The Fulfilment of the Law
Matthew 5v17-18
22nd November 2024
Jesus was the friend of outcasts and sinners, He shared meals with tax collectors and prostitutes, He touched lepers, He offered forgiveness of sins to paralysed men. He must have been something of a shock to the Jewish religious leaders. He was so very different from the Pharisees, who were considered by many to be the guardians of the Law, that many people must have thought He had little regard for it. Early in the Sermon on the Mount, He takes the time to insist that, on the contrary, He respected the Law and that, in fact, He came to fulfil the Law and the Prophets, saying:
Matthew 5v17-18
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come
to abolish them but to fulfil them.
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not
the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything
is accomplished."
This is one of those passages that the church has always found a bit difficult, a bit confusing, even troubling. And how forcefully Jesus says it! Note the double emphasis: "Do not think that I've come to abolish the Law or the Prophets" and then "I have not come to abolish them." In first century Israel, I suspect many of Jesus's opponents were accusing Him of precisely that. And Jesus goes on to say. "I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." He really couldn't say it any more strongly, could he?
Jesus was preaching grace, forgiveness and love. His opponents were claiming that this showed He had no respect for the Law, that He was tearing it up and giving his followers something completely different. In this passage, He denies this accusation as strenuously as it's possible to do. So it must be true that the Law is as valid today as it ever was. I don't expect you hear that in church very often, but it must be right. Jesus was making this as clear as He could. We're familiar with the phrase "you are not under the Law, but under grace" (Romans 6v14, 15) but that doesn't mean we can just tear up the Law and ignore it.
The Law of God is good. It's a gift from God. It teaches us how to live. It also shows us that we have, as Paul says in Romans 3v23, "sinned and fallen short of the glory of God", and thus shows us that we need the forgiveness that only comes through faith in Christ. As Paul says in Galatians 3v24, "the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ." We should be very grateful for the Law.
Jesus said He "did not come to abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfil them".The Law was given by God through Moses, including the Ten Commandments but also including a lot of other legal requirements, and is found in the first five books of the Bible. The prophets spoke messages from God, and much of what they said was calling the Israelites back to obedience to the Law.
Although the Old Testament was considered by the Jews to consist of three divisions: the Law, the Prophets and the Writings, the expression "the Law and the prophets" was often used to mean the whole of the Old Testament. Jesus was telling us that He came to fulfil the Old Testament. That is, the Old Testament is about Jesus. Philip understood this:
John 1v45
Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the
Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote — Jesus of Nazareth, the son of
Joseph."
But many didn't understand it. In John 5, Jesus said to the Jews:
John 5v39-40
"You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess
eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me,
yet you refuse to come to me to have life."
Later in the same speech, He said:
John 5v45b-47
"Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set.
If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.
But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I
say?"
The whole Old Testament talks about Jesus. He is the Messiah the Old Testament predicted. You really can't understand the New Testament unless you read the Old Testament. To understand Jesus who Jesus was and why he came, we must understand that He fulfilled the Law.
Firstly, Jesus fulfilled the law by perfectly obeying it. Nobody else ever did this:
Psalm 14v2-3 (quoted in Romans 3:12)
The Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who
understand, any who seek God.
All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no-one who does
good, not even one.
But Jesus's life was lived in total conformity with the Law. He never broke one word of it. This is unsurprising since, as He is God, He was the author of the Law. The idea that Jesus might have disobeyed the Law is ridiculous. Can you imagine Jesus taking the Lord's name in vain? Can you imagine Jesus murdering somebody? Or coveting anything that didn't belong to Him? It's absurd!
This is challenging because we're supposed to be His disciples. We're supposed to be like Him. Yet we still sin.
Secondly, the Law contains all kinds of ceremonial requirements, regarding all the sacrifices that were required and how they were to be performed. Jesus was also the fulfilment of the sacrificial system in Old Testament Law. That's why John the Baptist called Him "the Lamb of God" (John 1:29, 1:36) and it's what most of the letter to the Hebrews is about. Consider these passages:
Hebrews 9v9b-10
... the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of
the worshipper.
They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings — external
regulations applying until the time of the new order.
Hebrews 9v13-15
The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are
ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean.
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered
himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so
that we may serve the living God!
For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called
may receive the promised eternal inheritance - now that he has died as a ransom to
set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
Hebrews 10v11-12
Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again
he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat
down at the right hand of God.
The job is done. As Jesus said just before He died, "it is finished". We never again need to make any sacrifice for sins. Jesus is the perfect sacrifice, and so He is the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets.