Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 5:45

"that ye may be sons of your Father who is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust." — Matthew 5:45 (ASV)

That you may be—literally, and with far fuller meaning, that you may become. We cannot become like God in power or wisdom. The attempt at that likeness to the Godhead was the cause of man’s fall and continually leads to a similar outcome; but we cannot err in striving to be like Him in His love (compare to St. Paul’s “followers [or, more literally, imitators] of God” in Ephesians 5:1).

The love we are to reproduce is not primarily the love of which the children of the kingdom are the direct objects—a love showing itself in pardon, adoption, and spiritual blessings—but the beneficence that is seen in nature. Our Lord assumes that sunshine, rain, and fruitful seasons are His Father’s gifts and are proofs of His loving purpose, whatever may be urged to the contrary. Here again, the teaching of the higher Stoics presents an almost verbal parallel: “If you would imitate the gods, do good even to the unthankful, for the sun rises even on the wicked, and the seas are open to pirates” (Seneca, De Beneficiis iv. 2, 6).