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The Lawful Life (Matthew 5:17–18)

by Doug Van Meter | Human Flourishing: The Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount prescribes the way of human flourishing, human happiness, human blessedness. In vv. 17–19 the Lord Jesus reveals that such a life is lawful. That is, the flourishing life is faithful to the Word of God. Though the Lord Jesus was bringing in the new covenant as the fulfilment of the old covenant nevertheless he was not bringing in a new way of life. In other words, the way of human flourishing has not changed one bit upon his arrival. May we be reminded tonight that the lawful life, the scriptural life is the truly flourishing life.

It is helpful as we begin what will be a months-long exposition to understand something of the structure of the SOM.

The Context

The Lord Jesus came to reverse the curse and to re-establish the kingdom of God. In doing so he was restoring human happiness, human flourishing. His kingdom-centred ministry forms the context of the sermon.

And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

Matthew 4:23–25

Note how healing attending his heralding of the good news (gospel) of the arrival of the kingdom with the incarnational presence of the King. His miracles demonstrated reversal of the curse and restoration to the way things are to be.

This message of reversal, restoration, and renewal is accompanied by the mandate to repent (4:17). Repentance is essential for human flourishing. Obviously. After all, the reason we do not flourish is due to our fallen condition and failure to obey.

The Character

The context sets the stage for the sermon. As the multitudes followed Jesus (because of the benefits of the kingdom: healing of disease, pain, paralysis, epileptic seizures, exorcisms, etc.), he proclaimed the mandate of the kingdom.

Would-be disciples needed to understand that, apart from believing (in) the King, his benefits would prove to be merely transient. One cannot merely partake of the consequences of his kingship but rather one must enter into a covenantal relationship with him. The sermon, in a sense, is a revelation of that covenant. Just as God established his covenant with Israel on a mountain (Sinai), revealing blessings, sanctions, and responsibilities, so King Jesus did on this mountain.

The beatitudes (5:1–12) teach us the way of human flourishing. And since they serve as the introduction to the Sermon on the Mount, we can conclude that the rest of the sermon is grounded in this theme.

Having expounded in the beatitudes the character of his kingdom’s subjects, Jesus then summarised the impact such character would have on the wider society, characterising it as salt and light (vv. 13–16).

Those whom God saves, with whom God initiates his covenantal relationship, are greatly blessed as those who flourish. Biblical flourishing characterises followers of King Jesus (vv. 1–12). The consequence of their flourishing is that they have a fluorescent and flavourful effect on the world (vv. 13–16). Simply, the flourishing life is the fluorescent and flavourful life. When God’s people, as a community, flourish as they should, darkness is displaced and the world is preserved. When Christians faithfully follow the Lord Jesus Christ, others will see the light of Christ, and many will become thirsty for him.

But what kind of lifestyle is expected of those in Christ’s kingdom? Jesus answers this in the rest of the sermon.

The Conduct

Having heard the commencement of the sermon some may ask or think, is this kingdom different from our understanding of God’s kingdom under the old covenant? Is there a radical difference? Jesus answers that question in the remainder of the sermon. These three chapters revealing that the way to human flourishing under the new covenant has not changed from the way of human flourishing under the old covenant. The conduct required of new covenant kingdom citizens is the same as that required of old covenant kingdom citizens.

The way of human flourishing is whole-person devotion to God (5:48). The way of human flourishing is the inner life matching the outer life as mandated by God. The flourishing life is the faithful life. It is the fulfilling life. It is the lawful life.

When it comes to the law of God, Christians can become quite muddled. Throughout church history, the question of the Christian’s relationship to the law of God has been a point of debate, if not outright confusion. Even the Puritans, for all of their erudite faithfulness to God’s word, could not agree on a universally accepted viewpoint.

Sinclair Ferguson has written: “Whenever the meaning of the grace of God in the gospel has been discovered, the question of the place and significance of the law has arisen.” This is to be expected. After all, since the Lord Jesus fulfilled the law for us, and since the Spirit of God moves us to live righteously, the revealed law of God points us to that righteousness. Yet we must be careful. As Ferguson states, “this is a subject of immense importance, and it so from both a theological and a pastoral point of view. God wrong here and we are in danger of mishandling the Scriptures and the gospel.” As John Newton noted, most errors in the Christian life are rooted in erroneous thinking about the law of God: “Ignorance of the nature and design of the law is at the bottom of most religious mistakes.”

To avoid error in this area, Jesus makes clear the priority (v. 17), the perpetuity (v. 18), and the proper practice of God’s law (vv. 19–20ff) in both his life and in the lives of his followers.

The Priority of God’s Law

First, we see, in v. 17, the priority of God’s law.

An Emphatic Continuity

With emphatic force, the Lord Jesus tells his would-be followers that he is no Marcion! That is, God incarnate (revealed in the New Testament) is no different from God as revealed in the Old Testament. The law of God remains as a perfect revelation of the God who is. Therefore with the coming of Jesus the law of God is not minimised. It remains a priority in the life of the Christian. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets” (v. 17).

Jesus says quite emphatically, “Don’t even begin to think that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets. Get that out of your mind once and for all!” After all, the kingdom of God is composed of those who have repented of living their way to living God’s way. And his way is revealed in his law. How we need to heed this exhortation.

The word abolish means “to loosen down” in the sense of disintegrate. Jesus did not come to overthrow, to cast aside, to annul, to abrogate God’s law. Jesus wanted his followers to understand that the flourishing life under the new covenant is as lawful as it was under the old covenant (see for example Psalms 1:1; 119:1).

As will become clearer, Jesus was pointing to the continuity of his covenant with the old covenant. Certainly, there are discontinuities, but the abiding relevance of the Law and the Prophets remains. That is, the Old Testament remains part and parcel of our Bibles!

If we will flourish as followers of Christ—as subjects of God’s kingdom—the Old Testament will cast a continual influence over our lives.

An Emphatic Contrast

Rather than abolishing the law and the Prophets, rather than annulling them and shelving them in the archives of irrelevance, Jesus says, “I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.” What does this mean?

The word translated “fulfil” has many potential meanings: to fill up, to cram (a net), level up (a hollow), or (figuratively) to furnish, to satisfy, execute (an office), finish (a period or task), verify (or coincide with a prediction). It means to accomplish, to complete, to end, to dismantle, to dispose of thoroughly.

In what sense did Christ fulfil the Law and the Prophets? Perhaps he completed them by fulfilling all the prophesies about him. Perhaps he confirmed or established the validity of God’s Law (Romans 3:31). Perhaps he would satisfy all of God’s righteous requirements as revealed in the Law and the Prophets.

These are possible and quite legitimate interpretations. In fact, I concur with these, though I do not think they completely fulfil the meaning. However, some who adopt an interpretation like this go further to suggest that once Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets, they were abrogated. Jesus filled to the full all that the Old Testament revealed, which was then replaced with the New Testament. The bigger testament superseded by a smaller testament. This conclusion misses the point of Jesus’ words, “I have not come to abolish them.” The abrogation of the Law is the very thing the Lord here denied!

So how do we interpret this? Jesus is saying that he came to “fill up to full measure” to restore the Law to its true meaning (in opposition to Pharisaic distortions).

He had come to reveal the lawful and therefore blessed and flourishing life that characterises the kingdom of God. Therefore, we dare not even begin to think that he would abolish that which causes flourishing.

The Perpetuity of God’s Law

Jesus makes clear the abiding, continual relevance of the Old Testament by emphasising its perpetuity: “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” In other words, until the consummation of the new heaven and earth, until the completion of the kingdom of God, the Old Testament remains a crucial part of the Christian life and the Christian church.

Law as used here is a synecdoche, which means that a part represents the whole. Jesus is saying that the Law and the Prophets—the Old Testament—will be of perpetual relevance, perpetual obligation for those in his kingdom. In the context, this is not a “negative” statement but rather a positive declaration that those in the kingdom of God have a perpetual means and opportunity for a flourishing existence!

An “iota” is the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and a “dot” is a small stroke on a Hebrew letter which can completely alter the meaning of a word. Jesus is making the point that the Old Testament in its entirety is relevant to the believer.

The word “accomplished” means “to cause to be (generate)” (i.e. [reflexively] to become in the sense of to come into being). Jesus is making the point that all of Scripture is relevant to subjects of the kingdom until the kingdom has fully come (at the King’s return). And, I would argue, even then glorified Christians will continue to love the law of the Lord and and live it perfectly. Yes, they will be the truly and fully blessed man of Psalm 19. They will be perfectly blameless (Psalm 119:1).

Though ceremonial laws and judicial statutes are not binding for Christians (see, for instance, dietary laws), even these teach us about who God is and what he expects of his kingdom.

Understand that, in Jesus’ day, the Old Testament had been distorted beyond on recognition and to the point of irrelevance. He says here that, with his arrival, the kingdom of God had come and the rules of the King were the same as those who lived under the theocratic kingdom—because the King is the same.

The flourishing life is a lawful life. It is characterised by both disposition (vv. 2–12) and duty (v. 17ff). The flourishing life is a Scriptural life. All of it. Flourishing subjects of the King are those who are “people of the book.” So learn it, live it, love it.

AMEN