Is it possible to love a person without liking that person?

But the Jews deliberately overlooked that God had also commanded them in the law to love their enemies (see Ex. 23:4-5; Lev. 19:33-34). By continuing, "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you," the Lord Jesus does not give new commandments to His disciples but judges the fleshly restriction of the old commandment and the human addition. According to God's thoughts every fellow human being with whom we have to do is our neighbour, even if he or she turns out to be our personal enemy. The Lord Jesus demands, not an emotional love, nor a friendly affection for enemies, but rather the much higher divine love (Greek: agapao).

The Lord Jesus was the revelation of this love of God: "But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him" (Rom. 5:8-10). While He hung on the cross He prayed for His tormentors: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). Our Lord therefore is also the perfect example for His commandment, "Love your enemies... and pray for them which. persecute you."

Human affection is at the bottom selfish. We love because we like. We love those that belong to us. It is my mother, my wife, my children, my home, my friend, my country.

Many of these believers, who are born of God, may not appeal to us in the slightest degree upon a natural basis. By upbringing and habits we may have very little in common; moreover we may not see eye to eye in many matters connected with the things of God. Now these are just the ones to put us to the test. Are we at liberty to disclaim all interest in them, and pass by on the other side? We are not. If I love the brother who is nice and agreeable to me I am only doing what anybody might do. "If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?" (Matt. 5:46). If I love my brother because he is begotten of God, even though he be not nice and agreeable to me, I am displaying the love which is the nature of God Himself. And nothing is greater than that.

Yet if our eye be off Christ, the old nature certainly does hinder. We need therefore to know how God has dealt in Christ with our sins, and with sin, their root. There may also be a hindrance through inconsistency, so that love cannot flow out according to God toward those that God would have one love. His love inspires love to all that are His, to His children; and He has provided for this by our faith, the new life, and the Spirit who abides in us. It is not a question of whether one likes this quality or that behaviour, or the like; but in the face of all difficulties He counts on our loving them with that love which is of God. And He brings in these two immense manifestations of divine love, to which we owe our new relationship and the clearing away of our sins, in order also to fit us for loving one another as of God's family.

Now, what works in a false professor fully may work partially in a true confessor, if not walking circumspectly and with vigilance. Wilful sin carries away the unbeliever as Satan's prey. But if a believer sin (not goes on sinning), he is weakened and the Spirit of God grieved; and in that state he might act unworthily of Christ to his brother, or in some other uncomely way. We have seen how grace intervenes and restores, though not always very soon. There may be thus grievous inconsistency till his soul is restored. It is however a grave inconsistency, or, to use Levitical language, a rising in the flesh but not leprosy, as it is with the man that hates his brother. And God can use for the good of others, what is so evil; as the Psalmist says: "The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart [not in his own] that there is no fear of God before his eyes." Grace makes the inconsistency a warning. All things work together for good to those that love God. It becomes therefore a practical point, an impressive lesson to beware of saying and not doing. "For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" Logic never wrought love, nor rises above a mental inference. But the new nature, with Christ acting on it, produces the result according to God.

It is all beside the mark to talk about things that do not try the heart; but God so arranges matters that we have practical tests around us. How are we carrying ourselves towards those that are our brethren? The apostle's divinely-given sense of truth utterly discards evasion. He brings in an illustration, almost childlike in simplicity (anything but childish), but holy and wise. The pride of man would regard it as insignificant. They consider themselves perfect, and claim for self liberty to vent displeasure and dislike as it thinks proper. Circumstances may make it trying even to a saint, for a brother may act wrongly. Am I not to love him? Certainly I am. His conduct may give a different shape to your love, but love has always to be exercised as in the sight of God. It may not go forth in the same way, but can anything show more absence of love than turning away from even my faulty brother with scorn or dislike, with unwillingness to bear his burden or with indifference? It shows love, that you share his sorrow, even if he failed to be as really humbled as he ought. Reproving him simply might provoke, and therefore love would act otherwise. For we need God in nothing more than how to walk in love.

Righteousness and faith however being maintained as to our course personally, "love" is next surely to be followed — safely under these conditions. Our hearts are to embrace not only the brethren, still less only those whom we find walking on the path with ourselves, but, as in "fellowship with the gospel," all men. There is nothing however in which we are so apt to make mistake as we are with regard to "love:" there are so many and subtle imitations. We like people who please us — who minister to our selfish gratification, and we call that "love." And if these are the people of God, this may help still more effectually to deceive us. How often does this kind of feeling betray itself by fermenting, on occasion given, into the most thorough animosity! True love, seeking not its is own, holds fast its objects with a pertinacity of grasp which never falls: "having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end." We may be forced to separation, forced to walk alone, forced to judge and condemn the ways of those whom nevertheless we cling to before God with desire which will not admit of giving them up even for a moment. Thus if judgment be passed, it will be expressed as the Apostle, "even weeping:" truest and most solemn judgment, where it is not that of an enemy but of a friend; and blessed they, who in the spirit of mourners find themselves thus in company with the "Man of sorrows."

Then there is “love,” which is a better rendering of the original than “charity.” There is a love that is spontaneous. You cannot help loving some brethren because of their gentle, gracious manner. But “love” here suggests effort; it is a love to be sought, to be pursued. That person with awkward corners, always ready with a snappy word, harsh and biting, is to be loved by you. You must love Alexander the coppersmith who does you much harm as well as Barnabas the good man who renders you great service. Seek after this love. It is needed even among those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Love learns to love the unlovely, because the Lord set the example. But it must be pursued to be attained.

Take the divine side of love; and the worse the object, the greater is the love; but if you take the human side, the greater the object, the greater is the love. We find both in Christ. If I take the creature side, the excellence of the object makes the greatness of the affection; if I take the divine side, the worthlessness of the object makes the greatness of the affection.

When on earth the heart of the Lord Jesus was so often moved with compassion for those in distress and sorrow, as in the case of the widow of Nain. It was a different kind of love that we read of in John 11:5, “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.” No doubt there was compassion for them, but there was also the complacent love of Jesus for those in whom He found pleasure. There is the same distinction between the compassionate love of God for sinners of which we read in Romans 5:8, the love that God commends to us, and the love of which the Lord speaks to His disciples in John 15:13, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends, are both manifested in the death of the cross.

As a matter of fact, however, there is no inconsistency at all, but the very reverse. The strongest possible abhorrence is quite consistent with the strongest possible affection; we would indeed go further and say it is inseparable from it. It is impossible to regard any one with deep love and not heartily hate all that imperils that person in any way.