Matthew 5:17–20

The Disciple’s Convictions – Christ and the Law

Focus: Jesus’ fulfillment of the Law; surpassing Pharisaic righteousness

Why this section: A hinge that protects from legalism and sets the stage for heart-level obedience. For those accustomed to regulations, it clarifies the difference between rule-keeping and Spirit-empowered righteousness (c/o https://www.cmfhq.org/)

Matthew’s commentary by Douglas R. A. Hare, (www.pts.edu, my M.Div. school)

“This is perhaps the most difficult passage to be found anywhere in the Gospel. The difficulty pertains not only to ambiguity in certain key words such as “destroy” and “fulfill” . . . it seems likely that verse 19 was aimed by Matthew at radical Christians who challenged the authority of Scripture . . . A few decades before the writing of the First gospel, Marcion shocked the church by denouncing the Old Testament as the product of demons unfit for Christian use . . . his spirit still haunts the Gentile church.” P. 46-50

Matthew, per Marilyn Hickey Ministries’ Bible Encounter, was written over a 34-year period in 4 B.C.

Chapters 1-2 are the Virgin birth, genealogy, and childhood, based in Bethlehem.

Chapters 3- 13 are Christ’s early ministry in Galilee, about the Kingdom at hand.

“Before the call of Matthew to his apostolic office, his name was Levi. He was a customs officer in the territory of Herod Antipas . . . The themes of Matthew are: 1. The Messiah, 2. Israel, 3. the law, 4. the kingdom, and 5. prophecy . . . The genealogy shows His royal descent. The magi were looking for a king. Matthew shows Jesus’ prophetic ministry, His atoning death as a priest (His sacrifice), and His kingly anointing.

Chapters 5-7 are The Laws of the Kingdom (Principles of living)” P. 284

17 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. CHRIST DID NOT WANT TO GET RID OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. HE AND THE NEW TESTAMENT FULFILLS IT. MESSIANIC CHRISTIANS TEND TO TRY TO FOLLOW BOTH.

18 For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not [h]the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. THIS REMINDS ME OF https://sightlineministry.org/scribes-faithfully-transmit-old-testament/

"Historical Documentation Resoundingly Says, “Yes!” In a previous blog post in this series, we saw that the New Testament can rightly claim to be more reliable and accurate than another other ancient document in history. Can we also trust the authenticity of the Old Testament?

Fortunately, we have really old biblical manuscripts to help us answer that. Too, we have documented proof of how meticulously Jewish scribes — even long before Jesus — faithfully transmitted and preserved these biblical texts.

First, the Back Story

We forget that the Bible did not come to us as one book. Rather, Scripture is a collection of books, written primarily in Hebrew, over a span of more than a thousand years. We can list among the authors of the Old Testament kings, prophets, generals, and even shepherds. Included genres — categories of writing — range from history, narrative, poetry, wisdom, lament, and apocalyptic literature.

It would be so much neater, when trying to answer the question, “Are we reading the Bible God intended?” if each book of the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) came into existence at one time, and if each book was considered complete at the time it was composed. Evidence, however, suggests this was not always the case.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, just one of five important Hebrew manuscripts that we’ll look at in next week’s blog post, are fragments of the oldest known Hebrew Bible text. Fragments aren’t enough to go on. So modern scholars point us to the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex (housed in the National Library of Russia), written in the 10th and 11th centuries by scribes called the Masoretes, as authoritative copies of the Hebrew Bible.

The Leningrad Codex has been used as the basis for most modern printed editions of the Hebrew Bible. Comparing it to modern Hebrew Old Testaments shows us just how accurately God’s Word has been preserved over the centuries.

The Bible Manuscript Society puts it this way: the Leningrad Codex provides irrefutable proof that the Hebrew Old Testament has remained unchanged down through more than one thousand years, copied faithfully from manuscripts one thousand years earlier. It adds:

Think about the implications of that for a moment. Down through more than two thousand years, though world empires have come and gone, across cities, counties, and continents, the Hebrew Old Testament has been miraculously and meticulously preserved. Wars have ravished. Cities have been plundered. Rulers have come and gone. Empires have long since arisen, died, and disappeared into the history books. Yet amazingly, miraculously, the Hebrew Old Testament has been preserved intact down through all those intervening centuries, remaining as free from corruption and variation as mortal man is capable of.