Deep Dive into Christ the Fulfiller of the Law (Matthew 5:17 –20)

Jesus Christ definitively established His relationship to God’s prior revelation by declaring that He came not to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them. This fulfillment ensures the continuity and enduring authority of the entire Old Testament, affirming that not even the smallest stroke of the Law will pass away until all God’s redemptive purposes are accomplished. Jesus serves as the final interpreter and Lord of the Law, bringing it to its intended goal.

Christ fulfills the Law in every dimension. He is the ultimate prophetic and redemptive-historical culmination of the Old Testament storyline. He fulfills the ceremonial laws (such as sacrifices and rituals) typologically by acting as the reality to which they pointed, and He fulfills the civil or judicial laws by bringing the theocratic polity to its conclusion, thus transforming their application.

However, the moral law, summarized in the Ten Commandments and expressing God's own character, remains perpetually binding on all people as a rule of righteousness. Jesus confirms and intensifies this moral law, interpreting its demands according to its deepest, heart-level intent.

This rigorous standard is emphasized by Jesus’s shocking demand that entrance into the kingdom requires a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. This demand dismantles legalism and works-righteousness, which rely on external, superficial, and self-reliant performance. The necessary "greater" righteousness is, first and foremost, the perfect righteousness of Christ Himself, imputed to believers and counted as theirs by faith. This alone qualifies anyone for the kingdom.

The Law serves three classic uses: the civil use, restraining outward sin; the pedagogical use, driving sinners to Christ by crushing self-righteousness and revealing guilt; and the normative or third use. For those already justified, the Law functions as a rule of gratitude, showing them how to walk in holiness. Christ links greatness in the kingdom with diligently doing and teaching these commandments, thereby guarding against antinomianism—the error that grace makes obedience optional. This obedience is the fruit, not the root, of acceptance with God.

Reformed Theologian GPT: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-XXwzX1gnv-reformed-theologian

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