Jesus’
Teaching on Law
Jesus’ Teaching
on God’s Law
“Do not think that I
came to destroy the Law or the Prophets.
I did not come to
destroy but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17).
Perhaps the most
widespread controversies about the teachings
of Jesus concern His
attitude toward the laws of God recorded in
the Old Testament. The
approach of most churches and denominations regarding Jesus is that He brought
a new teaching differing considerably from the instructions of the Old
Testament. The common view is that the teachings of Christ in the New Testament
annulled
and replaced the
teachings of the Old Testament. But do they?
The idea that Jesus
departed from the Old Testament is also a common assumption within Judaism.
Jacob Neusner, in his book
A Rabbi
Talks With Jesus,
explains why Jews as a
whole do not follow Jesus and
reject any possibility
that He could be the Messiah. “Jews believe in the
Torah of Moses,” he
explains, “...
and that belief
requires faithful Jews
to enter a dissent at
the teachings of Jesus, on the grounds that those
teachings at important
points contradict the Torah” (1993, pp. xii).
Here is a serious
mistake both Christianity and Judaism make about
the teachings of
Jesus. Both hold the erroneous view that Jesus departed
from the teachings of
the Old Testament, especially with regard to law.
As we will see, the
record shows that while Jesus disagreed with the
religious leaders, He
didn’t disagree with Old Testament Scriptures. The
same record shows that
traditional Christianity itself does not follow the
teachings of Christ.
To know the real Jesus
we have to ask: What did He really say? It
doesn’t ultimately
matter what people say
about
Him. Nor does it
really
matter what
interpretations they give of what He said. What truly matters
is
what He really said,
and
whether we’re going to
believe what He said.
Clear statement in the Sermon on the
Mount
The Sermon on the
Mount is a good place to begin. Since this is the
longest recorded
statement of Jesus Christ’s teachings, we should expect
to find in it His view
toward the laws of God as recorded in the Old
Testament. And indeed
we do.
One of the reasons for
some of Jesus’ statements in the Sermon on the
Jesus’ Teaching on God’s Law
Jesus Christ will return as
King of Kings to rule the
world in a Kingdom of peace,
prosperity and purpose for
all. This gospel of the Kingdom of
God was at the heart
of His teaching.
Mount is that—because
His preaching was so different from that of the
Pharisees and
Sadducees—some people believed His intention was to
subvert the authority
of God’s Word and substitute His own in its place.
But His real intention
was to demonstrate that many of the things the
Pharisees and Sadducees
had taught all along were contrary to the original teachings of the Torah of
Moses, the first five books of the Bible.
Jesus refuted the
erroneous ideas people had formed regarding Him
with three emphatic
declarations about the law. Let’s look at them.
“I did not come to destroy but to
fulfill”
Jesus explains His
view of the law very quickly after giving the beatitudes:
“Do not think that I
came to destroy the Law or the Prophets.
I did not come to
destroy but to fulfill”
(Matthew 5:17).
So immediately we see
that Jesus had no intention of destroying
the law. He even tells
us not to even
think
such a thing. Far from
being
antagonistic to the
Old Testament Scriptures, He said He had come to
fulfill
“the Law and the
Prophets” and proceeded to confirm their authority. “The Law and the Prophets”
was a term commonly used for the Old
Testament Scriptures
(compare Matthew 7:12).
“The Law” referred to
the first five books of the Bible, the books of
Moses in which God’s
laws were written down. “The Prophets” referred
not only to the
writings of the biblical prophets, but also to the historical
books of what came to
be known as the Old Testament.
We have discussed in
earlier chapters how Jesus fulfilled “the Prophets.” But what did Jesus mean
when He spoke of fulfilling the law?
Regrettably, the
meaning of “fulfilling the law” has been twisted by
many who claim the
name of Jesus but don’t really understand what He
taught. They say that
since Jesus said He would fulfill the law, we no longer need to keep it and the
law has no further obligation on His
followers.
Another view of “fulfilling the law” is that Jesus
“filled full” what
was
lacking
in the law—that is, He
completed it, partly canceling it and
partly adding to it,
forming what is sometimes referred to as “Christ’s
law” or “New Testament
teaching.” The implication of this view is that
the New Testament
brought a change in the requirements for salvation
and that the laws
given in the Old Testament are obsolete. But do either
of these views
accurately reflect what Jesus meant?
Jesus’ view of fulfilling the law
The Greek word pleroo,
translated “fulfill”
in Matthew 5:17, means “to
make full, to fill, to
fill up,...
to fill to the full”
or “to render full, i.e. to
complete” . In other
words, Jesus said He came to complete the
law and make it
perfect. How? By showing the
spiritual intent and
application
of God’s law. His
meaning is clear from the remainder of the chapter,
where He showed the
spiritual intent of
specific commandments.
Some distort the
meaning of “fulfill” to have Jesus saying, “I did not
come to destroy the
law, but to end it by fulfilling it.” This is inconsistent
with His own words.
Through the remainder of the chapter, He showed
that the spiritual
application of the law made it even
more
difficult to
keep, not that it was
annulled or no longer necessary.
Jesus, by explaining,
expanding and exemplifying God’s law, fulfilled
a prophecy of the
Messiah found in Isaiah 42:21: “The
Lo r d is well
pleased for His
righteousness’ sake; He will exalt the law, and make
it honorable.” The
Hebrew word
gadal,
translated “exalt” or
“magnify” (KJV) literally means “to be or become great” (William Wilson,
Wilson’s Old Testament
Word Studies,
“Magnify”).
Jesus Christ did
exactly that, showing the holy, spiritual intent, purpose and scope of God’s
law. He met the law’s requirements by obeying it perfectly in thought and deed,
both in the letter and in the intent
of the heart.
All will be fulfilled
The second major
statement by Jesus given in the exact same context
makes it even clearer
that Jesus did not come to destroy, rescind, nullify
or abrogate the law.
“For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth
pass away, one jot or
tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is
fulfilled” (Matthew
5:18).
With these words,
Jesus likened the continuance of the law to the
permanence of heaven
and earth. He is saying that the law is immutable,
inviolable and
unchangeable and can only be fulfilled, never abrogated.
We should note that in
this verse a different Greek word is used for
“fulfilled”:
ginomai,
meaning “to become,”
“to come into existence” or
“to come to pass” (
Thayer’s,
Strong’s number 1096).
Until the ultimate
completion of God’s
plan to glorify humanity in His Kingdom comes
to pass—that is, as
long as there are still fleshly human beings—the
physical codification
of God’s law in Scripture is necessary. This, Jesus
explained, is as
certain as the continued existence of the universe.
His servants must keep the law
The third statement of
Jesus pronounces that our fate rests on our attitude toward and treatment of
God’s holy law. “Whoever therefore breaks
one of the least of
these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be
called least [by
those] in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and
teaches them, he shall
be called great in the kingdom of heaven” Matthew 5:19. The “by those” is added
for clarification, since, as explained in other
passages, those who
persist in lawbreaking and teach others to break God’s
law will not
themselves be in the Kingdom at all.
Jesus makes it very
clear that those who follow Him and aspire to His
Kingdom have a
perpetual obligation to obey and uphold God’s law. He
is saying that we
cannot diminish from the law of God by even a jot or
tittle—the equivalent
of the crossing of a “t” or dotting of an “i.”
The value He places on
the commandments of God is also unmistakable
—as well as the high
esteem toward the law that He requires from all those
who teach in His name.
His disapproval falls on those who slight the least
of the law’s commands,
and His honor will be bestowed on those who teach
and obey the
commandments.
Since Jesus obeyed the
commandments of God, it follows that His servants, too, must keep the
commandments and teach others to do the same
(1 John 2:2-6). It is
in this way that the true ministers of Christ are to be
identified—by their
following the example He left them (John 13:15).
Must exceed the scribes and
Pharisees
With the next
statement in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus leaves
no doubt as to what He
meant in the previous three declarations. He
meant without question
for His disciples to obey God’s law—and He was
requiring them to obey
according to a standard that went
beyond
any
-
thing they’d heard
before. “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness
exceeds
the righteousness of
the scribes and Pharisees, you will by
no means enter the
kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).
Who were the scribes
and Pharisees? The scribes were the most
renowned teachers of
the law—the interpreters of the law, the learned
men, the experts. The
Pharisees, a related group, were commonly viewed
as the most exemplary
models of Judaism. They formed a sect of Judaism that established a code of
morals and rituals more rigid than that
spelled out in the law
of Moses, basing much of their practices on years
of traditions. The
scribes and Pharisees were both highly strict and
highly respected in
Judaism (Acts 26:5).
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