• By Colleen Tinker •
What are we supposed to do with Matthew 5:17,18 when we begin to learn that Jesus fulfilled the law and inaugurated a new covenant? What does it mean that Jesus did not come to “destroy” the law but to “fulfill” it?
Before we address this passage, let’s look at the full paragraph:
“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. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes 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. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:17–20).
An Adventist’s argument
Adventists have honed their interpretations of this passage into a confusing trap. I will share a segment of a letter a former Adventist sent us recently. This excerpt is from an email our friend received from an Adventist family member, and it illustrates this exhausting attempt to mandate the continuation of the Ten Commandments by using Matthew 5:17, 18 out of context:
Today some people will tell you that keeping the commandments was fulfilled by Christ, and obeying God’s law is therefore no longer required. But notice what Jesus Himself had to say about this idea: “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).
You support an erroneous defense and try to deny His plain, simple statement by interpreting the verse to mean the law was not abolished until Jesus came and fulfilled it. You then interpret “fulfill” as “bringing to an end,” “superseding” or some other synonym for “abolishing.” In essence they have Jesus saying, “I did not come to abolish the law, but to abolish it.”
Jesus, on the other hand, said heaven and earth would disappear before the smallest part of the law would do so (Matthew 5:18)…
The truth of the matter is that Jesus was speaking to people who believed in keeping all of the Ten Commandments. He reaffirmed the necessity for all who come to Him to do likewise. In Matthew chapters 5-7 Jesus explained how God intended for the Ten Commandments to be kept. By giving this explanation and exemplifying it in His life, He was fulfilling a prophecy about Himself from Isaiah 42:21: “The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake; he will magnify the law and make it honorable” (King James Version).
The word fulfill in Matthew 5:17 means “fill up,” “make full,” “fill to the full” or “complete.” Jesus came to magnify, or fill completely full, the meaning of God’s law. Jesus’ teaching that a man who lusts after a woman has already committed adultery in his mind represented Jesus’ magnification of all of the Ten Commandments. He explained the full meaning—the spiritual intent—of the commandments. He showed that He expects more than just a legalistic, letter-of-the-law approach; He also expects a submissive, yielded mind focused on love for God and love for our fellow man.
Jesus further clarifies: “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19).
Clearly, “fulfill” does not mean “abolish”!
Familiar confusion
If you have been an Adventist, this argument will likely sound familiar. In fact, I remember having trouble for a few years after leaving Adventism when I would encounter this text, because I had been carefully taught that Jesus clearly established the Ten Commandments as binding for everyone in this passage.
Part of my problem, of course, was that I hadn’t yet seen so clearly what the rest of the New Testament taught about the law. I hadn’t learned that Romans 7 creates a clear argument showing that a fulfilled covenant is not destroyed but is stripped of its authority and power after its terms are fulfilled. I also hadn’t yet learned that Hebrews builds a detailed explanation of how Jesus’ fulfillment of the law makes that law obsolete for Christians.
Furthermore, I hadn’t yet internalized the fact that “the law” to which Jesus referred was not simply the Ten Commandments—the automatic assumption of the Adventist argument. Rather, that law was the entire old covenant, the 613 laws God delivered to Israel through Moses, laws which included the Ten but were also inseparable from them. The “law” was the entire old covenant!
Context and first audience
When Adventists use Matthew 5:17, 18 as a proof-text for law-keeping, they assume the word “law” means the Ten Commandments. They deny that it includes the entire old covenant, the 613 laws of which the Ten were only a small part. In fact, the law was the entire system that included the sacrifices, the rituals, the washings and cleansing, the feasts and sabbaths, the priesthood, and the temple services. The law was a UNIT, and the Ten cannot be extracted from the law.
Adventists, however, do not see that the Ten Commandments have no context outside the entire old covenant. The Ten, in reality, depend upon the sacrificial provisions and the levitical priesthood, because they are part of that particular law God gave Israel.
When Jesus said He did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it, however, He meant it. Paul helps us understand what Jesus meant.
For example, Romans 7 explains the law and its fulfillment as being like a will or testament, a contract (or covenant), and Paul even compares this covenant to marriage. When a person who makes a contract or covenant dies, the other party is released from that covenant’s terms. For example, when a person dies, his will or trust is fulfilled and the assets disbursed. The will is not destroyed, but it is fulfilled. It no longer has any authority because its terms have been completed.
When a husband dies, Paul explains in Romans 7, the wife is then free to marry another. If she marries another while the husband lives, though, she is guilty of adultery. In fact, Paul actually makes the point that trying to be married to Christ and the law at the same time is spiritual adultery.
So, context is necessary. Jesus was speaking pre-cross to Jews. He was not speaking to Christians because there were no Christians yet. Every jot and tittle of the law was still in place. Jesus Himself was still under the law, as Galatians 4:4 mentions when it says He was born of a woman under the law. Jesus had to live as a Jew under the law, but He systematically performed the works of the Messiah to reveal His identity to the people.
For example, the law said anyone who touched a leper or a dead person was unclean and had to go through an elaborate ritual cleansing. Yet Jesus touched the leper—and HEALED him—and Jesus never had to be ritually cleansed. He touched Jairus’s dead daughter and raised her to life. Disease and death could not defile Him.
In fact, Jesus could heal on the Sabbath because He embodied the essence of Sabbath holiness and rest. He brought wholeness to those people He healed on Sabbath. He was was not defiling holy time; rather, He was revealing that in Him were the holiness and rest which the law had demanded the Israelites observe in the shadow of the Sabbath (Col. 2:16, 17). He was revealing His own nature and identity as He healed the sick and raised the dead, and as He did these miracles, He was fulfilling the law as well as the prophets. No mere human could avoid ritual cleansing if he touched death or disease, but Jesus showed He was the One who was both undefiled and undefile-able! The Jews really had no excuse. They knew the the Messiah would make the lame walk, the blind see, and the dead live, and Jesus was publicly doing these things which they knew were the marks of Messiah.
Not just the decalogue
In Matthew 5, Jesus is speaking to a pre-cross Jewish audience. He was telling them they could not dismiss any part of the law as long as it was in authority over them. (And remember, that law included not just the Ten but the food laws, the laws that one couldn’t mix linen and wool in fabric, that one couldn’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk, and so forth). They had to keep every one of those laws, because at that time, the law was still their authority. Jesus hadn’t yet died and risen, fulfilling its shadows.
So Jesus said He did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. When He finally went to the cross and rose from death, He fulfilled all the terms of the law. The law was no longer in authority over Israel because, as the Perfect Israel, Jesus had fulfilled its requirements both for righteousness and for death for human sin.
Because He was a sinless man and because He was almighty God, He carried the imputed sin of humanity to the cross, offered the sufficient sacrifice of His blood, and broke the curse of death because His sacrifice satisfied God’s righteous requirement.
He had inaugurated the New Covenant in His blood. The curtain had torn in the temple, and all the ceremonies representing atonement and sacrifices and offerings for cleansing were OVER. Everyone could approach a Holy God on the basis of the one eternal, sufficient Sacrifice.
The law was fulfilled and obsolete, just as a last will and testament is obsolete after its terms are fulfilled—and just as a marriage contract is obsolete after one party dies.
The Jews to whom Jesus was speaking in Matthew 5 were not to think they could take the law lightly. They had to mind their Scriptures and ceremonies and sacrificial requirements. They had to observe their food laws as long as they were under the law. If they taught the law could be set aside before Jesus fulfilled it and inaugurated the new covenant, they were setting aside the testimony and shadow of the Lord Jesus Himself. When He finally fulfilled it, however, that shadow was no longer useful. They they had HIM and His finished, complete atonement.
Enduring word of God
Finally, the entire Old Covenant law remains part of God’s eternal word. Even though the law’s terms are fulfilled in Jesus and it no longer wields authority over believers as a rule of faith and practice, it is still a historical document. It reveals God’s design and His work through the nation of Israel.
The law remains as the shadow of the whole work of Jesus. Because we have the law in God’s word, we can clearly see that the Lord Jesus is the only One who fulfilled it. We can see that He is who He claimed to be.
Truly Jesus did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it! †
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Great article, thank you!
Very clear and concise exposition of scripture. Context is always key to obtaining a proper understanding. Thanks Colleen!
Thank you, Preach1her and Junior! Studying in context has been one of the most important things I have learned. it’s wonderful to be able to read Scripture and ask how the first audience would have understood the passage before trying to ask, “What does this mean to me?”
Colleen
Hi Colleen! I would like to know if you agree with some points that what I have learned so far, and I also have a couple of questions that I’m hoping you could answer?
Point #1 – When the term “Law and the Prophets” is used (v. 17), it means the Old Testament scriptures as a whole, not just the old covenant. Then Jesus refers to it a second time (v. 18) by just calling it “the Law”, which still refers to the Old Testament scriptures as a whole (Jews still call it the Torah, even though technically it’s the first 5 books, they also use that name sometimes to refer to the whole Old Testament).
Point #2 – Jesus still hasn’t fulfill all of the Law and the Prophets yet. For example, he still needs to come back to reign on Earth, the fall festivals still haven’t been fulfilled, etc. Also, the fact that heaven and earth still haven’t passed away would show that not everything has been fulfilled 😛
Point #3 – In verse 19, Jesus was talking to pre-cross Jews, but I still hold to the fact that the following commandments and explanations that he lays out later are still something that we should be aware of and should use as a guide for our lives. Not in a legalistic way, but as Holy Spirit leads us. The latter part of the verse makes sense as the pre-cross Jews were trying to attain righteousness through the Law
Point #4 – In verse 20, Jesus tells people that their righteousness has to be greater than the Pharisees, the ones who in their minds, are the most observing Jews. So at this point, Jesus is putting everything in the “danger zone”… People hearing this were probably thinking, “Oh my… What must I do then to enter the kingdom of heaven?!”.
Point #5 – Then Jesus lays out what actually meant to keep the commandments in the Law (here is a good example to show that the Law he refers is not just the 10 commandments also, since he uses other commandments that are not part of the 10 on stone). As he was done with his examples, everybody probably though they had no hope. Then he speaks Matt 7:12, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
So putting yourself in the crowd listening to Jesus, here are the questions:
Question #1 – After hearing his sermon on the Mount, what you would as a Jew conclude he must do to enter the kingdom of heaven?
Question #2 – Would you agree with me that Jesus was showing how the Law is much more than the letter and way harder to fulfill if you based it on your own performance?
And now, post-cross:
Question #3 – We receive Jesus perfect righteousness by putting our faith in Him, which saves us from death into eternal life. How should we read the things that Jesus said in Matthew 5-7? I know that it’s not about the 10 commandments, but what IS it about? Should we just ignore what he said?
Thank you in advance for the time, I’m just trying to put what Jesus said before the cross into perspective. Not really trying to ask anything tricky, I promise.
I will first address your points, and then I’ll address your questions.
Point #1: I agree; Law and the Prophets in general refers to the Old Testament, including the Torah and the major, minor, and former prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings).
Point #2: Yes, there are still the eschatological fulfillments that need to occur. And to be sure, the law and the prophets are still THERE—right in God’s eternal word where the prophecies and shadows of the last things remain. The New Testament, however, is clear that the old covenant is now “obsolete”, as Hebrews 8:13 puts it, because Jesus has fulfilled all the shadows of atonement, priesthood, judge, king, and prophet. Nevertheless, the promises of the future are still there.
Point #3: Moral reality is eternal, and for sure the moral requirements (including the attitudinal requirements Jesus added, such as hating being equal to murder, and lust being equal to adultery) transcend the law. I would say that we don’t use the old covenant law specifically, however, as our guide for behavior. We now have the law of Christ which includes all of the moral requirements of the old covenant with much more besides. The new covenant forbids greed, swindling, slander, coarse speech, gluttony—a host of things the law didn’t mention. God did not remove moral requirements when the old covenant became obsolete; He gave us the law of Christ which included all the morality of the old plus more!
Point #4: I suspect that the Jews hearing Jesus say that their righteousness had to surpass that of the Pharisees might have understood that, while the Pharisees were legal sticklers, they were difficult and even untrustworthy people. So they realized that it wasn’t legal exactness that God demanded, it was something far more. And yes—Jesus’ demand that righteousness surpass the Pharisees’ set a standard that those people knew they could not meet.
Point #5: Yes, Jesus used laws that were not included in the 10 when He explained how they were to keep the law. He clearly was going beyond the Decalogue and was calling for integrity as well as right behavior. He was definitely setting a standard that was impossible for any person to attain.
Question #1: The Sermon on the Mount includes chapter 5–7 of Matthew. If I had been in the audience, I believe I would have been convicted by the need to trust God. I would have been convicted that my understanding of righteousness had been limited, and Jesus was reminding me that I couldn’t be righteous, I couldn’t provide for myself, I couldn’t manage life’s surprises, I couldn’t judge another’s motives—I couldn’t be good enough. The impact of these three chapters was not just that I had to have my heart agree with my head—it is that my heart had to give up my right to manage my life. I needed to trust God and give up my control. I needed to trust God and give up my ideas of a “respectable” Jewish life. I needed God.
Question #2: I do not believe that Jesus was showing that the Law is much more than the letter. He was showing that RIGHTEOUSNESS was more than the law. Righteousness involves not doing even those things that are natural to us. Absolutely no one has never lusted nor hated. There is no person who naturally can choose NOT to feel inappropriate feelings because they come unbidden, without premeditation. No one can naturally sacrifice his life or himself to avoid sin. No one can avoid worry when one loses everything and faces poverty or death. Jesus was setting an IMPOSSIBLE standard; righteousness is utterly impossible for any human born of Adam. Yet He was also saying that this impossible standard was available to his hearers—and the access to that standard was through believing and trusting God.
Question #3: Jesus was teaching those pre-cross Jews that God expected more from them than their scribes and Pharisees had taught them. He wanted them—not their behavior. God asked for their total trust. In fact, in 7:13-14, Jesus even said that the gate is small and narrow that leads to life, and few find it. He was clearly saying they needed something other than the law. Jesus also gave them a big insight in 7:21–23 when He said that many would say, in That Day, that they had performed miracles and cast out demons in His name, but God would say to them, “I never knew you; depart from me.”
For God to know a person, that person must trust and believe Him. From our perspective on this side of the cross, we have to be born again. We have to believe the gospel of our salvation and be sealed with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13-14), born of the spirit and transferred out of the domain fo darkness into the kingdom of the Beloved son (Col 1:13).
When we are born again, we literally are given new hearts, as God promised through Jeremiah and Ezekiel. We are given new spirits, and God’s Spirit is placed in us. We pass from death to life. Our spirits come to life, and we are no longer in Adam nor in the domain of darkness. We are now spiritually alive.
When we are spiritually alive, when our entire life is entrusted to God and to His will and His promises, we will trust His Son. That new birth, that new life gives us entirely new desires, potential, position, and power. We are literally the recipients of Jesus’ own personal righteousness, and He also begins the work of teaching us to trust Him with our still-mortal flesh. These words of Jesus are not about the law; they are about the way a spiritually alive person will learn to live, not by will power but by conviction and trust in the Lord who is literally indwelling us.
Born again people do obey—but they obey the Lord Jesus, not the Law. 2 Corinthians 3 explains this amazing transformation.
Jesus was telling the Jews that their commonly understood ideas of righteousness were insufficient. They needed something that they could not do. They needed to trust God, and God would be their Provider, Standard, and Provision. He would be their Father—a title the Jews did not generally use. (See the prayer in 6:8–13.) “Father”, however, is the name of God which Jesus introduced to His followers. His Father has become our Father through Jesus’ opening a new way to Him and through our belief and subsequent adoption and new birth.
We look back at the Sermon on the Mount and see the shape of a believing life. We are known by God; we trust Him, and He keeps His promises to us. Everything we have, everything we are, is from Him. None of our growth or sanctification is from our initiative. Our Father perfects and teaches and loves us. He gives us the righteousness which surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees.
What Jesus described is our inheritance when we trust God and His provision of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection for the payment of our sin and our transfer to eternal life!
Thank you Colleen for your time to write this great reply! 😉
I’ll read carefully and post here if I have any follow up question.
God bless you guys and your ministry 😀
Good article. It is with some chagrin that I must admit how similar the SDA arguments are to those used in Reformed theology. The main problem I see with the Reformed understanding of Mt 5:17–19 is that when Jesus said he did not come to abolish the Law, he meant all of it, not just some of it. But no Christians are teaching that we need to keep the sacrificial laws, so there must be some chink in the argument here. The attempt to make “the Law and the Prophets” refer only to the Decalogue is unsuccessful. It doesn’t stand. Moreover, it is important to see as Jesus continues his sermon that he is doing more than explaining the true meaning of the law. He is in some places expanding the law, and in others replacing it (see v. 31, 32). Here’s a good talk by Doug Moo that addresses this: https://crosstocrown.org/video/the-relation-of-the-old-and-new-covenants-part-1/.
Thank you, Fuller. You make a good point about Jesus not just explaining the true meaning of the law but rather both expanding and replacing it. Jesus’ fulfillment of the law ushered in something completely NEW.