Matthew 5:38-48 - Exposition

The two remaining examples of the current teaching of the Law are very closely connected together, and, in fact, our Lord's corrections of them are intermingled in Luke 6:27-36 . Yet the subjects are really distinct. In the first ( Luke 6:38-42 ) our Lord speaks of the reception of injuries, in the second ( Luke 6:43-48 ) of the treatment of those who do them. Godet's remarks (in his summary of Luke 6:27-45 ) on the use made by St. Luke of these examples are especially instructive. "These last two antitheses, which terminate in Matthew in the lofty thought (verse 48) of man being elevated by love to the perfection of God, furnish Luke with the leading idea of the discourse as he presents it, namely, charity as the law of the new life."