LAST time when we considered these verses before us, we noted that they were a kind of introduction and summary of the Sermon on the Mount which Jesus was going to preach in detail. We also saw that ‘righteousness’ summed up the revelation Jesus is giving in the Sermon. We then considered what Jesus was meaning by the Law and the prophets, and we saw that he was referring to the whole Bible, and indicating that the whole Bible was the inspired word of God, and could not be tampered with or altered or abolished. We now go on to consider what Jesus means by saying he came to fulfil the Law and the Prophets.

Jesus assures the Jews of his time and us and all who listen to this sermon that he did not come to abolish the Bible in any way, but he came to fulfil it in every part. By this Jesus indicates that the Law and the Prophets must be fulfilled in every part if salvation is to be real and lasting. God can’t forgive or save, accept or bless, unless the Law and the Prophets is fulfilled in its entirety. God would violate his holy nature and character if he did in any way not act to the absolute standard and requirement of his Law. It is for this reason that these words of Jesus are so precious and so deeply significant.

If we have grown in spiritual understanding and wisdom, one thing we learn straight away, and that is the fact that we of ourselves can’t fulfil the whole of the Law and the Prophets. We hopelessly fall short of it, and thus the pronouncement of the Law that the penalty for sin is death can not fail to be applied to us. Only if the whole Law and the Prophets is fulfilled can we be forgiven and saved from death.

Hear again the startling revelation Jesus gives of the purpose of his coming into the world. He tells us he came to fulfil the Law and the Prophets. This means not only that in his coming and in his person he fulfilled all the prophecies concerning himself that we find in the Old Testament, and that he takes the whole Law, and in his person and life, and in his death, he fulfils the whole of the Law. The fact that he was already sinless and as God had no need to be subject to the Law of God, shows that this fulfilling of the Law was not on his own account but for ours. He came to answer the need we have due to our sin. This is why, as Paul tells us in the beginning of his Galatian letter, he was made under the Law. He came as the second Adam, the second representative of the human race, and in our place and for us, he fulfilled the whole of the Law.

How does Jesus do this? In the first place, and in such an amazing way, Jesus fulfils all the demands of the Law for his people. So Jesus lived a life which perfectly conformed to the Law of God. This was complete not only outwardly in his action, but in his inner being, in his thoughts, feelings and will. In no way did Jesus offend the holy standards of God when he lived on this earth as a man. In this way he fulfilled the whole of the Law perfectly for all his believing people.

But this was not all. The wonderful thing is that Jesus came to satisfy the Law of God with regard to our sins. He came to take upon himself what our sins deserve. So he came to suffer death, hell, and separation from his Father. This is the meaning of the cross on which he died. Peter tells us he bore our sins in his body on the cross. Isaiah prophesied that Jesus, the suffering Servant of God, would be wounded for our transgressions, and God would lay our sins upon him and visit the punishment for them on Jesus. In this way Jesus fulfilled the whole of the Law for us, and because he did, we who receive him by faith, know the complete cancelling of our debt to God on account of our sins, because Jesus has paid the redemption price on our account when he suffered on the cross.

In this way Jesus fulfilled all the ceremonial Law of the Old Testament. All the sacrifices point to his one all-sufficient and perfect sacrifice. The more we understand of these sacrifices in the Old Testament, and all that goes with them, the more we will be able to understand the wonder and completeness of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross. Because Jesus fulfilled the Law in his death, all the sacrifices of the Old Testament now have become obsolete. This does not mean that the Law has been abolished, but that Christ has fulfilled the Law in every part.

Sacrifice in any way now in religion is needless, because Christ has completed sacrifices once and for all. Nor is there any need for any priestly work on earth which presents the virtue of sacrifice to God for the people, and this is because Jesus is heaven exercising this priestly work on our behalf, and his work is perfect and needs no help or addition.

The fulfilling of the Law which Jesus came to perform does not end here. The life and sacrifice of Jesus is the foundation of it, but he came to fulfil the Law and the prophets in us by making us righteous as well as providing that we may be accounted righteous in the sight of God.

When Jesus died, those who have been brought to faith in Jesus, and will be brought to faith, were in him, and united to him. This is what Paul is revealing to us in Romans 6. So the sinful person we were as born into this world died in Jesus, and was ended. Then because we were in Christ in his death, we remained in him in his resurrection, and so a new person was raised in Christ and with Christ. This new person in this earthly life still resides and is expressed in this earthly sinful body and flesh, but the new person is created to be like God in righteousness and true holiness. Christ has fulfilled the Law in us by making us righteous in our new self and making us a totally new creation, which being holy as God is holy, the Holy Spirit can come dwell within. When we sin in this earthly life, it is not us that sin but sin that dwells in us (Romans 7). Because of this we long for the day that we shall be delivered from this earthly body, and given our new resurrection body through Christ, which will be holy as our new self is holy.