Let us read Matthew 5: 17-20:
17“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever 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 does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5: 17-20) [1]
As we read our text, we see that Jesus says: “Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish but to fulfill”. What do you think the word “fulfill” really means? As Jesus moved around within Israel with His disciples, He really believed the Old Testament definitions and the laws were real. He also believed that the law of Moses was still binding and valid for each one of us. But the word “fulfill” really is about the fulfillment of the Old Testament.
Who was Jesus? He was the Messiah. But what does this really mean? It means that He, as Jesus, has a personal connection with our God. Why do you think this is true? Why does He have a personal connection with God, and we don’t necessarily, or really, have that? Because the Messiah, Jesus, was the bridge from heaven to earth that came into being when Jesus was born; Jesus is the bridge.
Well, what does the bridge from heaven to earth really mean? How did Mary, Jesus’ mother, get pregnant? Was it of her own accord? Let’s look at the Bible.
4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room. (Luke 2: 4-7)
But this doesn’t quite cover it for us, does it? Why not? Because there’s no talk about a “bridge” in these verses. Here, in these verses, there is only a conversation about Mary and her engagement with Joseph. But there’s no talk about a “bridge”. Let’s go read Matthew chapter 1 first, and then we can look into this:
18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to divorce her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
23 “Look, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had given birth to a son, and he named him Jesus. (Matthew 1: 18-25)
As we look at Matthew, let’s consider what this is saying. Starting at verse 20, an “angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’”
To be honest with you, this must’ve been a start for Joseph. When he woke up, he understood what the Angel actually meant, and he did take Mary to be his wife. But you have to wonder: how did Mary actually get pregnant, even though we know that it was the Holy Spirit? Let’s go look at Luke chapter 1, verse 26 through verse 38:
26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” 29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34 Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:26-38)
The Holy Spirit can only come from God. Is there another place for a “Holy Spirit” to come from? No, the Holy Spirit is God’s Spirit here on earth. God is the only place the Holy Spirit can come from. In the Trinity, we have three in one, meaning that the Trinity is God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Because this is before Jesus’ birth, we see that God is directing his Spirit to impregnate Mary, as the angel had told her.
Through this, the baby in Mary is a boy, and this is God’s baby… in Mary! From this, we need to understand that God can have children, and these children can grow to become smart and complicated people. Therefore, Mary, who is a pure human, is impregnated by God’s chosen, and through this, Jesus is born with a personal connection with our God, and because it was God who impregnated his mother, Jesus is the bridge from God’s dwelling place, heaven, to here on our planet, Earth.
But if you look at the verses at the end of the text: Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38) So, Mary did agree with the angel (the angel Gabriel) and allowed this impregnation. But God was not done. God wanted Joseph to help Mary, to love and to care for her, and He also wanted Joseph to help Mary with Jesus and to provide them a refuge. Remember that Joseph took Mary and Jesus to Egypt, and they had to be careful in places. As an aside, God truly understands what it takes to grow a child from their beginning to being an adult. Just think of how many children he watches grow within this wonderful world. God must have watched millions of children grow to be responsible adults.
Through this “bridge relationship” that Jesus has with God, Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. What does this baptism symbolize? This baptism that John is giving is the starting point of Jesus’s ministry, and this is where Jesus becomes the key part of the ministry that God wants in the world. Here, Jesus himself is moving forward with God’s wisdom to do all that God had asked. His youth is left behind, and He is now focused on the ministry of the Lord. And this is when He starts collecting his disciples.
As Jesus is living with God’s word in his heart, one day at a time, He often gets up and goes to a deserted place, where He prays; He gets an understanding of what He is to do and where He is going. You can see this in Mark and in Luke:
35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed (Mark 1:35)
16 Meanwhile, he would slip away to deserted places and pray. (Luke 5:16)
These “deserted places” were not a plan to rid himself of the disciples; they were instead an opportunity to converse with the Lord, His Father, to understand the details of what He had to get done. In these places he got an understanding of what He had to do, and what the Lord needed Him to do. These “desolate places” were an opportunity to learn and understand what actually came next for His ministry.
If you look at Mark and Luke expressing these things of “deserted places”, Jesus didn’t just do this once; he did it quite frequently. So frequently that the disciples actually put this into the text that Mark and Luke wrote down and produced for us, so we understood what happened on those wonderful days of Jesus’ existence. And as they told us this, we understand that Jesus went frequently to commune with God, so that he would not misstep in His direction and his goals for his ministry, or perhaps God’s ministry that He was introducing to the world.
Here, Jesus obeyed God’s law perfectly, because He knew what God wanted Him to do, and He understood all the things that He needed to accomplish. He lived a sinless life, completely obedient to God’s commands and His word. He fulfilled the law’s demand for righteousness that no human could achieve. In fulfilling the law, Jesus did not abolish it but brought it to completion.
None of us is qualified to fulfill God’s promise[2]; only Christ himself is qualified, and He not only fulfilled the promise through death and resurrection, but Christ, as the transfigured seed of Abraham, became the life-giving Spirit as the fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham. Therefore, Christ has completely fulfilled the law, as given to Abraham, but also fulfilled the law we live by for all of us.
Now this doesn’t say that there are no rules! There are rules. We often don’t call them rules, as such, but these rules are really a response to grace, and it is grace that matters most to us.
Now that we understand “fulfill”, let’s turn to “accomplished”.
18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter (or one iota), not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Well, I must say that if heaven … passes away, this will not be in my lifetime, or yours either. This is Jesus saying that the law is the Law, and there is nothing that we can do with it. This is the Law of Moses. But are there other biblical laws we need?
Yes, the Law of Christ. What is the Law of Christ? Jesus has inserted rules inside of the Torah (these five books of Moses are the Torah Law: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) for us to understand what Torah really meant to God. And this is how He lived. We don’t need to live the law as it is written (this is Torah Law); we need to understand and live the Law of Christ that is in the New Testament of the Bible.
Because Jesus has lived a life of piety within the Torah Law, we don’t need to do that if we follow what Jesus taught us. If we can do this, then we are living in the Law of Christ and, therefore, can go to heaven.
But that doesn’t mean that the law is vaporized. It means that the law of Moses is augmented by what Jesus is telling us, and this is what he means when he says that heaven and earth will pass away, but the law is God’s law, and it is still firm.
However, Jesus uses the word “accomplished”. In this verse, what does this mean? “Accomplished” means ‘when all is done’, ‘fully comprehensive’, ‘complete’. This means that when “time ends” and “heaven and earth pass away”, and all is “accomplished”, the Law is done. But, again, this will not happen in our lifetimes.
19 Therefore, whoever 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 does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Here, we have “mercy” in God’s word. If we don’t teach what God would like us to teach others, then we are wrong, but if we teach what is right, then we are right with God. If we do the opposite of what Christ wants, then we are called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But we are still in heaven. This is not a bad place to be, and I am happy that I can still be in heaven at all.
Sometimes, my teachings are incorrect to what Jesus taught us, and that is a real problem for me, but I can still go to heaven. However, if I teach anything that I know is wrong, for example, looking at vengeance, or profanity, or any other reason, then I may not go to heaven, because I was a “false teacher” and hurt others with my teaching. So, remember this as you teach.
What do you think of Jesus’s commandments and teachings?
A teaching is an ‘idea’ that we need to understand. For example, if you look at one of Jesus’s teachings, like “having a log in your own eye”, you can understand what this means. No one can have a log in their own eye, it is impossible. Yet, this example of a log in your own eye is a metaphor for what Jesus is really trying to teach us. Even though these metaphors are an exaggeration of our normal life, we can understand the exaggeration of his teaching, and we can understand what it is that Jesus is teaching about what the ‘log’ really means to us. However, these are teachings, and not commandments.
A commandment is a subject that is imperative to God’s law. For example, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor”; this is a commandment from the Ten Commandments that was provided by Moses. But there is also a commandment that Jesus is teaching us. Jesus added only one more commandment: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”. This is a tough commandment, because you need to understand who your neighbor is. With this, the 10 commandments (10 commandments in Exodus 20: 1-17) and Jesus’ teachings (the commandment given by Jesus: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”), we understand what Jesus really means.
But do we really need to understand what Jesus is telling us? Yes, this is why: 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
What is a scribe or a Pharisee to you? A scribe is a person who writes down all of the laws that someone is giving them, and in this case, we will use Moses or Jesus as the author. A Pharisee is a person who is very religious and intelligent with the law. As Jesus was walking around the world, the Pharisees did not like him because He treated others as equals. Why not, you may ask? Well, the Pharisees wanted people to be their subordinates, because they are “more religious” and understood the law better than others. The most important thing about a Pharisee is that the Pharisees did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God. Therefore, a Pharisee is not a believer. Only believers can get to heaven, and here, the scribes and Pharisees are not believers.
But here Jesus is telling us that we need to be better, or from His words, your righteousness exceeds that of a Pharisee, or you cannot get into heaven. Remember, you must always use Jesus’s rules, the laws from what He taught, and you must try to live by them. And, if you teach, you must always use what Jesus is describing within the New Testament. If you always teach what is applicable or relevant within Jesus ‘ law, then all will be good with you. Do not take this at face value, but really understand what this is telling you, and live by it always.
As a conclusion, let us consider:
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.
(Matthew 5: 17-18)
Remember, that Jesus was the bridge from heaven to earth and that He obeyed God’s law perfectly, because He knew what God wanted Him to do, and He understood all the things that He needed to accomplish. He lived a sinless life, completely obedient to God’s commands and His word.
19 Therefore, whoever 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 does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
(Matthew 5:19)
Here, our teaching really does matter, and we need to think about that. Even if you don’t teach, we still are believers, and with this in mind, we need to believe in the right stuff.
20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20)
We don’t want to be a Pharisee, because a Pharisee, or a scribe, are not believers in what Jesus was. If we want to get to heaven, then we need to consider being a believer.
Jesus did come to abolish the law, He came to fulfill it, and He also is trying to help us to understand what God really is looking for in all of us.
[1] All biblical references in the text are taken from the New Revised Standard Version – Updated Edition.
[2] God’s promise, for each of us, is to rescue you from the penalty and punishment of sins we commit. Looking at Isaiah 54:10, God promises, “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” Today, you might write this, this way: “I have not experienced this kind of true love in this world.”