Turn with me if you would please to Matthew chapter 5 as we pick up where we left off last time in the Sermon on the Mount. Today we're going to be looking at verses 17 through 20, a very interesting passage where Christ lays the groundwork for all the ethical demands that he's about to place upon his followers. These verses are going to answer a couple of questions for us. First, what is the relationship between Christ and the law?
And secondly, what are the implications of that relationship for Christians? So let's go to God's Word and hear what it has to say. If you would stand with me in honor of God's Word as we read it together, Matthew chapter 5, verses 17 through 20. Jesus says, 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 the Word of the Lord.
Let's pray. Lord Jesus, please remove from our minds and hearts any misunderstanding or resistance to what you've written for us in your Word. Lord, you love righteousness but we have a problem with being righteous. I pray that by your grace and through your Spirit you would produce in us a love for your law, a hunger and thirst for a righteousness that is real and internal and practical and visible and everlasting. I pray these things for the sake of your glory in the church and in the name of your Son Jesus. Amen.
You may be seated. I want to begin with a very provocative statement but one that I hope to explain and convince you of by the end of this sermon. The statement is this, we cannot love Christ while disregarding his law because the law and the gospel are friends. Let me say it again, we cannot love Christ while disregarding his law because the law and the gospel are friends.
Now as you turn that statement over in your mind, I would imagine several concerns or questions or even objections may be popping up. What do you mean by the law and the gospel are friends? How can the law be a measure of my love for Jesus?
Isn't that statement dangerously close to legalism? That sounds pretty pharisaical to us perhaps. What's interesting is that Jesus used this very principle to counter the Pharisees of his day.
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus points out that without a deep love for God's law and an exceptional righteousness in your life, you're no better than a Pharisee. Now before we jump into the specifics of this text and its meaning, let me just say a couple of things. First of all, I realize that this is a difficult passage of scripture.
There are all sorts of interpretations of these verses that have been put out there over the years. It's a hard paragraph, but I don't think it's hard because it's difficult to understand. I think it's hard because it's difficult to accept.
It's difficult to live out. It goes against our natural bent and so we by nature resist it. Secondly, I want to be perfectly clear, so let me tell you what I'm not saying just in case you're worried. I'm not saying today that Christians earn salvation by performing the works of the law. I'm not the least bit interested in putting an unnecessary yoke or burden on you to be more righteous than God requires of you or to try to earn God's approval somehow by the things you do. I'm not denying the fact that we are saved by grace alone.
I fully affirm without reservation that sinners are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. But there is a tendency, I believe, within certain circles of our theological camp, and by that I mean Reformed Christians today, to downplay the importance of holiness in the Christian life. We hold a high view of justification.
We hold a high view of glorification. But do we hold an equally high view of sanctification? That's one of the reasons why passages like Matthew 5, 17 through 20 hit us so hard. We need to be reminded that righteousness matters. Holy living and grace are not at odds with each other.
In fact, scripture says without holiness no one will see the Lord. So as difficult as it may seem, as challenging as it may be to our maybe preconceived notions of what grace is all about, let's work through these verses in Matthew 5 and see what Christ has to say about his relationship to the law and about our relationship to the law. First, let's consider the relationship between Christ and the law, the relationship between Christ and the law. We discover the relationship between Christ and the law in verses 17 and 18. Jesus says, do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. But 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. Jesus' relationship to the law consists of two things, he says, a negative and a positive, something he does not do and something he does do. First, his coming does not abolish the law. And secondly, his coming does fulfill the law.
So let's look at each of these for a moment. First, Christ did not come to abolish the law or the prophets. Now let's quickly define what is meant by law and prophets. This is a very typical designation in the Bible that refers to the Old Testament as a whole. In Jesus' day, there wasn't an Old and New Testament, there was simply scripture. And scripture consisted at that time of the 39 books of the Old Testament. The phrase law and prophets referred to two distinct sections or genres within the Old Testament. The Hebrews referred to the writings of Moses in the first five books as the law. And then they called the prophetic writings, which came later, the prophets. So the term law and prophets is kind of shorthand reference to all of scripture as it existed during the earthly life of Jesus.
It refers to the Old Testament. Now notice what Jesus says about the law and the prophets. He says, I have not come to abolish them.
That word means to destroy, to nullify, to dismantle. Christ declares that he did not come to do away with the ethical law code that was given by Moses in the first five books of the Bible and then later reinforced by God's covenant prosecutors, the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, Jesus says. He goes on to explain why he did not come to abolish them.
And it's because these things are permanent in nature. Jesus says, 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. The word iota refers to the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet or the Aramaic letter that corresponds to it.
The word dot refers to a little hook, the tiniest little pin stroke that distinguishes two very similar looking Hebrew letters. We could paraphrase verse 18 like this. Until heaven and earth disappear, not a t will remain uncrossed, not an i left undotted from the law until all that it calls for has taken place.
Folks, this is describing something that is incredibly precise and incredibly permanent, as permanent as the existence of heaven and earth. And Jesus says, I have not come to abolish it. Now, there have certainly been numerous attempts at explaining the relationship between Christ and the law over the years. One of those viewpoints teaches that Jesus did away with the moral obligations that the Old Testament imposed on God's people and has replaced it with either a different ethical code altogether or has done away with moral obligations, period. This is a very popular view in some circles today, but it's hard to justify that view in light of what we just read, in light of the permanence which Jesus attributes to the Old Testament law. Jesus upholds the Old Testament law. Therefore, to deny that law is to deny the teaching and mission of Jesus. To question the authority of the Old Testament is to question the authority of Jesus Christ. If Jesus did not abolish the moral obligations of the Old Testament, then neither should we.
But we can't stop there. There's more that needs to be learned about Christ's relationship to the law. So notice, secondly, that Christ came to fulfill the law and the prophets. He came not to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
This is a very interesting comment. Jesus has clearly affirmed the Old Testament law and spoken of its permanency and authority until the end of time. And yet by saying he has come to fulfill it, he's implying that there's something missing. There's something lacking in the law.
There's something that's imperfect about it. I think the whole key to understanding the relationship between Old Testament law and Christ and between Old Testament law and Christians lies in this word fulfill. This Greek word does not mean to do away with something.
It means to make it full, to make it complete, to perfect it. Jesus makes full the laws of the Old Testament. He makes sense of them. Jesus completes them in some way. And in saying this, he declares his own superiority over the law without abolishing the law. Now, in light of these two statements that Jesus has made about his relationship to the law, that number one, he's not abolishing them, and number two, he's fulfilling them, we have to view the Old Testament in such a way as to neither denigrate the Mosaic legislation on the one hand, nor trust in it apart from Christ on the other. But in fulfilling the law, Jesus is really getting to the bottom of what the Mosaic law always stood for, what it always meant. So let's consider for a moment the sense in which Jesus fulfills or completes the law. First of all, Christ fulfills its legal demands. Christ fulfills the legal demands of the law. The Old Testament law could not make anyone righteous. It showed us what righteousness is. It made the demands of holy living very clear, but it could not give anyone the ability to live up to those demands. Paul put it like this, he said in Romans 8, God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled.
Luke wrote in Acts 13, 38 and 39, Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. So the law placed legal demands on us, but did not give us the ability to fulfill those demands. Now folks, we can respond to this reality in one of three ways. We can say, then forget the law, it's too hard, I can't keep it, it doesn't matter. Eat, drink and be married, tomorrow we die.
That's one response. Or we can acknowledge our legal obligation to the law and try to live up to its standards, but we will go to our grave in despair because we cannot keep it. However, in light of Christ's words here in Matthew 5, 17, there is a glorious third option. We can recognize that Jesus Christ has kept the law for us. Jesus fulfills the legal demands of the law.
The writer of Hebrews says of Jesus that by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Christ fulfills the legal demands of the law by obeying those legal demands perfectly. But there's another sense in which Jesus fulfills the law. Christ secondly fulfills its typological significance. It's typological significance.
I want to spend a little bit of time on this point because it's sort of a difficult concept. It's more complex, I think, than the concept of Jesus fulfilling the legal demands of the law on our behalf. What do we mean when we speak of Jesus fulfilling the typological significance of the Old Testament law? Well, certain laws given to the covenant community in the Old Testament were symbolic by nature. They were given as a means of instruction in the course of redemptive history. Certain laws were put in place that were temporary and they pointed to a future fulfillment. They weren't universally binding. Theologians say they weren't moral in nature. They were ceremonial or typological in nature.
They pointed forward to something greater, something more significant, something in the future. Most of us, I suppose, have certain rules in our home that function in a similar way, rules that are relative to a given situation or rules that serve a purpose other than enforcing good morals. For example, it's probably a good rule to forbid a two-year-old to stand on a chair next to a hot stove. However, if a parent needs to change a light bulb next to a hot stove, they may stand on a chair next to a hot stove. Are they being immoral or unrighteous at that point by standing on a chair next to a hot stove?
The two-year-old might think so because that's the world in which he lives. He's not allowed to do that. But eventually, he'll learn that this is a temporary rule that's in place for his own safety until he's matured enough to stand on chairs next to hot stoves. It's not a moral law. It's a rule that's relative to the child's maturity and ability. On the other hand, to forbid children to tell lies is a different sort of rule. This rule is moral in nature.
It's not relative. And so it applies to the parents as well as to the child. It applies when the child is two years old. It applies when that child is 72 years old.
It's universal. It's a moral law. God established certain laws in the Old Testament that served a purpose for a time. And that purpose was to instruct his people and point forward to a day when Christ would come and embody all that those laws and ceremonies stood for. An example of this would be the sacrificial system. God prescribed an elaborate system of animal sacrifices complete with very detailed ceremonies.
But these things, even though they were morally binding for a time, were never intended to make Israel righteous. They were typological. That is, they were representative of something greater, something in the future. What did they point forward to? They pointed to the sacrifice that Jesus would make for sins on the cross.
What did they teach? They taught that without the shedding of blood, the Messiah's blood, there is no remission of sins. And so in the Old Testament, we find this mixture of moral laws that are universally binding for all time and typological laws, laws that were temporary and that foreshadowed a greater reality. When Christ says, I've come to fulfill the law, he fulfills both types. He fulfills the moral law by doing what it demands, by obeying that law.
He fulfills the law's typology by showing what that typology always stood for, what it represented. We could say Christ replaces the shadows with substance. We don't need the blood of bulls and goats anymore to point us to Christ.
We have Christ himself. Now let me be quick to acknowledge that trying to determine which laws from the Old Testament are moral and thus universally binding and which ones are ceremonial or typological is not always so easy. Scholars and pastors and Christians have been arguing over these things for centuries. Examples of this might be the issue of tithing or of keeping the Sabbath. Were these just shadows that have been replaced by the person of Christ or were these laws intended to be morally and universally binding for all time?
We'll have to leave those questions for another sermon. But my point is, even though the distinction between moral and typological can be difficult to determine, the distinction does exist. And the larger point is this, Christ fulfills both. He fulfills the moral law by obeying it when we break it. He fulfills the typological law, ceremonial law, by being what it always stood for. So do we say that Christ did away with all of that typology in the Old Testament?
No, he didn't do away with it, he fulfilled it. We could go so far as to say that we are still under a sacrificial system today. The difference is we don't depend on a dead bull or goat to plead our case, we depend on the Lamb of God who was slain to plead our case. Christ fulfills the law. We see over and over again evidence of Christ fulfilling these ceremonial laws.
We see it in the discontinuation of circumcision. We see it in the food laws being abrogated in the book of Acts. We see it in the destruction of the temple and the ending of the sacrificial system. Christ gave all of these signs and symbols their fullest meaning.
I like how Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it. He said, unless I see that the Lord Jesus Christ is the altar and the sacrifice and the labor of washing and the incense and everything else, I'm still bound to that Levitical order. But seeing it all fulfilled and carried out in him, I say I am fulfilling it all by believing in him and by subjecting myself to him. You know, we ought to just stop right there and bask in the glory of what Christ has done. All of history led up to the moment when Jesus appeared on this earth in the flesh and every shadowy symbol took concrete, tangible meaning, every legal accusation hurled at the elect was silenced as it was met head on by perfect righteousness. To know that our Lord fulfilled the law ought to ignite in us a flame of praise and thanksgiving that will burn for all eternity. Do you see then how the psalmist could say, oh how I love your law, it is my meditation day and night. God's law shows us Christ. God's law makes us desperate for Christ. Without the law of God, we would have no recognition of our need for him.
We would not understand who he is or what he's done for us. Galatians 3.24 says, therefore the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith. You cannot love Christ while disregarding his law because the law and the gospel are friends. When we've considered the relationship between Christ and the law and we've seen how that relationship makes a difference in our standing before God, Christ fulfilled the legal demands of the law on our behalf and in our understanding of God. Christ fulfilled the typological significance of the law.
But what difference does this make on a practical level? Does it affect how we behave and think and live our lives today? In other words, what is the relationship, secondly, between Christians and the law? We find the answer in verse 19. Jesus says, 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. I'm afraid that we have the idea that sometimes that grace and law are opposites and we pit them against each other.
We say grace is free and unmerited and so anything that sounds like it might be making a moral demand of me must not be grace. That must be legalism. I can remember playing basketball in high school and my coach ingrained in us the importance of boxing out for the rebound every time a shot went up. That means you block out your opponent from getting the loose ball.
And I can still hear him yelling from the bench, box out, box out, box out, get the rebound. It was so ingrained in my head, in fact, that there were times when I'd be fighting for a loose ball only to find out I was fighting against my own teammate for the ball. We weren't opponents.
We were on the same team trying to accomplish the same thing. We didn't need to be fighting against each other. Church, God's law and God's grace are on the same team.
They're not opponents. They're both given to us in order to accomplish the same results. That is to lead God's children to salvation. Notice the first word of verse 19. That's the word, therefore, it points back to what Jesus has just said. Jesus is saying, in light of what I just said about the law, its permanency, its connection to my mission on this earth, in light of that, whoever relaxes or annuls or breaks or loosens the least of these commandments will be least in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus is making very clear that Christians are to obey and teach the law.
You say, how is this not legalism? Well, legalism is keeping the law in order to earn God's favor. We've already established the fact that we cannot keep the law perfectly enough to save ourselves and that Christ has kept its every demand in our place. Christ is not contradicting himself then when he tells us to obey and teach the law because he's not teaching that our salvation depends on our ability to keep the law. He's saying that because he has kept the law for us, our lives should bear evidence of a new standing before God and that evidence is holiness, obedience, righteous living. Verse 19 is not teaching legalism because it makes righteousness the result, not the cause of salvation. In light of what I've done, therefore, Jesus says, obey the law. Folks, grace doesn't mean the absence of moral duty.
It doesn't mean freedom to do as I please. Grace means that your moral capacity to live righteously has been increased and one day will be perfected. Listen to these verses. Second Corinthians 5, 17, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old has passed away, behold the new has come. Hebrews 8, 10, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days declares the Lord. I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. James 2, 26, for as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. And in the words of Jesus himself in John 14, 15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. A Christian's obedience to the law of God is evidence that Christ has fulfilled the law on their behalf. This isn't legalism.
This isn't Arminianism. This is the gospel. If Christ fulfilling the law makes no practical difference in your life, you need to ask yourself if you have truly understood grace. John Calvin spent a lot of time thinking about the law and its relationship to Christians and he wrote some very helpful things about the topic. He identified three purposes that the law serves, three uses of the law. First he saw from scripture that the law reveals the righteousness of God and exposes the sinfulness of man.
It's like a prison warden or a strict teacher always reminding man that he's falling short of God's standard. It's this function of the law that makes us desperate for Christ and drives us to Christ for salvation. The second use of the law, according to Calvin, is that it restrains sinners from being as sinful as they otherwise would be.
There are those who would commit all sorts of crimes if it weren't for the fact that the law punishes wrongdoers. So the law, by means of its threats, slows down the progress of sin. Now these first two uses of the law apply to all people, Christian and non-Christian alike. But the third use, and for Calvin this one was primary, applies only to Christians. The third use of the law is that it urges us toward faithful obedience. It spurs us on like a cattle prod to holiness.
Now it does this in two ways. First it gives us doctrine, it gives us the data, the information. If we love God and want to please God, we need to know what His will is for our lives. The law teaches us what the will of God is.
How many times have you said, I just really want to know the Lord's will, I want the Lord's will to be done. Folks, the law of God is the will of God. The law of God is the divine revelation of His will.
It is God's will that you not be a liar. It is God's will that you not commit adultery. It is God's will that you honor and reverence His name.
It is God's will that you worship Him and Him alone. So the law teaches us how to be holy. But the law also encourages or motivates us in the pursuit of holiness. You see, we may know what God's will is, but because we're still in this sinful fallen body, we need to be exhorted towards righteousness. Someone says the law can be like a whip that spurs on a sluggish mule. It counteracts the effects of the flesh in a believer and it stimulates him to obey.
We are the sluggish mule in that analogy. When you begin to see the law in this light, it becomes a very positive thing, not a condemning thing. The law is no longer a prison warden condemning and rebuking. It has become a wise counselor, an encourager, a much needed road map for the Christian life, a sweet and trusted friend.
Oh, how I love thy law, David says. A while back, I took my kids to play disc golf at a course down in South Carolina. We had never been there before, but I heard it was really nice. So before we left, I printed off a map of the course, but then forgot to grab the map off of the printer. So when we arrived, I really didn't know where the first hole was. The numbers on the tees were either missing or unreadable, so I led the kids over to where I thought the course began. We started playing, and I realized after a few holes of playing that we were playing the course backwards. I was teeing up at one hole and throwing to the previous basket, and by the time I got oriented to the course, it was time for us to leave. It was a waste of time. It was frustrating.
I needed a map. Just trying to live the Christian life without the law is like playing disc golf backwards and without a map, but when God's law is instructing us and motivating us, we are freed up to enjoy the grace that's ours in Christ. Our relationship to the law as Christians is to be one of obedience and love, not fear and hate and denial. We should embrace it as a revelation of God's will for our lives and as a means of maximizing our joy and delight in Him, and when we do, Jesus says, we will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. These verses we've looked at today are ultimately a call to righteous living. We aren't intended to come away from them saying, Christ has done it all for me, therefore it doesn't matter how I live.
It's not the response that Christ is looking for. One pastor said, it comes to this, that unless my life is a righteous life, I must be very careful before I claim that I'm covered by the grace of God in Christ Jesus, but if on the other hand, I long to obey the Lord and heed His word, though I obey it imperfectly, my life is bearing evidence of the fact that I truly do belong to Him. It is in the law that we see our need and come to lay hold of the mediator, and it is through this mediator alone that we can then go out and sin no more. We cannot love Christ while disregarding His law, because the law and the gospel are friends.
Let's pray. Lord, I feel like the Father in Mark 9 who said, I believe, help my unbelief, on the one hand I say, I love your law, but I know in my heart I don't love it nearly enough. I still find myself yielding my members as slaves to sin, rather than yielding myself wholly to you as a slave of righteousness. Thank you, Jesus, that the law does not condemn us anymore. Now help us, I pray, to take full advantage of the grace that's ours, a grace that enables us to obey you, and in obeying you, to find everlasting joy in life. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.
