In the Sermon on the Mount, so far we’ve had the following:
The Beatitudes, in which Jesus talked about states in which we are blessed, because we participate in life with God.
When that happens, we are salt and light, a people who function as a preservative in a world prone toward rot, and whose preservative presence shines like a light of hope in the darkness. Jesus ends his comments about light by saying, “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
Jesus connects the brightness of their light with the goodness of their deeds. God’s transformation isn’t just an inner reality; true transformation is inevitably expressed in an outer transformation. And it’s in the observation of these deeds – the proof of change - that God will be glorified by those needing to see the light of truth and hope that is found in Jesus. This brings us to today’s passage, which will build on the verse we just read.
“Do not think that I have come to overturn or do away with the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them/accomplish their intended purpose. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter will become void or pass from the law until everything needed to fulfill the law takes place.[1]
So anyone who breaks/loosens/dissolves one of the least/smallest/most obscure of these commands and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever obeys them and teaches others to do so will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.[2] For I tell you, unless your righteousness goes beyond that of the experts in the law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”[3]
So, let’s talk about the Law, and work our way toward Jesus fulfilling it.
First, when Jewish teachers sometimes spoke of the least and greatest commandments, it wasn’t to diminish the least commandments. For examples, some rabbis said that the least commandment was the demand that people free a mother bird (Deuteronomy 22:7), but that whoever kept this command received life, the same reward as one who kept the greatest command, honoring father and mother (Deuteronomy 5:16).[4] So when you hear this language, don’t think of it as dismissive. It’s honoring. Every little bit mattered.
Second, Jesus did not criticize the Pharisees for their strict observance of the law. He called them out in two very important areas that showed they didn't understand the purpose of the law, let alone how to fulfill that purpose.
They didn’t understand that, while all of the law mattered, there were weightier matters of the law in the sense that breaking that law landed in the world in a heavier and more destructive way. In Luke 11, a Pharisee invites Jesus over for a meal – then gets deeply offended because Jesus didn’t wash his hands just right. This gets Jesus attention. “You are fastidious about tithing—keeping account of every little leaf of mint and herb—but you neglect what really matters: justice and the love of God! If you’d get straight on what really matters, then your fastidiousness about little things would be worth something.” (v. 42)
They emphasized what they did with their hands at the expense of what was happening in their hearts. From the same speech in Luke 11: You Pharisees are a walking contradiction. You are so concerned about external things—like someone who washes the outside of a cup and bowl but never cleans the inside, which is what counts! Beneath your fastidious exterior is a mess of extortion and filth. 40 You don’t get it. Did the potter make the outside but not the inside too? 41 If you were full of goodness within, you could overflow with generosity from within, and if you did that, everything would be clean for you.
The Dead Sea Scrolls (written 2 BC – 1 AD) refer to the Pharisees as “seekers after smooth things.” They accommodated and compromised the law to fit the way they wanted life to be – or how they wanted to live.
“The Sanhedrim had power, when it was convenient, to void a command… to deliver many of the Israelites from stumbling at other things, they may do whatsoever the present time makes necessary… they even say that if a Gentile should bid an Israelite transgress anyone of the commands mentioned in the law, excepting idolatry, adultery, and murder, he may transgress freely, provided it is done privately.“ (Gill’s Exposition Of The Entire Bible)
That’s one way to “make the way smooth.” You just change the understanding of what must be done with the hands in order to get what you want in your heart. A practical illustration has to do with divorce.[5]
Philo, Hillel and Josephus, contemporaries of Jesus, all said divorce could happen for any reason. It was a husband-friendly world, to say the least. Some rabbis went so far as to say husbands didn’t need a reason other than they were tired of their wife and wanted someone new. Shammai disagreed; it could only be adultery. Jesus, when asked, agrees with Shammia. In fact, when he makes this clear in Matthew 19, his disciples’ response is insightful about the mindset with which they were raised: 10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”
That’s…insightful. They were used to the Law being workshopped until it made the way smooth and worked so they get what they wanted. They said they loved the Law, but they weren’t actually interested in the Law telling them what to do.
But Jesus won’t stop there. He goes on to challenge not just what they do, but how they feel and think. He’s going to demand something of their hearts. Jesus is in the process of restoring the true nature of God’s law as demanding total and radical holiness not just with our hands but in the orientation of our hearts.[6]
Jesus spells out the character of the kind of righteousness God is looking for in the six examples he gives in Matthew 5:21-48. In each case Jesus contrasts the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (who understood the law as a mechanical legal requirement with which they could seek smooth things for themselves if needed) with the exceeding righteousness that God demands. Jesus shows that God requires obedience from the heart. I like how Adam Clarke explains what was happening. It was,
“the development of what is not completed into something higher, which preserves the substance of the lower. The fulfilling is “showing the right kernel and understanding, that they may learn what the law is and desires to have.” (Adam Clarke)
As Jesus continues his Sermon on the Mount, he gives plenty of examples to make his point.
THE KERNEL THE TREE
Don’t murder Don’t desire to harm
Don’t commit adultery Don’t desire to commit adultery
Legally proper divorces Morally permissible divorces
Do oaths (so people trust you) Have unimpeachable character
Limit revenge Don’t get revenge at all
Love your neighbor Love your enemy also
Be generous Be humbly, quietly generous
Worship/pray Worship and pray with humility
Fast Fast humbly
The passage we started with today is basically a thesis statement for all those examples. Jesus says, "You thought the law was just about your hands. If you really want to be my disciples, give me your hearts."
Enter Jesus, who fulfills or accomplishes the intended purpose of the Law and the Prophets.
Fulfills the specific predictions of a Messiah. The Law and the Prophets were always intended to point beyond themselves (see Romans 3:21; Galatians 3-4; Romans 8:4) to Jesus, which is where Matthew also intends the focus to be.[7]
Accomplishes the intended purpose of the sacrificial system. Sacrifices and other ceremonial laws foreshadowed events that would be accomplished in Jesus’ ministry in which he paid the price for the failed covenant keeping of Abraham and his descendants (see Galatians 4:10, Ephesians 2:15, and Hebrews 8-10).
Fulfills God's will in all its fullness. Jesus establishes the true intent and purpose of the Law in His teaching and accomplishes them in His obedient life as the perfect lawkeeper (Matt. 2:15; 11:13; 12:3–6, 39–41, 42; Luke 24:27)[8]
As the perfect lawkeeper, Jesus grants righteousness—the intended purpose of the Law—to us (Rom 3:31; 8:3, 4; 10:4).[9]
So now, thanks to Jesus granting his righteousness to us, we can fulfill the purpose God intended the Law to accomplish in us. And it turns out that…the Law was intended to teach us how to love.
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:8-10)
“In everything, treat others as you would want them to treat you, for this fulfills the law and the prophets. (Matthew 7:12)
Matthew actually provides a cool set of bookends in the Sermon on the Mount that explain what it means for the Law and the Prophets to be fulfilled.
Do not think that I have come to overturn or do away with the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill their intended purpose. (5:17)
“In everything, treat others as you would want them to treat you, for this fulfills the law and the prophets. (7:12)
When we disciples walk in love with the Spirit of God at work in us, we share in the completion of the plan or outworking of God’s love, which is love. The commandments of the Law are simply examples of what it looks like, in day-to-day life and in various circumstances, to love God and love each other.[10] Tell me, in the examples Jesus gives in the Sermon on the Mount, does this not look like love?
Don’t even desire to harm other people physically, emotionally, spiritually, reputationally. Desire their flourishing in the good (hospitality of the heart and head J)
Don’t even desire to commit adultery. Desire to honor you spouse even in your thoughts, not just your actions.
Take your marriage vows very, very seriously. Love your spouse by offering the safety of covenant.
Have unimpeachable character. Love others by being the kind of person they can trust.
Don’t get revenge. Don’t demand en eye for an eye. Love those who harm you by challenging their evil with your kindness and goodness.
Love your enemy. Pray for them, for their salvation and righteousness.
Be generous, worship, pray, and fast, but be humble and do it in the way that doesn’t bring attention to you. Love other people by freeing them of the burden of comparing themselves to you.
The Law was intended to teach us how to love, in the greatest ways to the smallest ways.[11]
_______________________________________________________________________________________
[1] In Shir Hashirim Rabba, are these words: "Should all the inhabitants of the earth gather together, in order to whiten one feather of a crow, they could not succeed: so, if all the inhabitants of the earth should unite to abolish one י yod, which is the smallest letter in the whole law, they should not be able to effect it." In Vayikra Rabba, it is said: "Should any person in the words of Deut. 6:4, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God isאחד achad, ONE Lord, change the ד daleth into a ר resh, he would ruin the world."[אחר achar, would signify a strange or false God.] "Should any one in the words of Lev. 22:32, Neither shall ye PROFANE תחללו techelelu, my holy name, change חcheth into ה he, he would ruin the world." [Neither shall ye PRAISE my holy name.]"Should any one, in the words of 1 Samuel 2:2, There is none holy AS the Lord,change כ caph into ב beth, he would ruin the world." There is no holiness IN the Lord.] (Adam Clarke)
[2] The rabbis recognized a distinction between “light” commandments (such as tithing garden produce) and “weighty” commandments (such as those concerning idolatry, murder, etc.). Jesus demands a commitment to both, yet condemns those who confuse the two (see 23:23–24). (ESV Global Study Bible)
[3] The scribes and Pharisees took pride in their outward obedience but they still had impure hearts (see 23:5, 23, 27–28). Kingdom righteousness works from the inside out as it produces changed hearts (Rom. 6:17; 2 Cor. 5:17). (ESV Global Study Bible)
[4] NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible
[5] https://www.thetorah.com/article/when-is-a-man-allowed-to-divorce-his-wife
[6] ESV Reformation Study Bible
[7] Expositor’s Bible Commentary
[8] Thanks to the ESV Global Study Bible for these first three points.
[9] HT Orthodox Study Bible
[10] https://russmeek.com/2020/09/love-is-the-fulfillment-of-the-law-whats-that-mean-anyway/
[11] That is, the man that truly loves his neighbour, will contrive no ill against him, nor do any to him; he will not injure his person, nor defile his bed, nor deprive or defraud him of his substance; or do hurt to his character, bear false testimony against him, or covet with an evil covetousness anything that is his; but, on the contrary, will do him all the good he is capable of. Therefore. love is the fulfilling of the law.
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible