Matthew 5:17–20

As we have gone through the sermon on the mount we have already seen Jesus begin to turn orthodox thinking on its head in the beatitudes. Blessedness of the meek, the spiritually bankrupt, the oppressed, was not a forgone conclusion to his listeners. He is showing us the experience of Kingdom citizens. He is showing us the attributes of kingdom people. The next question that he address then is “what about the law?” In the Jewish culture everything in life was measured by its relationship to the law. So every Jewish person was viewing Jesus through this filter. If everything else about him was so unorthodox then SURELY what he will ultimately do is undermine the Law. You see this perspective in people today still. I have heard people say, “God was pretty rough in the OT but he got better later on.” Maybe Jesus was working towards a “Law out, love in” philosophy?

Now among the pharisees it was becoming accepted that Jesus wasn’t for the law. Mainly because he wasn’t for them. His disciples were caught picking and eating food on the Sabbath, they were accused of being unclean because at one point they sat down to eat without washing their hands. Jesus had been seen eating and fraternizing with unclean people. So they assumed that he had a diminished regard for the Law. But here he takes it head on and says outright how he feels about it. Today we are going to look at what Jesus says about : The Relevance of the Law, The Expectation of the Law, and the Fulfillment of the Law. His point in this passage is to give us the proper perspective of the Law.

English Standard Version (Chapter 5)

17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Relevance of The Law

HOW IMPORTANT IS THE LAW?

The way that Jesus talks about the law put it on a pedestal. There is a general idea that the law takes a back seat in relevance when Jesus comes on the scene, and apparently this was a thought that he needed to address even in his own day In our day we do it as well, we say “oh but Jesus did away with all that stuff so we really don’t need to consider it at all,” but what we see here is quite different.

The law is eternal- God created the world and everything in it and his law will be relevant over it until there is no more heaven or earth. Luke 16:17 “17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.” “Easier” is an interesting choice of word. He is not using terms of “when” or “how” but terms of “likelihood.” It’s like saying, “the concept of existence will cease before the law is irrelevant .” This statement is God’s version of when pigs fly.

The law is relevant- As long as humans walk the earth the law will be relevant. It will always give us the picture of what is right, good, conducive to life and good for you.... As well as, what is wrong, leads to death, separates or corrupts. The basic things of the law are true whether we exist or not. These are not a set of random hoops God set up for us when he created the earth. These things show us very important things about God. As a matter of fact without it we would have an insufficient picture of God. For example what does the .... commandment show us about God?

Idolatry- It shows us His reality by revealing His intolerance of us chasing after things that are not real and cannot BE what we need God to be for us. Like life giver and sustainer. If God is real then obviously the first thing he wouldn’t tolerate is his creation pretending other things do what he does.

Murder- This shows us the sanctity of the Gift of life. To be created in the image of God is to be created with the gift of life which no man has the right to take away, except under the authority of God’s law, in order to carry out God’s justice, in a case where the sanctity of human life has been defiled. . God is the giver of life and spirit and it is in His authority and the authority of His law.

Lying- to lie is to twist reality. God dictates reality which is why he cannot lie. If God lies then whatever he says immediately becomes truth. Reality and the facts of reality flow from him because he is the creator. Therefore he does not tolerate our “pretending” in these things. If he did then he would be less than God.

The Law is serious- The Law shows us the perfection of God as well as our lack of Righteousness. We see our fallenness and His “Godness”. We see things that he requires that we do not meet. And we see things that we do that he condemns. We perceive the distance between us and God in the light of the Law.

Isaiah 42:21 “21 The Lord was pleased, for his righteousness’ sake, to magnify his law and make it glorious.”

The law is synced with the existence of God because it is the revelation of his nature. It will cease to exist when he does.

The Old Testament does not become obsolete with Jesus. If we have a heart to gaze at God then we must view the old testament with reverence and awe. The old testament shows us the righteousness of God. We are shown what God requires. We are shown what honors God. Why would that change? If they were simply just random guidelines then it is conceivable that they could change. If they were just rules that, if followed, seem to make life better. Then you could imagine that what used to be wrong is ok now. But that cannot be true. If the law is basically the character of God in human terms, then it must be intrinsic to reality, originating from the nature of God. It has ALWAYS been true that to walk with God is to love your life, and to walk contrary is to love death.

The Expectation of The Law

Matthew 5:19–20 “19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

What was the Pharisee’s righteousness? Whatever it is we must be more if you are going to be a Kingdom citizen. This would have been an unbelievable shock to the listeners. These were the good guys, their role models, the upper crust who were closer to God. They spent hours in prayer, hours in the scripture, they fasted all the time, wore the right clothes, ate the right stuff. They lived more Law-centric than anyone else. SURELY their righteousness was impeccable! So what he is saying is IMPOSSIBLE!

It was strenuous. These guys had a STRICT code of conduct in everything. Where God said to honor the sabbath and keep it holy, they codified it, added some mustard to it, and said you can’t do things like 1. Carrying 2. Burning 3. Extinguishing 4. Finishing 5. Writing 6. Erasing 7. Cooking 8. Washing 9. Sewing 10. Tearing 11. Knotting 12. Untying 13. Shaping 14. Plowing 15. Planting … Where God said, honor the sabbath and keep it holy. Rest one day a week.... It is appropriate and good. Their righteousness was a well articulated code of conduct. It had nothing to do with the heart.

It was insincere.

Luke 11:42 “42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”

Matthew 23:27–28 “27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” They had added and added to the Law. Why would you do that unless you thought you were adding to your righteousness? He says your law abiding has done NOTHING for your heart!

What was truly required? James 2:10 “10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” So… all of it. And Jesus goes on to raise the standard of the law in his sermon. And in V19 Jesus is saying that he will hold in lowest esteem whoever holds his word in low esteem. So what do we do with this? Why does it feel like it is getting further out of reach? We go back to the beginning of the statement.

The Fulfillment of the Law

Matthew 5:17 “17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

He “fulfilled” it. Which is an odd way to put it. He is using a word that means to “fill up”. We don’t talk about our laws like that. We don’t say, “I filled up the speed limit law today, I actually let it run over a little bit.” We say “I didn’t break.” or “I abide by”. This shows us that Jesus has a different relationship to Law than we do. He says “I fulfill”-

The Law- The moral code. “Act like this, don’t act like that.”

The Prophets- The prophecies indicating the messiah.

What we can draw from this is very very simple, but very vital. The primary reason Jesus came was to validate God’s word. Now, that does include dying for the sins of mankind according to prophecy. But, DO not think that law and prophecy is a void that Jesus just happens to fit into by God’s providence. Think about it in a slightly yet profoundly different way. The law and prophecy are shaped to fit Jesus, not the other way around.

Jesus is saying that he is not abolishing the Law. We do not believe the law is obsolete. But what has passed away concerning the law? The stages on which the Law has been revealed. Now remember that the Law is not an abstract list of rules.It is the expressed character of God, it is revealing and expressing the nature of God. The instruction manual, the “proper care and feeding of existence as put forth by the creator”.

Three stages in which we have seen the Law-

Pre-fall: Adam was created perfectly in God’s image, the nature and law of God was naturally in him. But the Bible tells us that in sin his heart became darkened. This means that something else became natural, sin became natural. Genesis 6:5 “5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Mankind became consumed with sin and we internally lost the law of God to our detriment.

Sinai: So we get the law again, in stone. This time it is in an imperative and negative articulation, “thou shalt not”. Here the law is re-revealed to us. But it does nothing to change our heart. It is like children who don’t know what to do and must be told because left to ourselves we eat cereal 3 times a day until we have no immunity. This is God taking our hands so to speak, and going through the motions of tying our shoes. Paul calls the Law a “schoolmaster.” It can train us but cannot change our nature.

New Covenant: We get the law again… but this time we get it in a living and active form. A law is not just words, it is a code that indicates action. If the law is given in order to communicate a lifestyle, a heart, then the highest form of articulation would be in action. But in Jesus we get much more than an example of the law, we get the nature of the law in flesh! We get the living breathing one for whom the law was written to reflect. We have the Word of God made flesh. This is why it is so important to see the Law of God as intrinsic to His nature. So that when we see Christ we realize that God’s nature is his nature. He is God. This is not jesus behaving perfectly according to the Law, this is jesus being himself and the law is actually a reflection of Him! Jesus is NOT a contingency, He is the whole ideal which the Law was written to emulate. He is not the articulation, the law is an articulation of His nature. That’s why if you want to live up to it you have to be better than the stickiest of sticklers like the Pharisee’s. It has to be a heart change, not just a higher level of obedience.

This is why we preach, “the old must pass away and all things must become new in christ!” and “have the mind of Christ.” We need to be remade in order to reflect His righteousness. We must have HIS nature in order to be straight with the law. This IS salvation. When someone sees their nature as condemning and runs to Jesus to be made new.

But, I am not saying that upon salvation I can be as perfectly good as Jesus. It is ABSOLUTELY true that a person who is saved will have new life, new appetites and will act differently!.We will reflect the beatitudes. But as Paul says I still have a war with my sin nature. “I do what I don’t want to do and don’t do what I want to do.” But a kingdom citizen is someone who has entered the battle. That’s why we have Jesus. If we have gone to him for our salvation from the justice of the Law. Then, when we are condemned, we pull out HIS credentials and it says “justified”. And along with those credentials we have sanctification. Sanctification is that old nature slowly being scrubbed away and replaced by the very nature of Christ.

(go back to v 3) The Law shows us that we in fact NEED a savior! It shows us that we are “spiritually poor” which should cause us to “mourn” over our hopelessness, which should make us meek and humble as we begin to realize our malnutrition and start to “hunger and thirst for righteousness”. That is who receives the mercy of God and makes peace with God giving them an attitude that can endure anything because of the joy that their savior has given them. When you come to that realization, that is the Spirit of God calling you to put your faith in him!

Jesus fulfilled the righteousness of the law but he also did something else, something unbelievable. He also satisfied its consequences. A law has consequences or it is just a good idea . When eternal God with the perfect nature, dictating a perfect reality is sinned against by HIS creation. Then there must be consequences, or that perfection is shown to be imperfect and out of balance. God would be showing himself to be no more than his creation. So someone had to take the consequences. Romans 8:3–4 “3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” At the time of the sermon on the mount this was an unthinkable thought, a staggering thought. That God, would come in flesh, and in order to remain perfectly just, would bear the consequences of his own reality for us when we could not. God save us if we sit in our comfy churches with our Sunday morning Christianity, and are not stunned by this reality. Now you can take the consequences of your sin yourself. It is an eternity in hell and that is perfectly just in perfect proportion to the God you sinned against. Or you can by Faith choose Jesus.

Jesus goes for the heart, as we will see in the coming weeks.22 He cares more about the heart behind the obedience. He calls for His people to be a people who love. Mark 12:30–31 “30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.””

Galatians 5:14 “14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

John 13:35 “35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.””

To love God and love others is the work of the Spirit of God in you. This is the righteousness that was greater than that of the Scribes and Pharisees. But you can’t obtain this righteousness by doing the works of the Law. You need a nature change. You need Jesus.

So if the Law is the reflection of Christ and we have the Spirit of Christ in us when we are saved. Then that is Jesus fulfilling the Law in us. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

This shows up in reality, not just in your head. If you are thinking “well I believe in Jesus so I must be fine” but you don’t see the fruit of it in your life, you are not fine. If the spirit of Christ is in you then you have NEW appetites, NEW attitudes, a NEW outlook, NEW affections. You “hunger and thirst for righteousness” not to satisfy a moral code but to emulate the Spirit of the God who is in you!

Receiving Jesus is not to throw the law away, it is to view it rightly.