The Law Fulfilled

Welcome

Good morning and welcome. Today we are continuing in our study of the Sermon on the Mount and will look at an incredibly important passage that shows us how we are to interact with what we have as our Old Testament. What Jesus teaches in this section should shape the way that we view all of scripture and allow for us to see that at the heart of the story of the bible, is the person of Jesus.

Matthew 5:17–20 NIV

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 tell you, 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. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Prayer

Engage / Tension

One of the books I’m reading as we study through the sermon on the mount had an interesting chapter. It talked about how we all have at least two Bibles. Now, maybe you have more, maybe you only have one, but we actually all have two Bibles. What does this mean? First, there is the entire actual Bible. It contains the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. Then there is our second Bible. This is what we might call our functional Bible. This bible includes the passages and books that we revisit and spend our time in. This functional bible is different for everyone but it likely includes familiar gospel stories, parables, some of Paul’s letters, and a handful of Old Testament stories and Psalms.

The reason why many of us have this “functional” Bible, is because we sometimes think that we don’t need all of the Old Testament. If we have the gospels that tell us about Jesus, that is all we need.

(small pocket Bible that only has the New Testament and the Psalms)

Many Christians would have the response of “Well that doesn’t apply to us anymore” when talking about the Old Testament.

However, we can see in this passage that this was not Jesus’ intent. He never intended for his followers to think that the Old Testament, the law and the prophets, were no longer valid or helpful. We see this in verse 17.

Matthew 5:17 NIV

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.

Jesus tells the people listening that he isn’t there to get rid of the law or the prophets. Jesus says this because the teachers of the law, pharisees and sadducees, would call him out for doing certain things on certain days. Jesus would heal on the Sabbath and they would claim that Jesus was breaking the law. And here, Jesus is saying, no. I am not here to abolish the law, to get rid of them. I have come to fulfill them. Jesus is saying that he is the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament. He fulfills, he satisfies the Old Testament law. All of history has found its fulfillment in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

Jesus is really giving us a new lens to read the Old Testament through. We can absolutely pick up the bible and read from Genesis to Malachi with no thoughts about Jesus. We can read it and not know anything about what the gospels tell us about Jesus. Jesus is telling us though that the Old Testament can’t be approached that way. If Jesus fulfills the law and the prophets, then we have to read these other books of the Bible through our knowledge of Jesus. If you remember back when we were in the Gospel Story sermon series, the phrase I kept using over and over and over again (That I stole from the Bible project) was “The Bible is a unified story that points us to Jesus.” This means even the Old Testament.

Have you ever seen a movie or read a book that had such a crazy ending it impacted everything that came before it, but you maybe didn’t realize it at the time? But then when you find out about the twist you go back and rewatch or reread the story and you can see all of the little hints and clues that were pointing you in the correct direction? This is similar to how we read scripture. Because of who Jesus is, it completely reshapes how we read the entire Bible. This means that we don’t get to pick and choose our functional bible, we read all of scripture and view it and interpret it through Jesus. Jesus highlights how serious it is to keep all of scripture in the next verse.

Matthew 5:18 NIV

18 For truly I tell you, 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.

Scripture is going to be around longer than anything that we can see or touch. We may think that a building will stand forever, we may think that something will last a long time, but scripture is what really lasts a long time. The law is more secure than the earth on which we live and more than the heavens above us. Things in life may fade and perish, but the law will remain and it will continue to remain as relevant in every generation as it was when it was first given.

Matthew 5:19 NIV

19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus continues by saying that if you set aside these commands and teach others to do the same, you will be least in the kingdom. But if you follow these commands you will be great in the kingdom of heaven. If we are to follow Jesus, that means following the law and the prophets as well. The tricky part of this verse though, is what does Jesus mean by least in the kingdom and great in the kingdom? Does this mean that both groups will be a part of the kingdom of heaven? Are there different levels of the kingdom of God that we can belong to? Jesus is likely using a typical Jewish way of showing the differences between two groups of people. They wouldn’t have used the phrases that we use now, such as “in” the kingdom and “out” of the kingdom. In other words, when Jesus says least here, it’s a way of saying not a part of it. We can see this highlighted at the end of the sermon when we read that only those who do the will of God will enter the kingdom.

There is a reminder in this verse that following Jesus matters eternally. If we truly love Jesus, if he is truly savior, then we desire to do what he says.

Then we get to this doozy of a verse.

Matthew 5:20 NIV

20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

The pharisees and teachers of the law had dedicated their life to the Old Testament law. They knew it, they would memorize it, and to obey it. Yet, Jesus says that unless our righteousness is more than them, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Understanding this verse is going to shape how we go through the next few passages in the coming weeks.

The pharisees were absolutely mindful about the law and about obeying them outwardly. But their righteousness stopped at their behavior. Jesus doesn’t want just a group of people who follows rules, he wants people who have had their hearts transformed. Real righteousness happens within the heart, not just at following rules. (Jesus is going to highlight this in the next passages. You have heard....but I say...) Jesus takes the command farther than the pharisees could even imagine. It isn’t just a matter of what you do outwardly, but what you think inwardly.

Application

What does this mean for us then? If Jesus fulfills the law and the prophets and doesn’t abolish them, how does that affect us?

First, it means that we should read and study the entire Bible. We have to move away from our “functional” Bibles, the passages that we are familiar and comfortable with, and read all of it. We read it in light of what we know about Jesus and allow that lens to shape how we interpret the Old Testament.

But Noah, sometimes the Old Testament has laws that seem like they don’t make sense. Do we follow those? Can our clothes really not be made of two different kinds of fabric? How do we interpret all of these laws?

This is where there is some work and interpretation that is needed on our part. There are different aspects of the law that God gives. In short, they can be broken down into three categories. First, is ceremonial law. These are the rituals and regulations that the people of Israel were told to follow in order to approach God. This is where we are told about the role of priests, blood sacrifices, and the tabernacle and temple. These ceremonial laws don’t apply to us because of what Jesus has done. Hebrews 10:1 “1 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.”

Jesus satisfies these laws and as a result, we don’t have to sacrifice animals anymore.

The second group, is civil law. Think of this as the constitution for the people of Israel. They were a nation organized as a theocracy and so they had to have rules and laws about how they operated as a nation. These laws are meant to teach the people how to function within the nation of Israel, not exactly universal laws that apply to everyone.

The third group, is commonly called moral law. These are the ten commandments, laws that aren’t about ceremony or running a nation. These are laws that indicate how we view God and how we view our neighbors. These are laws that we are still called to follow. If we want to follow Jesus and Jesus affirms the law and the prophets, then once again we should continue to read them and follow them.

Lobsters

Take kosher laws, laws that detail what was clean and permissible for the people to eat back then. We learn that water dwelling animals that crawl, like the lobster, are unclean because they don’t have fins or scales.

Leviticus 11:9–12 NIV

9 “ ‘Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams you may eat any that have fins and scales. 10 But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales—whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water—you are to regard as unclean. 11 And since you are to regard them as unclean, you must not eat their meat; you must regard their carcasses as unclean. 12 Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be regarded as unclean by you.

A simple reading of “follow the law” will mean we can’t eat lobster. (huge issue, I love Lobster) Father’s day I request one thing and one thing only. Lobster. How do we take this now though? Kosher, purity, what is clean, is now established on a new basis. Jesus is the one who makes clean, and these laws anticipate the purity that is to be found in Jesus.

Matthew 15:17–20 NIV

17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

External Righteousness vs Internal Righteousness