The Sermon on the Mount: Christ and the Law -

James H. Cosentino II

The Sermon on the Mount • Sermon • Submitted 8 months ago • Presented 8 months ago

Matthew 5:17–20

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Introduction

Read Matthew 5:17-20

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.

Throughout the history of the church, there has always been a debate over what place the law is supposed to have in the life of believers. We tend to go to one of two extremes when talking about the law.

There are some who believe we can only be saved as we live according to the law or at least some kind of law of morality and goodness. During the early church, Paul had to constantly combat those who taught that unless one went through all the ceremonial rituals of the law, they could not come to Christ. Even today, there are those who teach that unless you abide by the legalistic requirements of the law, such as observing complete and total rest on the Sabbath, aka Saturday, then you are not truly saved.

Then there are those who teach a form of grace that says because God has saved us by grace then we are free to do whatever we like. There is no right and wrong because Christ has freed us from any objective form of morality. We are each free to live according to what seems right to each and every one of us.

These were seen in the theological viewpoints of Marcion who eliminated all the Old Testament Scriptures from the Bible including any Old Testament quotations that were found within the New Testament, which includes the Sermon on the Mount which we are going through in this series. Even Thomas Jefferson created His own Bible taking things out of it that seemed too legalistic and rigid for his own preferences.

So what place does the Law have for Christians today, if it has any place at all?

This is where we pick up at this next section of Jesus’ sermon, the role of the law in the life of His people.

Jesus Tells Us He Came to Fulfill the Law

Why would He have to tell us this? What might make us think otherwise?

Jesus came challenging the religious leaders of His day.

He appeared to have broken many of the laws the religious leaders held dear, such as healing on the Sabbath or telling someone to pick up his mat to go home on the Sabbath.

He would eat with sinners and tax collectors.

He was accused of not washing His hands before eating.

Even today, because of massive misunderstanding of what was happening, there is a famous charismatic preacher who claims that Jesus broke God’s law in order to save us.

However, Jesus was not abolishing God’s law, He was challenging and rejecting the religious leaders’ interpretation of those laws.

In actuality, Jesus kept and fulfilled the whole of God’s law and He would even go deeper and raise the standard of God’s law, not lower it.

This is why Jesus says that our righteousness must be greater than that of the Scribes and Pharisees.

The Scribes and the Pharisees

These were the spiritual elites of the day. How could one go to heaven if your righteousness had to exceed the spiritual giants. What hope does any of us have?

The problem with them was they were not actually obeying God’s law

They had their own man-made laws, which were interpretations of God’s law, but they began to elevate those and even used them to replace God’s law.

They saw obedience to God as merely external with no inward change of heart.

But without an inward change of heart, it is impossible to truly obey the law.

So Jesus tells us here that the Law is here to stay and that we are called to live lives of righteousness and obedience.

So what does it mean that Christ has come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets?

Christ Perfectly Fulfilled the Law by His Life

First, when Christ says “the Law or the Prophets” He typically means the entirety of the Old Testament Scriptures. Jesus continually references back to the Law and the Prophets and shows their continued relevance and significance for His followers.

Jesus is the Blameless and Sinless Savior We Needed

The life God had called us as His created people to live, but failed to do, was perfectly lived by Christ alone. Everything the law demanded and instructed was carried out by Jesus Himself.

This is important, because if Jesus failed to live according to the law of God perfectly, He would not have been without sin and would not be able to be the Savior that we needed. It was only by His obedience that Christ could redeem a people for Himself.

Because Jesus Fulfilled the Law, the Law Can Point us to Christ

The Law Reveals the Holy and Righteous Character of Christ

As we get to know and understand the righteous requirements of God’s law, we begin to see and recognize the character of Christ Himself. He is the One that the Law is pointing us to.

The law showed us what holiness and righteousness looks like. It was what God expected of His people, yet they could not keep the law. But where His people failed, Jesus succeeded. The law pointed us towards the holy character and righteousness of Jesus so that we could recognize Him when He came.

We should recognize Jesus as being God in the flesh because the Law has revealed Him to us.

Galatians 3:23–24 (ESV)

Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.

In fact, this was what Jesus was doing on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24, as he met the disciples there. He walked through the OT story line with them to show how it all pointed to Himself. Luke 24:25-27

Luke 24:25–27 (ESV)

And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

sketch Artists

How does Law Enforcement find someone who is a suspect in a case they are working on? They have to know who they are looking for. Often that means they have to get a sketch of the description of the person they are looking for. That sketch will help them know and recognize the person as they are out searching for them.

In the same way, the Old Testament Law and Prophets gave us a sketch image of who Jesus would be when He came. Through the law and prophets, we get an image of Christ so we could recognize Him when He came.

Several years ago, Andy Stanley came out saying that we need to detach ourselves from the Old Testament because the Old Testament was turning people away from Christ. If that is the case, then we are not reading the Old Testament correctly. The Old Testament was given to us so we could see and know Christ when He came. Because Christ came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, we can see Christ in the OT just as much as we see Him in the NT.

It is to our spiritual detriment if we seek to detach ourselves from the OT because Christ came to fulfill the Law and Prophets, not to abolish it. The OT helps us get to know Christ even better and we are missing out on a lot of what the NT has for us without a proper understanding of the OT.

Christ Perfectly Fulfilled the Law by His Death

God’s Grace is Seen in the Law by Providing a Way of Forgiveness for those who Broke the Law

The Sacrificial System

God knew His people would not be able to perfectly follow the Law

So God created a way to make payment for Sin

Christ fulfilled the law by providing the perfect sacrifice for sin once and for all

The blood of bulls and goats are not really able to make payment for sin

They were there to simply point the way to a greater sacrifice that would take away the sin of the world.

This is what the author of Hebrews was saying in his tenth chapter:

Hebrews 10:1–4 (ESV)

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Hebrews 10:8–10 (ESV)

When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

We do not offer sacrifices any more not because Jesus did away with the law’s requirement for a sacrifice, but because He fulfilled the law’s requirement for a sacrifice.

Without the sacrifice of Christ, there is no hope for forgiveness of sin because all sin must be paid for. All sin requires death.

Romans 6:23 (ESV)

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Jesus paid it all All to him I owe Sin had left a crimson stain He washed it white as snow

what did Jesus pay? The righteous demands of the law concerning sin.

Jesus’ death on the cross to forgive sins did not break the law, it actually carried out and fulfilled the law to its fullest extent. And when we come to God, we must come to Him by faith in Christ’s completed work on the cross.

Christ Perfectly Fulfills the Law in His People

Christ did not just die on the cross to save us from sin, but to make us holy.

Jesus’ plan for His people is to give us a new heart that wants to love and obey Him.

Ezekiel 11:19–20 (ESV)

And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

Jeremiah 31:33–34 (ESV)

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

See, the problem for each of us is that in our natural state, we have a sin nature and we cannot help but sin, even as we try to do good, we do so not out of love for God, but out of love for ourselves and for our own glory.

But when we place our faith in Christ, He gives us a new heart that is growing in love for Christ and for His glory.

Lord, now indeed I find Thy power and Thine alone Can change the leper's spots And melt the heart of stone

And because of that love for Him, we long to live in obedience to Him.

John 14:15 (ESV)

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Because of the new heart of flesh, a heart that is no longer hardened by sin, but softened by a love for God Himself, we will have a new nature to follow and obey.

But how do we know how to obey? Like the psalmist says in

Psalm 1:1–2 (ESV)

Blessed is the man

who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stands in the way of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

but his delight is in the law of the Lord,

and on his law he meditates day and night.

Understand, it is not just on the do’s and don’ts of the law, it is meditating on what the law is pointing us to, Jesus Christ. Because we are meditating on and growing in our love for Jesus Christ, we will grow in holiness to Him. We will not be satisfied with continuing in our sin and rebellion against God.

And we will be given, by Christ, a righteousness that is greater than the Scribes and Pharisees as He is leading us in obedience to His Word.

So how does the law fit in with the gospel message that Jesus is preaching here?

Tim Keller - “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”

Keller explains that this understanding of the Gospel should help to rightly align ourselves with the truth of God’s Word.

Legalists will focus on our sinfulness to the exclusion of God’s love and will say that you must earn God’s love by seeking to live up to the demands of the law. They diminish God’s love by saying that God can and will only love us as we can follow His holy standards.

However, and probably the bigger problem we now face is this, those who focus solely on God’s love by saying that because God loves me, I can do whatever and live however I want.

However, the Gospel helps us to see that God loves us simply because of His grace towards us, but that when we truly receive and understand the grace and love He gives, it will transform the way we live and respond to Jesus. I repent and obey, not simply out of fear, but because I love and am grateful for what He has done, and it is a love that leads to obedience.

If there is no desire for righteousness and no desire to obey, then we are not yet in a right relationship with Christ. And if we are merely concerned with good deeds with no love for Christ, we are not in a right relationship with Christ. Does this mean we will have a perfect love and a perfect obedience? No. But as we trust and follow Christ, there should be a growing love and obedience to Christ.

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