Finally, the believers are to be subject to the government for the Lord’s sake according to the will of God. First Peter 2:13-15 says, “Be subject to every human institution for the Lord’s sake, whether to a king as supreme, or to governors as sent by him for vengeance on evildoers and praise of those who do good; because so is the will of God, by doing good to silence the ignorance of foolish men.” Literally the Greek word translated “institution” here means creation, as in Colossians 1:15. It refers to anything made, as a creature, building, regulation, ordinance. In this verse the word institution means a regulation, an ordinance, an established principle, and it refers to the making of regulations or ordinances much like the enacting of laws by the legislature. According to the context, “every human institution” includes “a king as supreme” and also “governors as sent by him.” Here Peter is telling the believers that for the Lord’s sake, that is, for the expression and glorification of the Lord (v. 12), we should be subject to all human institutions according to the will of God.
If the believers would have the best attitude toward others, they should love their enemies. This is the topmost attitude we should hold toward others.
In Matthew 5:43 and 44a the Lord Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies.” This matter touches our being. The reason we love our neighbors is that they are good according to our feeling. Although our neighbors correspond to our feeling, an enemy does not. Instead, an enemy stirs up our temper. Hence, the matter of loving our enemies is a test.
If we read chapters five, six, and seven of Matthew, we shall see that the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens does not give any room to our natural being but instead kills all the “germs” within us. You hate your enemy because he does not agree with your natural choice, and you love your good neighbor because he suits your natural choice. If the Lord arranged for us to have only good neighbors and no enemies, we would not be put on the test. But the Lord will use our enemies to expose what is within us. The reason we find it difficult to love our enemies is that they are against our being and our natural feeling. Therefore, the requirement to love our enemies is a test to prove whether we live by ourselves or by Christ. Through the divine dispensing of the divine Trinity the believers are able to love their enemies.
The believers not only should love their enemies but also do good to those who hate them. In Luke 6:27 the Lord Jesus says, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” To love our enemies and to do good to those who hate us is the highest standard of morality. In order to do this we need to be a God-man, a person saturated with God and mingled with Him.
Luke 6:35 says, “Love your enemies, and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the unthankful and evil.” In this verse we have the secret of loving our enemies and doing good to those who hate us. The secret is the life of God. If we would fulfill these requirements, we must have the life of God. We must be born of the Most High, born of God, and thereby become sons of the Most High.
As those who have been born of God, we are able to love our enemies. God loved us even when we were His enemies (Rom. 5:8). We need to be deeply impressed with the fact that God loved us while we were yet His enemies. Now His love has been dispensed into us. The love with which we love others, especially our enemies, is therefore the love of God our Father.
The New Testament tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8). As Spirit is the nature of God’s person and light is the nature of God’s expression, so love is the nature of God’s being. Hence, if we have been born of God, we surely have been born of the nature of God’s being, which is the divine love. As those born of God, we have His life and nature. Spontaneously we are now able to love our enemies even as God our Father loves them. This is the reason the Lord tells us to love our enemies so that we may be the sons of the Most High, the One who is kind to those who are unthankful and evil.
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