Heads up, theology post!
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.” (Matt. 5:17, NKJV)
What does Matthew 5:17 mean? Is the sermon on the mount meant to shed light and fill with meaning the old covenant law, or is the old covenant now completely “obsolete” (Heb. 8:13)? Was Jesus looking to reform Judaism or was he starting a new religion entirely?
Someone asked me this question a few months ago, and though I’m not yet fully confident on the answer, since then I’ve really come to appreciate its importance. Whatever answer we give to this question, significant light is shed upon a basic presupposition of our broader theological outlook, from our millennial framework to our understanding of Romans and Galatians. The answer to this question is important because it constitutes (Slikerism) the lens through which we view the entire New Testament, and thus how we believe Christianity should look today.
I’m posting this because I would like some of your input, not just for the sake of posting. What do you think Matthew 5:17 means?
one of the definitions of the word that was translated as “fulfill” in the lexicon was this: to cause God’s will (as made known in the law) to be obeyed as it should be, and God’s promises (given through the prophets) to receive fulfilment.
Rob Velez
Friday, March 9, 2007 at 1:09 am
“Is the sermon on the mount meant to shed light and fill with meaning the old covenant law, or is the old covenant now completely “obsolete” (Heb. 8:13)?”
Yes and yes. The law and the old covenant are two different things.
The law will never be obselete. It is the expression of God’s own self. The fulfillment of the law is still required to this day. Before the cross, we were bound to the law without the ability to fulfill it. What was destroyed at the cross was our being bound to the law. It’s like a marriage – the wife is bound to the husband until he dies. We were bound to the law, and that bond could not be broken except by death. Since the law is good and will never die, we had to die. But Christ came and did it for us so that a new nature could be imparted; i.e., there could be life after death, instead of us just dying and being dead forever. We would indeed be dead to the law then, but we’d also be just plain dead. Christ’s death was significant because He could give us a new nature through His death. Adam’s nature was crucified with him, seperating us from being bound to the law. We were raised with Christ, given His nature, and joined to Him instead of the law. Christ demands the same thing as the law, but He gives us the ability to fulfill it.
The old covenant is now obselete because a greater covenant has been established. Both the old and the new covenants were established as ways of relating to Christ. Under the old, the Israelites related to the coming Messiah by serving God at a distance, walking out in faith the types and shadows that pointed to a future fulfillment. It was a glorious covenant, so glorious that they could not even look at Moses’ face when he came from talking with God, but it was the end of that which was fading away. It was glorious because it made a way for fallen man to relate to God. The new covenant is far more glorious because it made a way for fallen man to receive a new nature, the nature of Christ, and therefore to have intimate union with God.
“Was Jesus looking to reform Judaism or was he starting a new religion entirely?”
I don’t know that either of those phrases would be the right way to say it – By giving the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is once again doing what God originally did by giving the Israelites the law. His intent is to again leave us in a sort of despair so that we will give up trying to produce anything from ourselves. The Sermon on the Mount is simply showing that the law is even harder than perceived, in case some had deceived themselves into thinking that they were righteous. He’s raising the bar so that we will stop thinking we can justify ourselves through works accomplished through our Adamic nature.
Let’s start at the beginning:
Adam chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, rather from the tree of life. This means he was choosing to live with himself as his own source, instead of God as his source. From then on, man’s nature was fallen, apart from God, and evil. Then Adam reproduced Adam – a fallen race. The fallen nature of Man had to be replaced with another nature, not just covered up (which is why God gave them animal skins when they tried to cover themselves with fig leaves. They were trying to cover themselves with something of the earth, but He was foreshadowing the sacrifice and shedding of the blood of Jesus as the only thing that could transform them.)
God began to speak to Abraham about good news, about a coming seed of a new nature. The coming of the new seed was based on promise, not works. Ishmael was begot by works (trying to make it happen with Hagar) and Isaac was begot by faith (Abraham believing when told that Sarah would conceive). Abraham believed.
Later, God raises up Moses to lead the Israelites out of bondage (this signifies God desiring to lead them out of their fallen nature inherited from Adam). His desire was that they would have related to Him through faith like Abraham did, but they refused to, so He gave them the law – He gave them what they wanted, to prove to them that they were wrong in thinking they could relate to God through their works. The Adamic nature was insisting on persisting.
The implimentation of the law was like shining a flashlight on sin, so that transgression would increase, or become apparent. It’s the righteous nature of God put up next to the hopeless nature of man, and it condemned Adam to death.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was trying to say, “Now do you get it? You are unable to do this. Once and for all, I’m telling you, you cannot do this. So you’ve never murdered anyone? I tell you that even thoughts of anger are murder. You’ve never committed adultery? I tell you, even if you’ve lusted after a woman, you’ve done the deed.” He’s saying, “Look, let’s all be clear, you are completely unable to fulfill the law unless you let Me fulfill it through You.
Both the law and Christ demand the same thing, but the law doesn’t give us power to do it, only Christ does. Freedom from the law doesn’t mean that we are no longer required to keep it, but that we are freed from the hopeless situation of having to do it ourselves.
When Christ died, our Adamic nature was crucified forever and we were given His nature when He was resurrected, thus finally allowing us to be able to fulfill the law. So, Jesus coming to fulfill the law means that finally, the law can actually be fulfilled because His nature has been given to those who are required to fulfill it – us! The law could not ever be fulfilled through the Adamic nature. We can now meet the demands of the law, including as it is painfully laid out in the Sermon on the Mount, because it’s no longer we who live, but Christ.
You’re right, Matt, understanding this is of utmost importance and completely shapes the way we view Christianity. We must understand that we’ve been given a new nature – we do not automatically express that nature though, and that’s where confusion arises. Many Christians still try to relate to God through their Adamic nature because their minds have not been renewed. We must strive to grow in the knowledge of truth by the renewing of our carnal minds, which are at enmity with God. The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned. The New Covenant is a ministry of the Spirit, not the letter. It must be imparted to our heart by the Spirit, not to our mind by our mind. When our minds are renewed, which is only an act of the Spirit (which we can posture ourselves to receive through prayer, fasting, and other practices that make ourselves a target for the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ in us) then we become in line with reality – that it is not us who live, but Christ. That we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. That we are dead to sin. That we are no longer walking in the lusts of the flesh. We have to have a supernatural understanding imparted by the Spirit of God in order to experience Christ in us, the hope of glory.
As He is revealed in us more and more, by the work of the Spirit, we express the divine nature. It is the byproduct of His nature being fully revealed in us, not the result of making 100% good decisions. The decisions we make should be ones that outwork our faith, so that our faith is alive. Meaning, we should choose to do things that will cause the Spirit to reveal Christ in us, so that His nature is fully expressed in us. We don’t want a cleaned-up Adam, we want a dead Adam. God planted His new seed in us, his field, because He wants a harvest of the seed of Christ in us. The purpose of the body is to express the life of Christ. He does not want the dirt to grow into something that looks like a plant. The seed grows out of the dirt. Water, sun, weeding (prayer, fasting, giving, etc) help the plant grow but cannot turn the dirt into a plant.
Wow, longest comment I’ve ever posted.
mollymosack
Friday, March 9, 2007 at 4:46 am
Rob – That’s really interesting! I’ve never heard that take before. I know one possibility for Jesus’ use of that word here (I think the Greek word is pleroo, which literally means to “fill to the full”) is “to fill with meaning”. In other words, one of Christ’s purposes in the sermon on the mount is to correct the false ideas which had developed in the average Jew’s mind from second temple Judaism, it was to give the heart of the Law to those who were “straining a gnat and swallowing a camel”.
Molly – Oh my goodness, you’re brilliant! And prolific! I’m seriously gonna take like a week and just swim through every paragraph. Thanks for taking the time to write all of that! Very thoughtful.
matthartke
Friday, March 9, 2007 at 4:52 pm
The law, in its glory and truest meaning, points to Jesus Christ. Therefore, in fulfilling the law Christ does not replace the law nor alter its content, but rather fulfills the true meaning of the law through his teaching and life of righteousness. I think its worth noting, even though its seems obvious, that while the ceremonial requirements of the law have been abolished with the establishment of the New Covenant, but that the moral laws that govern our behavior stand forever and must be obeyed.
Greg
Saturday, March 10, 2007 at 11:02 am