The Law & The Prophets

We're still this morning on the subject of the law and the prophets,
particularly how they have been fulfilled in the Lord Jesus.
And we're going to read together one more time,
the verses 17 and 18 of Matthew chapter 5.
Do not think says Jesus that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear.
Not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen.
Will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished.
Let me begin again this morning by placing the passage in its context.
The context is the charge brought against Jesus by the religious leaders of his day,
that by his teaching and by his ministry, he minimized the law and the prophets.
It sounded to them like he wasn't taking them sufficiently seriously.
And in response to that, Jesus tells us that he has not come to abolish the law or the prophets,
but rather that he has come to fulfill them.
Far from lowering the standards of what God requires of his people under the new covenant,
Jesus says, "I have come to elevate the standard."
Unless your righteousness, he says, "Exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees,
you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."
Without a mind then, what we want to do this morning is look together in a little more detail
as to how it is that Jesus fulfills the law and the prophets.
And what that means for you and me as we gather in this place this morning
for the celebration of Holy Communion, do not think that I have come to abolish the law
or the prophets, I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
Let's begin with the law then and the law you will recall is God's will
as it was revealed to Israel at Mount Sinai.
And as we saw last week at his three components, it has a ceremonial component,
it has a judicial component and it has a moral component.
Each of these is part of the law and each of these Jesus comes to fulfill,
but each in a slightly different and an overlapping way.
And it will help us a lot in understanding and reading the Old Testament
to understand what those distinctions are.
So let me try to walk you through that this morning as quickly as I can.
It gets a little bit complicated here and there, but try to bear with me.
It will bear a lot of freight for you.
And for me, first of all then the ceremonial law you will recall is all the rules
and the rituals that God put in place at Mount Sinai to govern Israel's worship of the Lord.
I put it out last week, God is holy, people are sinful,
in entering into covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai.
God and Israel got married as it were, they began living together.
And under the terms of that covenant God established the ceremonial law
to teach Israel two things, the reality of sin and the need for substitutionary atoldment.
And this was realized then in all the sacrifices they had to bring
in the tabernacle worship, how that was built,
and how that was structured, and indeed in the whole of the physical priesthood.
And every time they approached God, every time they brought a sacrifice,
every time the high priest annually would go into the holy of holies with the blood of the lamb
to sprinkle before the holy place, they were reminded that God is holy.
We are sinful and somebody has to pay the price for our sin.
And we know of course from the New Testament that that's fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ
who is the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world.
And even as in the Old Testament, they would bring sacrifices to God of lambs and other animals
that were without spot or blemish, the first fruits of the flock.
So Jesus, having lived perfectly obediently before God the Father,
enters into the holy place not in the temple, but into very heaven itself,
bringing his own blood and thereby securing an eternal salvation for those who are to be saved.
Here is how the book of Hebrews puts it years later.
It says the law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming, not the realities themselves.
For this reason, it can ever by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year
make perfect those who draw near to worship.
If it could, would they not have stopped being offered?
For the worshippers would have been cleansed once for all
and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins.
For those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins
because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
But then he goes on to say, "But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice
for sins referring out to Jesus, he sat down at the right hand of God
and by one sacrifice he has made perfect for ever those who are being made holy."
Understand the difference.
The Old Testament sacrifices were a foreshadowing of the ministry of Jesus.
They could not really cleanse your heart or make you a different person.
They could only point you in faith to the sacrifice that Jesus came to give.
And when in the fullness of time Jesus came to shed his blood,
that whole sacrificial system was fulfilled,
which is why when he died the veil in the temple rent in two,
which is also why later on the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed
because today by the blood of Jesus we have access to God
and Jesus has accomplished once and for all everything the ceremonial laws stood for.
That's why today when you come to church you don't bring an ox or a goat or a lamb in tow with you.
It's all been done by Jesus.
That doesn't mean the ceremonial law doesn't exist anymore
because every time you and I come to this place or approach God in repentance and in faith,
putting our hope and our trust in Jesus, we are fulfilling what the shadow of the law stood for.
In other words, we bring our ceremonial sacrifices not by sacrificing animals
but by laying hold by faith of the one complete sacrifice of Jesus
whereby we are totally and radically declared righteous before God.
That's why we don't observe the ceremonial law today.
The judicial law referred to, you may remember the laws that God gave to Israel to govern them as a nation
and those laws too had a twofold function, one was to curb evil and the other to promote righteousness
and again those have been fulfilled in Jesus when he died in the cross.
He died to absorb all the consequences of all the lawlessness in the world.
If you ever want to ask yourself the question, how does God view law breaking?
What does God think about people who break the law, particularly his law?
Well, then look at Jesus on the cross and look at the wrath of God that was poured out upon him
and understand that's the judgment that is stored up for everybody who does not repent and turn to Jesus.
Likewise, Jesus came to live in perfect obedience before God the Father
and in living in perfect obedience before God the Father also kept the law.
And so the judicial law is fulfilled in Christ on the one hand because Israel is no longer
a theocratic nation ruled directly by the law of God that has now been transferred to the church
and every time you and I in the church receive God's good government, submit to it, exercise
collectively church discipline, exercise truth and justice and righteousness,
we are fulfilling the law, the judicial law that Jesus Christ has come to accomplish.
And then of course there is the moral law and that refers to God's desire that we should love
him above all and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. All the commandments in the Old Testament
and in the New and all the teaching of the prophets as Jesus are summed up under those two
commandments and again the moral law served to restrain evil and the moral law served to establish
righteousness and again that has all been fulfilled in Jesus because Jesus when he died on the cross
he died as God's judgment on all of our law breaking. And Jesus when he lived his life
he lived in perfect obedience to God and he established perfect righteousness
and through his death and through his resurrection as you and I are joined to him
not only is the law satisfied before God he comes as you know to live in us by the power of
the Holy Spirit and now the law is not something that is merely external it's not just out there
it is written on my heart and because it is written on my heart there is now an inward
ability and inward desire increasingly to love God and to love my neighbor that's why Jesus
says later on unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees you will not
enter the kingdom of heaven why because to them the law was external to them the law was literal
it was picky unish it was all about looking good in the outside but it had no ability to control
what happened to you in the inside Jesus says under the new covenant grace does not mean the law
has become any less than under the old covenant no now the law is written on your heart
and now there is a new life and a new desire inside so that progressively we could learn
to love God and to love our neighbor Jesus says I've come to fulfill the law and that law
means that he transforms our lives very important understand as I pointed out last week
because our tendency is to put law and grace over against each other and our tendency is to say
well Jesus forgives me all my sins and so now it really doesn't matter anymore how I live because
I can just go and repent and and God will forgive me and everything will be okay I was struck not
long ago reading Philippians this book what's so amazing about grace he tells the story of a friend
who came to see him the man had been married for 15 years had three children but had more recently
fallen in love with another woman and though he knew how wrong it was to break his covenantal
vows with his wife and with his children nevertheless he had his heart set on going with this younger
woman and so he came to see Philip as a good friend and asked him the question I know that
what I'm doing is terribly wrong but do you think God will forgive me now put yourself in
Philippiancy shoes you're writing a book about amazing grace and how God loves to forgive and now
here's your friend and he wants to presume upon that grace knowing that he can see and then later on
we forgive it what are you going to answer well yes he says it took him three cups of coffee took him
three cups of coffee before he thought through the answer and ultimately he came up with I think
the only answer that you can give biblically and that is this yes God is gracious and a matter
what it is that we do or what it is that we have done if we truly confess our sins repent
to the court of our being God in Christ will truly forgive because that's what it means to
fulfill the law that having been said however he said this the key issue is repentance
and you have no guarantee that when you deliberately and knowingly step into this place of sin
that God will ever give you the gift of repentance and that you will ever come face to face
with a living God on the basis of the cross of Jesus and as he goes on to tell the story that
indeed is how history is unfolding this man is further away from God now than he has ever been
is more committed to this illegitimate relationship that he has ever been
and there is no sign that there is any true softening of his heart you see grace doesn't mean
that God no longer requires the moral law for you and me grace means that on the one hand God
forgives us our failures but on the other hand he works within our hearts so that we can learn
to keep the law that's why the New Testament is full of admonition and that's why even while we
don't drag oxen to church with us or sheep or goats and while the church is no longer
restricted to the nation of Israel and the kingdom of God is as much invisible as it is visible
keeping the moral law has not changed God still wants us through faith in Jesus
to love God above all and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves so the ceremonial laws go on
the judicial law has been transformed from Israel to the church but the moral law remains
in effect as much as ever and on the day of judgment God is going to judge us by those commandments
have we loved God above all and have we loved her neighbor as herself and have we done so through
faith in Jesus you with me so far all right a lot of ground to cover that's the prophet that's
the law rather than what about the prophets because Jesus says not only I've come to fulfill the law
but I've also come to fulfill the prophets now the prophets you will recall our God's spokesperson
their job was twofold to remind Israel of the curses and the blessings under the law
keep the law you'll be blessed was the deal in Mount Sinai break the law and you will be cursed
all of us are lawbreakers that's why by nature we're all under the curse and then the prophets
also came to give them hope that is to say there was a new day coming when every tear will be wiped
away and all things will be made near and they always pointed forward to the coming of a Messiah
figure who would make this a reality and there again of course Jesus is the fulfillment of everything
the prophets stood for and everything the prophets ever spoke on the one hand Jesus lived a perfect
life of obedience before God he kept the law perfectly and therefore was perfectly eligible
for every blessing that God the Father could pull out upon him not only that but when he died in
the cross he died to absorb the curse of the law and Paul talks about that extensively you may
recall in Galatians chapter 3 when he says cursed quoting from the Old Testament is everybody who
doesn't abide by all the teachings of the law you and I deserve the curse because of our law
breaking and Jesus what he hung on the cross he became a curse and in becoming a curse he has
made it possible for you and me who are lawbreakers to be adopted into God's family and thus receive
the blessings of God that's the incredible goodness of the gospel doesn't matter this morning
wherever you and I have been doesn't matter how bad we have been doesn't matter how badly
we're put together it doesn't matter how deeply we have seen Jesus on the cross bore the curse
for all our sin so that by faith at him not only can our sins be forgiven but we can be presented
before God absolutely righteous and absolutely holy you've often heard me say it before you're
never more righteous before God than when you have repented of your sin and lay hold by faith
who Jesus is and so what I'm saying and what scripture is saying that because of Christ
we're no longer eligible for the curse and all that it represents we're eligible for the
blessing of God God adopts us as his children God gives us his holy spirit he will either
revert all evil as our catechism says or he will turn it to our good God is favorably inclined
towards us now and he has turned his angry face away not only that but Jesus also fulfills
the promise of hope of which the Old Testament prophets spoke hundreds of Old Testament prophecies
speak about the coming of a Messiah who is going to cleanse the land who will remove all sin
who will heal every broken life and every broken heart who'll make the blind to see the lame to walk
and the poor to have good news proclaimed and every promise of renewal where the reaper overtakes
the soul and there will be streams in the desert and all that is broken will be restored
is fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ now interestingly enough
because the Old Testament prophets lived in the Old Testament and saw far into the future
they were not able to distinguish between the first coming of Jesus and the second coming of Jesus
it's like they were looking at the future through binoculars if you've ever done that
and looked at distant objects then you will know the binoculars distort the depth of field
and you can look at two mountain ranges that can be far removed from each other
and they will be like side by side because of the distortion of your depth of field
and the prophets when they looked at the coming of the Messiah through the Holy Spirit
they couldn't understand that he would first come to sacrifice his own life on the cross for
our salvation and that he would come a second time far removed from the first perhaps
when he would come and ultimately make all things near but that's the promise of Scripture
that Jesus fulfills not only the law but every word of the prophets whatever God has promised
has already been fulfilled in Jesus who today sits at the right hand of God the Father
has obtained our salvation is waiting for history to run its course so that he can come again in
glory destroy all wickedness pour out his judgment on all the sons of disobedience
and then take all his own children into his own eternal kingdom and reward them forever
with the joy of his presence before God the Father don't think says Jesus that I have come to
abolish the law on the prophets if you think that you ain't got no clue about who I am
and what I've come to do I've come not to abolish them but to fulfill them
now just very quickly it is helpful to note if you listen carefully to what I've said
that there are three levels of fulfillment to both the law and the prophets there is a past
component there is a present component and there is a future component let me just very quickly
in finishing up this morning try to walk you through that past in the sense that in history
in time there was born a person whom we call Jesus who lived his life in complete obedience before
God the Father died on Calvary's cross and then on the third day was raised 40 days later
ascended into heaven and 50 days later poured out his Holy Spirit that is an historical fact
in which our salvation is anchored Peter later on says we were eyewitnesses of his majesty
we saw it with our eyes and it's very important to understand that because there are a lot of
people today who would say whether or not that historically happened is really irrelevant
it's old symbolism that it represents that's not what scripture teaches Paul says I deliver to you
as the first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the
scripture that he was buried that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures
later on he goes on to say if Christ has not been raised from the dead your faith is in vain
how do you know that you can trust Jesus and how do you know that you can believe that by faith
in him you're going to be presented before a holy God without any wrinkle or blemish or spot
or any such thing because there are eyewitnesses that have recorded the historicity of the death
and the resurrection of Jesus it's not a fable it's not a figment of our imagination it happened
historically and because it happened historically we are building on a solid rock of God's intervention
in history not only that but when we've come to understand the historicity of the sacrifice of
Jesus and the Holy Spirit begins to work in our hearts and we begin to understand God's
demand that we share his holiness and then begin to look at our own lives to see how far short we
have fallen from the glory of God and we learn to repent of our sins and we put our hope not in our
own righteousness but in the one complete sacrifice of Jesus who promised to present us without spot
wrinkle or blemish before the presence of God with rejoicing what happens then is that the
benefits of our union with Jesus get worked out in my daily life and so I receive forgiveness
and if you've ever walked around with a load of guilt and if you've ever sensed the
absolute horror of being a thorough screw up in some significant area of your life you will know what
an incredible relief it is to have that burden rolled off your shoulder and to know that your
debt has been forgiven by Jesus who cried out on the cross "take to last thigh it is finished
paid in full" not only that but as you've often heard me say through union with Christ the power
of the Holy Spirit comes upon you and he now begins to change you from the inside out so there is a
new desire a new ability to love God a new desire a new ability to love your neighbor it's not like
you have to work at it it happens because the Holy Spirit is helping you to put off the old
and to put on the new we know that as sanctification and sanctification is a lifelong process
whereby more and more we become like Jesus that's why the New Testament can give us all these
commandments about living in unity and forgiving each other and and learning how to live right
consciously before God he's not asking us to do something that we cannot do in Christ that's a
reality and then there is a future component because you see no matter how much we experience of
God's grace in the here and now no matter how many times God has forgiven us or sins no matter
how many times he has healed our bodies or changed our character or judged evil in the here and
now the factory mains we all see in a mirror a dim lay and except for Elijah and Enoch
everybody even when they have experienced God's healing power and this day and age they're still
going to die one day and no matter how much he has poured the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your
heart and in my heart there will always be places in us that have yet got to experience the salvation
of God and no matter how many times revival takes place and how many places get healed in the
history of the world there will always be people in this day and age who hate God who are filled
with rebellion and there will continue to be war and famine and pain and chaos and heartache
but the promises scripture is that because Jesus Christ has accomplished his sacrifice on the cross
he has fulfilled the law and he has fulfilled the prophets there's coming a day when he comes
again in glory what he makes all things new and you know that means that pain in your body that
sometimes makes life hell will one day be completely and totally eradicated when God gives us
new bodies and new hearts and new minds and those places of our character that we fight with
that we try so hard to bring under control but they keep reemerging you know there is a day coming
when when Jesus will speak into that and by his power will totally and completely transform that
and the devil and all the enemies of God who mock God today and who try to oppose the coming
of God's kingdom they're all going to be taken thrown into the lake of fire
and we will have a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells and that's not just
the fantasy that's not just a pipe dream that's our reality because Jesus has already accomplished it
and he is sitting down on the right hand of God the Father waiting for history to work its way
out until every enemy should be made a stool for his feet and you see that is what the celebration
of communion is about because when we break the bread and we pour out the wine or the juice
we confess that in history he lived and died and rose again and that in so doing he has laid
the groundwork for our complete salvation when we break the bread and when we pour the juice
we also confess that is Jesus who now sits at the right hand of God the Father
whoever lives to make intercession for us and who is poured out the Holy Spirit is also at work
in your heart and in my heart in the world and in Christian community to realize the benefits
of his salvation that means he's right there he knows every tear we cry he knows every heartache
we experience every struggle we undergo and he is promised to send the comforter the helper
the one who comes alongside us and who will help us to run the race and how many of us
aren't there here this morning who can testify to those moments in our lives when heaven has broken
through you and those moments when we have known the reality of forgiveness known the reality of
his encouragement the reality of his power and when we break the bread and when we pour out the
juice we testify that he's coming again and that whatever there is in our lives or in this
world that has not yet been able to yield to the authority of Jesus and that has not yet experienced
his saving power there is coming a day when every tear will be like today every broken heart will
have been mended every valley will be lifted up every mountain will be brought law and all the
earth will know and see the salvation of our God
[Music]
[Music]
I once was lost but now I see
this race and all my heart to fear and raise my fears freely
I've got just in the praise of here the earth I've lost here
and any dangers don't and I have already come his praise and brought me save us far
and praise will lead me home
and we've been there and those and years bright shining as the sun we know that
this race to sing God's praise and praise we once we come