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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Mat_5:48. Ἔσεσθε ] imperatively.
οὖν ) draws a deduction from Mat_5:44-47, where the emphatic ὑμεῖς forms the sublime antithesis to the last-mentioned publicans and heathens. The highest summary of the unending obligation of Christian love.
τέλειοι ] ἐν μηδενὶ λειπόμενοι , Jam_1:4. Euth. Zigabenus well remarks: οἱ μὲν ἀγαπῶντες τοὺς ἀγαπῶντας αὐτοὺς ἀτελεῖς εἰσιν εἰς ἀλάπην : οἱ δὲ τοὺς ἐχθροὺς , οὗτοι τέλειοι . Comp. Luther: “after the example of the heavenly Father, who does not piece nor divide His love,” and already Ignatius, ad Philad., interpol. 3. Thus the closing admonition stands in close relation to what precedes. Others (Beza, Fritzsche, Kuinoel, Ewald, who also regards Mat_7:12 as originally belonging to this passage): integri, sine vitiis in general, without exclusive reference to the commandment of love. They consider the verse as the top-stone of the whole discourse, directed from Mat_5:20 onwards against the Pharisees. But this anti-Pharisaic tendency is still continued also in ch. 6, and the pointing to the example of God would at least not be appropriate to Mat_6:27 ff. and to Mat_6:31 ff.
ὥσπερ ] equality of the moral modality, Mat_5:45, by which the relation of the adequate degree is not required, and yet the ideal task, the obligation of which is never exhausted (Rom_13:8 ff.), is for ever made sure. Observe, moreover, how this ὥσπερ corresponds, indeed, to the Platonic conception of virtue ( ὁμοιοῦσθαι τῷ θεῷ ); the latter, however, is surpassed, on the one side, by the specific requirement of love as similarity to God; and, on the other, by the idea of God as the heavenly Father.