Matthew 5:17 "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. 18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Anyone who breaks 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 practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Introduction
Jesus’ message seemed anti-law
There was a buzz going around Judea that this miracle worker – this one John the Baptist said was the Messiah – was anti-Bible. People were wondering if He was a liberal. The Bible experts of the day were the Scribes and Pharisees, and Jesus seemed to butt heads with them every time He talked. He seemed to be ready to discard all the ancient traditions.
He would say things like, “You have heard it was said” and then go on to quote a verse from the Bible, and then say, “But I say unto you” and give them something very different from what they had always been taught. There really was something about Jesus’ message that seemed to be abolishing the Law. (They referred to the Bible as “the Law,” or “the Law and the Prophets.) This is a question that not only dogged Jesus but anyone who preached Jesus’ message. When Stephen was on trial for preaching Jesus’ message they accused him of speaking against the Law in Acts 6:11-14. When they brought Paul up on charges before Gallio:
Acts 18:13 "This man is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law."
Paul knew his teaching sounded that way – that is why he even brought the question up himself.
Romans 3:31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.
He had to say that because he knew it sounded like he was nullifying the law. What was it about Jesus’ message that made it seem so anti-Bible?
Jesus was saying things nobody had ever said before – and so they wondered if this was revolution or reform? Revolution throws out all the old ideas and turns to new ideas. Reform does the opposite – it restores things back to the way they used to be. So was Jesus involved in revolution or reform? Whichever it was, He was certainly making some radical changes. He told Jews they could eat unclean foods. That may not sound like a big deal to you, but not long before Jesus’ time was one of the high points of Jewish devotion to God during the Maccabean period. And the thing that was so great about that time – the thing that is praised even in Scripture in Hebrews 11, was when the Maccabees willingly submitted to torture and death rather than eat a piece of pork. They were right to do that – that is how important the kosher laws were in Old Testament times. But now Jesus arrives on the scene and one day just declared all foods clean (Mk.7:19). One day Jesus just stood up and said, “You know that whole clean and unclean system of kosher foods established in the Law of Moses that has defined the Jewish nation for the past 1500 years? It’s cancelled. Eat whatever you want now – have a ham sandwich – knock yourselves out.” So He totally disagrees with all the Bible experts. He is saying, “You have always been taught this, but I say unto you…,” His message seems to abolish or nullify the Law, He breaks the Sabbath rules, He does not fast, He does not do the hand washing rituals, and He throws out one of the most fundamental defining elements of the entire Jewish religion without even batting an eye. So it is no surprise that there was a buzz going around Judea that this guy who is supposed to be the Messiah is anti-Bible; anti-law and the prophets; anti-Old Testament.
So before Jesus goes any further in this sermon – before He gets to the part where He starts saying, “You have heard it was said…but I say unto you…” – He is going to address this whole question of exactly where He stands with regard to the Law of God – the Bible. Remember, the Sermon on the Mount is a sermon about righteousness in the Messiah’s kingdom. The Messiah has arrived, He is setting up His kingdom, and this is what righteousness looks like in this kingdom. So even apart from the questions about Jesus’ commitment to the Law, obviously He is going to have to bring the issue of the Law up so we know what role Scripture plays in living a righteous life in this kingdom. What are the rules in this kingdom? Are they the same as they always have been, or is there a new set of rules? That is the question at hand, and that is the question Jesus is going to answer right now.
I came not to abolish…
Matthew 5:17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets
That is pretty clear. When people come along and try to say, “The Old Testament is not for us today” they are in direct conflict with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Matthew 5:17-20 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Anyone who breaks 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 practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Not only did Jesus not set aside the Old Testament law, but He made it the basis for everything in His kingdom. Your relationship to the Law determines whether or not you even enter the kingdom. And once you have entered, your obedience to the Law determines whether you are great or not so great in the kingdom. Is the Law still in force? The Law is very much in force and always will be in force. Until heaven and earth disappear not one dot of an ‘i’ or cross of a ‘t’ will drop out of the Law of God.
Jesus’ attitude about the Law
All it takes is a glance at Jesus’ life to see His attitude about the Law of God. Jesus referred to the Old Testament constantly. Sixty-four times in His teaching He referred to the Old Testament, and always as authoritative. For Jesus, if the Old Testament taught it, that settled it. In John 10 Jesus quotes Psalm 82, and then throws this in:
John 10:35 Scripture cannot be broken
“Don’t even think about contradicting what I’m saying, because I’m getting it from Psalm 82, and we all know Scripture cannot be broken.”
Jesus believed nothing in Scripture could ever be found to be false. Jesus believed in what is known today as the inerrancy of Scripture – that the Bible has no errors. There are people today who claim to believe the main themes of the Bible, but they say it has mistakes in some of the particulars. I do not understand that. If the particulars are wrong how can we trust the main themes? If the sentences are wrong, how can we trust the paragraphs? Or if the paragraphs are wrong, how can we trust the chapters? How large a portion of God’s Word do you need before it starts to become trustworthy?
Jesus believed it was God’s Word right down to the individual parts of the letters.
18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
That is like saying “Not a single dot of an ‘i’ or cross of a ‘t’ will drop out.” In fact, Jesus believed that even the grammar was authoritative. When the Sadducees came to Jesus and started mocking the idea of life after death, he proved it by quoting Exodus 3:6.
Matthew 22:31-32 But about the resurrection of the dead--have you not read what God said to you, 32 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.
That proves life after death because it says, “I am the God of Abraham” not “I was the God of Abraham.” If Abraham no longer existed the proper way to say it would be “I was.” And so Jesus was basing a major doctrinal point from a Hebrew verb tense. Jesus regarded even the grammar – right down to the tenses of the verbs as being reliable and authoritative.
Jesus saw the Old Testament as the absolute standard of what is true or not true. In Mark 12:24 Jesus said the reason the Sadducees were in error was because they did not understand the Scriptures.
Some people today want to believe that the stories in the Old Testament are myths. But not Jesus – He believed every one of them. Jesus believed that Adam and Eve were real people. In fact, He was so sure they were real that He expects us today to pattern our marriages after their marriage. He spoke of Cain and Able as real people, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Jonah – He believed the flood happened, He believed the miracles recorded in the Old Testament happened, He believed manna came down from heaven, He even believed Jonah lived for three days in a fish.
When the rich man asks for someone to be sent back to tell his brothers (Luke 16), he is told, “If they did not believe Moses and the prophets, they will not believe someone risen from the dead.” So not only did Jesus think of Scripture as being sufficient to save someone so he would not go to hell when he died, but He also regarded the Old Testament Scriptures to be a more compelling proof than if you saw a resurrection with your own two eyes. People say, “Why doesn’t God show me a miracle?” According to Jesus He has given you something more persuasive and more compelling and more reliable than seeing a miracle with your own eyes.
And Jesus’ relationship with the Old Testament Scriptures went way beyond just what He believed about it. He used it to live His life. He drew strength from it. Jesus was Almighty God, and yet in the weakness of His human flesh He needed to be strengthened in times of testing, and guess where He went for strength? You might think that Jesus had such an amazing prayer life, that all it would take for Him to be strengthened would be to go to the Father in prayer and ask for strength – not so. When Jesus did battle with Satan in the desert what did Jesus use to win that battle? The Old Testament Scriptures. He drew strength from the book of Deuteronomy.
And it was not just Jesus who honored the Old Testament Scriptures. The writers of the New Testament draw their teaching from the Old Testament as well. For example, Paul’s whole doctrine of salvation through faith alone comes straight out of Genesis 15. It is all based on the Old Testament Scriptures.
Teaching in the psalms about Scripture
Take your Bible in your hand for a moment. Do you realize what you are holding in your hand right now? There is not time to even summarize what all Scripture says in answer to that question, so let me just give you a few things from the Psalms. I went through the Psalms to see what claims God makes about His Word just in that book. Here are some of them:
• First and foremost the Scriptures are God’s revelation of Himself to us. He is a God who teaches and instructs His people and reveals Himself to them. Apart from God revealing Himself it would be absolutely impossible for us to figure out one single fact about God. And everything – absolutely everything God ever revealed about Himself is in this book. It is the only way to know God, and it is the source of all truth.
• The Word of God is eternal, and it is perfect and flawless.
• His Word is wonderful, it is good, it is awesome, it is true, and it is the absolute standard of right and wrong, and truth and error.
• Resistance of His Word is futile.
• Those who obey His Word are a delight to be around.
• Those who do not are worthy of shame.
• His Word is worthy to be trusted, it is worthy to be desired, it is worthy of hope, worthy of trembling, worthy to be praised and rejoiced in, it is worthy to be studied, considered, sought, memorized, and obeyed.
• This book is the medium through which God gives us blessing.
• It is the medium through which we receive life.
• His Word gives us wisdom, understanding, enlightenment, guidance, and insight.
• It is through His Word that we receive grace and comfort.
• His Word enables righteousness and was given to us to make us loyal and trusting.
• It is through His Word that we can experience the nearness of His presence.
• His law is right, it is pure, it is righteous, it is preferable to anything in this world, it is supremely valuable, it is exalted above all, it is delightful, it is sweeter than honey, it revives the soul, it preserves life, it sustains and gives strength, it touches the affections – causing hatred for sin and giving joy to the heart.
Do you believe all that? Jesus did. Can you imagine letting a treasure like that sit around your house collecting dust all week?
Did Jesus abolish the Law of God? Why on earth would He abolish all that? Why abolish something that wonderful? Those people who teach that God’s Law has been set aside sometimes speak of the Law as if it were something bad – something that is opposed to grace - the Law of God is an unending fountain of grace – a geyser of grace filling up eternal oceans of grace.
And that’s not just an OT idea.
John 1:16-17 we have all received grace upon grace from His fullness, 17 for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Jesus fulfilling the Law is not grace canceling out non-grace; it’s grace heaped upon grace. Which means the Law is a fountainhead of grace.
Psalm 119:29 be gracious to me through your law.
Until heaven and earth disappear
Jesus did not abolish the Law; He had no reason to abolish it because it is a fountain of grace from God. It is not ever going to be abolished until heaven and earth disappear. That means if the sun came up this morning, your entire Bible is valid. And those who think there is something wrong with it, or that it is no longer worthy of our attention and devotion and obedience should stop passing judgment on the Word of God based on their own heart as a standard and start judging their own heart with the Word of God as the standard. The problem is not that there is something wrong with the Bible or that it is unworthy to be obeyed, but rather there is something wrong with them and they are not worthy of God’s Word. People say the Bible is out-of-date and needs to be reinterpreted. John MacArthur: “If you think that then you’re out-of-date and you need to be reinterpreted." There is nothing wrong with God’s holy Word and so there is no reason for any part of it to be abolished.
Conflicting passages
But if that is the case and Jesus really did not abolish the Law, then why aren’t we offering sacrifices? Why do we follow some of the stuff in the Old Testament and not other stuff? And what about passages like Ephesians 2?
Ephesians 2:14-15 For he … has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by abolishing in his flesh the law
If Jesus did not come to abolish the Law, why does Paul say He did? And why does Hebrews 7:18 say…
Hebrews 7:18 The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless
Colossians 2:14 [Christ] canceled the written code, with its regulations
And why does Paul keep saying we not under the law but under grace? So what does “not under law” mean? Do we have to obey it or not?
Very often people will try to make a distinction between law and grace, and they teach that living in grace means you should never put forth effort to try to obey God’s commands. Instead you should just grow in grace, without trying to obey. The problem with that is in 2 Peter 3:18 God commands us to grow in grace. So if we are not supposed to obey God’s commands, but instead just grow in grace, what do you do when God commands you to grow in grace?
What is at stake?
It is very important that we clear up the confusion on this issue of the role of the law in the Christian life, because there is a lot at stake. As I said, Jesus tied it to both greatness in the kingdom, and entrance into the kingdom. There are huge consequences to getting this wrong. For example, the Old Testament law commands that all God’s people be circumcised. But if you try to make that binding on people today…
Galatians 5:2 Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.
If you decide to try to follow the Old Testament circumcision laws, Christ becomes worthless to you. So you really do not want to err on the side of taking something that is not supposed to be binding on us today and making it binding.
But on the other hand, it is just as serious to take things that are supposed to be binding and telling people they do not have to worry about them.
Matthew 5:19 Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven
So we need to make sure we are not operating on guesswork when it comes to this question of what role the Old Testament is to play in the Christian life.
And guesswork is probably the approach that most people take. Most people’s approach whenever they come across a law in the Old Testament is to say, “If it sounds reasonable, it’s binding. If it sounds bizarre, then it is not for us.” Do not steal? That sounds reasonable – we’ll take that one. Stone a person who curses his parents? Don’t wear clothing that is made of two different kinds of material? That’s over the top – we’ll ignore those two. Keep the Sabbath Day holy? That’s borderline – we will make that one optional. And they just go by common sense.
There is a verse in the Bible that describes that approach.
Judges 17:6 In those days Israel had no king; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Everyone just doing what seems reasonable is not a good approach – that is what they were doing during the most wicked and depraved low point in Israel’s history. So let’s take a careful look at exactly what Jesus is saying here, and then we will look at each of those other passages, and we will see if there is any actual conflict.
…but to fulfill
Jesus came neither to abolish nor to leave the Law untouched
Matthew 5:17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfill.
Jesus did not come to abolish the Law, nor did He come to just leave it alone as is. Every other human being that had ever been born just came and went and left the Word of God untouched and unchanged. But not Jesus. He did not abolish it, but He did do something to it – he fulfilled it. It was not revolution or reform. It was fulfillment. He was not throwing out the old or returning back to the old – He was bringing the old to its intended conclusion and fulfillment. What does that mean?
Fulfillment
Fulfillment of the entire Old Testament
It is not uncommon to speak of fulfillment of prophecy, but Jesus says He came not only as the fulfillment of prophecy, but also the fulfillment of the Law. Normally the Old Testament was called “the law and the prophets.” But Jesus changes it up a little bit. Instead of saying “the law and the prophets” He says “The law or the prophets.” I think the purpose of that is to highlight the fact that He is talking about the entirety of the Old Testament. “I did not come to abolish the Law, nor did I come to abolish the prophets – I did not come to abolish any part of it.” So if you think, “Well, maybe Jesus abolished some parts and retained other parts” – nope. Jesus did not come to abolish any of it, but to fulfill all of it.
The Old Testament pointed to something
We think about prophecy as very often pointing toward some fulfillment in the future, but usually we do not think of law as doing that. We think of law as just policies that govern our current existence and regulate our behavior now. But the Law of God was much more than that. God gave His law to point toward a great, future reality that would someday be fulfilled. The laws of the United States say, “Behave this way because it will help keep some order in society.” The Law of God says, “Do these things because of the great and awesome things that are coming in the future.” God’s Law is not an end in itself – it leads somewhere. It points forward to a fulfillment. God set it in place in order to bring about a great and glorious outcome. And that outcome is its fulfillment.
An awesome claim
There is a great fulfillment of the entire Word of God – a final, glorious end and purpose and consummation that all of Scripture points to and to which all of redemptive history leads – along comes Jesus and says, “Oh, that’s Me.” What a statement this is! Jesus made claims that were absolutely awesome. Nobody has ever made claims as grand as Jesus made.
If anyone ever tries to tell you that Jesus never claimed to be God, never claimed to be anything special; just ask them – “What if I said the things Jesus said? - I am the Word of God, no one comes to the Father except through me, I am the way, the truth and the life, and all God’s purposes in His eternal Word terminate on me and find their fulfillment in me.” Put the claims of Christ into anyone else’s mouth and that person becomes a lunatic. Such authority! Jesus says, “You are wondering about my relationship to the Law? How does My ministry fit in with Scripture? How do I measure up to the Law of God? That is not even the right question. The appropriate question is ‘What is the Law’s relationship to ME?’ How do the Scriptures stack up against ME? And the answer is I am the final end and purpose and fulfillment of it – of all of it.”
The forerunner that God sent to announce the arrival of the Messiah was John the Baptist.
Matthew 11:13 all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John
Jesus says, “Everything in the whole Bible was pointing to Me right up until John, and then John the Baptist took over the job and he started pointing to Me.” After Jesus rose from the dead He came across some disciples on the road to Emmaus who were all upset because the tomb was empty on the third day.
Luke 24:25-27 He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself…
Then later He said to the Apostles:
44 …Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." 45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.
John 5:39 You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me
Jesus did not just fulfill the prophecies about the Messiah; He fulfilled absolutely everything in the entire Old Testament.
From the time Moses first started writing the book of Genesis until Malachi put his last period at the end of his book was a span of well over one thousand years. God used dozens of human authors over eleven centuries to develop the Old Testament, and the whole process was building to a wonderful, spectacular climax. And Jesus here is saying, “That climax is Me.” That is why once Jesus’ Apostles wrote down the record of Jesus’ life and teaching, the Bible was done. The Canon is now closed. No more books are being added to the Bible because nothing remains to be said. Sometimes people ask about the Gnostic “gospels” that came a couple hundred years after Christ - The Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas – all these books that were written hundreds of years later. And people ask, “Why aren’t those included in the Bible?” We are not continually adding books to the Bible because God spend eleven hundred years building to a climax, the climax was His own Son, and anything we might add after that would be an anticlimax. There is literally nothing that remains to be said.
Hebrews 1:1-2 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.
The Son of God came as the consummation and final fulfillment of all that God had to say to mankind, and He did not leave anything out. We do not need the Gnostics to come along two hundred years later and tell us all the things Jesus supposedly forgot to say. Nor do we need people in our own day telling us about their visions and prophecies and dreams and revelations and messages from God. We do not need to add to God’s Word, now that it is fulfilled in Christ. People who do that are like someone who brings his little box of crayons to the Mona Lisa to try to touch it up and add a little shading – and all they do is destroy it by trying to add to it.
How Christ Fulfilled the Old Testament
So let’s think through how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament. The key to understanding those passages that seem to say that the Old Testament was abolished in some sense is this – Jesus fulfilled the whole Old Testament, but He did not fulfill it all in the same way, because various parts of the Old Testament had different purposes, so we have to understand those various purposes before we can understand how Jesus fulfilled them. And it is only when we understand those various purposes and understand how Jesus fulfilled each of them that we will be able to see which commands in the Old Testament are binding on us today and which are not.
The weighty matters and the shadows
Jesus made it very clear that not all the parts of the Law were the same – some laws are greater than others. When they asked Jesus which was the greatest command in the Bible, He didn’t say, “You’ve got it all wrong – nothing in the Bible is greater or lesser – it is all the same.” No – He went ahead and told them which command was the greatest.
Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
There are commands that are greater and lesser, and there are some commands that are considered weightier, or more important.
Matthew 23:23 Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the weightier matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness.
So if things like loving God and justice and mercy and faithfulness are the weightier (heavier) matters of the Law (sometimes those are referred to as the moral law), what are the less important matters of the Law? The one Jesus refers to in that verse is tithing. And Paul mentions some others in Colossians 2.
Colossians 2:16-17 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.
Any part of the Law that functioned as a shadow – an illustration – is in a different category than the weightier matters of the Law. The dietary laws, festivals, Sabbaths – all those things were commanded in the Law. But they were commanded as shadows or pictures that served as an illustration of the reality until the reality came.
And if you want to break down the shadow-type laws even further, there are two kinds of shadow laws – ceremonial and civil. The ceremonial laws had to do with the regulations for worship in the Temple – the whole sacrificial system and all the rituals and symbols involved in that system. The civil codes are laws that had to do specifically with governing the nation of Israel. For example, how much to pay in taxes, what punishments to inflict for various kinds of crimes, the rules for contracts and business regulations, etc. So all the civil codes and all the ceremonial laws in the Old Testament were shadows and pictures of what was to come.
They had a different purpose than the weighty laws. They had different purposes, and so Jesus fulfilled them in different ways. And that should not come as any big surprise to anyone. It is common sense to assume that laws that speak directly about moral character are different from laws that are illustrations or pictures. For example, God has commanded that we be kind to one another, and He has also told us to be very reverent in the way we handle communion. Suppose one of you is downstairs preparing the communion cups, and someone staggers in off the street who is about to die. He is diabetic, and if he does not get some sugar in his system immediately he will die. So you have him drink all the grape juice from the communion cups. Jesus’ point was it would be far better to do that than to let the guy die because you are trying to honor the symbolism of communion. Symbolic things are not as important as commands that speak directly to the condition of the heart, like kindness or honesty. If you said to your son, “I want you to be kind and respectful to your sisters, and to show that by doing things like holding the door for them” – and so you walk in later and see your daughter curled up shivering on the floor freezing to death and your son standing there holding the door open and laughing – you would say that he has focused on the symbolism of holding the door and violated the weightier part of actually being kind.
And if you watch carefully you will see how the writers of the New Testament treated the shadow laws in a very different way than the weighty laws. For example…
Galatians 5:2 …if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. … 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.
God commanded circumcision in the Old Testament law. But now Paul says we do not have to do that anymore. That rule is no longer binding on us.
Galatians 5:13 … serve one another in love. 14 The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Paul commands us not to carry out the circumcision law – we are free from that; and then he turns right around in the same context and requires us to obey the “love your neighbor” law. It is very clear that Paul thought of laws like circumcision in a different category from laws like love your neighbor. Circumcision was a shadow-type law and love was a weighty law. Paul treated the ceremonial aspects of the Law differently than the moral aspects.
And the same goes for the civil codes. When it comes to civil laws – the speed limit, business regulations, the penal system, tax law – what does the New Testament teach about our responsibility in those areas?
Romans 13:1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.
6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
So which tax code are we supposed to follow – the one spelled out in the Old Testament for ancient Israel, or the United States tax code? Paul places us under the civil laws not of the Old Testament, but of whatever secular government is in power in our area. So the civil aspects of the Old Testament are not binding on us. But does that mean he is throwing out the entire Old Testament law?
Romans 13:8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." 10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
So Paul is making a distinction between the civil codes and the weightier matters of the law. We are not bound by the civil codes today, but we are still responsible to follow the moral law, or the weightier matters.
All Scripture is still in force
So how, exactly, did Jesus fulfill the civil law? How did He fulfill the ceremonial law? How did He fulfill the weightier matters of the law? How did He fulfill the prophets? And what are the implications of each of those for our lives today? That is an incredibly rich and rewarding study, and so my plan is to dive into that in depth next time. But for now let me leave you with one more principle to consider.
When I tell you that Jesus fulfilled the weightier matters of the Law in a way that makes them still binding on us to day (so that we are still required to love God, love one another, tell the truth, avoid stealing and murder and adultery, etc.); and he fulfilled the shadows laws in ways that make them non-binding on us (so we don’t have to follow the kosher food laws or offer sacrifices or observe Sabbath restrictions) – please do not think of that as Jesus canceling certain passages of the Old Testament. If you are wondering, How do I know which parts of the Old Testament apply to me? the answer is, All of them. Not every command is binding on you, but the truths taught by every passage apply to you.
For example, when God says, “My Word stands forever” does that include Genesis 6? Yes, Genesis 6 stands forever as part of God’s eternal Word. But does that mean you and I need to go home this afternoon and get started on building an ark? Verse 14 couldn’t be more clear – there is an explicit command:
Genesis 6:14 build yourself an ark of cypress wood
Why isn’t there an ark in every Christian’s backyard? It is because we understand that God made that command not for all people of all times, but to some specific folks at a particular time. So the “build an ark” command is not binding on you and me. However – does that mean we have abolished Genesis 6? Once the flood was over should they have just got some scissors and cut that chapter out of the Bible? No. we do not have to obey that command, but Genesis 6 still remains, because the principles it teaches are still 100% true today and will be forever. The specific command is not binding because it was limited in its purpose; but the principles are very much binding. Genesis 6 teaches what happens to depraved humanity when God does not preserve it from evil. That chapter teaches us about God’s wrath and holiness. It teaches us about His mercy and salvation. There are all kinds of principles that chapter teaches us, and all those principles are still true and always will be true. So the moment the ark was built the “build an ark” command ceased to be binding in the direct sense because it was fulfilled, but it will never be abolished. It will never cease to be God’s authoritative Word. All Scripture is God-breathed and is therefore profitable and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16). Every portion of God’s Word teaches us truth. And those truths and principles that are taught are eternal – even if the command itself is temporary or limited in its scope. If you look up and there is still a sky, and you look down and there is a still an earth in existence, then every page of your Bible, every chapter, every paragraph, every word, every letter, every dot of an ‘i’ and cross of a ‘t’, every verb tense, every grammatical structure is still God’s holy Word and is a fire hose of grace to all who delight in it.
Psalm 1:1-3 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. 2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
Benediction: Acts 20:32 “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”
Summary
Jesus’ message seemed anti-Law, so Jesus stated emphatically both here and with His whole life that He did not come to abolish the Law. But nor did He come to leave it untouched. He came to fulfill it, which brought about some changes. There are weightier matters of the Law and shadow parts of the Law, and Jesus fulfilled each part in different ways. He fulfilled the shadow laws in ways that make them still valid and still applicable but not binding; and He fulfilled the weightier matters in a way that they are still binding on us today.
