Text: Matthew 5:17–20
Preacher: Pastor Brian Sauvé
The Man Who Is The Book
I told you some weeks ago, as we began handling Jesus’ sermon on the mount, that one way you can sum up the message of this sermon is to say that Jesus’ disciples must have a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.
This sermon is concerned with teaching us that the Kingdom of God—this Kingdom which has arrived with Jesus—is to be a Kingdom abounding with a righteousness that is wholly of a different kind than the so-called “righteousness” of Israel’s scribes and Pharisees.
Jesus has come to establish a Kingdom wherein true righteousness is embodied, the righteousness the Mosaic Law always intended: A righteousness overflowing with truth, mercy, and justice. Jesus is teaching his disciples what he himself is like and what he is going to make them—and us, his people—to be like.
And one thing Jesus does over and over in this sermon to that end is to clear away a myriad of myths and misunderstandings and distortions concerning the Law, his mission, salvation, and life in his Kingdom.
Jesus will clear away three such myths this morning in Matthew 5:17–20 in his cornerstone statement on the Law. Look there with me, if you would, Matthew 5:17. This is the Word of the Living God:
“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.”
-Matthew 5:17–20
Thus ends the reading of God’s Word; may he write it on our hearts by faith.
Ok, so here’s how we will approach the text together this morning. As we walk through the passage, we’ll see Jesus clear away three myths about the law, salvation, and his own mission, even as he gives us a better understanding of these things.
1. He’ll knock down the myth that he came to rip up the Old Testament and replace it with something better.
2. He’ll knock down the myth that the salvation of sinners happens by lowering the bar of the law’s requirements, and further that his Kingdom will be marked by a watered down, Kindergarten version of the law.
3. He’ll knock down the myth that law-keeping is for Pharisees, that care for the law is for Pharisees, and establish rather that the Pharisees’ problem was that they utterly failed to uphold the law.
Myth #1: Jesus vs. The Old Testament
Let’s take those one at a time, starting in verses 17–18 and the myth that Jesus came to tear up the Old Testament and replace it with something better.
This is one of the most common, and one of the most grievous, misunderstandings of the Scriptures popular out there today—this idea that Jesus came to rip up the Old Testament and replace it with something better, even something fundamentally different.
Have you ever heard some form of that idea? Or maybe you’re thinking to yourself right now, “I kinda sorta thought that’s what he did do, though…”
I can recall many conversations with people through the years to this effect. For example, I remember talking some time ago with a person about some superhero movie or other, in which a main character was a superlady who went around beating people up and saving the day.
And I gave some kind of extraordinarily eloquent display of film criticism, something like, “That’s dumb.” And they were confused, like “Don’t you want positive role models for your daughter?” And my response was basically, “Yes, so we can rule out ladies wearing combat paraphernalia and engaging in fisticuffs and swordplay. Deuteronomy 22:5 says that it is wrong for a woman to wear the gear of war.”
If you look up that verse, it will probably say something in your translation like “A woman shall not wear men’s clothing.” But the sense of the Hebrew words are even more specifically a reference to the gear of men, in context, the gear of war. But their response in this conversation was something like a kind of hand-waving, “Oh, sure, but that’s the Old Testament.”
Is that how we should think? Is the Old Testament law no longer useful or applicable in any way? That idea won’t stand the test of verses 17–18. Look there with me:
“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.”
-Matthew 5:17–18
Jesus did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it in its entirety. And whatever the word “fulfill” means in verse 17, it cannot mean “abolish.” There are genuine disagreements about the finer points of how we are to relate, particularly to the civil laws of Israel—not the 10 commandments and moral law—but those laws that are essentially case laws of the moral law.
But whatever Jesus meant by “fulfill,” he can’t mean abolish. So let’s work through this. What is it that Jesus fulfills, and how does he do so?
The Law & The Prophets
Jesus says that he came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. This is simply one among several ways that the Jewish people would refer to the whole of what we call the “Old Testament.”
And one of the most basic things that Jesus is doing here is making sure his followers understand that he isn’t starting a new thing. He’s not throwing out the promises and expectations and hopes of the prophets. He’s not throwing out the holiness of God expressed in the Law of Moses. No, he is the thing they were about. He is the fulfillment of all of those things.
Jesus is the very law of God, incarnate, down to the smallest jot and tittle, the dot and iota, the tiniest marks in Hebrew writing. That word “incarnate,” just means “in flesh.” He is, as John writes in his Gospel, the very Word of God, made flesh. He is, as the author of Hebrews says, the very speech of God.
Jesus is the very incarnation of the Torah—of its every jot and tittle. He is the enfleshing of it. It is actually right to say in a sense that Jesus is the Old Testament. Every thread in the tapestry of the Law and Prophets converge on him. And as the incarnate Word, he upholds the every requirement of the Law.
He upholds every moral jot and tittle of the Law—he never fails to honor his father and mother. He never murders, lies, cheats, steals, lusts, or desires sinfully.
He upholds every civil application of that moral Law—he never uses false weights and measures in commerce, never failed to deal justly in his work as a builder, or carpenter.
And he upholds every ceremonial element of the Law—he is what all of these pointed to: He is the true Temple of God, the true Lamb of God, the true unmixed holiness of God expressed in laws against mixed fabrics. He is the truly clean one who makes the unclean clean, as prefigured in the food laws dividing clean from unclean animals.
Jesus fulfills all of these various elements of the Law by perfectly incarnating them, by perfectly obeying them, and then even as he bears our sin on the cross, he bears the penalty of the law—death for sinners and the wrath of God for sinners.
And he fulfills them as he is raised from the dead, never to die again. He is upholding all of them right now in his undying person. The law will only cease to exist and cease to be upheld if Jesus does. Even the ceremonial law of the Mosaic Law, which we would actually sin to try to keep doing today (food laws, sacrifice laws, etc.), is being upheld every millisecond by Christ. Not one part of the smallest punctuation mark will fall to the ground.
Jesus did not come to rip up the Mosaic Law and cast it aside, but to uphold it, fulfill it, and enflesh it. He shows us what it looks like to be a law-keeper. And his Kingdom, we will see now—both entrance into it and the way of it—isn’t a Kingdom where the Law and Prophets are cast aside.
Myth #2: Salvation by Lowered Bar
The second myth is that entrance into the Kingdom of God that Christ has proclaimed, and then life within it, will be made possibly by lowering the bar. Look at verse 19,
“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.”
-Matthew 5:19
Now, for much of the rest of the sermon on the mount, Jesus is going to be very straightforwardly teaching the true sense of the Mosaic Law, clearing away false understandings and distortions of it, and demonstrating what it looks like, for example, to obey the command against murder—which will turn out to be a much higher bar than just not killing someone unjustly, but which will also include what we’d call “good and necessary consequences,” like forbidding unjust anger at your brother.
The Apostles straightforwardly follow Jesus’ example in this, continually referencing the Law in their instruction:
Paul says that it requires multiple witnesses to establish a charge against an elder in 1 Timothy 5:19. He’s following Jesus’ example in Matthew 18, where Jesus requires us to bring multiple witnesses when confronting someone in sin before bringing it before the church.
One verse earlier in 1 Timothy 5, Paul references the command of Deuteronomy 25:4 to teach that elders are to be compensated financially for their ministry. He references the tithe and the Levitical system in 1 Corinthians 9 to the same end.
At the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, Peter references the Old Testament requirements for gentile converts and applies it. I mean, over and over, this is how the Apostles and our Lord teach us to reason and establish ethical standards: To go back. To see what God required.
So we aren’t to relax the moral standards of the Law. Think about what that would say! It would say that God’s holiness, expressed in law in the Old Testament, has now shifted. That would be to say that God’s holiness has changed. That is like saying that a circle became a square while remaining a circle—nonsense!
Are there genuinely difficult questions about how we relate to certain aspects of the civil law of Israel? Of course. But let’s make two observations we should all be able to agree on from this text:
1. We aren’t saved by lowered bar.
When we talk about salvation, remember that we are talking about being saved from something. What is that something?
The answer goes in two directions: We are saved from our sin, which is to say, from God. We are sinful—as in, we are lawbreakers. And God is holy, just, and righteous. And so, if God is to continue being holy, just, and righteous, he must bring judgment on sinners.
This is what it means that the Spirit is sent into the world to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Sin, that we are sinners. Righteousness, that God is not. Judgment, that the necessary implication of these things is that judgment must be coming.
We are saved from our sin. But listen, this is so important: Jesus doesn’t save us from our sin by lowering the bar. He doesn’t say, “Well, they couldn’t keep the law, so I’ll just relax the requirements until they can keep the law.” No! Listen, even if we had just one law—I don’t know, maybe something like “Don’t eat from that one tree over there”—we would break it, left to our own devices.
Jesus doesn’t lower the bar, rather, he even raises it by showing us that we actually think the law is easier than it is. We think it’s enough not to commit adultery bodily, but don’t realize that even lust in the privacy of our minds is adultery—and so we are undone.
We are saved by perfect obedience to the Law. That’s the only way. And we cannot perfectly obey the Law. So that obedience must come from outside of ourselves. That is what Jesus came to do: The Torah in skin, come to fulfill the law and give men the gift of an alien righteousness. We, by faith, become the righteousness of God through Christ.
2. Salvation doesn’t free us from moral obligation, but to it, and this is good news.
Jesus says in verse 19 that the way to greatness in his Kingdom is to both “teach” and “do” the law. This is good news, because his law is not bondage to death, but bondage to freedom. This really brings us to the third myth.
Myth #3: Law-keeping is for Pharisees
In verse 20, he says,
“For 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
There is a myth that is popular, and that is that Jesus is rebuking the scribes and Pharisees for caring too much about the Law. That that was their problem: That law-keeping is for Pharisees, and so the solution is antinomian disregard for the Law.
Again, not so. The problem with the Pharisees was that they didn’t obey the Law, but they boasted ostentatiously about how much they did keep the Law. They rebuked Jesus for eating with sinners, not realizing they were the worst sinners of all, and that God requires mercy of his people, upon whom he must have mercy to dwell with.
They would ostentatiously follow the minutia of the Law, neglecting its central weight. In Matthew 23, Jesus will rebuke them for tithing from their stock of mint and dill and cumin, and neglecting mercy, justice, and faithfulness. If they found a coin on the ground, they would quite carefully make sure they put aside a tenth of its value to give—great! But not great if you then go on to hate widows, pervert justice, and crucify the Messiah.
Keeping the Law Like a Christian
So our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. How? That is the question, right? I’ll leave you with two essential applications in answer to that question, two ways to have a righteousness that exceeds the Scribes and Pharisees:
By grace and through faith, look to Jesus.
The ultimate, bottom line, bedrock of our righteousness turns out not to be our own righteousness, but his. We keep the entirety of the Law first by union with the Law incarnate, Jesus Christ.
He is True Vine. We are dependent branches.
He is True Bread. We are hungry for strength to stand.
He is True Man. We are broken images being restored.
Are you a lawbreaker? Look to Jesus. Do you need forgiveness? Come to Jesus in faith. Do you need wisdom, help, cleansing, upholding? Come to Jesus in faith. He has no sin, no lack, no weakness. Not one jot or tittle of the Law falls to the ground, but is upheld by and in him.
Our first and last and highest keeping of the pure and holy Law of God is our union to the Law incarnate. As Paul says in Romans 3:31, we uphold the law by our faith.
Study the Law, study the whole of the Scriptures, with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.
Listen to the promises of God concerning his Word:
“Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.”-Psalm 1:1–2
“How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments!
I have stored up your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you.
Blessed are you, O LORD;
teach me your statutes!With my lips I declare
all the rules of your mouth.
In the way of your testimonies I delight
as much as in all riches.
I will meditate on your precepts
and fix my eyes on your ways.
I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word.”-Psalm 119:9–16
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
-Ezekiel 36:25–27
Do you want to throw off the shackles of sinful lust and pornography, or anxiety and sinful fear, of poisonous envy and pride, of debilitating greed and mammon-worship, or wicked gossip and loose-tongued folly?
Meditate on God’s Word. Hide it in your new heart. Love it. Rejoice in it. Believe it. Sing the Psalms at your dinner table. Read the Bible out loud for the kids before bed. Write a paragraph of Philippians out and put it on your bathroom mirror. Listen to it in your car. Study diligently. There is power in it. Real, unfathomable, divine power.
And throw yourself into simple, faith-filled obedience to it. Don’t be hearers only, but doers. What are you scared of losing? Your sin? Remember, your sin doesn’t love you. Nothing the Lord would take from you in obedience to his Word will do you harm—but only good.