Be you therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect.
All Commentaries on Matthew 5:48 Go To Matthew 5
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Note through what steps we have now ascended hither, and how He has set us on the very pinnacle of virtue. The first step is, not to begin to do wrong toany; the second, that in avenging a wrong done to us we be content with retaliating equal; the third, to return nothing of what we have suffered; the fourth, to offer one’s self to the endurance of evil; the fifth, to be ready to suffer even more evil than the oppressor desires to inflict; the sixth, not to hate him of whom we suffer such things; the seventh, to love him; the eighth, to do him good; the ninth, to pray for him. And because the command is great, the reward proposed is also great, namely, to be made like unto God, “Ye shall be the sons of your Father which is in heaven.”.
He was careful to say, “On the righteous and the unrighteous;’ for God gives all good gifts not for men’s sake, but for the saints’ sake, as likewise chastisements for the sake of sinners. In bestowing His good gifts, He does not separate the sinners from the righteous, that they should not despair; so in His inflictions, not the righteous from sinners that they should be made proud; and that the more, since the wicked are not profited by the good things they receive, but turn them to their hurt by their evil lives; nor are the good hurt by the evil things, but rather profit to increase of righteousness.
