Matthew 7:12

Matthew 7:12. Therefore. An inference from Matthew 7:1-11, summing up the duties to others: not censoriousness, nor laxity, but giving like God's; as He gives good things to those asking Him, even so give to others what you would have them do. The precept is the counterpart of the promise. The correspondence between our acts and God's, a warning in Matthew 7:1, becomes a precept, after the promise of his kind dealings. An echo of chap. Matthew 5:48, the culminating precept of the discourse; hence a fitting close to this section.

Even so do ye also to them. Not, ‘do these things,' as the order of the common version suggests; but, ‘after this manner do ye also.' Not, do to others what we would have them do to us (this might become mere barter); but, do to them what we think they would wish to have done to them.

For this is the law and the prophets. This golden rule is equivalent to ‘thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' but joined with the example of God's giving, which implies supreme gratitude to Him, it is equivalent to the whole law. Comp. chap. Matthew 5:17, which introduced the moral precepts of the discourse. The Golden Rule, though not without parallels in heathen ethics (in a negative form), is distinctively Christian. (1) It presents God's benevolence as the guide of duty. (2) Hence it is positive (Do all the good you can to your neighbor), not negative (as the Rabbinical sentence: ‘Do not to your neighbor what is odious to you, for this is the whole law'). (3) It is taught by One who wrought as well as taught ‘righteousness,' who died that we might ‘even so do also.' The powerless teacher of correct ethics makes our case the more hopeless (comp. Romans 3:19; Romans 7:7-14); but Christ is ‘the Power of God,' as well as ‘the Wisdom of God' (1 Corinthians 1:24).