Romans 12:14-21
Christ-Centered Enemy Love
Because you have been graciously joined to Jesus Christ, your living and holy sacrifice, you now are becoming, by Christ’s Spirit, a living and holy sacrifice to God.
In fact, Christ’s Spirit is in you working to transform your whole life into this living and holy sacrificial walk before God. You are being conformed into the image of Christ, which begins in your mind being renewed according to your new, heavenly life in Christ in contrast to the mindset of this world.
In vv. 3-8 we have looked at that transformation process that is conforming us into the humble, gentle, serving, compassionate, mindset of Christ.
Last Sunday, in vv. 9-13 we began looking at what genuine, Christ-centered love looks like. In 12 characteristics of love, Paul gave us a wonderful picture of what your life looks like under the power of the gospel. And it is this single, all-comprehensive characteristic of love that so closely parallels the essential nature of God Himself who is both the source and living demonstration of pure love.
Now, this Sunday in vv. 14-21 we come to what is the most difficult aspect of love: loving your enemy.
There is probably no greater example of the radical distinction of the teachings of Jesus Christ from all the other religions in the world, including Judaism, than His command to love even your enemies. In fact, there is no other example in history of anyone teaching “blessing in response to being cursed by another.”
Now, if this all sounds very strange to your ears then you know that you are on the right track – the world completely rejects this kind of thinking – remember v. 2! The world says, “Don’t get mad; get even!” But this morning we are looking into the radical mindset renewal that comes only through the gospel of Jesus Christ. In this we are seeing our life completely taken up and transformed by the cross of Christ so that we might now live according to a heavenly mindset of life here on earth.
Now, before we get started this morning, let me preface all our comments with this: I know how easy it is to hear Jesus and Paul’s words this morning and quickly begin to ask questions to seek to qualify or in some way to constrain their admonition. There will be questions about how we relate what Jesus and Paul say to wars between nations, modern-day terrorists, evil dictators, etc. You might even wonder how do their words relate to serial killers, rapists, and child molesters. In light of such questions, its easy to try and so qualify what Jesus and Paul is saying that we end of castrating the biblical command to love your enemy.
If those questions are too big for you to handle this morning: Let’s start somewhere much closer to home. How about loving those you work with, or your neighbor across the street? How about loving your father and mother – your wife or husband – your children? Think of how you love one another as fellow members of the body of Christ, whether those present this morning or those you have worshipped with in the past. How do you love those people in your every day life, even the unlovable ones? How do you respond to those who do not like you and maybe even to the degree that they wish you harm?
As we will see this morning – its easy to love those who love you back. But how do you love those who not only do not wish you good, but wish you evil instead? And as we will see, if you can love them, how much more can you love those who do love you?
Paul now turns to yet another manifestation of genuine love among the body of Christ in v. 14: “bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” Now this sets the agenda for the rest of the chapter. Remember Paul said in v. 9 that love is not “play-acting.” Love is not love if it is not sincere. And since genuine love “abhors what is evil and clings to what is good” in regards to our love for one another, Paul now shows how that same love clings to what is good even for you enemy.
Paul uses a present tense verb here which means that this is your continually, day-by-day response to your enemy. In other words, as often as your enemy is persecuting you, just as often you are to bless them. “You are to be blessing the ones persecuting you.”
Now, just what does Paul mean by “blessing” your enemy? What exactly are we doing? Well, ask yourself, “where do blessings come from”? Who is the source of blessing? God!
So how do we bless our persecutors? You are to call upon God to bestow his favor and goodness upon your enemy. It is the exact opposite of calling upon God to bring disaster or spiritual ruin to your enemy. When your enemy is persecuting you or cursing you – you bless in response. As one commentator said:
To bless is to wish well and to turn the wish into a prayer” (C. H. Dodd in Piper, Love Your Enemies, 116).
In this way, we are so wonderfully imitating God. Jesus said:
"You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.' 44 "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 "If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:43-48).
You see Jesus’ point: when you love your enemy and pray for or bless those who persecute you then at that very moment you are reflecting your being a son of your Father in Heaven. How? Because look at what God does for both the righteous and the unrighteous. He causes the sun to rise on them and sends rain for them. It is in this kind of love that you are being most like God.
But that isn’t even the full extent of God’s love. You remember how Jesus responded while hanging from the cross amidst his own enemies:
Luke 23:34 "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."Now, step back for a moment and look at the totality of Jesus’ command to love your neighbor as yourself – do you see how single-minded we are to be in our love for others – there are no exceptions – we are to love everyone – yes even our neighbor.
Now in the following verses, Paul puts some flesh on the command to love your enemies. In v. 15 he says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.” While this is certainly appropriate for Christians to demonstrate their love to one another, it is also true even with our enemies. How?
When your enemy is filled with joy, there is a tendency to become envious or bitter towards them – to be angry that even while they are doing evil they are being blessed. Many of the psalms struggle with this question – How can the evil prosper? But Paul says you are to fully enter – wholeheartedly – into the same joy of your enemy.
Similarly, when your enemy is burdened with life to the degree that they are brought to tears – you do not rejoice in their tragedy – but rather you so identify with them that their sorrow becomes your sorrow. You share in their pain to the degree that you shoulder it with them.
But how? How could you possibly do such a thing for someone who hates you? Can you not think of anyone who has done this for you? What greater display of a servant mind that incarnates one’s suffering and pain and shares the burden of another than to do so for your enemy?
In v. 16, Paul says you are to be of the same mind towards one another. Paul is not saying that you are all to think the same way or to think exactly the same thing on every issue – that’s impossible. Rather, this goes back to v. 2 – that we are to view everything and everyone through the same lens of the gospel of Jesus Christ. How do we do that?
It begins with how the gospel views our state before a holy God outside of Christ – we recognize that at the very core of our beings that we are filled with sin and rebellion to God and therefore under the wrath of God. We have no hope without God. Therefore, our hope is only in what God has done for us in sending his only Son to stand in our place both in fulfilling the law of God and in paying the price for our sins. At the end of the day, you are a sinner saved by grace. You have done nothing to be welcomed into the family of God – but you belong to God because He is love and He has chosen to show you mercy.
It is the gospel fact that ought to drive us to what Paul says next: “do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly; do not be wise in your own estimation.”
The biggest danger in peace and unity of the church is pride – both natural and spiritual pride. When we approach one another thinking that we have somehow achieved or merited something we have because we are better than others – we can easily adopt an overly-exalted opinion of ourselves which leads us to look down on others.
You see such self-exaltation in how people use their tongues to talk about others – as if it is a weapon to crush all beneath them. You see it when we think that we are always right and others are wrong and therefore our opinions matter more than others.
Paul adds, that “we are not to be wise in our own estimation,” which is another way of describing pride. When we are wise in our own eyes – we think our own internal, personal standard of so-called “wisdom” is the means by which we judge others. Since we are always right, everyone else must live up to our expectations. This is how we seek to control one another.
So what are we to do when we begin to see such arrogant, conceited, proud thinking in our own lives? Associate with the lowly. Whether Paul is referring the physical low or spiritual low is not entirely clear. The physical “lowly” are the poor, outcasts, needy. Those who can’t offer you anything for the good done for them. They can’t pay you back. In other words, what you do for them – you do “for” them – probably without ever seeing anything in return. It is completely sacrificial giving of yourself. You loose in giving yourself to them.
The spiritual “lowly” are those who like Jesus describes in the Beatitudes who are “poor in Spirit,” who recognize they are spiritually bankrupt before God. They are the tax-collector who wouldn’t even raise his head in God’s presence but beat his breast, crying out, “be merciful to me a sinner.”
This is the mindset of humility that Paul calls us to in Phil 2 that was so wonderfully displayed in Christ’s life for you. He did not regard his equality with God as a thing to be grasped at – but literally became a “no-count” to become your servant, to share in your sufferings, to take your penalty all the way to the very end – death on the cross. Talk about associating with the lowly!
In v. 17, Paul says that we don’t pay back evil for evil. The language of “pay-back” has the idea that we “owe” someone evil. We are in their debt. They paid us evil and now we owe them evil back.
But instead we are to “respect what is right in the sight of all men.” The language of “respect” here means “to take thought” of what is right and good of all people. It means we are to plan or to determine ahead of time what is good and right for others – this is how we are to be peacemakers with all others (v. 18). While we can’t control what others do to us, we can control how we respond so as not to exacerbate the situation by returning what is owed our enemy.
But our normal response when wronged is to return harm or evil in like manner.
And such a response is only intensified when masked as rightful justice or deserved punishment of our enemy. But when we seek to get revenge on others what are we essentially doing? What are we trying to be? When we seek to take justice in our own hands we are arrogantly trying to usurp God’s own authority. We are trying to dethrone God and enthrone ourselves as the judge of all humanity. That’s why Paul quotes from Deut. 32 to remind us whose job it is to judge others.
In other words, it is our job to love and leave all judging to the only One who can truly judge righteously. That’s what Paul exhorts us to do in v. 20 – as often as your enemy is hungry or thirsty – in some kind of need – immediately go to his or her rescue and meet their need. Why? Because in doing so you are “heaping burning coals on their head.” What does Paul mean?
There was a long tradition in the ancient world going back to Egypt and known by the Jewish people of showing signs of repentance and contrition within the community by carrying a basin of fiery coals upon your head. The fiery coals upon the head was a conscious display that he had changed his mind about what he had done wrong to his neighbor.
In other words, what Paul is essentially saying, quoting from the Proverbs (25:21-22) is that when you do good to your enemy, when he or she is expecting revenge, it is your hope that your loving, gentle response will bring him or her to repentance of their evil deed. When they see the good that has been returned for their evil, they will become ashamed of their actions and repent and become your friend.
In this way, you will overcome or conquer evil (v. 21). We can certainly be overcome with evil by allowing the pressure of this world’s mindset to force us to want to get even when wronged. But we have been raised to live a heavenly life in Christ here on earth and as Christ overcame evil through suffering, love, compassion, mercy so we conquer evil through good in Christ. We bless and do not curse.
But why? How can we possibly have a renewed mind to think this way about our enemy? Well, notice a little word that we skipped in v. 19 that will bring all of this into focus: “beloved.” Why do you think Paul adds that little word in the middle of such a big command as to “never take your own revenge?”
Because the only way we can love our evil neighbor is to remember who we are before God! Remember your former stance before God. We are so often like the men surrounding the woman caught in adultery ready to stone her and we have to be reminded that we are in the same boat as that woman. We have all been caught in spiritual adultery of worshipping and adoring the creature rather than then Creator and we are all sinners who have no right to cast the first stone.
We are like the slave whose debt was so large that we couldn’t repay the master and while released from our burden we went and found another slave who owed us almost nothing and through him in jail until he paid the last cent.
You see, the gospel reminds you that you too were at one time His enemy and how did He treat you? He loved you perfectly and did what was good to you when you didn’t deserve it at all.
Look at the cross and see how God loved you in your rebellious, hostile condition before God.
God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them . . . He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:19, 21).
God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8).
And what happened to you at the cross? At the cross, your future judgment fell upon Jesus Christ. He became the curse of God for you. Therefore, you have already passed through the fires of divine justice and you are now no longer the enemy of God. Rather, you are the beloved. Now, knowing that, how can you look at your enemy and not feel pity? How could you now take vengeance on the one who so clearly displayed your life before God? Peter says:
For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 22 WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH; 23 and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. 25 For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls (1 Peter. 2:21-25).
That is the love that Paul is calling you to this morning. You are to live out your daily walk under the light of the cross of Christ, which completely transforms your thinking into the glorious image of Christ. And then the world will know you that you beloved “love one another as Jesus Christ has loved you.”
Amen!
-SDG-
