The Sermon on the Mount Series, Week 4 – Christ Fulfills the Law

This week will be the most controversial section yet on the Sermon on the Mount. We will be going over Matthew 5:17-20, titled “Christ Fulfills the Law.” CSB

Matthew 5:17-20 – “Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law of the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and hearth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all things are accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does 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 get into the kingdom of heaven.”

This one is most awkward for those that have read the Torah (the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). These are the books that start with the beginning of creation, all the way up through the time of Moses, that received the law from God. Moses was given the ten commandments, and then he was given lots of other additional regulatory laws as they continued to progress as a theocracy and become more organized. There were over 600 laws in total, that included laws about almost all aspects of life, from what to eat, to priesthood, to disease quarantine, to worship/sacrifice, to civil crimes, etc. It is all these laws (both the ten commandments and the laws after the ten commandments) that the scribes and Pharisees oversaw strictly enforcing and they could enforce serious repercussions or even death for those that broke the law. They were constantly listening to what Jesus said and were always looking for ways that they could use the law against Jesus so that they could charge him with blasphemy and kill him because he was a serious threat to their power. They must have been almost happy a little bit when Jesus said that he came to fulfill that law and emphasized that all the letters of the law were very important, and that following all the commandments were crucial. However, they must have then been a little confused and frowned when Jesus laid out the last sentence about it being necessary to be more righteous than them to enter the kingdom of heaven.

This section is controversial because if you have read all these laws after the ten commandments, they will almost seem to contradict many of the commandments and teachings of Jesus. Jesus said that he came to fulfill the law of the prophets, which included not just those first five books worth of laws, but all the history and commandments given by prophets later that were ignored by Isreal, oppressed, and killed by the theocracy.  So, what does Jesus mean by fulfill? Based on all of his later teachings he clearly does not mean that he is maintaining all of the laws of Moses or the Old Testament, but he is bringing them to completion or bringing them out to their full expression (both of which are meanings of the word fulfill). So, all the laws and Israel’s history had a purpose like a seed that became a tree when Jesus came and fulfilled the intended purpose of the law. I do not pretend to understand the purpose of all of the laws in the Old Testament in the way that they were written and preserved over the centuries, but they must have had a purpose for the state that humanity was in at the time that is hard to understand in today’s time and culture.

Then Jesus takes obedience of the law very seriously by saying that all the laws will be preserved until all things are accomplished (take that last part very seriously and ponder what he means by “all things are accomplished”). He then tells us that anyone that breaks even the least of these commandments or teaches others to break any of the commandments will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. Then Jesus goes on to give many teachings about how to follow the law and teaches his followers to not continue to enforce many of the laws that were included in those 600 plus commandments (about an established priesthood, sacrifices, circumcision, food restrictions, and many civil penalties). However, he does hold up the ten commandments over and over again throughout the gospels.

The last sentence about having to surpass the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees to enter the kingdom of heaven must have left all the common people with a little fear because they viewed the scribes and pharisees as strict followers of the law. Many of them probably viewed themselves as flawed and much less righteous than the scribes and pharisees. However, Jesus is hinting yet again that the heart is more important than the human enforcement of regulations, and that you could superficially follow all the laws and still have an evil heart on the inside.

This section made me very uncomfortable for the longest time because it made it hard to understand what to focus on. Just have faith that the later teachings of Jesus in both the Sermon on the Mount and his parables will continue to tell you exactly what commandments you need to obey and the kind of heart that God wants in his kingdom. Treat all his teachings as the greatest authority that you can use as a lens to then have a greater understanding of the rest of the Bible, both before and after him. The law and the Old Testament pointed toward righteousness, but Jesus revealed what righteousness was at its deepest level in the heart. A more modern interpretation of this section is that it is impossible to be perfect and that Jesus gave laws that were impossible for humans to follow, and when read alongside some of the readings of Paul, you are granted Jesus’ perfectness through faith. I would caution against this interpretation and pay close attention to all the commands of Jesus and how we must obey these commands, act on his words, and that we must do these things or there will be consequences.

Thanks for following along with this 20-week Sermon on the Mount series! If you missed any of the previous articles, you could find them on my website at transcend-endurance.com in the faith section blog posts!