Matthew 5:17 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Matthew 5:17

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(Synoptics: Matthew 5:17-20) Christ’s teaching includes much about grace, as does this Sermon on the Mount. It was already evident to the Pharisees that he taught that spiritual satisfaction is not found in the ceremonies, or in keeping them. They had spread it about that this person was against the law of God, doing away with it. Christ must put the record straight. He therefore picks up on these common misconceptions about him and corrects them. This statement looks back at what he had said so far, and it also prepares the way for his exposition of the law that follows. Great changes were about to take place in how God related to mankind, and they were brought about because Christ had come into the world. Previously, God had dealt largely with a single nation, relating to them through types and shadows, but now that special relationship was going to come to an end, and the gospel was to be sent to the Gentiles. All the law and the prophets looked forward to the coming of the Messiah, and the prophets foretold the awakening of many in Israel and the call of the Gentiles. It was possible for people to misinterpret this as a rejection of what had gone before, but that was not the case. The scribes said, ‘God is pleased with those who keep the ceremonial law.’ They elevated the detailed requirements of the ceremonial law above mercy, and at the same time they reduced the moral law to a small number of extreme sins, which they thought they could avoid. They focused on external obedience, while ignoring the heart. This was consistent with their self-righteousness, and their seeking praise from men and not from God. They worked hard at the things men could see, but forgot about true obedience which comes from within, which only the Lord sees. ‘No,’ said Christ, ‘the blessed are the spiritually poor, those who know that they need a new nature.’But this teaching has implications. All Scripture harmonises with itself, but the way it does so must take account of God’s teaching method. It may seem that the law is now unimportant and is swept away by Christ’s teaching and no longer relevant. He had come into the world to preach the gospel of grace, by which men and women receive the free favour of God as undeserving sinners. But if salvation is free, what need was there for the requirements of the law? If merit is not the basis of relationship with God, then why did God give all those detailed ceremonial laws? Was he now teaching that the Old Testament was to be abolished, destroyed? Certainly not. ‘Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.’ He did not detract from the law – the moral law, the ceremonial law, and the civil law – in any way. The problem was that the scribes had never understood the true nature of the law, and they had added their own precepts based on their carnal traditions. In this chapter the Lord is doing so many things at once. Only he could set it out so perfectly, so that he expounded the original spiritual nature of the law, showed its continuing authority, exposed the false interpretation and additions of the scribes, and put in place a standard of life for his disciples in all places and all ages. ‘I am not teaching new things,’ he says, ‘but what was always there in the law of God.’ We could say his message is about reformation, not the reformation of the political system which wants to reform the tax system by making it better than ever before, but the reformation of the church, which reforms the church back to the original pattern given by God. How did Christ come to fulfil it? Surely, you say, he has, loosely speaking, done away with the ceremonial law. In one sense, yes, but in another sense, no. Yes, we do not have to keep the ceremonial law literally, but nothing that was written before is destroyed. Christians still have both the Old Testament and the New Testament in their Bibles. The law consists of three categories – moral, ceremonial, and civil law. The moral law is unchanging and applies today just as much as it ever did. But it is a spiritual law, as this chapter will show, and goes far beyond the ten parent sins identified in the Ten Commandments. The ceremonial law consisted of long pages of rules for conduct and worship. There was moral law in it, but it is for the most part a picture. It was a great visual aid and object lesson for human need, and how God would meet that need. The picture was no longer needed when Messiah came who would fulfil all and be our representative and suffer and die and take away the punishment for sin. The civil law gave Israel a legal system for the governing of the nation based on God’s standards, identifying crimes and their punishments. The key word is therefore ‘fulfil’. Because Christ has fulfilled the law and the prophets by living out the types and shadows and fulfilling the prophecies, then we have lost nothing from the Old Testament, but gained Christ instead.

Application

Here are six ways in which Christ fulfils the law:

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1. He is the first and only person (he is man and God) ever to keep it. He alone keeps it perfectly and does not transgress it in any way, so his righteousness is credited to us. He is therefore qualified to be our Saviour, our sin bearer.

2. He fulfils the law because he perfectly teaches it. The scribes and Pharisees had twisted the law until there was an ocean of misunderstanding. The Old Testament teaches the outer and inner obedience that God requires. At the same time the Old Testament taught you must come to God by grace. Do you say, ‘I have no time for the Old Testament; I want the New Testament.’ Yes, but the New Testament throws light on the Old Testament.

3. He personally fulfils all its prophecies and predictions. This is why he distinguishes the law and the prophets. There are different kinds of predictions in the Old Testament. This is why the ceremonial law is said still to stand; it is a form of prophecy. The ceremonial law is not done away with, it is now embodied in Jesus Christ.

4. He literally completes it. There is a little more to add to the law. Some things in the Old Testament are hard; he makes them clear. But some things are brand-new, for instance the Acts of the Apostles, and the pastoral epistles. All this is new, though prophesied. How do we know the Bible is the word of God? For the Old Testament the answer is easy – Christ authenticated it.

5. He fully satisfies the penalty of the law. He pays, discharges, and meets the penalty. He has paid in the dreadful agony he endured.

6. He fulfils its ultimate purpose: to create a holy people, special to God. This is the aim of the law. The Jews were not this. They were not full of light, joy, holiness. The law had not succeeded, but Christ came so that it was successful. Because he has come, he can produce the very kingdom that the law did not produce. ‘I will so transform their hearts that they will be saved.’ ‘For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit’ (Romans 8:3-4).

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Questions

Some people think the Sermon on the Mount changed the law. The Old Testament was ferocious and the New Testament is milder. They think this is what Jesus was doing. They see two different God’s in the Bible, a severe God, a God of retribution, in the Old Testament, and a kind, forgiving God in the New Testament. That is a fatal mistake and a misunderstanding of both Old and New Testament. God’s character does not change but has always included the attributes of justice and holiness, as well as mercy and grace. There is grace in the Old Testament and there is law in the New. Christ says more about hell than he does about heaven. God instructs in the right order, and law comes before grace, to show mankind his need of grace. Types and shadows come before the reality in Christ. ‘Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law’ (Romans 3:31-4:1).

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Matthew 5:17 Commentary and Bible Study