“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” (Matthew 5:17).
After sharing with His mountainside congregation about both the character of the Kingdom through the Beatitudes and the need to exhibit them in everyday life, Jesus addressed how His followers were to understand the religion of the day now that He had come.
Israel was waiting for the new kingdom rule; there were those who wanted to release the past and initiate a new order.
However, Jesus was not about forgetting the religious standard given. For Him, it wasn’t about forgetting, it was about fulfilling.
Even in His fulfillment the Law and Prophets still contained purpose, for they still speak of two things: the knowledge of sin and man’s inability to live its righteous standards on his own merits.
The Apostle Paul makes that clear: “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:3, 4). Thus, the righteous standard of the Law is not attainable on our own, but only through Christ. He is the Righteous One, and only be being in Him, can we be righteous as well.
Well-known commentator J. Vernon McGee writes:
“I am not saying that we are free to break the Mosaic Law. The fact of the matter is that the Law is still a standard. It reveals to me that I cannot measure up to God’s standard. This drives me to the Cross of Christ. The only way I can fulfill the Law is by accepting the only One who could fulfill it—Jesus Christ.”
In a day when so many religions exist, in an era where so many desire to release the past and initiate a modern present, we can never leave the complete work of Jesus Christ and our need of the Cross.
Think not, but know that Jesus Christ is still the only way!
