Luke 6:32 - Clarke's commentary and critical notes on the Bible

For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. For sinners also love those that love them - I believe the word ἁμαρτωλοι is used by St. Luke in the same sense in which τελωναι, tax-gatherers, is used by St. Matthew, Matthew 5:46, Matthew 5:47, and signifies heathens; not only men who have no religion, but men who acknowledge none. The religion of Christ not only corrects the errors and reforms the disorders of the fallen nature of man, but raises it even above itself: it brings it near to God; and, by universal love, leads it to frame its conduct according to that of the Sovereign Being. "A man should tremble who finds nothing in his life besides the external part of religion, but what may be found in the life of a Turk or a heathen." The Gospel of the grace of God purifies and renews the heart, causing it to resemble that Christ through whom the grace came. See the note on Luke 7:37.