he instead demands that we not mistreat others even if we hate them, and even if they unjustly despise us.  Nothing about this teaching is contrary to Mosaic Law, meaning nothing about Jesus' command is an improvement over Yahweh's commands within the Christian framework, for Leviticus and Deuteronomy consistently prescribe love of all human beings (Leviticus 19:18, Deuteronomy 10:19, and so on).  Nothing about the command to love one's enemies is exclusive to the New Testament.

All people bear God's image and thus all people have the same baseline human rights, irrespective of how evil they are.  The reason why I should love my enemies is the same reason why I should love those who are not my enemies: because they have rights and value simply by nature of being humans who bear God's image.  This fact serves as the basis for moral obligations within all interpersonal relationships on the Christian worldview.

There is nothing particularly difficult to grasp about the Biblical instruction to love one's enemies when one approaches the concept from grounds of strict logic and exegesis.  Despite its simplicity, this doctrine can be difficult to live out in one's relationships.  It can be much easier, however, to implement the concept when one realizes that love for enemies does not have to do with personal affection or acts of unjust kindness, as it instead only means that we should treat our enemies justly and with a desire for the betterment of their moral and spiritual conditions.


[1].  See here:
  A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/cherry-picking-gods-nature.html
  B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/gods-hatred.html