Breaking the Law
Matthew 5:17-18 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. 18For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19Anyone 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. 20For 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.
Guy: Jesus makes it clear that though the Son of Man (a bold Messianic label from Daniel 7:13 by which He referred to Himself) has come into the world, He is not telling people to scratch the words of the Law or prophets. Instead, He points people to the Law and Prophets. He proclaims that He is the fulfillment of the types. He is the fulfillment of the prophecies spoken about the deliverer to come. He is
He is also the only human (fully God and fully man) to ever fulfill, or live up to, the Law of God. Along with being the only Son of God, the reason Jesus could be our substitute on the cross and be an acceptable atoning sacrifice is because He had the means wherewith to pay the debt that we owe. It was because He fulfilled the Law when no other man or woman could that gave Him the ability to say to the Father, “I’ll pay their debt. I have the means to pay it; I’ve fulfilled Your Law. Judge them by the life I lived, not theirs.”
Above, in verse eighteen, He says, “Until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” In John 10:35, Jesus says that the Scripture can not be broken. Jesus is establishing the inerrancy of all of Scripture. He is establishing the infallibility of the Bible. When He mentions the iota and dot, He is saying that things as small as our apostrophes and accent marks in the writing of Scripture are the words of God and they will come to pass.
The Gospel of John begins like this: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:1-4).
It is appropriate that Jesus, the Word of God (the Logos), fulfills the Word of God and in Him, who created the world, life and light is found. His light shines into the darkness of creation and illumines it and gives hope to mankind and He will not be overcome by anything. Let’s run to Him, out of the darkness and into the loving arms of the Life and Light.
Scott: Jesus is about to turn up the heat. He makes it clear that He isn’t some rebel who rode into town to change or abolish God’s law. In fact He upholds God’s law and the bar is set high. “Don’t break the commandments of God.”
The law itself is good. The reason the world needed a savior, however, was because obedience to the law could not save a person. In fact it is impossible to be obedient to the law because of sin. Jesus Christ came to fulfill the law and thus make a way by faith through Him. Jesus Christ is the end of many of the ceremonial laws found in the Old Testament, however, the moral code of God stands forever.
The Apostle Paul confers, “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law... Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law (Romans 3:28,31).
Jesus goes on to say that our righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees. To the many outcasts that He was preaching to, this must have been devastating at face value. The scribes and Pharisees were the religious elite, but Jesus saw through their fraudulence. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:27-28).
God isn’t looking simply for external religion. He doesn’t want somebody who looks good on the outside, but inside isn’t sincere. He wants people that are full of love and faith, trusting in His righteousness and not their own. Man sees outwardly, but God knows a person’s true heart (1 Samuel 16:7).
R. C. Sproul illustrates the point that looks can be deceiving:
A man and his wife returned home from church and enjoyed a Sunday supper. After dinner they decided to go for a ride in the country. During their leisurely tour the husband was startled to see a pig with a wooden leg in a pasture by the road. “Look at that!” he said to his wife. “There is a pig with a wooden leg!”
The man ‘was amazed that a farmer would be so humane as to provide a ‘wooden leg for his wounded pig. He insisted that they stop at the farmhouse and inquire about the circumstances that led to his porcine prosthesis. He knocked at the farmer‘s door and introduced himself to the farmer.
“I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but I am intrigued about the pig you have with a wooden leg. Would you mind telling me how it came about?”
Not at all,” said the farmer. “A few months back my grandchildren were here for a visit. One afternoon they wandered into a pasture where our bull was grazing. The bull charged them in fury. The pig noticed the danger and put himself between the children and the bull and headed the bull off. That pig saved my grandchildren’s lives. The very next day one of the children fell in the farm pond and was drowning. That pig dove into the water and saved her life.
“So you see,” said the farmer, “the pig is almost like family to us. That’s why it has a wooden leg. I just couldn’t bring myself to eat that pig all at one time!”[1]
Labels: commanments, Jesus, law, pharisees, Righteousness
posted by Scott Hescht at 7:46 PM
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