Did Jesus Christ Come to Fulfill the Old Testament?
Matthew 5:17-18 is within a larger segment of Scripture called The Sermon on the Mount (found in Matthew 5-7 and Luke 6:17-49). The Sermon on the Mount took place after Christ named the 12 disciples and during the time in His ministry when many were seeking to know Him. The event occurred on a level place on a mountain. Here a great (mentioned in Luke) multitude of followers gathered who were not well familiar with Christ.
The Lord, after dealing with the Beatitudes in verses 3-12 and the responsibility of believers to be salt and light (verses 13-16), comes to a section that ends with the central statement of the Sermon on the Mount: “For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).
In verse 17, Jesus states, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” The words “think not” imply that some were thinking that Christ was destroying the law because He was not keeping the Pharisaic customs (“washings, special tithes, [and] extreme Sabbath observance” (John MacArthur, Matthew 1-7: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, p. 253). Others were possibly thinking back to Jeremiah 31:31, believing that the Messiah would topple the Mosaic Law and start over. The word nomizw (“think”) is used in a way that demonstrates Christ is telling the listener to not think at all about supposed preconceived notions about Himself. By Christ telling us not to think wrongly, He is demonstrating the important reality to make sure that ones own view of Christ is based on the facts as found in Scripture.
After the Lord tells them to “think not,” He tells them that He did not come to destroy or annul the Law or the Prophets. When the Lord says “I am come,” He is making a statement regarding the purpose why He is here. According to Leon Morris, this statement of purpose is unusual, for He was referring to Himself and He was using the statement to refer to a certain task (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew, p. 107).
The next word helps explain the reason for His coming, kataluw. He did not come to annul the Law or the Prophets. The word kataluw refers to tearing something down—like a building. It is interesting that the words “Law” (nomon) and “Prophets” (προφήτης) are used with definite articles. This means that the Lord is referring not to the tradition of the Pharisees, but to the very Old Testament of God. The “Law” referred to the first five books of the OT, called the Pentateuch, and the “Prophets” is a broad term referring to the rest of the Old Testament. John Broadus states, “All Jews of our Lord’s time would understand ‘the Scriptures’ or ‘the law and the prophets’ as meaning a well known and well defined collection of sacred books, the same as our Old Testament” (John Broadus, Commentary on Matthew, p. 99). The Lord made it clear to the entire multitude that His purpose was not to set aside the Old Testament.
Since the Lord states that He did not come to destroy the Old Testament, He then states why He has come: “to fulfill” (πληρόω̄). There is some debate regarding to what extent Christ did “fulfill” the Old Testament. The word itself refers to “making full,” or “complete.” Because it is in the infinitive mood, it refers to the reason of His coming. One way to interpret the word “fulfill” is that Christ came to keep what the Law mandated. Another view (proposed by John Broadus) is that Christ was referring to what He says next in the Sermon on the Mount—His added clarification to what was said (verses 21 through the end of chapter 5). In addition, a third way to interpret would be that Christ is referring to Himself as being the completion of the moral, ceremonial, and judicial law. Although each one of the interpretations has truth in it, it appears the first interpretation regarding obedience to the Law has the least support because the word “‘fulfill’ does not mean the same as ‘keep’” (Morris, p. 108). “Fulfill” is more than just keeping what the law says. Since the word “fulfill” also refers to “Prophets,” it seems best to say that the third interpretation regarding Christ being the One who completes everything has the most support. This of course is central to the Gospel: Christ, who fulfilled the law of God, became to be the perfect sacrifice to God to take away the penalty for our sins (1 Cor. 15:3-4).
The next post will speak about the continued work of Christ, and the fulfillment of all Scripture.
Pastor Steve
Psalm 119:89
