Matthew 5:48

48. Be ye therefore--rather, "Ye shall therefore be," or "Ye are therefore to be," as My disciples and in My kingdom. perfect--or complete. Manifestly, our Lord here speaks, not of degrees of excellence, but of the kind of excellence which was to distinguish His disciples and characterize His kingdom. When therefore He adds, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect--He refers to that full-orbed glorious completeness which is in the great Divine Model, "their Father which is in heaven."

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown, 1871 · public domain

Verse 48. Be ye therefore perfect, he concludes this part of the discourse by commanding his disciples to be perfect. This word commonly means finished, complete, pure, holy. Originally it is applied to a piece of mechanism, as a machine that is complete in its parts. Applied to men, it refers to completeness of parts, or perfection, when no part is defective or wanting. Thus Job (Job 1:1) is said to be perfect; that is, not holy as God, or sinless--for fault is afterwards found with him, (Job 9:20, 42:6) but his piety was proportionate--had a completeness of parts--was consistent and regular, he exhibited his religion as a prince, a father, an individual, a benefactor of the poor. He was not merely a pious man in one place, but uniformly. He was consistent everywhere. This was the meaning in Matthew. Be not religious merely in loving your friends and neighbours, but let your piety be shown in loving your enemies; be perfect; imitate God; let the piety be complete, and proportionate, and regular. This every Christian may be; this every Christian must be.

(m) "Be ye therefore perfect" Gen 17:1, De 18:13, Lk 6:36,40, Co 1:28

====================
REMARKS on Chapter 5
====================

1. The gospel pronounces blessings on things far different from what the world has thought to be a source of happiness. Men suppose that happiness is to be found in mirth, in wealth, in honour, in esteem, in freedom from persecution. Christ says that it is to be sought in the reverse. Often men are most happy in poverty, in sickness, in persecution, when supported by the presence and promises of a merciful God. And if God appoints our station there, we should submit to it, and learn therewith to be content.

2. We may see the evil of anger. It is a species of murder If secretly cherished, or exhibited by contempt and injury, it must bring down the displeasure of God. It is a source of misery. True enjoyment is found in meekness, peace, calmness, and benevolence. In such a firmness, and steadiness, and dependence on God, as to keep the soul unruffled in the midst of provocation, is happiness. Such was Christ.

3. We see the evil of indelicacy of feeling and sentiment, and the extreme strictness and severity of the law respecting the intercourse of the sexes, (Mt 5:28.) And yet what law is more frequently violated? By obscene anecdotes and tales; by songs and jibes; by double meanings and innuendoes; by looks and gestures; by conversation, and obscene books and pictures, this law of our Saviour is perpetually violated. If there is any one sentiment of most value for the comfort, the character, the virtuous sociability of the young--one that will shed the greatest charm over society, and make it the most pure--it is that which inculcates perfect delicacy and purity in the intercourse of the sexes. Virtue of any kind never blooms when this is not cherished. Modesty and purity once gone, every flower that would diffuse its fragrance over life, withers and dies with it. There is no one sin that so withers and blights every virtue; none that so enfeebles and prostrates every ennobling feeling of the soul, as to indulge in a life of impurity. How should purity dwell in the heart; breathe from the lips; kindle in the eye; live in the imagination; and dwell in the intercourse of all the young! An eternal, avenging God is near to every wanton thought; marks every eye that kindles with impure desire; rolls the thunder of justice over every polluted soul; and is preparing woe for every violator of the laws of purity and chastity, Prov 7:22,23, 5:5, 2:18.

4. Revenge is equally forbidden. Persecution, slander, wilful prosecution, anger, personal abuse, duelling, suicide, murder, are all violations of the law of God, and all must call down his vengeance.

5. We are bound to love our enemies, This is a law of Christianity, original and peculiar. No system but this has required it, and no act of Christian piety is more difficult. None shows more the power of the grace of God; none is more ornamental to the character; none more like God; and none furnishes better evidence of piety. He that can meet a man kindly who is seeking his hurt; who can speak well of one that is perpetually slandering and cursing him; that can pray for a man that abuses, injures, and wounds him; and that can seek heaven for him that wishes his damnation, is in the way to life. This is religion, beautiful as its native skies; pure like its Source; kind like its Author; fresh like the dews of the morning; clear and diffusive like the beams of the rising sun; and holy like the feelings and words that come from the bosom of the Son of God. He that can do this need not doubt that he is a Christian. He has caught the very spirit of the Saviour, and he must inherit eternal life.

Albert Barnes, 1834 · public domain

Verse 48 Be ye therefore perfect - as your Father - God himself is the grand law, sole giver, and only pattern of the perfection which he recommends to his children. The words are very emphatic, εσεσθε ουν υμεις τελειοι, Ye shall be therefore perfect - ye shall be filled with the spirit of that God whose name is Mercy, and whose nature is love. God has many imitators of his power, independence, justice, etc., but few of his love, condescension, and kindness. He calls himself Love, to teach us that in this consists that perfection, the attainment of which he has made both our duty and privilege: for these words of our Lord include both a command and a promise. "Can we be fully saved from sin in this world?" is an important question, to which this text gives a satisfactory answer: "Ye shall be perfect, as your Father, who is in heaven, is perfect." - As in his infinite nature there is no sin, nothing but goodness and love, so in your finite nature there shall dwell no sin, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus shall make you free from the law of sin and death, Rom 8:2. God shall live in, fill, and rule your hearts; and, in what He fills and influences, neither Satan nor sin can have any part. If men, slighting their own mercies, cry out, This is impossible! - whom does this arguing reprove - God, who, on this ground, has given a command, the fulfillment of which is impossible. "But who can bring a clean out of an unclean thing?" God Almighty - and, however inveterate the disease of sin may be, the grace of the Lord Jesus can fully cure it; and who will say, that he who laid down his life for our souls will not use his power completely to effect that salvation which he has died to procure. "But where is the person thus saved?" Wherever he is found who loves God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and his neighbor as himself; and, for the honor of Christianity and its Author, may we not hope there are many such in the Church of God, not known indeed by any profession of this kind which they make, but by a surer testimony, that of uniformly holy tempers, piety to God, and beneficence to man? Dr. Lightfoot is not perfectly satisfied with the usual mode of interpreting the 22nd verse of this chapter. I subjoin the substance of what he says. Having given a general exposition of the word brother, which the Jews understood as signifying none but an Israelite - ενοχος, which we translate is in danger of, and which he shows the Jews used to signify, is exposed to, merits, or is guilty of - and the word gehenna, hell - fire, which he explains as I have done above, he comes to the three offenses, and their sentences. The First is causeless anger, which he thinks too plain to require explanation; but into the two following he enters in considerable detail: - "The Second. Whosoever shall say to his brother, 'Racha,' a nickname, or scornful title usual, which they disdainfully put one upon another, and very commonly; and therefore our Savior has mentioned this word, the rather because it was of so common use among them. Take these few examples: - "A certain man sought to betake himself to repentance (and restitution). His wife said to him, 'Rekah, if thou make restitution, even thy girdle about thee is not thine own, etc.' Tanchum, fol. 5. "Rabbi Jochanan was teaching concerning the building of Jerusalem with sapphires and diamonds, etc. One of his scholars laughed him to scorn. But afterwards, being convinced of the truth of the thing, he saith to him, 'Rabbi, do thou expound, for it is fit for thee to expound: as thou saidst, so have I seen it.' he saith to him, 'Rekah, hadst thou not seen, thou wouldst not have believed, etc.' Midras Tillin, fol. 38, col. 4. "To what is the thing like? To a king of flesh and blood, who took to wife a king's daughter: he saith to her, 'Wait and fill me a cup;' but she would not: whereupon he was angry, and put her away; she went, and was married to a sordid fellow; and he saith to her, 'Wait, and fill me a cup;' she said unto him, 'Rekah, I am a king's daughter, etc.' Idem in Psa 137:1-9. "A Gentile saith to an Israelite, 'I have a choice dish for thee to eat of.' He saith, 'What is it ?' He answers, 'Swine's flesh.' he saith to him, 'Rekah, even what you kill of clean beasts is forbidden us, much more this.' Tanchum, fol. 18, col. 4. "The Third offense is to say to a brother, 'Thou fool,' which, how to distinguish from racha, which signifies an empty fellow, were some difficulty, but that Solomon is a good dictionary here for us, who takes the term continually here for a wicked wretch and reprobate, and in opposition to spiritual wisdom: so that in the first clause is condemned causeless anger; in the second, scornful taunting and reproaching of a brother; and, in the last, calling him a reprobate and wicked, or uncharitably censuring his spiritual and eternal estate. And this last does more especially hit the scribes and Pharisees, who arrogated to themselves only to be called חכמים chocamim, wise men, but of all others they had this scornful and uncharitable opinion, 'This people, that knoweth not the law, is cursed,' Joh 7:49. "And now for the penalties denounced upon these offenses, let us look upon them, taking notice of these two traditions of the Jews, which our Savior seems to face, and to contradict. "1st. That they accounted the command, Thou shalt not kill, to aim only at actual murder. So that in their collecting the six hundred and thirteen precepts out of the law, they understand that command to mean but this: 'That one should not kill an Israelite,' and accordingly they allotted this only violation of it to judgments; against this wild gloss and practice, he speaks in the first clause: Ye have heard it said, Thou shalt not kill, and he that killeth, or committeth actual murder, is liable to judgment, and ye extend the violation of that command no farther; but I say to you, that causeless anger against thy brother is a violation of that command, and even that maketh a man liable to judgment. 2nd. They allotted that murder only to be judged by the council, or Sanhedrin, that was committed by a man in propria persona: let them speak their own sense, etc. Talm. in Sanhedrin, per. 9. "'Any one that kills his neighbor with his hand, as if he strike him with a sword, or with a stone that kills him, or strangle him till he die, or burn him in the fire, seeing that he kills him any how in his own person, lo! such a one must be put to death by the Sanhedrin; but he that hires another to kill his neighbor, or that sends his servants, and they kill him, or that violently thrusts him before a lion, or the like, and the beast kills him - any one of these is a shedder of blood, and the guilt of shedding of blood is upon him, and he is liable to death by the hand of Heaven, but he is not to be put to death by the Sanhedrin. And whence is the proof that it must be thus! Because it is said, He that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. This is he that slays a man himself, and not by the hand of another. Your blood of your lives will I require. This is he that slays himself. At the hand of every beast will I require it. This is he that delivers up his neighbor before a beast to be rent in pieces. At the hand of man, even at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man. This is he that hires others to kill his neighbor: In this interpretation, requiring is spoken of all the three; behold, their judgment is delivered over to Heaven (or God). And all these man-slayers and the like, who are not liable to death by the Sanhedrin, if the king of Israel will slay them by the judgment of the kingdom, and the law of nations, he may, etc.' Maym. ubi supr. per. 2. "You may observe in these wretched traditions a twofold killing, and a twofold judgment: a man's killing another in his own person, and with his own hand, and such a one liable to the judgment of the Sanhedrin, to be put to death by them, as a murderer; and a man that killed another by proxy, not with his own hand, not hiring another to kill him, or turning a beast or serpent upon him to kill him. This man is not to be judged and executed by the Sanhedrin, but, referred and reserved only to the judgment of God. So that we see plainly, from hence, in what sense the word judgment is used in the latter end of the preceding verse, and the first clause of this, namely, not for the judgment of any one of the Sanhedrins, as it is commonly understood, but for the judgment of God. In the former verse, Christ speaks their sense, and in the first clause of this, his own, in application to it. Ye have heard it said, that any man that kills is liable to the judgment of God; but I say unto you, that he that is but angry with his brother without a cause is liable to the judgment of God. You have heard it said, that he only that commits murder with his own hand is liable to the council, or Sanhedrin, as a murderer; but I say unto you, that he that but calls his brother racha, as common a word as ye make it, and a thing of nothing, he is liable to be judged by the Sanhedrin. "Lastly, he that saith to his brother, Thou fool, wicked one, or cast-away, shall be in danger of hell-fire, ενοχος εις γεενναν πυρος. There are two observable things in the words. The first is the change of case from what was before; there it was said τη κρισει τω συνεδριω, but here, εις γεενναν. It is but an emphatical raising of the sense, to make it the more feeling and to speak home. He that saith to his brother, Raka, shall be in danger of the council; but he that says, Thou fool, shall be in danger of a penalty even to hell-fire. And thus our Savior equals the sin and penalty in a very just parable. In just anger, with God's just anger and judgment; public reproach, with public correction by the council; and censuring for a child of hell, to the fire of hell. "2nd. It is not said εις πυρ γεεννης, To the fire of hell, but εις γεεννας πυρος, To a hell of fire; in which expression he sets the emphasis still higher. And, besides the reference to the valley of Hinnom, he seems to refer to that penalty used by the Sanhedrin of burning - the most bitter death that they used to put men to; the manner of which was thus: They set the malefactor in a dunghill up to the knees; and they put a towel about his neck, and one pulled one way, and another the opposite, till, by thus strangling him, they forced him to open his mouth. Then they poured boiling lead into his mouth, which went down into his belly, and so burnt his bowels. Talm. in Sanhedrin. per. 7. "Now, having spoken in the clause before, of being judged by the Sanhedrin, whose most terrible penalty was this burning, he doth in this clause raise the penalty higher; namely, of burning in hell; not with a little scalding lead, but even with a hell of fire." It is possible that our Lord might have reference to such customs as these.

Adam Clarke, 1831 · public domain