JESUS COMPLETES THE STORY - Sarah Cooper

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil.

Jesus has just finished preaching to his disciples

The content of that preaching was the Beatitudes

He has just turned the world upside down

Everything that was considered to be of value in the popular world was dismissed as worthless

And what is more, the meek would be the ones to inherit the earth.

So what about the law?

Was he about to reverse that too?

His answer to their unspoken question was

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil.

Jesus says he came to fulfil “the Law and the Prophets,” in other words, the promise of most of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament. The scriptures with which he and his listeners were very familiar.

The scriptures which contained the law and the prophecies which contained the promise of salvation.

He’s not talking about simple obedience to the statutes. For Jesus, following the law’s 613 commands matters, but to truly fulfil it was something more.

So what is Jesus really saying here? What does it mean to fulfil the Law and the Prophets?

First, Jesus completes the story. He has brought to perfection that to which the law and the prophets have been pointing…(Ian Boxall) the arc of the whole story of creation and salvation from the very beginning finds its completion in Christ

The Law and the Prophets describe a time when God would start healing all humanity and creation through one key person (and a group of people). Matthew believes Jesus is fulfilling the Law and Prophets by becoming that key person.

Second, this passage is part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, where he is teaching from the Hebrew Bible. Jesus is giving instructions for a specific righteousness—a way of right relating with God and neighbour—that the Law and the Prophets have long described.

The relationship between God and his people has fractures all through the long arc of the story. We heard just one such example in the  passage from Kings…. the loyal prophet who is sent to persuade the wayward monarch and people to return to “the Lord”.

Jesus is exactly like the anointed one spoken about by the prophets, going through the same kinds of tests that key Hebrew Bible characters from the nation of Israel faced (but did not pass).

As a new Israelite leader, Jesus stays true to God through every test, fulfilling the Law and the Prophets at every turn (Matt. 4). And, interestingly, it’s not only about Jesus. By choosing and guiding an expanding group of people who choose to follow him, Jesus is fulfilling another part of the story that often gets missed.

Let’s go back to the  Sermon on the Mount.

He begins with his vision for human life in the Kingdom of the heavens (Matt. 5:1-12). It’s an upside-down kingdom where the humiliated and afflicted find honour, never to experience poor treatment again.

It’s a world where the greatest power is love, not wealth or might. It’s a kingdom where the ways of God and the ways of humankind become united as one.

Life in God’s Kingdom, Jesus says, is about completing (or fulfilling) one's love for others. By loving God and neighbour, we ordinary people join God in the work of establishing his Kingdom. Through our love, people living in Jesus’ way welcome all others to enter his world, where Heaven and Earth meet.

For example, the command “Thou shalt not murder” seems achievable on the surface—just don’t murder people. But Jesus suggests this is not the law’s ultimate goal. Yes, the point was to end human violence, but even more it was to guide people into the attitudes and ways of loving one another.

When we avoid murder, we partly fill the law. When we love, we fulfil it.

New Testament scholar R.T. France says Jesus’ teachings deal “not so much with the negative goal of avoidance of the wrong but focuses more on the positive goal of discovering and following what is really the will of God for his people.”

From the first garden in Eden to the time of the prophets and beyond, God was not only building anticipation for Jesus’ arrival but also working to form humanity into people who want to live and love like Christ. He is God’s promised one who brings new healing to all humanity and creation

To learn and practice Jesus’ way of love is to trust that God is making good on his long-established promises to reunite Heaven and Earth. It’s a life that fulfils everything God is doing through the Law and the Prophets.

Jesus completes the story.