Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

Matthew V. 45-48. 315
ness of its necessity. ('ETrrjQedi^ecv occurs, besides in this passage,
only in Luke vi. 28 ; 1 Peter iii. 16. According to Pollux, it is a
law term, meaning " to drag before a judge with ignominy and in-
sult ;" then, in general, " to injure," " to insult.") Lidic adds an-
other trait, lend hoping for nothing again (vi. 35), where, likewise,
sincere, disinterested love is expressed. Luke has expanded this
thought afterwards, when he comes to portray the forms in which
natural love manifests itself On the whole, with the exception of
one unessential transposition, Luke has the same thoughts here, and
they must, therefore, certainly be regarded as original, integral parts
of the Sermon on the Mount.
Yer. 46, 47.—As a parallel to this sacred love, which includes
even what is hostile in the sphere of its exercise, and which is
bestowed in regeneration alone, Jesus brings forward natural love,
which loves only what is akin to it, and, in that, itself essentially.
(Ephes. V. 28, " He that loveth his wife, loveth himself.") Such
is the prevailing power of love in the Old Testament, a few traces
of love to enemies excepted (as in the case of David, 1 Sam. xxvi.)
which point to a future higher grade of religious life. As such it
does not stand opi^osed to the higher love of Christ, but beneath, as
something subordinate, which has its analogy even in the animal
world. The reXCdvat and tidviKoi, publicans and Gentiles, in Matthew,
the afiaproXoi, sinners {nopvai, Matth. xxi. 31) in Luke, are men-
tioned as standing emblems, vnth the Pharisees, of what is despised.
In the publican, in particular, the prominent characteristic is being
involved by the calls of his station in the lowest worldly connexions;
for wliich reason the taxgatherers are used as a symbol of worldli-
ness and its temptations. {'Aa-d^eaOai is a general term for tokens
of love of all kinds.)—In these verses, moreover, the idea of fuoOog,
reivard, appears again. (See note on ver. 12.) Natural love is
represented as being accompanied by a less reward than pure love.
There is evidently a condescension here to the legal level, for it is
just the nature of sincere love to seek no other reward than that
which is in itself. But as, in fact, the possession of it involves all
that constitutes blessedness, because God is love (1 John iv. 8), and
no one can love but he in whom God dwells ; it is certainly true,
also, that its reward is great. But a distinction between love and
its reward, and of an effort to attain the former for the sake of the
latter, can exist only on the level of the law ; pure love seeks
itself foi its own sake, for it includes in itself all that can be desired.
Ver. 48.—The last words contained in this verse are, as it were,
the key-stone which completes the whole. The general result not
merely of our Lord's last commands, but of all that precedes, is :
Let perfection be your aim. (^Y.aeade ovv is parallel with ottcj^- y^vrjade
above, ver. 45.) For the observance of but one of these commands,