The Law Fulfilled

When I sat down this week to write out my sermon, after all the preparation this week…the Lord began to change my heart with regard to the main point of the sermon.

For the past several weeks we have looked at Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount. Two weeks ago we focused on Jesus’ words in ; our call to be Salt and Light in a flavorless and dark world. I like that passage about Salt and Light, because it felt practical. It felt hands on. Those sermons are always good and motivating. Those passages are always challenging, but they are easier to read and understand. Then something rather strange happens in the passage. We go from the Beatitudes and all of the “blessed” statements, to the salt and light identity and then Jesus gets to this place where He starts talking about righteousness and the Law. It deals with weighty subjects like commandments, obedience, Old Covenant and New Covenant; things that are weighty. They don’t read as easy. The words may seem a bit archaic and a little wordy, but there is so much content here with regards to our relationship with God, how it affects how we are suppose to live, and the freedom that it gives.

In a few weeks we’ll get to the parts where Jesus tells us how to think about emotions, marriage, possessions, the things we like, etc. That’s the good stuff right? That is what we want to know. We want to know what we should be doing and what we shouldn’t be doing. We want to hear about our sin, feel guilty, ask for forgiveness and move on. Yet, what I want to speak about is part of the framework of our beliefs, it is the lens through which we look through, it affects how we read the entire Bible, influences forgiveness, and we will see later how it affects all the subjects that come up in ; anger, divorce, possessions, what we treasure, oaths we take, enemies, retaliation, anxiety, judgment, and the Golden Rule. What we read today affects every single one of those issues.

MAIN POINT:

The measurement of our faith must be Jesus.

You will walk through life constantly trying to measure yourself up to the next person, the next student, the next employer, the next mom or the next dad, the neighbor next door or even someone on tv. You’ll be asking the questions, trying to search for the high-water mark, trying to figure out if you’re doing ok, trying to find direction, trying to find forgiveness.

As believers in Jesus Christ, the measurement of our faith must be Jesus.

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.

This is not stuff that may be so plug n’ play and user friendly. There are good chances, you won’t wake up tomorrow morning, hit the alarm clock and say “I am thankful Christ did not abolish the Law, but fulfilled it.” When you are working on a report this week, mired in stacks of papers and number, your first though may not be “Christ did not abolish the Law, but fulfilled.” When you are caring for a family member or patient this week, and its a tough day, your initial comfort may not be “Christ fulfilled the Law.” Why? Because it doesn’t plug n’ play quite so easy, but I hope before we are through, you see just how important this is.

Jesus said, “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.”

There was a thought that since Jesus, the Messiah had entered the picture, that the Old Testament was done away with. There was no need for the Law, there was no need to look at the Law or the Prophets. The Law being the first 5 books of the Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy) and the Prophets being the rest of the Old Testament (Joshua - Malachi). Jesus said, I have not come to abolish or “destroy” (KJV), rather I came to fulfill them.

The Law contained 248 commandments and 365 prohibitions. Jesus was saying that His life, eventually His death and resurrection were going to fulfill each one of those commandments and prohibitions. We know it today to be true, because theologians and scholars have been able to go back and see that the over 400 prophecies about the coming Messiah were true and that Jesus fulfilled every single one of them.

For instance:

The virgin birth prophesied in is fulfilled in Christ in

The Messiah being a prophet like Moses in is fulfilled in

Christ becoming a “life giving spirit” as a natural development from the fleshly Adam in , fulfilled in

The promised seed from Adam, crushing the seed of the Serpent in , fulfilled in the Gospels

The offspring of the line of David in , fulfilled in

The prophecy of the suffering servant in , fulfilled in the account of Jesus death in the Gospels.

Jesus was saying, ‘I fulfilled all of it.’ He did not come to somehow negate the Law, He came to fulfill every part of the Law, so that we wouldn’t have to. Or as John Calvin put it, “It was only the use of them that was abolished, for their meaning was more fully confirmed.”

How could the Law be fulfilled and not be destroyed?

Think about the online ordering where you can pick-up from the store. It use to only be restaurants where you could call to get a “To-Go” order. Now it is Wal-Mart, pharmacies and everywhere else that you can Instacart. You get online or on your app. You select each item that you want. Then a personal shopper goes through the entire store, picking out each item that you need. When they are finished, it is sitting there waiting for you the recipient to pick it up. They did not receive the order and then toss aside the list. They did not throw away the paper or delete the order, rather they fulfilled the order. It is ready for you to pick it up, take it home, and use it.

When Christ came into this world. He did enter and and say “the law is no good.” He didn’t tell everyone “there is no need to obey this anymore.” Rather, He fulfilled the Law. Every instruction and every request that the Law had made, Jesus made it.

Jesus fulfills all of the OT in that it all points to him, not only its specific predictions of the Messiah but also in ts sacrificial system, which looked forward to his great sacrifice of himself, in many events in the history of Israel which foreshadowed his life as God’s true Son, in the law which only he perfectly obeyed, and in the Wisdom Literature, which sets forth a behavioral pattern that his life exemplified. Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom does not replace the OT but rather fulfills it as Jesus’ life and ministry, coupled with his interpretation, complete and clarify God’s intent and meaning in the entire OT.

You see the whole point of the OT and the Law was to point to Jesus. In

Luke 24:27 ESV

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

This wasn’t just that Jesus was explaining a few passages in the Old Testament that made some references to Him, rather He was showing how all of the Old Testament points to Him. Then He tells them this:

Luke 24:44–48 ESV

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

Luke 24:4

Once He had finished explaining how the Scriptures fit together to foreshadow His coming and how He has now fulfilled Scripture, it says “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. Was it just to understand a few things in the OT, no! It was so that they would understand what the whole of Scripture meant. In order to understand the whole of Scripture, you must understand that Christ has fulfilled the Law and the Prophets.

2 Corinthians 1:20 ESV

For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.

2 Corinthians 1:20

So what’s the big deal about this? It is because it adjusts the lens in which we look through. It changes the game in how we interpret and teach the Bible.