The Law and Prophets

Jesus came to fulfill what was promised and prefigured in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Law, and the Prophets. Fulfillment is a key theme of the Gospel of Matthew. With the arrival of the Messiah, the time of fulfillment had commenced. But what were the implications for the Law of Moses? Jesus provided clear answers in his ‘Sermon on the Mount’. He had not come to settle the interpretive disputes between competing Jewish sects over the details of their oral traditions, but instead, to fulfill “the Law and the Prophets.”

The focus of Christ’s sermon is not on how to follow the Law perfectly or whether it must be restored to an earlier pristine condition free of later traditions. Jesus sums up his mission as one of fulfillment. His authoritative declarations on the requirements of the Law go beyond the written statutes and regulations and the later oral “Traditions of the Elders.”

[Hebrew Bible - Photo by Mick Haupt (Orlando) on Unsplash]

The Nazarene teaches us how to achieve “righteousness” that exceeds the ritual purity of the most scrupulous interpreters of the Mosaic Law. After all, Jesus was the Lawgiver and Prophet greater than Moses, “the prophet” that Moses himself told Israel to hear and obey - (Matthew 5:17-20, 12:6, Hebrews 3:1-6).

• “Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet from your midst, of your brethren, like unto me. Unto him you will hearken” – (Deuteronomy 18:15).

• “Think not that I came to dismantle the law or the prophets. I came not to dismantle, but to fulfill.  For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle will pass away from the law until all things come to pass. Whoever, therefore, will break one of these the least of the commandments and will teach men so, he will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that except your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will in no way enter the kingdom of heaven” – (Matthew 5:17-20).

The Pharisees kept the Law meticulously, having surrounded it with many interpretations. The Sadducees rejected the oral traditions so valued by the Pharisees. They insisted on adhering to what was written in the Torah without later additions. However, Jesus taught things far above the debates of these two sects.

The most consistent opponents of Jesus were the Pharisees, not because he kept the Law more scrupulously than they, but because of his looseness to some of its requirements as interpreted by “the Traditions of the Elders.” If he came simply to reaffirm the Torah as originally written, why did the Sadducees find it necessary later to eliminate him?

Jesus did not come “to dismantle the law or the prophets.” When he stated this, he was referring to the entire body of the writings that comprised the Hebrew Bible, not just to the first five books of Moses. The term “Law and Prophets” was a summary statement for all that God had revealed in the Scriptures - (Matthew 7:12, 11:13, 22:40, Luke 16:16, Acts 13:15, Romans 3:21).

Jesus demonstrated that he was no rigorist concerning the details of the written code. His attitude toward the Sabbath and dietary restrictions proved this. His declaration, that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath,” was a statement that neither devout Pharisees nor Sadducees could tolerate – (Mark 2:23-28).

When Jesus claimed that neither “one jot nor one tittle” of the Law would pass away, it was a colorful way of describing the unchangeable nature of the expressed will of God. The written word represented His will, but that did not mean His past revelations taught everything there is to know about God, or that they were His final word on every matter.

OVERFLOWING

The English term “to fulfill” in Matthew 5:17 translates the Greek verb that has the sense of “filling to the full, to overflow, to fill up completely, to fill to the brim” (‘pléroō’). This is what Jesus did. He fully fulfilled the Scriptures, though often in unexpected ways, and this understanding is demonstrated by the several so-called ‘antitheses’ or contrasts of the ‘Sermon on the Mount’.

Jesus would introduce a legal principle and then reinterpret it on his own authority. Each time, he began with the emphatic Greek pronoun ‘egō’ or “I, myself…” - (Matthew 5:21, 5:27, 5:31, 5:33, 5:38, 5:43).

Christ went to the heart of each issue. For example, it was no longer enough simply not to kill. We as his disciples must abstain from hatred and anger, even against an enemy. The six contrasts provide real-life examples of what it means to have “righteousness that exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees,” and certainly what is required if we wish to become disciples of the Nazarene, “take up his cross,” and follow him wherever he leads.

This is demonstrated especially in his explanation of how we are “to love our neighbor as ourselves.” With their legalistic mindset, the Scribes and Pharisees interpreted the commandment to love your neighbor to mean that they owed love only to fellow Israelites, but not Gentiles or the enemies of the nation. In contrast to this popular view, Jesus pointed to the nature of God Himself.

• “You have heard that it was said, You will love your neighbour and hate your enemy But I say to you, Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love them that love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more than other men? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore, you will be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” – (Matthew 5:44-48).

If God sends rain upon the just and the unjust, who are we to withhold love and mercy even from our enemy? By doing acts of kindness to our opponents and persecutors, we emulate God and become like Him. This is the highest expression of the commandment to love our neighbor.

It is not strict obedience to every detail of the Mosaic Law that determines who enters the Kingdom of God, but whether one obeys the words of Jesus, including his interpretations of the Law:

• “Every man who hears these words of mine and does them, he will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded upon the rock. Every man who hears these sayings of mine and does them not will be likened to a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it” - (Matthew 7:24-27).

Even if we do not commit adultery, if we lust for anyone other than our spouse, we fail to keep the words of Jesus and risk expulsion from his Kingdom. The standard of righteousness demanded by the Messiah of Israel exceeds anything written in the Torah or added by the later “Traditions of the Elders.”

Jesus came to “fulfill.” What was germinal under the old covenant came to fruition in him and his New Covenant. He was “the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes,” and the fulfillment of every “jot and tittle” of the “Law and Prophets.”

We fulfill “the righteous requirements of the law” by following the teachings of Jesus and emulating his actions and attitudes. That is how we achieve “righteousness that exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees.”

• “And Jesus called them to him, and said to them, You know that they who reign over the Gentiles dominate them, and their great ones tyrannize them. But it is not so among you. But whoever would become great among you will be your servant, and whoever would be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” – (Mark 10:42-45).

[PDF Copy]

SEE ALSO:

• The Supreme Lawgiver - (Jesus is the Greater Moses who interprets the Law and the Prophets and brings the covenant promises to completion)

• The Merciful - (Forgiveness links the call of the tax collector to the healing of the paralytic – Christ’s authority to discharge sins and restore men – Mark 2:13-17)

• The Son of Man - (The figure of the Son of Man from the Book of Daniel is the source of Christ’s self-designation - The Son of Man)

• La Loi et les Prophètes - (Jésus est venu accomplir ce qui avait été promis et préfiguré dans les Écritures hébraïques, la Loi et les Prophètes)