Matthew 5:17-19

| Matt 5 |

Christ Came to Fulfill the Law

17 p “Do not think that I have come to abolish q the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but r to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, s until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 t Therefore whoever relaxes u one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least v in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great v in the kingdom of heaven.

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Matt. 5:1–7:29 The Authoritative Message of the Messiah: Kingdom Life for His Disciples. This is the first of five major discourses in Matthew (chs. 5–7; 10; 13; 18–20; 24–25). Speaking to his disciples (5:1), Jesus expounds the reality of discipleship lived in the presence and power of the kingdom of God but within the everyday world. Some interpreters have thought the purpose of this sermon was to describe a moral standard so impossibly high that it is relevant only for a future millennial kingdom. Others have thought its primary purpose was to portray the absoluteness of God's moral perfection and thereby to drive people to despair of their own righteousness, so they will trust in the imputed righteousness of Christ. Both views fail to recognize that these teachings, rightly understood, form a challenging but practical ethic that Jesus expects his followers to live by in this present age. The sermon, commonly called the “Sermon on the Mount,” is probably a summary of a longer message, but the structure is a unified whole. It has similarities to the “Sermon on the Plain” in Luke 6:17–49, but there are also significant differences. The three main theories about their relationship are: (1) they record the same sermon but Matthew and Luke give summaries that report different sections and emphases; (2) they record two different sermons, given on different occasions but repeating much of the same content, as itinerant preachers often do; and (3) either Matthew or Luke, or both, have collected sayings that Jesus gave on different occasions and put them together in a sermon format. View (3) seems to make Matthew's presentation of this as a single historical event untruthful (cf. Matt. 5:1–2 with 7:28–29; 8:1; and Luke 6:17, 20 with Luke 7:1), and evangelical commentators have not generally adopted it. Views (1) and (2) are both possible, and it is difficult to decide between them.

Matt. 5:17–48 The Messianic Kingdom in Relation to the Law. Verses 17–20 explain how Jesus and the kingdom fulfill the law of Moses; this is the key to interpreting the Sermon on the Mount and indeed the whole of Jesus' ministry. Jesus then offers six antitheses (vv. 21–48) that contrast proper and false interpretation and application of the OT.

Matt. 5:17 abolish the Law or the Prophets. The “Law” or “Torah” refers to the first five books of the OT, while the “Prophets” includes the rest of the OT, all of which was held to have been written by prophets (cf. Matt. 13:35, which cites Ps. 78:2; on “Law [and the] Prophets,” cf. Matt. 7:12; 11:13; 22:40; Rom. 3:21). but to fulfill them. Jesus “fulfills” all of the OT in that it all points to him, not only in its specific predictions of a Messiah but also in its sacrificial system, which looked forward to his great sacrifice of himself, in many events in the history of Israel which foreshadowed his life as God's true Son, in the laws which only he perfectly obeyed, and in the Wisdom Literature, which sets forth a behavioral pattern that his life exemplified (cf. Matt. 2:15; 11:13; 12:3–6, 39–41, 42; also Luke 24:27). Jesus' gospel of the kingdom does not replace the OT but rather fulfills it as Jesus' life and ministry, coupled with his interpretation, complete and clarify God's intent and meaning in the entire OT.

Matt. 5:18 until heaven and earth pass away. Jesus confirms the full authority of the OT as Scripture for all time (cf. 2 Tim. 3:15–16), even down to the smallest components of the written text: the iota is the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet (or the yod of the Hb. alphabet) and the dot likely refers to a tiny stroke or a part of a letter used to differentiate between Hebrew letters. pass from the Law. The OT remains an authoritative compendium of divine testimony and teaching, within which some elements (such as sacrifices and other ceremonial laws) predicted or foreshadowed events that would be accomplished in Jesus' ministry (see notes on Gal. 4:10; 5:1) and so are not now models for Christian behavior. Until all is accomplished points to Jesus' fulfillment of specific OT hopes, partly through his earthly life, death, and resurrection, and then more fully after his second coming.

Matt. 5:19 These commandments refers to all the commands in the OT (although many will be applied differently once their purpose has been “fulfilled” in Christ; v. 17). The rabbis recognized a distinction between “light” commandments (such as tithing garden produce) and “weighty” commandments (such as those concerning idolatry, murder, etc.). relaxes one of the least. Jesus demands a commitment to both the least and the greatest commandments yet condemns those who confuse the two (cf. 23:23–24). The entire OT is the expression of God's will but is now to be taught according to Jesus' interpretation of its intent and meaning.