Matthew 5:17-20 – Christ Fulfills the Law
17 “Don’t assume that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For I assure you: Until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all things are accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches people to do so 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, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
One of the great debates in the church is the law vs. grace and the question “are we still under the law?” is often asked. Most Christians will say no, we are now under grace, and they wouldn’t be wrong. But, do we fully understand what that means? I mean, the 10 commandments still hold water. We have laws that govern our society. We don’t want to do anything that’s against the law. This means the law must still have some power over us. So, as I began to break the whole concept down, I made a few discoveries that I believe will shed some light on this whole debate.
The first thing I was to find out what the law really is. Sometimes the American/English word has a different meaning than the Biblical one. The word law in Hebrew is Torah. We recognize the word Torah as the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. But,the word Torah, is more than just a few books. The word Torah is the Hebrew word for teaching and direction for life. It is derived from the root yareh which means to shoot an arrow in order to hit the target. From this, I get a whole new understanding of the purpose of the law – not just the meaning I have in my head. The purpose of the law is to teach us how to live so we can hit the target – the bullseye. It isn’t a restraining locked in kind of thing. It is the key to living in righteousness – how to be holy as God is holy. The law shows me what the bullseye looks like so I can aim correctly. Unfortunately, I am pretty incapable of coming anywhere near the target. I’m way off the mark!
Amos 7:7-8 shows us a bit more when it speaks of a plumb line that God holds out over the land. For those of us who are not sure what a plumb line even is – it is a weight with a point that is hung by a string. It’s purpose is to make sure things are perfectly vertical. I had to think about that for a minute. A plumb line isn’t measuring anything horizontal, only vertical. It isn’t measuring my relationships with the people around me, only my relationship with God. And that is what the law is – a measurement of my relationship with God. Am I hitting the target?
The second thing to consider about the law is that it is holy and perfect. That’s right, there is NOTHING wrong with the law. It is God’s law, so it isn’t somehow defective. God didn’t put the law together and suddenly discover it had a flaw. He didn’t say oops, got that one wrong. I bring this up because I think we really need to see the law for what it is, holy, perfect, the bullseye, and the plumb line of all plumb lines for our relationship with God. I then went to Psalm 119. It is a chapter written in a Hebrew alphabet acrostic dedicated to all things law. It’s where we find the famous passage “Your word is a lamp for my feet, and a light on my path (vs. 105). In fact it is 176 verses dealing with the awesomeness of the law. After you read it, you will start to get the sense that the law is pretty great. So, if there is nothing wrong with the law… I guess this is the time where I go and look in the mirror. Yep, there it is. Now I see the problem.
It’s me (and us). We are the problem that needed to be fixed, not the law. Our relationship with God is not plumb. We didn’t hit the bullseye. We are the ones that couldn’t keep God’s perfect and holy law perfectly. With that established, let’s read with fresh eyes what Jesus is saying, and not saying.
Jesus states very clearly, I DID NOT come to destroy the law or the prophets. This is huge! He didn’t come to get rid of the law. The law is still here. It is still teaches and is the mark to hit. Still the plumb line in our relationship with God. So, what did Jesus come to do? He says, I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. Jesus came to hit the bullseye, to teach and His relationship with the Father was perfectly plumb. He goes on to let us know that the law isn’t going away until everything is accomplished. And everything isn’t going to be totally accomplished until He comes back, sooooo, hate to say it, the law is still around.
Paul says in Romans 3:31, “Do we then cancel the law through faith? Absolutely not! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” The law is not canceled by Christ, it it fulfilled. This is an important distinction. There wasn’t a need to cancel something that was already perfect, there was only a need to fulfill it. We could not do it. We are far from perfect. We are in fact – sinners. When you put sin up against God’s perfect law it doesn’t work. So God, by grace, set up a system of sacrifice so that we could be covered. Yes, the sacrificial system outlined in detail in Leviticus is given by the grace of God. He didn’t have to set up anything. He could have just said, you guys can’t get it right so I’m going to walk away and let sin overtake you. But He didn’t do that. He had mercy on His people and gave them a system by which they could continue to have a relationship with Him. That system included burnt offerings, sin offerings, thanksgiving offerings, etc. All these offerings needed a sacrifice of some kind and all sacrifices had to be perfect and unblemished. He made a way. But, and this is important – this way did NOT fulfill the law. Why? Because we keep sinning. So, the law, which is perfect, was not there to save us. The law was there to teach us what was needed in order for us to be saved, and in doing so, taught us that we needed to be saved. The law became a spotlight for our shortcomings. Sin cannot hide in the dark when the light of the law is pointing it out. (Remember last week’s study – the dark can’t get hide the light!)
For me, this makes Jesus statement “I have come to fulfill the law” even more exciting! In spite of all my shortcomings and failures, Jesus came to save. It is God’s amazing grace that continues to flow down through Christ. Jesus became our burnt, sin, and thanksgiving sacrifice. He was the unblemished Lamb of God. He was perfect, and therefore could fulfill the law perfectly. The difference? He is the once for all sacrifice. We are saved through the grace of God by faith in Christ who has fulfilled every portion of God’s perfect and holy law.
Then Jesus gives us a therefore. An “in light of all that I have just said”… “Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches people to do so 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. For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
We know that Jesus was very hard on the religious leaders of the day. And this is no exception. He admonishes them by calling out their execution of the law. They didn’t seem to have a problem imparting the law to others, just their own implementation was laking. Over the three years that Jesus spent teaching His disciples He reiterated this many times. In Matthew 16:11-12, Jesus explained something they misunderstood. He says, “Why is it you don’t understand that when I told you, ‘Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees,’ it wasn’t about bread?” Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the yeast in bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Matthew 21:28-44 are two parables Jesus tells about them. It highlights their shortcomings. The first is about the two sons. The father asks them to do something. The first son says he didn’t want to do it, but then changes his mind and does it anyway. The second says yes he will do it, but doesn’t do it after all. The second parable is about the Vineyard owner who sends several people out to collect the fruit from the tenet farmers. First he sent several slaves who were beat and killed, then his son who they killed thinking they would get the inheritance. In verse 45 it says, “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they knew He was speaking about them.” Then in Matthew 23 Jesus delivers a series of Woe’s. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. In Luke 11:38-40 Jesus gives us a picture of what He is talking about here, “When the Pharisee saw this, he was amazed that He did not first perform the ritual washing before dinner. But the Lord said to him: “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and evil. Fools! Didn’t He who made the outside make the inside too?”
In saying that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees and scribes, Jesus is sending us a warning. Who do we follow? What do we follow? Are we the teacher that is being followed? We need to beware of those teachers who say one thing and do another – and test them before we blindly follow their lead. We need to be careful about the message we follow. Does that message line up with the teachings of Christ? If we are leaders, we need to make sure that the inside and outside of our lives are both a reflection of God. We need to make sure we are the first son – the one who actually goes and does what God asks us to do. We need to make sure that we give back to the Lord what is his. Don’t reject the teaching of His Word.
I think this word is especially good to hear now – in a time where wrong is said to be right and there are so many voices going on trying to get our attention. Social media is rampant with false, misleading information. We are being distracted by the words of men, fear, and partisan politics instead of allowing God’s word to be the lamp for our feet and the light for our path. As believers in Jesus the Messiah, we need to practice discernment and work on our execution – the doing of it all. This is why James says, “But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his own face in a mirror. For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but one who does good works — this person will be blessed in what he does.” (James 1:22-25)
Questions to Ponder
1. If God set a plumb line in your life right now, how would your vertical relationship with Him look?
2. Which son are you like? The one who first said no, then went ahead and did it, or the one who said yes, and didn’t do what was asked?
3. Does your life look good both inside and outside? If not, what needs to be cleaned up?
4. Are you becoming distracted with all the words of the world or are you submersing yourself in the Word of God.
5. Does the inside and outside of your life reflect the Word of God – are you a doer of the Word?
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