Love your enemies (Preacher: Paul Han)
(a sermon delivered in the International Worship Service at Calvin, on April 19, 2013)
Biblical text: Matthew 5:43-44
1) What is the human being? My journey in search of an answer to this question was finalized in the second to the last verse of Ecclesiastes. In the NIV, it is written “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” But the Hebrew text of this verse tells us something a little bit different but very significant. It can be translated this way: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole person or the totality of a human being.” According to this verse, the true original human being is to fear God and keep his commandments.
2) Fearing God or keeping his commandments is not just an activity of humans or their duty. Fearing God, keeping his commandments, refers to who we are. This is our original identity as human beings. I know this is very strange or even absurd, but this is the most biblical definition of a human being. I am not talking about a biological, psychological, sociological, or geneological definition. But I am talking about what the Bible says about who we are as human beings. Now we can say with the Bible that if you do not fear God or if you do not keep his commandments, this means that you stop being human.
3) Our beings have an ontological connection with God’s command. Each of us knows well by faith that the universe was formed at the command of God. The author of Psalm 148 also tells us that all creatures in heaven and on earth were created because the Lord commanded them to be. Let there be light, for example, and there was light. In essence, this is also the way in which human beings were created. The command of God, thus, has an ontological relation to our being.
4) On the flip side, it also has an epistemological connection with our being. If you want to know yourself, the best way is to look at yourself in the mirror of the divine commandment. The divine commandment is the best mirror that provides us with the true knowledge of who we really are, even to its highest degree.
5) Having this in mind, we need to think all God’s commandments in the Old and the New Testaments can be summarized in the love of God and our neighbors. The new sole commandment of Jesus Christ, in addition, is to love each other, but as he has loved us. Listen to the more nuanced thought of Jesus on the love: “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?” The true love Jesus newly commanded us to do is toward someone else: our enemies. In this sense, to love our enemies is the highest point of the love commandment in the Old and the New Testaments.
6) To love our enemies is in fact the hardest commandment for us to do. But God’s intention for the divine command is not to bother our lives. According to Moses, the master of the divine command (like Dr. Van Reken), God’s laws were given for our blessings. The essential blessing of the divine commandment is to revael to us first of all who the commander is and at the same time who the receivers really are. Just as Calvin pronounced in the first page of his Institutes that true and solid wisdom consists almost entirely of two parts (the knowledge of God and ourselves), the true teaching of every single divine commandment also consists of the knowledge of God and ourselves.
7) Jesus Christ commands us to love our enemies. This command is the best mirror that provides us with the most gracious and most substantial blessing of knowing most deeply and exactly who the commander Jesus is and who we are. Jesus Christ is the perfect God and perfect Man who loved his enemies even at the sacrifice of his divine glory and precious life. But we were the enemies of Jesus Christ, enemies who did not recognize him, did not receive him, did not give thanks to him, did not glorify him, but rather we persecuted and crucified him to death. We made Jesus suffer and die. Indeed, we were his enemies, but he loved us. In this sense, God is truly love. Without loving our enemies, we could not know the God who is love loving us, just as John the Apostle says that those who do not love do not know God. Let us love our enemies even for ourselves.
8) What is more, love is not different from God’s nature. To love is the life of Jesus, to love is his being, and to love is his nature. This very Jesus commands us to love our enemies as he has done for us. We have to obey the sole command of Jesus Christ by loving not only our friends but more intentionally our enemies. As the totality of God’s commandments, love has a natural and beatific connection with us. To love should be natural to us. To love should be our life. To love should be our being. To love should be our whole person and nature. To love our enemies should be natural to us.
9) As Augustine says, to love loving is a great blessing for us, because by loving we can take part in the divine nature of God. (In this sense, the divine commandment is an invitation to take part in God’s nature, as Peter also implies) To fear God by keeping the ultimate command of loving our enemies as Jesus did must be our life, our whole person, the totality of our beings, our nature taking part in God’s nature, and therefore our greatest blessing.
10) When people see us, moreover, they should see the loving God in us. In short, without loving our enemies, we could not be as we are supposed to be; we could not know God and ourselves; and we could not proclaim Christ to the world (as John wrote in his Gospel). I am convinced that our ontology is being by loving; our epistemology is knowing by loving; and our mission is preaching by loving.
11) I want to share the story of a Korean pastor, Yangwon Son, who showed Korean people what the love of Jesus Christ is. He had six children. The first and the second sons were killed by a young man, when they were preaching the gospel. But the pastor adopted the killer. He loved this enemy as he had loved his two killed sons. The following is the pastor Son’s prayer of thanksgiving to God at the funeral of his two killed sons.
1. My God, I thank You, for having allowed martyrs to be born in the family of sinners such as mine.
2. My Lord, I thank You for having entrusted me, out of countless believers, with such precious treasures.
3. Among my three sons and three daughters, I thank You for my blessings through which I could offer You my two most beautiful children, my oldest and second oldest sons.
4. I thank You for the martyrdom of two of my children, when the martyrdom of one child in itself is much more precious than I could bear.
5. I thank You for the martyrdom of my sons who were shot to death while they were preaching the gospel, when dying peacefully on his deathbed in itself is a tremendous blessing for a believer.
6. I thank You that my heart is at peace as my sons, who had been preparing to go and study in America, are now in a place that is much better than America.
7. God, I thank You for giving me a heart of love for repentance of the enemy who killed my sons and compelling me to adopt him as my own son.
8. My Father, I thank you for there will now be countless more sons of heaven through the fruit of the martyrdom of my sons.
9. I thank and thank Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given me these eight truths in such a difficult time, the joyful heart seeking faith and love, and the faith that provides me with peace.
God’s love be with your love of your enemies in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
(a sermon delivered in the International Worship Service at Calvin, on April 19, 2013)
Biblical text: Matthew 5:43-44
1) What is the human being? My journey in search of an answer to this question was finalized in the second to the last verse of Ecclesiastes. In the NIV, it is written “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” But the Hebrew text of this verse tells us something a little bit different but very significant. It can be translated this way: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole person or the totality of a human being.” According to this verse, the true original human being is to fear God and keep his commandments.
2) Fearing God or keeping his commandments is not just an activity of humans or their duty. Fearing God, keeping his commandments, refers to who we are. This is our original identity as human beings. I know this is very strange or even absurd, but this is the most biblical definition of a human being. I am not talking about a biological, psychological, sociological, or geneological definition. But I am talking about what the Bible says about who we are as human beings. Now we can say with the Bible that if you do not fear God or if you do not keep his commandments, this means that you stop being human.
3) Our beings have an ontological connection with God’s command. Each of us knows well by faith that the universe was formed at the command of God. The author of Psalm 148 also tells us that all creatures in heaven and on earth were created because the Lord commanded them to be. Let there be light, for example, and there was light. In essence, this is also the way in which human beings were created. The command of God, thus, has an ontological relation to our being.
4) On the flip side, it also has an epistemological connection with our being. If you want to know yourself, the best way is to look at yourself in the mirror of the divine commandment. The divine commandment is the best mirror that provides us with the true knowledge of who we really are, even to its highest degree.
5) Having this in mind, we need to think all God’s commandments in the Old and the New Testaments can be summarized in the love of God and our neighbors. The new sole commandment of Jesus Christ, in addition, is to love each other, but as he has loved us. Listen to the more nuanced thought of Jesus on the love: “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?” The true love Jesus newly commanded us to do is toward someone else: our enemies. In this sense, to love our enemies is the highest point of the love commandment in the Old and the New Testaments.
6) To love our enemies is in fact the hardest commandment for us to do. But God’s intention for the divine command is not to bother our lives. According to Moses, the master of the divine command (like Dr. Van Reken), God’s laws were given for our blessings. The essential blessing of the divine commandment is to revael to us first of all who the commander is and at the same time who the receivers really are. Just as Calvin pronounced in the first page of his Institutes that true and solid wisdom consists almost entirely of two parts (the knowledge of God and ourselves), the true teaching of every single divine commandment also consists of the knowledge of God and ourselves.
7) Jesus Christ commands us to love our enemies. This command is the best mirror that provides us with the most gracious and most substantial blessing of knowing most deeply and exactly who the commander Jesus is and who we are. Jesus Christ is the perfect God and perfect Man who loved his enemies even at the sacrifice of his divine glory and precious life. But we were the enemies of Jesus Christ, enemies who did not recognize him, did not receive him, did not give thanks to him, did not glorify him, but rather we persecuted and crucified him to death. We made Jesus suffer and die. Indeed, we were his enemies, but he loved us. In this sense, God is truly love. Without loving our enemies, we could not know the God who is love loving us, just as John the Apostle says that those who do not love do not know God. Let us love our enemies even for ourselves.
8) What is more, love is not different from God’s nature. To love is the life of Jesus, to love is his being, and to love is his nature. This very Jesus commands us to love our enemies as he has done for us. We have to obey the sole command of Jesus Christ by loving not only our friends but more intentionally our enemies. As the totality of God’s commandments, love has a natural and beatific connection with us. To love should be natural to us. To love should be our life. To love should be our being. To love should be our whole person and nature. To love our enemies should be natural to us.
9) As Augustine says, to love loving is a great blessing for us, because by loving we can take part in the divine nature of God. (In this sense, the divine commandment is an invitation to take part in God’s nature, as Peter also implies) To fear God by keeping the ultimate command of loving our enemies as Jesus did must be our life, our whole person, the totality of our beings, our nature taking part in God’s nature, and therefore our greatest blessing.
10) When people see us, moreover, they should see the loving God in us. In short, without loving our enemies, we could not be as we are supposed to be; we could not know God and ourselves; and we could not proclaim Christ to the world (as John wrote in his Gospel). I am convinced that our ontology is being by loving; our epistemology is knowing by loving; and our mission is preaching by loving.
11) I want to share the story of a Korean pastor, Yangwon Son, who showed Korean people what the love of Jesus Christ is. He had six children. The first and the second sons were killed by a young man, when they were preaching the gospel. But the pastor adopted the killer. He loved this enemy as he had loved his two killed sons. The following is the pastor Son’s prayer of thanksgiving to God at the funeral of his two killed sons.
1. My God, I thank You, for having allowed martyrs to be born in the family of sinners such as mine.
2. My Lord, I thank You for having entrusted me, out of countless believers, with such precious treasures.
3. Among my three sons and three daughters, I thank You for my blessings through which I could offer You my two most beautiful children, my oldest and second oldest sons.
4. I thank You for the martyrdom of two of my children, when the martyrdom of one child in itself is much more precious than I could bear.
5. I thank You for the martyrdom of my sons who were shot to death while they were preaching the gospel, when dying peacefully on his deathbed in itself is a tremendous blessing for a believer.
6. I thank You that my heart is at peace as my sons, who had been preparing to go and study in America, are now in a place that is much better than America.
7. God, I thank You for giving me a heart of love for repentance of the enemy who killed my sons and compelling me to adopt him as my own son.
8. My Father, I thank you for there will now be countless more sons of heaven through the fruit of the martyrdom of my sons.
9. I thank and thank Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given me these eight truths in such a difficult time, the joyful heart seeking faith and love, and the faith that provides me with peace.
God’s love be with your love of your enemies in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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