Matthew 5:45-47

Characteristically lofty inducements to obey the new law; likeness to God (Matthew 5:45); moral distinction among men (Matthew 5:46-47). υἱοὶ τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν : in order that ye may be indeed sons of God: noblesse oblige; God's sons must be Godlike. “Father” again. The new name for God occurs sixteen times in the Sermon on the Mount; to familiarise by repetition, and define by discriminating use. ὅτι, not = ὅς, but meaning “because”: for so your Father acts, and not otherwise can ye be His sons. ἀνατέλλει, sometimes intransitive, as in Matthew 4:16; Luke 12:54, here transitive, also in Sept [34], Genesis 3:18, etc., and in some Greek authors (Pindar. Isth. vi., 110, e.g.) to cause to rise. The use of καίειν (Matthew 5:15) and ἀνατέλλειν in an active sense is a revival of an old poetic use in later Greek (exx. of the former in Elsner). βρέχει = pluit (Vulg [35]), said of God, as in the expression ὔοντος τοῦ Διὸς (Kypke, Observ. Sac.). The use of this word also in this sense is a revival of old poetic usage. πονηροὺς, ἀγαθούς; δικαίους, ἀδίκους, not mere repetition. There is a difference between ἀγαθός and δίκαιος similar to that between generous and just. πονηροὺς may be rendered niggardly vide on Matthew 6:23. The sentiment thus becomes: “God makes His sun rise on niggardly and generous alike, and His rain fall on just and unjust”. A similar thought in Seneca, De benif. vi. 26: “Si deos imitaris, da et ingratis beneficia, nam et sceleratis sol oritur, et piratis patent maria”. The power of the fact stated to influence as a motive is wholly destroyed by a pantheistic conception of God as indifferent to moral distinctions, or a deistic idea of Him as transcendent, too far above the world, in heaven, as it were, to be able to take note of such differences. The divine impartiality is due to magnanimity, not to indifference or ignorance. Another important reflection is that in this word of Jesus we find distinct recognition of the fact that in human life there is a large sphere (sun and rain, how much these cover!) in which men are treated by Providence irrespectively of character; by no means a matter of course in a Jewish teacher, the tendency being to insist on exact correspondence between lot and character under a purely retributive conception of God's relation to man.

[34] Septuagint.

[35] Vulgate (Jerome's revision of old Latin version).