WWUTT 1938 I Came to Fulfill the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 5:17-20)

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Jesus said that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the

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Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. But if you believe in Christ, your righteousness does exceed theirs.

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When we understand the text. This is when we understand the text studying

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God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Find all our videos online at www .wutt

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.com, as well as links to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Here's your teacher,

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 5, picking up where we left off yesterday.

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So I'm going to start reading here in verse 17, and we'll go through verse 20. Reading from the

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Legacy Standard Bible, hear the word of the Lord. Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets.

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I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly

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I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished.

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Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

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But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

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For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

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So we've kind of taken a turn here in the Sermon on the Mount with Jesus talking about himself.

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He's not yet done that in what we've read so far. At the beginning with the Beatitudes, he describes his own disciples, describing the saved in verses 3 through 10.

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Then he turns to address his disciples directly in verses 11 and 12, blessed are you.

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And then with reference to salt and light, verse 13, you are the salt of the earth.

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And verse 14, you are the light of the world. And so here now in verse 17,

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Jesus makes reference to himself. Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets.

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And it seems likely that he's addressing his critics here. That's a possibility because there were already people that were beginning to be rather suspicious of him.

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After all, the way his ministry begins, according to Matthew chapter 4, is

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Jesus proclaiming, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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So already he's offending people. By the time this massive crowd has gathered around him, he's healed all kinds of sicknesses, various diseases, cast out demons.

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That was at the end of chapter 4. So that, of course, has attracted the crowd's attention. But he has taught with such authority.

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And the people are amazed by this. The Pharisees are deeply offended. So sure, there's a possibility here that in verse 17, he's addressing his critics.

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But I still say it's most likely that he's talking to his own disciples. Because again, in verse 1, it says his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and began to teach them.

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So here in verse 17, it's not like he's stopped addressing his disciples and he's turned to his critics and said, don't think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets.

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Rather this is Jesus speaking to his own disciples as though to say, don't listen to them when they say that I came to abolish the law or the prophets.

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So speaking to the disciples directly and saying, don't think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets.

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Now that's two things that are said here. Of course, this is all encompassing of the

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Old Testament law and prophets. We see those references come up occasionally in the

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New Testament, and it's referring to the Old. They didn't call it the Old Testament in the New Testament. But whenever we see these references to law and prophets, we generally take that as the summation of everything that we call the

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Old Testament. But when Jesus makes reference to the law here, he's most likely talking about the moral law.

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Not all of the law, not the ceremonial law, although that is certainly accomplished in Christ's life and death and resurrection.

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He does accomplish. He does fulfill the ceremonial law. But in context, when he's talking about the law here, it's the moral law that he's making reference to.

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Now, how do I draw that conclusion? Well, first of all, I'm not the only one who does. Guys like Charles Ellicott, Matthew Henry, and John Gill, in their commentaries all say the same thing.

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This reference to the law is a reference to the moral law. But in context, we see where Jesus goes next.

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So in verse 21, which is the section we're going to get to next week, Jesus said, You have heard that the ancients were told,

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You shall not murder. And then the next one is, You have been told, You shall not commit adultery.

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And then verse 31, it is said, Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce.

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What is Jesus going through in the rest of chapter 5? He's going through the moral law.

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He never mentions the ceremonial law, at least not here. He mentions the moral law.

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Yes, Christ is the fulfillment of the ceremonial law. The perfect spotless lamb who came to take away the sin of the world, as John the

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Baptist declared in John chapter 1. But here specifically, in this context, Jesus is making reference to the moral law.

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He came to fulfill the moral law and the prophets. So those things that were prophesied about Jesus, and those things will come up in the

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Sermon on the Mount as well. We'll have other mentions of the prophets. We've heard about the prophets thus far, haven't we?

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Well, let me finish the rest of verse 17 first. Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets.

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I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. These are both things, reference to prophets, reference to fulfillment.

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These things have been mentioned in Matthew's gospel before.

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So we have, first of all, the mention of the prophets. Jesus said previously to his disciples, he said, blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

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Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

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So what Jesus is fulfilling is that which was prophesied by those who were persecuted by the people who hated the truth.

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So he's making that distinction. He's drawing that connection again. The people who are going to be making the claim that Jesus abolished the law and the prophets are going to be those same people who persecuted the prophets.

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So we've seen this mention of the prophets already in the Sermon on the Mount. Now, there hasn't been a mention of fulfillment in the

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Sermon on the Mount, but we did read that previously in chapter three. Remember when

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Jesus came to John the Baptist to be baptized, John said,

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I need to be baptized by you. And yet you're coming to me to be baptized.

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And Jesus' response to him was permitted at this time for in this way, it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

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And remember what I said about that when we were there in chapter three, Jesus' obedience to the father was righteousness that would be imputed to us, not just by his death, but by his life.

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We needed not just the perfect sacrifice who would lay his life down for us, but even live his life for us.

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So that when we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ, it's not just what he accomplished in his death, the atonement that takes away our sin that satisfies the wrath of God.

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But even what he accomplished in his life, in his perfect obedience to the law, in the righteousness that he accomplished, he is therefore clothed us in that so that we may live in righteousness before him.

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So Christ has fulfilled righteousness that was mentioned in chapter three.

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He says it again here in five verse 17. Now, let me show you something about this particular section.

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We're looking at verses 17 to 20 here. This is four verses, and Jesus makes a reference to righteousness at the beginning and at the end.

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There's a bookend in reference to righteousness. Now, the word itself does not come up in verse 17, but the fact that he says that he came to fulfill all the law and the prophets is a declaration of righteousness.

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And then look at what we have in verse 20. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the

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Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus saying this to his own disciples. So Jesus in fulfilling the law and the prophets fulfills all righteousness.

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Then he says to his disciples that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the

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Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. This is as though to say to his disciples, you need my righteousness.

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You need that which I have fulfilled. So don't listen to them when they say that I came to abolish the law and the prophets.

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I came to fulfill them. So that in me, you would have righteousness.

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You would have the righteousness that surpasses that of the scribes and the

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Pharisees. I'll make another comment about that when we get to verse 20. So here's the statement again that we have in verse 17.

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Don't think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill

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Christ, fulfilling all righteousness. He fulfills the moral law by his obedience. He fulfills that which was prophesied by the prophets also by his life and his death and his resurrection.

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So then verse 18 for truly I say to you until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished.

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Again, I'm really making an argument here for Jesus making a statement here about his own righteousness.

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He is going to accomplish that perfect standard that God sets forth in his law, that perfect standard that none of us can attain to.

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You and I have no ability to be obedient to this law in a way that satisfies the righteous requirement of God.

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We can't do it. Now, there are plenty of people out there who are not believers, who are not

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Christians, who don't believe in God. I'll just say they're flat -out atheists. There are people that don't believe in God, and yet you see them not murdering, right?

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That's the sixth commandment. You might even see some unbelievers out there not committing adultery.

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Several years back, this was when I was still working in Christian radio, there was a woman who was writing her master's thesis, and she found me online through a blog that I had written.

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And it was a blog that I had talked about regarding – or it was a blog in which I was talking about abstinence, remaining abstinent until marriage, because that's being obedient to God.

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And so she contacted me and said, do you mind if I interview you for my master's thesis? And I said, sure. She just found it intriguing about my public statement to remain abstinent, to abstain from sex until marriage, because that's what

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God created sex for. I'm doing this out of obedience to the Lord. And she asked me a bunch of questions.

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I think we talked for like an hour or two, and all of this was an interview for her master's. And when we got to the end,

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I even shared the gospel with her, but I also asked her, how is this going to be shaped in your thesis?

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How does my contribution to this help you? And she talked about how she was interviewing two different groups of people.

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She was interviewing Christians who were saying that they were remaining abstinent until marriage, out of obedience to their

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God. And then she was also interviewing people who were basically pagans, but they considered sex to be unhealthy or unclean.

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And so she was contrasting the two different perspectives.

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One group who weren't believers at all. They did not believe in a deity. They were just pagans.

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They were just doing it for health reasons, abstaining from sex. And then she was interviewing Christians who would abstain because they were being obedient to God.

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It wasn't a lifelong abstinence, obviously, but nonetheless, these were the two perspectives that this woman was contrasting.

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I never did read the master's thesis. I never got it sent to me, and I never talked to that gal again after that.

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But anyway, all of that to say that there are even people out there who are unbelievers that don't engage in sexual immorality.

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They may have whatever reasons for doing it, but you can identify people who are not sexually immoral, even though they don't believe in God.

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Very rare to find such a person, but especially in our culture today, nonetheless, they're out there.

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They do exist. You know, people who are unbelievers who don't steal, you know, people who are unbelievers who are content with what it is that they have.

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They probably do covet to some degree, but you don't recognize their coveting or that condition in their heart.

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So it is possible to be an unbeliever and yet do things that would be in obedience to God's moral law, keeping even the

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Ten Commandments. But it's impossible to do this in such a way that is honoring of God, because as it says in Isaiah 64 6, even our best deeds are as filthy rags before a holy

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God. When a person does obediently, they do even keep the law, though they know the law or don't know the law.

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When they keep the law, when they do righteously in this way, what do we call this?

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When a person is righteous by their own merit, we call that self -righteous. And that's really no righteousness at all, because you yourself are not righteous.

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You are unclean. You cannot make yourself clean. You cannot do righteously in the eyes of God, fulfilling, accomplishing the righteous standard that he has set forth in his law.

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None of us are able to do that. When we are filthy rags, then even our best deeds that we offer to God are going to be filthy.

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It's not true righteousness. So for us to be able to obey

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God in a way that is pleasing and honoring to him, we need a borrowed righteousness, and that's the righteousness of Christ that we are given when we have faith in him.

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He clothes us in his righteousness, and God doesn't see the filthy creature that we are anymore.

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He sees the righteousness of his own son that we have been clothed in, which

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Christ has so graciously given to us. All that he has fulfilled and all that he has accomplished, he gives to us, his disciples.

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He goes on in verse 19 to say, Now, really what's being said there, it's not that the person still gains the kingdom of heaven, but they're just like way down there on the outskirts of town.

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They don't really get a mansion. They just get a hut over there in the bad part of the country. That's not what

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Jesus is saying there when he says that this person shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. It's really another way of saying that they won't receive the kingdom of heaven.

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If a person is kicking out parts of the law and then telling people that they don't have to obey the law, do you really think that they're going to receive the kingdom of God?

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But whoever does and teaches them, whoever does even the least of these commandments and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

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Because really, when we have the law and we obey it, we are obeying the king's edicts, the king's standards, his precepts.

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What are the rules in the kingdom that Christ has established? We see them in his law.

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What does it mean to live a life of obedience and worship unto God? It means keeping his law.

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And the apostle Paul even puts it in Romans chapter 13. Love is the fulfilling of the law. So when we love one another, we are keeping the commandments.

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We are doing as God commands of us to do. It's in Romans 3 31, where Paul says something similar to what

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Jesus is saying here. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means.

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On the contrary, we uphold the law or we fulfill the law. We are obedient to God.

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And we also recognize that by the law, we have sinned and we need a savior. And Christ is that savior.

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The one who kept the law perfectly so that by faith in him, we are forgiven our sins and even clothed in his righteousness that we may keep the law in a righteous way.

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So then in verse 20, Jesus says, for I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the

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Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. There was one time that I confronted someone in an evangelistic encounter where I was sharing the gospel with them.

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And part of sharing the gospel with somebody sometimes means pointing out their sin so that they recognize that they are sinners under the judgment of God and therefore in need of a savior.

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And as I was having that conversation with him at one point, he became very frustrated and flustered with me.

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He knew a little bit of Bible. And so he made this comment to me. He said, didn't Jesus say, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the

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Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven? You know, he was saying that as though to say, you're judging me for my conduct and calling me out on my sin.

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But how about you? Does your righteousness exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees? And I simply responded to him.

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Yes, it does. And he was totally stunned when I said that as though I had just smacked him in the face.

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He was like, you got to be kidding me. You think your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the

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Pharisees? I said, I don't think it does. I know it does. Because I have faith in Jesus Christ and I am clothed in his righteousness.

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So my confidence is not in the good that I've done. My confidence is in the good that Christ has done, even on my behalf.

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And so when Jesus makes that statement in verse 20, what he is saying is, you need me.

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You need my righteousness. The only way you could have a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the

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Pharisees is to come to me. The scribes and the Pharisees were indeed very pious men there in the nation of Israel.

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People saw them as holy. They were perfect law keepers. They even invented new laws and kept those laws.

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And so Jesus says, you want to enter the kingdom of heaven? Your righteousness has to be greater than theirs.

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That's a pretty incredible statement. But it's even more incredible to consider that Christ is our righteousness.

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And so by faith in him, we do have that righteousness that gets us into the kingdom of heaven.

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Not because of anything that we've done. Not because of anything we are doing. It's because of what

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Christ has done for us and is continuing to do through us. As it says in 2

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Corinthians 5, 21, for our sake, he became sin who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

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Trust in Christ, receive his righteousness, live obediently unto him.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here. And may it be a conviction upon our hearts that we be obedient unto

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God, that we desire to live in purity, in holiness, in uprightness, in obedience to what you have said in your word.

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That we would be living sacrifices unto God, as said in Romans 12, 1, holy and acceptable to you.

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This is our spiritual act of worship. Receive it today, Father. Convict our hearts of our sin.

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Lead us in paths of righteousness for your namesake. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.