DAY 2

“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and so teaches others, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:17-20

Imagine you're driving in Houston, heading to a familiar destination. It's rush hour, so you plug in the address and trust the GPS to get you there in the quickest time possible. Because you’ve been there before, you have an idea where the GPS should lead you. But suddenly, your GPS tells you to turn left when you’re pretty sure you should go right. Then, you end up on a road that doesn’t make any sense. It’s frustrating and confusing. What if the reason it’s not working is that you didn’t see the entire map? You didn’t have the complete view of the route.

Our first passage today talks about the Old Testament Law and what it tells us about how good (the biblical term is righteous) we must be to get into Heaven (spoiler alert: we can never be good enough.) The good news:  It has already been taken care of for us.

1. Jesus Fulfills the Law

During His public ministry, Jesus gained fame for His countercultural teachings and the miracles He performed. As a result, those who opposed Him began to claim that He was teaching people to ignore the Law that God gave to Israel in the first five books of the Old Testament. Jesus was eventually accused of blasphemy by the Jewish religious leaders for telling people He was the Son of God (Matthew 26:63-65; John 8:58-59).

Jesus responded that He had not come to abolish, or do away with, the Law; He came to fulfill it. To fulfill means to “bring to completion.”

Read Hebrews 8:6-13:
“But God found fault with the people and said: ‘The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, “Know the Lord,” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.’ By calling this covenant “new,” He has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.”

The sacrificial system established by God in the Old Testament required the killing of certain animals to temporarily atone for human sin. Imagine having to find and kill the appropriate animal every time you told a little white lie or gossiped or fought with a friend. Sounds exhausting, doesn’t it? Thankfully, Jesus took our sin upon Himself, once and for all, on the cross. He paid the penalty we deserve. Because the Law required a perfect, sinless, and righteous life, only Jesus was able to do this for us.

The word “truly” is used 31 times in Matthew’s gospel to indicate that important words are about to follow. In this case, Jesus is saying that “not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all things are accomplished.” His point is that He is the fulfillment of even the smallest details of the Old Testament. There is not a single stroke of a letter that He does not fulfill.

Two things are striking in these verses. The first is that Jesus fulfills everything that was prophesied in the Old Testament  Second, the fact that God sent Jesus to pay the price for our sin should leave us in awe. It’s easy to gloss over this if you’ve been walking with Jesus for a while. But it is something that should take our breath away. The Savior of the universe knows your name. He sees you. He loves you. He has a plan for you. And, He died for you. Don’t lose sight of that.

2. We will never be good enough. But Jesus is.
The point in verse 19 is that obedience matters, and disobedience carries consequences. Scripture is filled with reminders of why obedience is important (John 14:15; John 15:10, 1 John 2:3; 1 John 3:24; 1 John 5:3). However, obedience is not what saves you.  

Jesus was the fulfillment of the Law, but to fulfill it, He had to die. At the time He was preaching these words, that had not yet happened, so the Law was still in effect. Jesus is reminding those listening to Him not to ignore the commands of the Law or teach others to do so. However, He does not say that keeping the commandments is required to enter Heaven. All throughout the New Testament, Jesus is clear that salvation comes by faith alone, through grace alone, and not by good behavior (see Ephesians 2:8-9).

In verse 20 Jesus says that unless their “righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees” (the religious leaders), they “will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven.” To fully understand what Jesus is saying, we need to understand the meaning of the word “righteousness” and review who the scribes and Pharisees were.

Righteousness means to be morally right or just, in accordance with God’s will and God’s perfection.

The Scribes were essentially professional experts in the Old Testament. They began their training as children and continued studying until they were 40 years old. They were highly respected  because of their knowledge.

The Pharisees represented a movement in Judaism that focused on the meticulous observance of the Law. In fact, they were so focused on keeping the Law that they added roughly 248 regulations and 365 prohibitions to it!

In that day, the Scribes and the Pharisees were regarded by the people as the most righteous people they knew. Yet, Jesus said that if they can’t be more righteous than the most righteous people they know, they’ll be out of luck when it comes to entering Heaven!

So, how good is good enough? 100%. Perfection. It’s beyond what you or I could ever achieve. While that sounds like pretty bad news, Romans 3:23-24 tells us “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

You can never be good enough, but rest in the truth that you don’t need to be because Jesus was – then, and still is, now.

Think back to the GPS. When it guides us down an unexpected path, it can be frustrating and confusing if we only focus on the turn-by-turn directions. But, once you pull up the full map and see the entire route, you realize the GPS was doing its job all along.  It was never wrong; you just didn’t have the whole picture.

The Law we read about today is similar. The Law wasn’t broken; it was good and meant to guide people in the right direction, much like the turn-by-turn directions on a GPS. Over time, though, people began to treat it as just a series of rules to follow. The Scribes and Pharisees focused on external behavior (i.e., adding to the Law to ensure they did not break a single command), but they missed the heart attitude behind the Law. Remember: on our own no one is good enough; that is why Jesus came.