Jesus fulfills the Law (Matthew 5:17-20)

Opening Prayer

Scripture Reading

Matthew 5:17–20 NKJV

“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Introduction

For us to understand Sermon on the Mount - we need to understand the historical setting, and the religious background of Israel at the time.

Jesus was a Jew and He was preaching this sermon to a crowd that included both his disciples and other Jewish people.

The teachers of the day would have included both Pharisees and Sadducees.

Although Pharisees and Sadducees were both Jewish teachers, the believed and taught different things.

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They agreed on one point:

Both of them believed in the Law of Moses, the First Five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).

The Jewish people referred to these books as the Torah or the TaNakh.

But in English today we refer to it as the Law or the Pentateuch.

However the Pharisees and Sadducees disagreed on three points:

Firstly: The Sadducees rejected the belief of the resurrection of the dead (Matthew 22:23) but the Pharisees believed in the resurrection.

Secondly: The Sadducees did not believe in life after death. However, the Pharisees believed in the after life.

Thirdly: The Sadducees rejeceted the spiritual realm, where the Pharisees affirmed both the existence of angels and demons.

Both the chief priests and high priests of the day were Sadducees, and they had a lot of power of in the temple of Jerusalem.

However, the Pharisees represented the common people and they had control more control over the synagogues.

The Pharisees placed a strong emphasis on their traditions and viewed their man made rules in equal authority to the Word of God.

The Pharisees had created very strict rules regarding:

The Sabbath.

Ritual washings.

Dietry restrictritions

And other issues regarding ceremonial purity.

They had created legalistic structures extra biblical rules, that God had never intended for His people.

Pharisees were also appointed as Scribes.

Being considered experts in the Law and their traditions.

They were appointed as the people responsible for preserving the word of God from one generation to the next.

In those day, they did not have printers, so they write out the Old Testament by hand on pieces of Leather, Animal Skins, and Papyrus as a means of preserving the Old Testament from generation to the next.

Outwardly, society viewed them as holy and righteous people. But God knew their hearts, and that they had completely missed the point of His message.

The Bible tells us in John 2:24-25, that Jesus would not entrust Himself to them because He knew exactly what was in their hearts.

Listen to what Jesus saw in Matthew 23:27-28.

Matthew 23:27–28 NKJV

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Outwardly the Pharisees seems righteous, but inwardly before God they were corrupt.

Matthew 23 tells us that:

They loved having the best seats in the synagogues.

They loved their status in society, and the attention they received.

They loved being greeted in the market place, and being called teacher.

And most of all, they loved placing heavy burdens on others, while behind closed doors they did not live up to that standard themselves.

You see, the Pharisees needed to be corrected. Why? Because they misunderstood the heart behind the Law, and being teachers they were misleading the people.

And who corrected them? God himself.

You see Philippians 2:6-8, tells us that Jesus came down from Heaven and made himself of no reputation to become a servant of men.

The Bible tells us in Colossians 2:9 that “in Him(Jesus) dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;”

Matthew 1:23 tells us Jesus was “Immanuel”, God with us.

Not only that, Jesus was the author of the Bible itself and therefore He has the authority to both correct the Pharisees and correctly explain God’s heart behind the Law.

The Bible tells us in John 1:1–2 that Jesus is the Word of God.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”

The Greek used here for “the Word” is “Logos”, meaning Jesus is the expression of God and his thoughts to humanity.

Jesus himself is both the Word of God and speaks the Word of God.

The Bible tells us in Hebrews 1:1–2 “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;”

With all this in mind, lets now look at the key that unlocks the door to understanding the sermon on the Mount sermon and the entire purpose of Jesus ministry.

Jesus fulfills the Law:

Read:

Matthew 5:17–20 (NKJV)

“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Right at the outset of Jesus sermon He came to set the record straight:

Jesus did not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them.

There was not a single jot or tittle of the Law and Prophets, that the scribes copied throughout the generations that would pass away.

In fact, He came to fulfill those scriptures.

The however question is, how did He do this? He did this in three ways:

Firstly, He came to fulfill the prophecies about the Messiah.

Secondly, He came to fulfill the law by obeying the law perfectly.

Thirdly, by his death on the cross He came to fulfill all the cermeonial laws , therefore making the Old Testament priesthood and sacrifical system unneccesary.

Lets explore each of these individually for a moment:

Point 1: Jesus came to fulfill prophecies about the Messiah:

Did you know that the Old Testament contains 191 prophecies about the coming Messiah?

700 years before Jesus would be born, Isaiah 7:14 predicted that the Messiah would be born of a virgin.

Isaiah 9:6 makes it clear that the Messiah would be the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, and Mighty God in the flesh.

Numbers 24:17 tells us that He would come from the tribe of Judah.

2 Samuel 7:12-17 tells us that the Messiah would come from the line of David.

Micah 5:2 gave the exact location of His birth - Bethlehem.

Daniel 9 gave us the exact year in which Christ would die.

Psalm 22 tells us about His crucifixion:

That he would be mocked,

That He would thirst

That they would pierce his hands and feet,

And that they would cast lots for his garment

Psalm 16:10 told us that he would be resurrected from the dead.

And Isaiah 53 gives us the details concerning the nature of His ministry:

That He would be rejected by men

That He would be a man of sorrow

That He would live a life of suffering

That others would despise him

That He would carry our sorrows

That He would be smitten and afflicted by God

That He would be pierced for our transgressions

That He would suffer for our sins and iniquties.

That He was be sinless.

And that He would die for the wicked.

To illustrate the significance of these fufilled prophecies, I’d like to make use of an illustration:

If you take the whole surface area of South Africa and you fill it up with half a meter high with with R5 coins. Marking only one of them with a reddot.

And you exclude the areas out Gauteng, SwaziLand, and Lesotho.

And you send a blind man to find that one marked R5, and He finds gets it on his first try.

That illustrates the probability of one person fulfilling seven of the prophecies about the Messiah.

Jesus fulfilled 191 of them. A mathematical impossibility.

Yet in Matthew 19:26 Jesus tells us “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”” and God wanted to make sure, we don’t mistake the Messiah for someone else.

Jesus is our Messiah.

Point 2: Jesus came to fulfill the law by obeying the law perfectly.

The Bible tells in Isaiah 53:9 and 1 Peter 2:22 that Jesus committed no sin.

The Bible tells us that in order for a sacrifice to be sufficient in atoning our sins, it has to be without spot or blemish.

Jesus was this spotless lamb.

He was the only one to live a sinless life, and to obey God’s Law perfectly.

In Matthew 5:48 that God’s standard for our lives - absolute perfection.

“Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

That is why Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:20 “that unless your (our) righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you (we) will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”

So you might be asking: Why would God set the standard so high?

It already seems like the Pharisees and Scribes lived these exceptionally righteous lives.

Yet God’s standard is so much higher than theirs.

The answer is:

God is Holy.

He is a God justice.

He is perfectly good, and therefore He must punish evil.

However, He is also a God of mercy.

Knowing that it would be impossible for us to attain that perfect standard, He needed to make a plan in order to redeem us and save us from the destruction that was waiting for us.

So He sent His Son into the world as a substitute for my and your sins.

The Bible tells us in Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

The Bible tells us in Romans 6:23 that because of God’s goodness, He had to assign the death penalty to all who have sinned.

Yet in order to rescue us, the Bible tells us in John 3:16 God gave us his only begotten Son, that whoever might believe in Him will not perish but have everalsting life.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4, tells us that He died in my and your place on the cross, was buried in the grave for three days, and then rose again to defeat both sin and death.

So that all that might repent of their sins and look to Him might be saved.

And in doing so there is a great exchange that takes place:

2 Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

So that now, as Romans 10:9 tells us, that when you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you can be saved.

So that now when God see’s you, He sees Jesus and you are no longer condemned.

Romans 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Jesus fulfilled the Law, by obeying it perfectly, that He might be that lamb without spot or blemish to pay for our sins on the cross.

Point 3: By his death on the cross He came to fulfilled all the cermeonial laws , therefore making the Old Covenant priesthood and sacrifices unneccesary.

Because Jesus had given himself as the sacrifice for our sin, there was no longer a need for priests to perform the sacrifices of the Old Testament.

Hebrews 10:11–12 NLT

Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand.

The ceremonial laws which were put in place also faded away, because they were a foreshadowing of the finished work of Jesus on the cross.

Colossians 2:16–17 NIV

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

By Jesus accomplishing what He did on the cross, the Old Covenant passed away and ushered in the New Covenant.

Jeremiah 31:31–33 (NKJV)

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

Ezekiel 36:26–27 (NKJV)

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

You see the Pharisees up until this point had paid strict attention to the ceremonial and sacrificial laws.

Their focus was displaying an outward righteousness but their hearts were far from God.

Jesus came to introduce the New Covenant, and as the Word of God, He came to correct their misunderstanding of the Law.

He came to show us God’s true intentions behind the Law - and that was that God was more interested in what was happening in the heart of men and women, than people following a bunch religious rules.

You see, the bible tells us in James 2:17 that faith without works is dead. But what do our hearts like before Him? Because He can see it.

Are we trying to obey God for the same reasons that the Pharisees did? To be thought of as good people by those around you, living for the praise of man rather than for the honor of God.

Have we missed the point like the Pharisees?

Do you realize that it it is the goodness of God leads to repentance, like Romans 2:4 tells us.

Jesus makes it clear in John 14:15 that ““If you love Me, keep My commandments.”.

God is interested in your heart.

I’d like to leave with these question today, and that is: Have you misunderstood God’s heart behind the Law like the Pharisees did, and more importantly what is your heart like towards? He already knows the truth. The question is, do you?

Next week we will look at the six key issues adressed, where Jesus addressed th misunderstanding of the law, and showing us what God’s intention is behind His commandments.

We’ll be looking at:

Murder, and anger in the heart.

Adultery, and how lust begins in the heart.

God’s heart for marriage and how divorce was never his intention.

Oaths

Rightly responding to conflict

Loving your enemies.

But for now, lets pray:

Conclusion: (Personal Application)

Psalm 139:23–24 NKJV

Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 51:10 NKJV

Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Closing Prayer