Matthew 5:17-12

THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. THE FULFILMENT OF THE INSTRUCTION OF YHWH AND OF THE PROPHETIC HOPES (5:17-7:12).

Having revealed how God has worked in His disciples in a life-transforming way in Matthew 5:3, and having shown them that they are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world in Matthew 5:13, Jesus now goes into detail about what that will involve, and how it will lead up to the final consummation, that is to the fulfilment of the Law (the Torah - The Instruction of God) and of the Prophetic hopes.

This passage begins with a short introduction (Matthew 5:17) and then considers:

o Firstly the basis of the relationships required between people, as evidenced in Scripture (Matthew 5:20).

o Secondly what should be the basis of their religious lives and worship (Matthew 6:1).

o And thirdly what their relationship should be towards external things (Matthew 6:19 to Matthew 7:6).

This is then followed by a closing summary (Matthew 7:7) in which they are to ask for and seek all that He has spoken of.

The Scriptures were the be all and end all to most Jews, and that was especially true of the Law (the Torah), that is the first five books of the Bible. They were the centre of their faith and of their being. And they considered that their own final fulfilment would only be found in a perfect existence under that very Torah, with it having been fully illuminated to them under the Messiah (compare Deuteronomy 17:18), so that they would enjoy all that it promised for the future as it came to its final consummation in the way described by the Prophets.

It is true that the Sadducees with their interest in the priesthood were on the whole more interested in the application of the Torah to the Temple, and to the status quo, and concentrated on the maintenance of the Temple ritual and on getting along with their Gentile rulers. As far as they were concerned the Torah was fulfilled in this. But for most of the Scribes, together with the Pharisees and the common people, (thus the vast majority of Israel), their hopes were firmly set (at least in theory) on the fulfilment of the Torah when the Messiah, (or in the Dead Sea Scrolls even more than one Messiah, a priestly and kingly one) would come and establish God's everlasting kingdom, ensuring in it that they lived under the Torah as illuminated by the Messiah (Deuteronomy 17:18). It would be the perfect age (Isaiah 11:1; Isaiah 65:17).

In this section (Matthew 5:17 to Matthew 7:12) therefore Jesus now emphasised that He had come to bring this about, but as interpreted in His own way. This, He said, was why He had come. He had not come ‘to destroy' the Torah or the Prophets, but ‘to fulfil' them, with this contrast between destruction and fulfilment intended to bring out the emphasis on His intent to fulfil them. The point that is being made is that the Law and the Prophets are certain of fulfilment, and that all that they have pointed forward to will therefore undoubtedly come about, and that His purpose in being here is in order to ensure that this will happen. For there is no root of destruction in the Torah and the Prophets. Indeed if anyone was destroying them it was those who opposed Him, the Scribes and their acolytes.

And in order to demonstrate that this is so He will now explain and expand on the Torah, rooting out its deepest meaning, for He wishes it to be fully understood that He will not only ‘fulfil' them by fulfilling the promises concerning the Coming One, but will also ‘fulfil' them by ‘filling them full, and bringing out their deeper meaning. But in doing so it must be in order to introduce the golden age of righteousness, not in order to produce a lot of mini-Scribes and mini-Pharisees. So He will now proceed to fix men's minds firmly on the Kingly Rule of God, with God as their Father in Heaven (as long as they have repented and come under that Kingly Rule), and will call on them to walk in true love towards others, to avoid hypocrisy, to set their minds and hearts on things above, and not to be judgmental of each other. Rather they are to strive to assist each other by removing splinters from each other's eyes while at the same time being fully aware of their own deep failings (Matthew 7:1). On the other hand they must also not waste their time on those whose hearts are closed to their message (Matthew 7:6). So to that end they are to pray earnestly and continually for the ‘good things' of God (Matthew 7:7), which include the Kingly Rule of Heaven (Matthew 5:3; Matthew 6:10; Matthew 6:33), the enjoying of His righteous deliverance (Matthew 5:6; Matthew 6:33), and the full working of the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13). All this will then prepare them for the final calling to account of men and women which will be required at His own hands as ‘the Lord' (Matthew 7:22). This is what the shining forth of His followers (Matthew 5:14), and the fulfilment of the Torah and the prophets (Matthew 5:17), was finally to result in.

It is with this in mind that He now emphasises that He has not come to destroy either the Law (in Hebrew the ‘Instruction' of God) OR the Prophets.

By speaking of ‘not destroying' the either The Torah or the Prophets He may be:

o Simply using an emphasising negative which by contrast adds force to the positive ‘fulfil it'.

o Indicating that already there were murmurings about what others saw as His attitude to the Scriptures.

o Or as suggested above it might be a hint as to who were actually guilty of destroying it. (Thus in effect saying, ‘I have not come to do it, rather they themselves are accomplishing it very well').

But whichever way it is, His main point is that whatever might or might not be said He has not come to destroy either the Torah or the Prophets, but to ‘fill them full', that is, to bring them to their ultimate completeness, and to accomplish all the purposes of God revealed in them. And He adds that this must be so because from an earthly point of view they are indestructible.

And with this in mind He warns of what their attitude to ‘the Law' (the Torah and the Prophets) must now be. They must not treat any of it lightly, but must honour the whole. For anyone who treats even one part of it lightly will thereby lose out, while those who honour it will themselves be honoured. And He adds as a final warning that they must certainly not see it as the majority of the Scribes and Pharisees do. The Scribes and Pharisees used it as a means of trying to establish their own righteousness through ritual and through their own self-exalting ideas. But those who are His must recognise that they must rather seek a different kind of righteousness, the righteousness of the poor in spirit, the righteousness that will come with power from God as He comes in salvation in the way that Isaiah had promised, a righteousness which will result in a life lived in accordance with what He will now reveal in what follows in His sermon.

It is thus His intention so to magnify and expand on God's Instruction (the Law in the light of the Prophets), that He reveals more of its real requirements, and at the same time as He is doing this, to point forward to the necessary bringing about of all that Moses had hoped for in it, by the establishing God's Kingly Rule as men enter it under His Lordship (Matthew 7:21) and themselves build on a foundation that will last for ever (Matthew 7:25). He thus has in mind to ‘fulfil', that is, to bring to completeness both the Law as God's revealed manner of living (Matthew 5:21 to Matthew 7:12), and the Law with its future hopes (Genesis 3:15; Genesis 49:10; Numbers 24:17; Deuteronomy 17:18) concerning the establishment of God's rule (Matthew 7:21).

With regard to the expectations of the Torah we must never forget what Moses' hopes were as revealed in the Torah. We must never forget that his last sight on earth was the country in which he thought that God's Kingly Rule would be established (Deuteronomy 34:4). And at that stage he had thought that he was surveying the future ‘kingdom of God'. That was his hope and the hope of his people, and that was why he had given them God's Law, and as far as Jesus' listeners were concerned he had written of that hope in such places as Genesis 3:15; Genesis 49:10; Numbers 24:17; Deuteronomy 17:18. Thus the Torah was seen by Moses as very much pointing forward to the establishment of the coming Kingly Rule of God.

Furthermore in Matthew 2:15 Matthew has already stressed the coming of the King out of Egypt, and that for the very purpose of establishing that Kingly Rule which had previously failed of fulfilment (Hosea 11:1). And now here it was happening before their very eyes (compare Matthew 21:31). And He firmly assures them (Matthew 7:13) that He will fulfil both the hopes of the Torah and the Prophets in Himself, by Himself being the fulfilment of all to which they point, as ‘the Lord' Who will call all to account (Matthew 7:23), will remove all that offends (Matthew 7:19; Matthew 7:27), and will establish all that endures (Matthew 7:25), and will thus bring His people into the everlasting Kingdom (Matthew 7:13).

Jesus sees nothing negative about the Torah or the Prophets as properly interpreted. He sees the Law as holy, and just, and good in the same way as Paul does (Romans 7:12). The only reservations that He does have are about the interpretations of the Scribes and Pharisees. Furthermore He also does not want the people to see anything negative about the Torah and the Prophets either. Indeed He will now stress their earthly permanence. He loves the word of God and He loves the Law, for they reveal what God is and point forward to what He intends to accomplish.

We can compare how Paul also sees the Law as something that he delights in, in his inmost self (Romans 7:22), so that with his mind he serves ‘the Law of God' (Romans 7:25). The Law was no enemy to Paul when rightly used. Its achievement was a part of his hope. He too desired that Christians should live in accordance with the Law (Galatians 6:13). It was sin and the ‘law' or principle of sin within him, and the Law as misused and misapplied in the wrong way, that was his enemy. As a joyous response to the mercy and gracious working of God it was a delight, it was as a means of legally being made acceptable to God that it was a curse. And these he also recognised could only be combated in Jesus Christ, for in Him sin could be defeated and as a justifying medium the Law was ‘ended' in Christ (Romans 10:2).

So both Jesus and Paul make clear that they honour the Law, while at the same time speaking of man as misusing the Law. Jesus makes this clear in Matthew 5:20, and constantly throughout Matthew, culminating with chapter 23. Paul does so by his constant attempt to bring men out from ‘under the Law' when seen as a threatening executioner, so that they can then live out the Law in perfect freedom from condemnation in the way in which it was intended to be lived. Thus in this sermon, by bringing out its inner and glorious meaning, Jesus will reveal that what God is more concerned with in the Law is the attitude of the heart that looks to be God-like (‘sons of their Father'), rather than the specific slavish keeping of individual commandments and rituals which was the forte of the Scribes and Pharisees. For the latter approach to the Law could only trick men (like the rich young man) into thinking that they were ‘getting along fairly well' (Matthew 19:20). But He wants people to recognise that it is not a matter of ‘getting along fairly well'. It is a matter of having a heart right towards God, brought about by God's saving work within, and of recognising the need for the inner sinful heart to be dealt with. It is a matter of acknowledging their need to come to Him as their Father in Heaven with all their thoughts on things above. It is man's hatred and contempt for others (Matthew 5:22), and his lust (Matthew 5:28) and his perversity and dishonesty (Matthew 5:37) and his desire for vengeance (Matthew 5:38; Matthew 5:43) that have to be dealt with, not just his outward disobedience to certain individual, but limited and even sometimes misrepresented, commandments. Thus His disciples have to learn not to be vengeful, and not to be at enmity with their brothers, or with the world outside Judaism (Matthew 5:43), but to respond in love and compassion and consideration (Matthew 5:39) and to reveal love as their heavenly Father does (Matthew 5:44) both among their own people and to the world ‘outside' (Matthew 5:45; Matthew 5:48). This is the true purpose of the Law, of God's Instruction.

He then goes on to call for a true-hearted response to God (Matthew 6:1), and a setting of the mind on the Kingly Rule of God and His righteousness (using ‘God' here rather than ‘Heaven' so as to link Him firmly with His righteousness), which will result in their using all their earthly possessions in the purposes of God (Matthew 6:19). And this must include the casting off of a judgmental attitude of heart (Matthew 7:1), for who are they to act as judges? Rather than setting themselves up as Judges they should make themselves able to ‘doctor' others (take the splinters out of their eyes) (Matthew 7:1), although even then they must still be aware of those whose hearts are so hardened that they will not be receptive to what they have to offer (Matthew 7:6). And as they do this, they must do it with constant prayer for the bringing in of the good things of God which God longs to give them, which will result in the fulfilment of the Law and the prophets, in that they will be doing to others what they would have them do to them (Matthew 7:7).

But He then concludes by stressing that all this summation of the Law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17 to Matthew 7:12) reveals the narrow way that leads to life, in contrast to the broad way that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13). As they face up to Him and what He has come to do they must choose this day Whom they will serve, and how they will respond to Him. And that leads on to men having to face up to His Lordship and the fact that all will be called to account, and will either find that they are established or will come crashing down. In the light of this they must therefore beware of false teachers and prophets (Matthew 7:15). For in the final analysis all will be accountable to Him as their Lord, when the truly righteous will come into their own, and those who have refused to respond to His words will find that everything will collapse around them (Matthew 7:21). In ALL of this is the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets.

A Digression On The Attitude Of Paul To The Law.

The problem, however, with the particular passage of the Sermon on the Mount that we are looking at is that many Christians have gained a false idea about the Law based on the use of it by some of the Scribes and the Pharisees (as represented by the old Paul). They have failed to note that when Paul has seemingly written in order to displace the Law, it has not actually been with the intention of rendering it void or of suggesting that it is of no concern or interest to the Christian, but has rather been in order to put right the wrong use of it. He has simply revealed what its correct use is (Romans 3:31). When for example he says that we are not ‘under the Law' (Romans 3:19; Romans 6:15; 1 Corinthians 9:20; Galatians 3:23; Galatians 4:4; Galatians 4:21; Galatians 5:15), he does not mean that we do not have a responsibility to seek to carry it out with our whole heart in the way that Jesus describes here. He would have agreed wholeheartedly with Jesus about that. He means that we are not to see it as the method of determining our salvation. It is not to be the arbiter of whether we are saved or not. It is not a means by which we can measure our own righteousness. (And Jesus nowhere suggests that it was).

Nor, Paul points out, are we to look for salvation by an assiduous keeping of the Law. That was the mistake being made by many of the Scribes and Pharisees, whatever might have been the ‘official position'. All the Scribes and Pharisees laid great emphasis on the keeping of the covenant and on the mercy of God, but it was very easy to go a step beyond that, as many of them did, and actually see the ‘keeping of the covenant' as a way of becoming acceptable with God. It is ever the tendency of man's heart to think that he can be saved by ‘keeping the Law', by being ‘good enough' for God. And this is simply because we are too foolish to recognise that whatever ‘good' we may do it makes not a jot of difference to our position before God as far as salvation is concerned, because we can never be good enough. We cannot change ourselves. Our hope with God must lie in His mercy. For as with Israel at Sinai the truth is that our acceptance with God and our deliverance from evil can only come about through His graciousness and mercy (Exodus 20:2). God sovereignly intervened in order to deliver Israel from Egypt and from bondage, and in the same way He must sovereignly intervene if we are to be saved from the grip and condemnation of sin. But there seems little doubt that many Pharisees did believe that if only they could get their covenant-keeping right (which then became a matter of fulfilling all necessary ritual requirements), all would be well and God would step in to act on behalf of Israel. And that is why Paul points out that the moment that we put ourselves ‘under the Law' as the arbiter of our salvation in this way we are lost. For the Law condemns us and our hopes are over almost before we even start. And James says precisely the same thing (James 2:10). The Law in this sense is like a mirror which shows us the kind of people we are (compare James 1:23). But we do not pick up the mirror and try to wash our faces with it. Rather it turns us to the soap and water. And in the same way the Law is intended to turn us to Christ and to His salvation, as originally depicted by the offerings and sacrifices (Hebrews 7-10).

Paul does, however, make quite clear elsewhere that while Christians may not be ‘under the Law', in that they see it as hanging over their heads like an executioner's axe, he does expect Christians to ‘fulfil the Law' (Galatians 5:14; Galatians 6:2; 1 Corinthians 9:21), in the same way as James does (James 2:8). There is no disagreement between Paul and James on this. And Paul's attitude to the Law can possibly be summed up as follows:

1). As far as salvation is concerned the Law condemns the sinner. It declares him guilty before God (Romans 3:19). James agrees (James 2:10).

2). Because of this it becomes our slave-teacher in order to keep us in order before we come to faith, and in order to bring us to Christ, by showing us our need and pointing us to Him. And once it has done that it has no further responsibility for us as far as our accetance before God is concerned (Galatians 3:23; Romans 7:7).

3). But the Law is also the model by which Christians ought to live, and therefore having accepted God's gracious offer of salvation we ought to seek to fulfil it by loving our neighbour as ourselves (Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:8; Romans 13:10; Galatians 5:14), while at the same time recognising that this will have nothing to do with whether we are saved or not (Galatians 5:14; Galatians 6:2; 1 Corinthians 9:21). Indeed it will be the evidence that God's saving work has already taken place within us. James agrees (James 2:8). We will do this because we love God, not in order to earn His love.

4). It is this point about our obedience to the Law having nothing to do with our salvation that results in many becoming unstuck. The human heart, ever ready to avoid obedience to God, seizes on this and says ‘Good. If keeping the law is not a necessary part of the process by which we obtain salvation then in that case we can be saved and do what we like' (Romans 3:3; Romans 6:1; Romans 6:15). But that is like saying that when we enter a hospital to be healed we do not need to worry about things being sterilised and about a few germs, because the hospital is there to heal us. Such a man may deservedly die in hospital. And what does this attitude demonstrate? Why, that such a person is not really wanting to be healed, is not desirous of being ‘saved' at all. For a saved person who has been transformed in the way that we have just examined in Matthew 5:3 would never have said that. He would have carried on obeying God's Law because of the compulsion within him. We can compare here the two women who were arguing before Solomon as to whose the live baby was (1 Kings 3:16). One was prepared to lose the baby rather than see it killed. The other was prepared to see it killed rather than that the other should have it. Solomon thus had no doubt as to whose the baby really was. She proved it by her attitude of heart. And we prove whether we are His by our attitude towards His instruction. As Jesus will shortly say, ‘he who hears my words (concerning the Law) and does them not' -- will be caught up in a flood of judgment and will be destroyed (Matthew 7:27).

Show me the person who genuinely says to God, ‘O how I love Your Instruction (Law)' (Psalms 119:97; Psalms 119:159), and I will show you the one whose heart has been transformed by God and who is saved, even though he may sometimes become unstuck in his obedience. He will not be looking at his own righteousness but at God. But show me the one who totally disregards His Instruction, and I will show you the one who is not saved (see Matthew 21:28). For had he been saved he would have begun to love God's Instruction, just as the blessed persons in Matthew 5:3 reveal it by their new attitudes, and the Psalmist in Psalms 1 delighted in it. The truth is that while salvation is not of man's works, it does work. For it is God Who works by means of it. It transforms individuals so that they begin to walk according to the Law of God, which then becomes the Law of Christ, as given here in the Sermon on the Mount (1 Corinthians 9:21; Galatians 6:2 compare James 1:25). And it transforms their view of His Instruction. They begin to will and to do according to His good pleasure because God has worked within them (Philippians 2:13). They are ‘created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has foreordained that they should walk in them' (Ephesians 2:10). They say, ‘Oh how I love your Law!' (Psalms 119:97).

End of Digression.

But what does Jesus then teach with regard to the Law? As we have seen He teaches that people must repent and come under the Kingly Rule of God (Matthew 4:17), and the assumption behind this is that they thereby receive forgiveness (Mark 1:4). He teaches that God then shines on their lives in Jesus Christ (Matthew 4:16), and works in such people's hearts so as to transform their lives, with the result that, because of His ‘blessing' them they begin to live as revealed in Matthew 5:3, and thus become the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). They can then be seen as being God's beloved children, called upon to please their heavenly Father (Matthew 5:48; Matthew 6:1; Matthew 6:4; Matthew 6:6; Matthew 6:9; Matthew 7:21). Then they must live this out in terms of the Sermon on the Mount, not in order to find mercy (be saved), but because they have obtained mercy (have been saved) and desire to please Him and do His will.

We can analyse this central part of the Sermon (Matthew 5:17 to Matthew 7:12) as follows:

a Jesus has not come to destroy or replace the Law of God or the Prophets, but is establishing and reinterpreting them (filling them full) so as to lift them out of the straitjacket in which men have placed them, in order through them to lead His people to a fuller life. And they will finally all be fulfilled in Him. Meanwhile they are to achieve a true righteousness through God's saving power, a righteousness which exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, a righteousness resulting from their being the planting of the Lord (Isaiah 61:3), without which they cannot enter the Kingly Rule of Heaven. His people are therefore to launch out on the basis of this new Law for that reason (Matthew 5:17). Such a righteousness is revealed by Isaiah 1:16 in comparison with Matthew 1:11 (which was typical of the Sadducees, but a common fault of all), especially when these latter verses (Matthew 1:11) are reinterpreted with regard to some in terms of washings, and tithing and Sabbath-keeping. These latter were typical of the Pharisees who were constantly at Jesus' heels.

b Following on this Jesus gives five expansions and fuller explanations of the Law, each following the pattern ‘you have heard that it was said --- but I say to you --', stressing the inner meaning of each Law. In each case He brings out the essential heart of them, and reveals them as showing an attitude towards life to be followed, rather than just as rules to be obeyed, exhorting them by it to be true sons of their Father (Matthew 5:17).

b Jesus then gives six more general exhortations based on the principle of ‘do not -- but --.' Three of these are warnings against hypocritical ostentation in religious behaviour and they follow the pattern commencing, ‘when you --- do not -- but when you --',  the middle one of which includes the pattern prayer in which they are to seek the coming of His Kingly Rule and set their eyes on Tomorrow's bread. And these are accompanied by three caveats against self-seeking behaviour, accompanied by encouragements to do the opposite, each of which culminates in assurances of the Father's resultant blessing,  the middle one of which includes the need to seek the Kingly Rule of God and not to seek earthly bread and clothing  (Matthew 6:1 to Matthew 7:6).

a They are to recognise all the good things that He has for them as revealed in His general exhortations (including the delights of His Law, the Kingly Rule of Heaven Matthew 6:10; Matthew 6:33), and the righteousness of God (Matthew 6:33)) and are to seek God earnestly for them because He delights to give them, in order that they might enjoy a fuller life, the ‘better things' than the Scribes and Pharisees can offer. It should be recognised that here He is talking of spiritual things and spiritual enlightenment, not of obtaining material possessions, the latter idea being excluded by what has been said previously (Matthew 7:7).

Thus in ‘a' Jesus backs up the Law but says that He will fill it to the full, and the aim is to lead the people into a fuller life by their achieving a righteousness ‘exceeding that (better than that) of the Scribes and Pharisees, while in the parallel He exhorts them to achieve that fuller life by a persistent seeking of their Father in Heaven for ‘good things', things that pertain to an abundant life (John 10:10), which will result in the same. In ‘b' and its parallel we have the negatives and the positives of His teaching, the first aspect related to the Instruction (Law) of their Father and the second aspect relating to seeking their Father in Heaven. Underlying all is the getting away from individual commandments and achieving rather a different attitude towards life.