Mat 5:17 * “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”*
**The law and the prophets **is a short hand expression of the entire Old Testament. Jesus completely fulfilled the Mosiac Law and OT prophecies.
Luke 24:44-47 * He said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that
everything written about me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. And he said to them, "Thus it is written that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.*
The Greek word translated* fulfil* means “to make complete”. The New Covenant thus includes and concludes the Old Covenant; it both perfects it and transforms it. While sacrificial laws of the OT expired with the sacrifice of Jesus, the moral Law (Ten Commandments, etc) was retained AND refined.
Mat 5:21, 27, 43
“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, 'You shall not . . . But I say to you . . .”
Mat 19:17-19 *He answered him, “Why do you ask me about the good?
There is only One who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He asked him, “Which ones?” And Jesus replied, " ‘You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and your mother’; and ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’" *
Christ’s Torah has fulfilled the OT Torah. The power of God’s Spirit is necessary if we are to obey the Law and grow in holiness.
Rom 8:2-4 *For the **law of the spirit of life in Christ *
Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and death. For what the law, weakened by the flesh, was powerless to do, this God has done: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for the sake of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous decree of the law might be fulfilled in us, who live not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.
So Torah is still in effect, because all this hasn’t happened yet.
Mat 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till ALL be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
And here is where you are stuck. You’ve been given proof that Jesus has fulfilled ALL of the Old Testament. Jesus is the shift from the Old Testament Torah to His Torah. The fulfilled Torah.
Jesus is inaugurating a new and climactic phase in salvation hstory. He introduces the New Covenant standard of righteousness that surpasses the real, but unsufficient, righteousness of the Old Conenant. If you are not convinced up to this point Mat 5:20 should
*I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. *
Don’t forget that Jesus invited the scribes and Pharisees to recognize that the Mosaic Law was God’s temporary arrangement for the Jewish nation of Israel.
Mat 19:7-8
They (Pharisees)
said to him, “Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss (her)?” He said to them, "Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
The Mosaic Law was designed to establish and maintain Jewish Israel as a nation-state in Cannan. It was a means of drawing them closer to God by separating them from the sins of the Gentiles. Christ’s New Covenant, the Law written on their hearts, perfects the moral laws of the Old Covenant and brings the OT Covenant’s temporary and national phase to a close.
Jesus implements a new level of covenant “
righteousness” that stretches beyond the boundaries of the Old Law in two directions.
(1) Outwardly, the New Covenant is wider than the one nation of Israel; and emcompasses all nations in an international kingdom in His Church. All nations can now share in God’s blessing and become his covenant people.
(2) Inwardly, the New Covenant penetrates to the heart; It reaches within to govern personal and provate life by a maximum standard of holiness.
Please read the rest of Matthew 5, and you will see Jesus speak of the law of the heart. And remember he is speaking to Jews. There is no seperate standard between Jew and Gentile. Also read chapters 6 and 7.
Peace,
Ryan
