The Enemy — the “Extraordinary”

At a glance

The chapter heading text (KJV)

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you… that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven… Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

Matthew 5:43–48 KJV

Summary

Closing the first half of the Sermon's ethical instruction, Bonhoeffer treats love of enemies as the point toward which every earlier saying — on anger, oaths, non-resistance — has been building. He fastens on the Greek word perisson, translated ‘more’ in ‘what do ye more than others,’ as naming the very quality the whole Sermon has been describing: a love, an obedience, a righteousness that visibly exceeds what any purely human ethic, however decent, could produce on its own.

He is unsentimental about how concrete the enemies in view actually were for the first disciples — people who mocked their faith, informed against them, or actively sought their harm — precisely so that ‘love your enemies’ cannot be softened into a vague goodwill toward humanity in general. The command is aimed at real, named hostility, and it asks disciples to keep loving specifically there, not merely where love is easy or costs nothing.

Bonhoeffer insists this extraordinary love is not a higher personal achievement disciples are meant to be proud of; it is what necessarily happens when someone has been swept into the passio of Christ — into sharing his suffering — because that suffering itself has a redemptive, self-giving shape that then reproduces itself in the disciple's own posture toward hostility. The ‘extraordinary’ is not heroic willpower; it is the cross becoming visible in ordinary relationships.

The chapter, and with it Matthew 5, ends on ‘be ye therefore perfect,’ which Bonhoeffer reads not as flawless moral achievement but as the undivided wholeness of a love that no longer draws a line between friend and enemy — mirroring, however imperfectly, a Father who sends sun and rain on the just and the unjust without distinction. This is the full statement of the ‘extraordinariness’ that has run through the whole first half of the Sermon: not superior people, but a love that keeps operating precisely where ordinary human reciprocity has already run dry.

Key points

• Bonhoeffer treats love of enemies as the summary and climax of everything said so far about anger, oaths and non-resistance.
• The Greek word perisson (‘more,’ ‘extraordinary’) names a love that visibly exceeds what decent, purely human ethics can produce on its own.
• The command targets real, concrete hostility toward the first disciples, not a vague goodwill toward humanity in general.
• This extraordinary love is not a personal achievement to be proud of — it is what results from being drawn into Christ's own suffering, redemptive love.
• ‘Be ye perfect’ is read as undivided wholeness — a love no longer split between friend and enemy — rather than flawless moral achievement.

Related Scripture

• Luke 6:32–36
• Romans 5:8–10
• 1 Peter 3:9
• Matthew 5:9

For reflection and discussion

1. Who is the most concrete, specific ‘enemy’ in your own life right now — not humanity in general, but a particular person? What would love toward them actually require?
2. Bonhoeffer says this love is not heroic willpower but the overflow of sharing in Christ's suffering. Does that change how you'd try to grow in it?
3. Where do you see the difference between reciprocated, easy love and the ‘extraordinary’ love that keeps giving where nothing is given back?