At this point in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus and the Pharisees are no longer in actual productive dialogue with each other. Jesus is now an active threat to the Pharisee’s social-political clout as more and more people flock to Him. Worse, He is a very effective frustration to them as He continues to publicly refute their insistence on Jewish obedience to their interpretation of God’s ceremonial law. Observers on the ground at the time would have picked up on that rising tension, and we see it in the Gospel:
“Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see. All the people were astonished and said, “Could this be the Son of David?” But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.””
Once we make the decision in our mind that the other person is wrong, it is often impossible to see how they could be right. Our bias simply rules out that line of thought from that point forward, so our unconscious mind makes up ways of understanding how what they are saying and doing is patently wrong. As a result, our offence at what they say spills out into our response, which we perceive as correct and timely even if an unbiased observer would be appalled at our words. But we believe our words all the same, and the more we think and say them, the more we become entrenched in our perception. The line between ‘us’ and ‘them’ gets wider and wider with every word.
Matthew clearly demonstrates that line. The Pharisees have crossed it, the crowd has not. So while the crowd sees an unheard-of miracle and concludes Jesus might be the Messiah, the Pharisees see the same miracle and conclude that Jesus is a slave of the devil. Which means they have not only consciously rejected Jesus as Messiah, they have installed a significant barrier between themselves and The Truth. A spiral of hatred has being engaged, and a wall of hostility has been erected.
The result is that from this point forward the Pharisees are antagonistic to Jesus instead of merely doubtful. That will become evident in both how they approach Him and how He subsequently responds to them. On their end, every interaction will now be seen as an opportunity to entrap Him. On His end, every interaction will now be a convicting assessment of their error. The divide between them will become more and more obvious to onlookers (and readers of the Gospel). It is literally the divide between heaven (living with God) and hell (living apart from God). It is a divide caused entirely by a human choice.
This is why Jesus told us to love our enemies – because only by seeking to love them can you even entertain the idea that who they are (let alone what they say and do) has any value at all. Without at least a glimmer of love for the other, you will see only a hard line of division between them and yourself.
Love of God and hatred of others cannot exist in the same person. If there is bitterness in someone’s heart towards any other, that is proof that that person does not really love God. All our protestations of love to God are useless if there is hatred in our hearts towards anyone.
William Barclay
APPLICATION: Intentionality
Can you pray for your opponent without malice? If not, it is well past the time to re-examine your own heart.