Christ Came to Fulfill the Law, Part 1

Matthew 5:17–20 ESV

“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. 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. 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. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Growing Up with Hearing Sunday School Stories

Last week, we looked at citizens of the kingdom being called salt and light in a world of darkness and decay.

Jesus mentioned in Matthew 5:16 that when others see our “good works” that it will bring glory to our Father in heaven.

He begins to unpack in Matthew 5:17-20 what is takes to be doing the “good works” that He said will be true of His followers in Matthew 5:13-16.

People were beginning to question what Jesus had come to do.

He was speaking in a radical way that caused people to question the very bases of His message.

Was He coming to displace the OT?

Was He just an offshoot of Judaism?

Was He claiming to be the Messiah and bringing a new law?

This week I want us to consider first how Jesus saw Himself with respect to the OT, and then next week we will further explore the radical implications of this.

How did Jesus understand the OT?

Matthew 5:17 ESV

“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.

Likely within the mind of the listener, Jesus’ words would've received as though he's coming to abrogate or replace the Old Testament.

He was talking about the new kingdom that He was bringing.

Jesus cautions His followers from “Not presuming” upon His teaching and thinking that he is removing the OT.

He wants to be abundantly clear to His listeners there and especially for us.

Matt 5:17-20 serves as an important introduction to the next section within the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus explains clearly how He understood the OT and its relevance for His life.

This begins the body of the Sermon on the Mount.

“The Law or the Prophets” stand as a shorthand reference to the entirety of the OT.

The prophets and the law both have a prophetic force.

This makes what Jesus’ is saying here as a reference to His view of the entire OT.

Jesus viewed the Word of God as Unrivaled in Importance.

The OT can also be called “the Torah” which is Hebrew for “the teaching.”

Jesus is not destroying the Torah or taking it away.

He is showing His unswerving commitment to the Torah.

Yet at the same time how His message brings fullness and completion.

Jesus is bringing a “new righteousness” that is caught up and is the TRUE IMPLICATION of the OT.

Compared with the Pharisees

Jesus didn’t look like the Pharisee’s.

He didn’t sound like anyone in His day because of the authority that He spoke with.

Luke 16:14–17 ESV

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.

Absolute Allegiance to All of Scripture.

“The fact we have to face is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God incarnate, who claimed divine authority for all that he did and taught, both confirmed the absolute authority of the Old Testament for others and submitted to it unreservedly himself.” — J. I. Packer

Not to Destroy the Old Testament.

The word for “destroy” is the same word used for tearing down a house.

καταλύω is describing the word for “loosing” or “throwing down”

Jesus hasn’t come to throw down the OT.

He has come to throw down the “traditions” of the religious Jews.

Mark 7:1–2 ESV

Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.

Mark 7:5 (ESV)

“Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”

Mark 7:9–13 ESV

And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban” ’ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

Jesus isn’t tearing down the OT.

He is tearing down their tradition.

He is tearing down the chains that have been placed upon the Word of God.

But to Fulfill the Old Testament.

“the central claim which is made by our Lord. It is, in other words, that all the law and all the prophets point to Him and will be fulfilled in Him down to the smallest detail. Everything that is in the law and the prophets culminates in Christ, and He is the fulfilment of them. It is the most stupendous claim that He ever made” —Lloyd-Jones

One of the greatest problems in 21st century preaching and Bible teaching is that there is a disconnection of the OT from the person and work of Christ.

Liberalism came and said that Jesus merely set us an example.

So they try to look for examples all throughout the Bible.

“Have faith like Abraham!”

Jesus viewed the Word of God as Ultimate in Perfection.

This example is given by William Barclay

“The law lays it down that the Sabbath day is to be kept holy, and that on it no work is to be done….But the Jewish legalists had a passion for definition. So they asked: 'What is work?'

All kinds of things were classified as work. For instance, to carry a burden on the Sabbath day is to work. But next a burden has to be defined. So the scribal law lays it down that a burden is 'food equal in weight to a dried fig, enough wine for mixing in a goblet, milk enough for one swallow, honey enough to put upon a wound, oil enough to anoint a small member…”

John 5:5–6 ESV

One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”

Jesus knowing full well that it was the Sabbath.

He knew He wasn’t breaking the Sabbath.

He was breaking their rules that burdened everyone else about the Sabbath.

John 5:8 ESV

Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

John 5:16–17 ESV

And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

The Jewish leaders had rejected the perfection of the Word of God because they saw it as so unattainable.

They saw it as unable to be obeyed.

So the majority of their laws were about trying to make the Word of God obtainable.

Matthew 5:18 KJV 1900

For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

Every “jot” and “tittle” as inspired.

The expression, “Crossing our ‘t’s’ and dotting our ‘i’s’” is where a similar sentiment to what Jesus says here.

He is saying that every crossed ‘t’ and dotted ‘i’ of the OT scripture will be fulfilled.

It’s interesting that Jesus uses the word “iota” which is the smallest letter from the Greek alphabet,

or likely referring to the Hebrew letter “yodh” which was the smallest.

A “dot” is translated as a “serif” which is literally a breathing mark on a Hebrew letter.

Matthew 5:18 ESV

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.

Christian

This means for you when people say things like,

“What does it matter anyway?”

Jesus viewed the Word of God as Unmovable in Significance.

Andy Stanley and Unhooking the OT

When talking to people who have “lost their faith”

“It’s the same God. But he was doing two different things. All that differentiating between those things is so important. Again, in this sermon, I said, ‘Hey, it’s time that we face the facts and unhitch our faith and our practice from some of these Old Testament values that we can appreciate in their original context, but we really don’t have any business dragging them into a modern context.'”

People have been committing this heresy for as long as the church has been around.

People like Marcion from the early church tried to detach any Jewish roots from the Christian faith.

Listen to Stanley again…

“I am convinced for the sake of this generation and the next generation, we have to rethink our apologetic as Christians, and the less we depend on the Old Testament to prop up our New Testament faith the better because of where we are in [the] culture.”

Matthew 5:18 ESV

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.

Until Heaven and Earth pass away.

Sermon On The Mount: Restoring Christ's Message to the Modern Church A. The Demand for Superior Righteousness (Matt 5:17–20)

The OT law is not to be abandoned. Indeed, it must continue to be taught (Matt 5:19)—but interpreted and applied in light of its fulfillment by Christ. In other words, it stands no longer as the ultimate standard of conduct for God’s people, but must always be viewed through the lenses of Jesus’ ministry and teaching.

Matthew 5:18 ESV

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.

Jesus viewed the Word of God as Unchangeable in Permanence.

We do not often consider the kind of gradation that will be in the kingdom of God.

I especially speak of the kingdom often as though we will all be on the same plane of reference.

But Jesus here describes a kind of gradation of levels within the kingdom of God.

Notice that it does not have to do with gifting.

It does not have to do with ability.

It does not have to do with capacity.

It has to do with “keeping and teaching” the Word of Christ.

Our Bible Stories Need “Saved”

Fulfilled not changed.

This is why we spent so much time talking about how Christ viewed the OT last week.

Christ is not devaluing the OT.

He is lifting it as high as possible and showing how He has come as the culmination of it.

There is not another coming to fulfill the OT.

He is the fulfillment and culmination of all the OT expectations.

Jesus says here that obedience to His commandments will be the measure of our status in the kingdom.

Jesus understood Himself as the fulfillment of the unrivaled, ultimate, unmovable, and unchangeable Word of God.