To Fulfill The Law & The Prophets
The Life Of Christ • Sermon • Submitted
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Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Greetings…
The theme for this year is “The Life Of Christ.”
Last week we finished looking at the first part of the Sermon on the Mount” in the Beatitudes.
How as Christians we can live “happy or blessed” lives.
Now we are going to turn our attention to Jesus’ statements in Matthew 5:17-20.
Here we have Jesus preparing and explaining a vital reality concerning the Old Covenant.
Matthew 5:17–18 (ESV)
17 “Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to destroy them but to fulfill them. 18 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.
19 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. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus begins this section wherein he is going to be correcting the long held teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees by setting straight his relationship with the Law and the Prophets.
Jesus didn’t come to destroy the Old Law but to fulfill it.
The word destroy means to utterly overthrow.
The word fulfill mean to bring to completion.
So…
Jesus Came To Fulfill
Jesus Came To Fulfill
The Thoughts Of Others.
The Thoughts Of Others.
Many thought and many others would think that Jesus came to disregard the Law & the Prophets.
Jesus’ was constantly having to defend himself against the Pharisees and Sadducees when it came to the law.
The law of the Sabbath.
2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.”
Washing hands.
2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.”
Jesus knew what he was about to preach and teach on was going to make others seem like he had a negative conception of the Law and the Prophets.
So he states clearly that simply isn’t the case, he isn’t striving to destroy it but rather he was trying to…
Fulfill The Law & Prophets
Fulfill The Law & Prophets
There are roughly 330 prophecies about Christ and what he was expected to fulfill, found in the Law and the Prophets.
He would be from God, be God, and be God’s sacrifice for us, i.e., Messiah.
15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—
18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He would establish an everlasting kingdom.
44 And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever,
He would establish a new covenant.
31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah,
So then with all these prophecies we must ask the question…
Did Jesus Fulfill The Law & Prophets?
Did Jesus Fulfill The Law & Prophets?
Because if Jesus did not fulfill and thus do what he himself said he would do then…
He failed his purpose in coming to earth (Matthew 5:17).
If Jesus did fulfill the law and the prophets then…
He did accomplish his purpose and we should not be surprised to read and find a “new law” and “new covenant.”
12 For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.
Thankfully for you and I Jesus did indeed fulfill the Law and the Prophets.
How do we know…
Because there has been a change in priesthood.
20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Because there has been a change in the law.
6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.
21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.
Summary
Summary
Thanks be to God that Jesus did in fact fulfill the Law and the Prophets and so establish a better covenant with humanity.
However, there are some important truths then that must be recognized.
If Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament i.e., the Law and the Prophets, then what are we to do with them?
In other words…
What Value Is There?
What Value Is There?
There For Our Learning.
There For Our Learning.
Obviously, as we have discussed many times, the Old Testament is there for our learning.
4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
6 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.
After all we wouldn’t know how the universe was created or in many ways we wouldn’t know our God as well either.
There is no doubt there is great value there for our study and learning.
Now with that being said, this doesn’t mean we are to use the Old Law as “our law.”
We are under the “better covenant” as we saw and there are dangers in using the Old Law as “proof text” for New Testament doctrine.
We see this all the time, especially when it comes to the use of “mechanical instruments” in worship.
Well, we read of the Israelites using them in worship so we can too argument.
Setting aside that fact that people only use “aspects of the Old Law” they want and disregard the rest we must keep in mind that isn’t how God works.
God is no longer authorizing through the Old Law.
It has been nailed to the cross.
14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
It has been put to death.
4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
It has been abolished.
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
Summary
Summary
If used properly there is great value in studying the Old Testament and learning from it’s insights into God and sin.
But let us use it as it is now intended not as it was once expected.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Thankfully, for you and I, Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets.
He did that which he set out to do in order that we might have a “newness of life” and become a “new creation” in the likeness of Christ (Romans 6:5; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 2:20).
Invitation
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.
8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.