Matthew 5:48

Concluding exhortation. οὖν, from an ancient form of the participle of the verb εἶναι (Klotz, Devar.) = “things being so;” either a collective inference from all that goes before (Matthew 5:21-47) or as a reflection on the immediately preceding argument. Both come to the same thing. Godlike love is commended in Matthew 5:44-47, but the gist of all the six illustrations of Christ's way of thinking is: Love the fulfilling of the law; obviously, except in the case of oaths, where it is truth that is enjoined. But truth has its source in love; Ephesians 4:15 : ἀληθεύοντες ἐν ἀγάπῃ, “truthing it in love”. ἔσεσθε, future, “ye shall be” = BE. ὑμεῖς, ye, emphatic, in contrast with τελ. and ἐθν., who are content with moral commonplace and conventional standards. Τέλειοι : in general, men who have reached the end, touched the ideal, that at least their purpose, not satisfied with anything short of it. The τέλειοι are not men with a conceit of perfection, but aspirants men who seek to attain, like Paul: διώκω εἰ καὶ καταλάβω, Philippians 3:12, and like him, single-minded, their motto: ἓν δέ. Single-mindedness is a marked characteristic of all genuine citizens of the kingdom (Matthew 6:33), and what the Bible means by perfection. All men who attain have one great ruling aim. That aim for the disciple, as here set forth, is Godlikeness ὡς ὁ πατὴρ … τέλειός ἐστιν. God is what His sons aspire to be; He never sinks below the ideal: impartial, benignant, gracious love, even to the unworthy; for that, not all conceivable attributes, is what is in view. ὡς, not in degree, that were a discouraging demand, but in kind. The kind very necessary to be emphasised in view of current ideas and practice, in which holiness was dissociated from love. The law “Be holy for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44) was taken negatively and worked out in separation from the reputedly sinful. Jesus gave it positive contents, and worked it out in gracious love.