Theme: Emulating God's love

Exegetical note
These last two of Jesus's so-called antitheses ("You have heard it said..., but I say ...") continue Jesus' radicalization of the righteousness of (in the first instance) the Old Testament statutes and (in the second) conventional wisdom. The closing demand for perfection (v. 48) should not be taken literally or our of context, but in light of vv. 43ff., as an exhortation to emulate God's perfect love, which, like the sunshine and the rain, benefits even the evil and the unjust…