Latest / Reformed Thinking / Children of the Father Divine Common Grace and Enemy Love (Matthew 5:45)

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Children of the Father Divine Common Grace and Enemy Love (Matthew 5:45) · Reformed Thinking

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  You look at the weather every single day and you probably
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  treat it as this completely neutral mechanical reality.
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  I mean, you check your phone, you see a 60% chance of rain and
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  you grab an umbrella. Right.
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  Or you see the sun is going to be out, so you put on
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  sunglasses. Yeah.
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  It feels predictable, just ordinary, you know?
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  Oh. It's totally ordinary.
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  But what if the morning forecast is actually a blinding display
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  of divine grace directed at tyrants, blasphemers, and people
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  who actively hate the Creator? Welcome to reformed thinking.
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  I am so thrilled you are joining us for today's Deep Dive.
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  It's going to be a fascinating discussion today.
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  It really is. Our mission for this session is
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  highly specific. We have two rigorous theological
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  Priuses in front of us, and we are going to unpack a single
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  world altering mandate found in Matthew chapter 5, verse 45.
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  Yes, we are looking at the logic defying command to love our
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  enemies. And we are going to see how that
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  command is anchored right there in the everyday weather.
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  OK, let's unpack this. Because the human brain is
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  natural wired for vengeance. Oh, absolutely.
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  We prefer a universe where goodness falls on the deserving
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  right? We want a strict, visible Ledger
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  of justice playing out in the clouds.
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  You know where good things happen to people who agree with
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  us, and lightning bolts strike the people who oppose us.
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  Yeah, a giant scoreboard in the sky.
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  Right. The human heart, enslaved to its
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  own depravity, just defaults to tribalism.
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  Yeah, I mean, we love those who love us.
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  We give to those who can give back, and we harbor bitter,
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  calculating hatred for anyone outside our circle.
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  You see this playing out across modern society and, well, the
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  statistics are actually chilling.
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  They. Really are.
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  Recent polling shows that over 80% of people across partisan
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  lines view their ideological opponents not just as incorrect,
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  but as literal existential threats.
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  Which is terrifying. It is.
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  We live in an age of total vitriol.
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  You step out of line and the culture demands your
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  annihilation. There is no grace, no
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  forgiveness, no redemption, just a demand for a pound of flesh.
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  How does the Christian ethic confront a culture like that?
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  Well, the framework we are stepping into completely crushes
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  human self righteousness. Matthew 545 does not float
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  around as some sentimental positive thinking proverb.
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  No, not at. All it is a royal summons from
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  the King of Heaven. It exposes the vast difference
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  between fallen human affection and divine goodness.
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  We are being called out of the darkness of our innate hostility
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  to gaze upon the indiscriminate common grace of God.
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  To grasp the weight of this command, we really have to
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  transport ourselves back to the exact moment these words were
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  spoken. Yeah, context is everything
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  here. Picture 1st century Israel.
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  You are sitting on a dusty Galilean mountainside.
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  This is an agrarian society. Right, they do not have grocery
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  stores. No grocery stores, no global
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  supply chains. They pull their survival
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  directly from the dirt, and they are living under the suffocating
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  boot of Roman occupation. The political, social and
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  religious realities forming the backdrop of this text are, well,
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  they are explosive. Yeah, they were a powder keg.
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  Exactly. The people in that crowd
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  despised the Romans. They viewed them as unclean
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  Pagan oppressors defiling the land.
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  And let's make that tangible for a second.
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  A Roman soldier could legally compel you to carry his gear for
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  a mile. Yes, you could be walking home
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  after 12 hours of grueling field labor and a legionnaire could
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  tap you on the shoulder with a spear, hand you a heavy pack,
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  and force you to March in the opposite direction.
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  And there's literally nothing you could do about it.
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  Nothing. If you resisted, you could be
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  beaten or killed. Right.
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  Then you have the tax collectors.
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  These were not just bureaucratic government employees.
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  Oh, they were much worse. Yeah, they were local Jewish
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  citizens who had purchased contracts from Rome.
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  They betrayed their own countrymen to collect silver for
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  the Imperial treasury, and they extorted extra money to line
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  their own pockets. So they were viewed as traitors
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  of the highest order. Traitors, thieves.
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  Outcasts. And Jesus looks at a crowd of
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  people who are suffering under this very specific daily
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  oppression, people whose lives are actively being ruined by
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  these enemies, and he tells them to love them.
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  It is staggering. And to pray for them, to
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  understand how shocking that is, we need to look at the religious
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  background. In the Sermon on the Mount,
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  Jesus delivers the six antithesis, systematically
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  dismantling the Pharisaical perversions of the law.
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  Right, he targets their false teachings.
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  In Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18, God commanded the people to
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  love their neighbor, but the Pharisees, looking for loopholes
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  to justify their own wicked hearts, added a man made made
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  corollary. They taught love your neighbor
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  and hate your enemy. Wait, they just added that last
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  part in. Yes, they intentionally
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  restricted the definition of neighbor to their immediate
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  tribe, their friends, their theological allies.
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  So it gave them a religious license to detest anyone outside
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  their boundary lines. Right.
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  Human nature loves a boundary line that places us on the
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  inside and the people we dislike on the outside.
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  Oh. Absolutely.
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  Jesus steps into that context and declares you have heard that
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  it was said, but I say to you, he tears down the rabbinic
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  hedges to reveal the piercing standard of God's moral law.
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  But wait, didn't God command Israel to wipe out their enemies
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  in the Old Testament? That is a very common objection.
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  I mean, I am thinking about the book of Joshua where God orders
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  the Israelites to drive out the Canaanites with the sword, or
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  the imprecatory Psalms where David is praying for his foes to
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  be judged, asking God to break the teeth of the wicked.
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  How do we reconcile those violent physical judgments with
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  this new radical command to love and pray for the Romans?
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  That is a crucial tension to resolve.
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  We have to recognize the clear dispensational shift occurring
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  in redemptive history. Hold on dispensational shift,
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  let me make sure I am following this.
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  You are saying God changed the rules based on the time period.
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  Well, not changing his moral character, but changing the
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  administration of his redemptive plan.
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  OK, unpack that for me. There's a vast distinction
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  between national Israel and the New Testament church in the Old
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  Testament economy. Israel was a geopolitical
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  national theocracy, right? God called them to execute His
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  holy justice upon wicked nations, to cleanse the Promised
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  Land of horrific practices like idolatry and child sacrifice.
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  So they were acting as an actual state.
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  Exactly. They were constituted as a
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  literal state. They had civil magistrates, a
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  military and borders. And a mandate from God.
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  Yes, they were an instrument of divine wrath in this specific
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  temporal context to protect the messianic line.
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  They were operating with civil and military authority given
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  directly by God to judge specific nations at specific
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  times. OK, that tracks.
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  They were acting as the physical arm of God's justice on earth.
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  But the New Testament church operates differently.
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  Very differently. The New Testament church belongs
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  to a different administration. We are not a geopolitical nation
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  state wielding the sword of civil justice, right?
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  We are a spiritual Kingdom of priests.
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  The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 13 that the state there's
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  the physical sword to punish evildoers, but the church does
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  not. So what is our weapon?
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  Our weapon is the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of
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  God. We operate as ambassadorial
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  peacemakers. That makes a lot of sense.
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  Christ is actively transitioning his disciples from the
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  theocratic warfare of the Old Covenant into the posture of the
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  Church age. He is preparing them to be sheep
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  among wolves. Which means the people sitting
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  on that hill listening to Jesus were being asked to abandon
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  their paradigm of violent revolution, right?
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  I mean, there were likely people in that very crowd who were
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  sympathetic to the zealots. These were men literally
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  sharpening daggers in secret, waiting for a political Messiah
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  to lead a bloody uprising against Rome.
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  Oh, undoubtedly. And Jesus looks at these
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  oppressed, furious people and says, pray for the men who are
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  crucifying your brothers. It was a massive affront to
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  their entrenched nationalistic pride.
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  They were being called to drop their earthly swords and take up
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  their crosses. Man, if the command is this
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  extreme, if I have to genuinely love the person who is trying to
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  destroy my life or even just the Co worker who is constantly
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  undermining me, the natural question becomes why must we do
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  this? Right.
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  The motive? Does our salvation actually
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  depend on our ability to perfectly love our enemies?
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  Because if it does, I am in serious trouble.
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  Well, to answer that, we must look into the magnificent
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  precision of the Greek text. Matthew 545 is grammatically
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  tethered to verse 44. Verse 44 gives the command right
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  Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
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  Yes, and verse #5 begins with a purpose clause in the Greek
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  introduced by the conjunction hopus paired with the
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  subjunctive verb genius. OK.
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  Hoop Genius. What does that actually mean for
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  the English reader? It translates to so that you may
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  become, or more accurately in this context, in order that you
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  may prove to be sons of your father.
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  So this syntax establishes the divine objective of loving our
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  enemies. Right now, we must vigorously
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  defend justification by faith alone or solified.
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  We do not love our enemies to earn our salvation.
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  Justification is a forensic declaration by God received by
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  faith alone, entirely apart from our works.
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  Let's pause on forensic declaration.
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  When I hear forensic, I usually think of a crime scene
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  investigation or a laboratory. What does that mean in a
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  theological context? It is a legal term.
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  Picture a courtroom. A forensic declaration is the
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  judge bringing down the gavel and declaring the defendant not
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  guilty. The judge does not perform
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  surgery on the defendant to make him internally better.
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  He changes the defendant's legal status.
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  Right? When God justifies a Sinner, He
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  legally declares them righteous based on the perfect record of
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  Jesus Christ. So he does not justify us
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  because we have proven ourselves lovable or because we have
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  successfully loved our enemies. Exactly.
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  Loving your enemies does not purchase your adoption into
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  God's family. Rather, it proves your divine
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  parentage. Obedience is the fruit, not the
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  root. I see.
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  It is like physical traits. Let's use a genetic analogy here
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  for you listening. If a child has blue eyes, they
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  did not manufacture those blue eyes in order to become their
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  father's child. You do not try to change your
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  eye color to earn a spot in the family.
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  You have blue eyes because you already share your father's DNA.
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  It is a biological inevitability of your parentage.
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  That is a great way to put it. Spiritual sonship works the very
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  same way, right? The Holy Spirit indwells the
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  believer and inevitably produces a visible resemblance to the
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  Creator. You start acting like the One
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  who gave you spiritual life. That analogy captures the
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  exegetical reality. Spot on.
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  You share the family resemblance.
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  Yeah, and this text completely demolishes the Roman Catholic
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  doctrine of infused righteousness.
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  How so? Well, that doctrine asserts a
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  theology of works based salvation, suggesting God
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  infuses you with grace like a spiritual medicine, and then you
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  have to cooperate with it and perform good works to eventually
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  achieve justification. Right.
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  But Christ deliberately chose the verb genomi here, which
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  relates to showing oneself to be or coming into a state of
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  realization. He did not use the verb poya,
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  which means to make or to manufacture.
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  Here's where it gets really interesting.
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  So we cannot manufacture sonship.
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  We cannot fake our way into the Kingdom by clenching our teeth
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  and trying. Really be hard to be nice to
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  people we hate. No, we cannot.
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  We act as sons in order to visibly manifest the reality
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  that we have already been adopted by the sovereign decree
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  of the Father. Because the grace of God does
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  not leave a man where it found him.
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  Right. He grants him a new nature that
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  begins to reflect the communicable attributes of God,
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  things like love, patience and mercy.
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  So claiming to be a child of God while harboring venomous,
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  calculating hatred for your enemies is a grotesque
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  theological contradiction. It is if there is no family
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  resemblance, there is no valid claim to the family name.
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  If I have the DNAI should look like the Father, but what does
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  the Father actually look like? When Jesus wants to show us
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  God's face, where does he point? He points to this guy.
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  He brings up the very specific agricultural imagery of the sun
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  in the rain. In a farming society, these
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  elements are not just background scenery, they dictate survival.
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  They are matters of life, bread and communal existence.
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  Yeah, drought meant starvation. Yeah, the original hearers stood
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  daily beneath gifts they had not earned, heavily dependent on the
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  seasons. Jesus uses this reality to teach
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  the doctrine of Providence. Let's look at the grammar again.
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  Right. Looking again at the Greek, the
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  verb for making the sunrise is anatellae.
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  It is an active indicative verb. Meaning God is actively doing
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  it. He is not just winding up the
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  universe like a clock, setting it on a shelf and walking away
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  to let it run on autopilot. That is the deistic view, the
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  idea of the watchmaker who builds the watch and leaves it
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  alone. Scripture rejects that God
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  actively, personally, and continually superintends the
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  cosmos. Every single sunrise is a direct
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  act of divine governance. This aligns Florida State with
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  the Westminster Confession Chapter 5.
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  Right, which teaches that God, the great Creator of all things,
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  does uphold, direct, dispose and govern all creatures actions and
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  things. He's intimately involved in the
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  weather. And Jesus highlights a
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  staggering double contrast here. He says God makes his sunrise on
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  the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on
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  the unjust. Yes, pictured A Pagan farmer in
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  the 1st century. He's actively worshipping a
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  false storm God. He is sacrificing to idols.
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  He completely rejects the God of Israel.
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  And yet his fields get the exact same crop saving rain as the
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  devout faithful believer living next door, the blasphemers feels
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  are watered by the very God he hates.
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  This is what theologians call common grace.
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  It is the marvel of God's indiscriminate goodness to a
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  fallen world. He gives real earthly kindness
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  to those who possess absolute hostility toward Him.
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  Which is mind blowing. It is this temporal benevolence
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  sustains life, provides food, and restrains the immediate
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  execution of divine judgment. I have to ask about this because
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  it brings up a huge issue. OK, go ahead.
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  If God is giving material blessings, wealth, good weather,
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  health, flourishing crops to wicked people, does that
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  validate the prosperity gospel? If the guy down the street is a
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  corrupt businessman who lies and cheats, but he lives in a
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  massive mansion and enjoys perfect health, is God giving
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  him a stamp of approval? Are these people spiritually
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  safe because God is blessing their harvest?
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  I firmly deny any such conclusion.
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  The prosperity gospel is a heresy that falsely links
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  material blessing with spiritual standing.
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  Right. Common grace is entirely
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  distinct from efficacious saving grace.
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  Efficacious, meaning grace that actually accomplishes salvation.
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  Yes, grace that effectively and invariably brings us Sinner to
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  faith and repentance. Saving grace redeems, justifies,
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  and grants eternal life to the elect.
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  But common grace is different. Common grace, however, is
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  indiscriminate temporal goodness.
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  It does not mean God approves of the unjust.
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  It simply means He is sustaining the world for His own redemptive
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  purposes. Then what is the purpose of the
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  rain falling on the unjust? Why keep feeding the guy who is
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  shaking his first at you? Romans chapter 2 verse 4 gives
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  us the definitive answer Paul writes.
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  Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance
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  and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead
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  you to repentance? Every drop of rain that falls in
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  a wicked man's field is a merciful delay of eternal wrath.
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  It leaves him with that excuse. He cannot say God was cruel to
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  him. So what happens if he doesn't
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  repair? If the reprobate, the one who
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  remains hardened in his unbelief, remains in his
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  rebellion, refusing to acknowledge the Creator who
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  feeds him, that very same reign will bear witness against him at
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  the final judgment. It increases his accountability,
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  yes. The sunshine he enjoyed will be
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  the evidence of God's patience that he's burned.
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  It makes you think about your morning commute differently,
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  doesn't it? If you are driving in the rain
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  right now listening to this, you are driving through a
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  theological statement. You really are.
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  Every sunrise is a visible sermon about the staggering
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  patience of God. When you feel the warmth of the
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  sun, you are feeling the unmerited benevolence of a holy
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  God toward a world that deserves immediate destruction.
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  That is the standard we are called to emulate, right?
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  The flow of the passage moves from our duty to love to our
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  identity as sons, to God's action and Providence to our
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  ethical imitation of that Providence.
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  So the Christian does not ask, what does my enemy deserve from
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  me? Right, the Christian asks.
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  What has my Father shown me about holy, patient, generous
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  love? But the standard is flawless,
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  indiscriminate love. It culminates in verse 48 with
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  the demand be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly
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  Father is perfect. Yes it does.
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  I read that and feel completely crushed by the weight of my own
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  inevitable failure. I mean, I know how my heart
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  works. I know how quickly I harbor
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  resentment over a snarky e-mail, let alone true persecution.
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  We all do. How is this massive gap between
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  God's perfection and our innate hostility actually bridged?
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  Well, if we preach this text as just a set of ethical
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  instructions disconnected from the Savior, we leave people in
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  total despair. Absolutely, we must look at the
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  final fulfillment of this standard.
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  Jesus Christ is the true eternal Son of the Father.
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  Everything that Matthew 545 demands of the adopted sons, the
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  eternal Son fulfilled. Florida State, we look to His
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  active obedience on Earth. Active obedience, meaning the
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  righteous life He lived on our behalf.
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  He rebuked hypocrites. He overturned tables.
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  He spoke searing truth to the religious leaders of His day.
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  He called the Pharisees a brood of Vipers.
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  Yes, he did. But he did it all without a
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  single drop of sinful malice. He never confused holiness with
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  personal bitterness. He perfectly embodied the moral
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  law. He did, and we also see the
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  terrifying, awe inspiring reality of His passive obedience
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  on the cross. We established that God sends
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  common grace, the rain and the sun on the unjust, but on the
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  cross the Father withdrew His grace from the perfect sun.
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  Absolute darkness fell upon the land at noon.
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  Yes, Christ endured the unmitigated storm of divine
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  wrath so that his enemies could receive saving grace.
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  If we connect this to the bigger picture, it changes everything.
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  Yeah, while we are busy holding grudges over minor
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  inconveniences or plotting how to verbally destroy someone who
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  slighted us in a meeting, Romans chapter 5 steps in.
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  It does. It says that while we were still
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  weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
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  While we were actively enemies of God, Christ died for us.
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  We were the ones shaking our fists at heaven.
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  And Jesus, as the Romans are actively driving iron spikes
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  through his flesh, prays for his executioners.
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  Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
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  He embodied enemy love as he bled to death on the wood.
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  He drank the bitter cup of damnation so that his enemies
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  might drink the waters of eternal life.
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  The law exposes our total inability to love as God loves.
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  It functions as a schoolmaster to drive us desperately to
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  Christ. Because we cannot do it on our
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  own. No, we could not be sons of the
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  Father. Apart from the regenerating work
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  of the Spirit, purchased entirely by the blood of the
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  Son. He succeeded where we fail
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  daily. So what does this all mean?
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  Bringing this down to the pavement.
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  Now that we see how Christ perfectly fulfilled this, what
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  does our daily life actually look like when we step out the
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  front door and face a world that is incredibly hostile?
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  We begin by applying the first use of the law, which is to
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  expose sin. OK, this text functions as a
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  mirror. It exposes our innate tribalism.
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  Professing believers often drastically restrict their love
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  to their own theological, political, or social circles.
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  They greet those who agree with them and harbor absolute
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  contempt for those outside the camp.
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  Right. See this all the time.
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  People baptizing bitterness as discernment.
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  I'm not being hateful, I'm just standing for truth.
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  Meanwhile, their hearts are filled with venom.
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  Yeah, it's tragic. We see families preserving old
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  wounds as heirlooms, refusing to let them go, passing down
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  grievances to the next generation.
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  This raises an important question.
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  Is your love just natural, or is it distinctly filial?
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  Meaning, does it look like the father right?
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  Jesus says even the tax collectors and the Gentiles love
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  those who love them. If you only show kindness to
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  those who benefit you, you are operating on worldly
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  reciprocity, not Kingdom righteousness.
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  You are acting like a Pagan. But let me push back here,
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  because this is where people get stuck.
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  OK? If I have to love my enemies,
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  does that mean I have to accept moral relativism?
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  Am I supposed to tolerate false doctrine or pretend that evil
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  actions are actually good? Not at all.
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  Like if someone embezzles money from my business or harms my
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  family, do I just smile and avoid seeking civil justice?
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  I reject that premise entirely. Loving your enemies does not
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  mean pretending that evil is good.
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  Notice that the text itself specifically labels people evil
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  and unjust. Christ maintains absolute moral
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  clarity. We do not abandon church
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  discipline, lawful boundaries, or the pursuit of civil justice.
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  Right, God instituted the civil magistrate for a reason.
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  Yes, enemy love is the resolute refusal to let another person's
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  wickedness make us wicked in return.
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  That is a critical distinction. We can speak the truth, but we
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  do so without venom. We can oppose falsehood and call
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  out heresy, but not from a place of personal hatred or desire to
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  destroy the individual. Exactly.
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  We can protect the vulnerable and press charges against a
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  criminal without indulging in cruelty ourselves.
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  Correct retaliatory religion obscures the Gospel.
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  Patient, prayerful, truth speaking love adorns it.
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  Jesus commands us in verse 44 to pray for our persecutors.
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  That is an active, actionable step.
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  It is. You cannot passively love your
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  enemy. You must actively bring them
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  before the throne of grace it. Forces the believer to bring the
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  enemy before God rather than constantly rehearsing the
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  offense in their own mind. When someone wrongs you, the
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  natural fleshly response is to play the tape over and over.
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  You sit in your car and have fake arguments with them in your
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  head, building a rock solid case for why you have the right to
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  despise. Them we are all guilty of that.
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  Praying for them derails that fleshly machinery.
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  You have to ask God to grant them repentance, to grant them
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  mercy, to open their eyes. You cannot sincerely pray for
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  someone's eternal soul while actively plotting their
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  destruction. You really cannot.
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  And this brings up the witness of the Church today.
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  We live in a society fractured by outrage.
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  Oh, completely. Social media algorithms are
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  literally designed to reward the quick, brutal takedown and the
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  total cancellation of anyone who missteps.
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  Outrage is currency. Yeah, in that landscape, a
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  community that actively blesses its enemies without compromising
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  an inch of truth is a supernatural anomaly.
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  It is utterly alien to the world.
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  It disrupts their entire operating system.
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  It displays the reality of the Gospel far better than any
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  pragmatic marketing strategy or seeker sensitive program ever
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  could. So.
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  True. When the world reviles you and
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  you respond with measured, prayerful blessing instead of
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  screaming back at them, the world is forced to recognize
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  that you are operating on a completely different frequency.
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  You are visibly demonstrating the character of the Heavenly
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  Father. Let's review the core concepts
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  we have mapped out today. The standard of our conduct is
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  not the behavior of our enemy. The standard is the perfection
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  of the Father, right? The means by which we achieve
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  this is not our own manufactured willpower, but through union
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  with the Son who perfectly obeyed in our place.
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  Yes, and the result is a supernatural affection, A
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  genuine love for those who actively hate us.
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  The believer becomes a living, breathing theater of God's
• 23:48
  common grace, extending tangible goodness to the undeserving,
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  just as the Father extends the rain and the sun.
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  Before we close, there's one final sobering thought that
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  builds on everything we have discussed, but as a massive
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  layer of urgency. We must consider the
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  eschatological limit of common grace right right now.
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  Today, the sun rises and the rain falls on the unjust.
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  We are living in a season of divine patience.
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  God is actively restraining his final judgement, giving breath
• 24:17
  and food to his enemies. But a day is appointed to return
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  to the King when that season of common grace will slam
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  completely shut. On that day of final judgement,
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  the sun will no longer rise on the wicked.
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  The rain will cease. The time for repentance will be
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  over. Therefore, our mandate to love
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  our enemies right now, while there is still time, is not just
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  some high minded moral exercise for our own self improvement.
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  No, not at all. It is an urgent, desperate
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  evangelistic rescue mission. We are pleading with them
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  through our actions and our prayers to flee from the wrath
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  to come while the sun is still shining.
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  That is the heart of it. Thank you so much for joining us
• 24:53
  for this deep dive on reformed thinking.
• 24:56
  Tomorrow morning, when you walk outside and feel the sun on your
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  face, or when you see the rain falling on the pavement, look at
• 25:01
  the sky with a completely new perspective.
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  Remember the indiscriminate grace of the Father and go out
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  into the world to love your enemies as true children of
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  heaven.