Our Lord ratified or put in place
a new covenant when He shed His blood on Calvary's tree." Ever
since then, there has been a debate among the churches over what
authority the law of Sinai has over the conscience of a believer.
In the days of the apostles, some professed believers went
so far as to say that no person could be saved apart from being
circumcised. This issue was fully denounced
by Paul in the book of Galatians and to such a fierce degree that
Paul counted such an error to be another gospel altogether
and that those who preached it were under a curse. But that
is not the issue we want to address in this message. There are honest
believers on both sides of another issue regarding the law of Sinai. It is this. Is the law expressed
in the Ten Commandments the authoritative and sufficient rule and guide
for Christian living. Seeing that solid believers in
the gospel of Christ are to be found on both sides of this issue,
we must look for an answer to it outside the writings of mere
men. We cannot trust the answer to
this question to creeds and such. We must look for an unassailable
authority on the matter. And we have such an authority,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He spoke simply and clearly,
and in a way that settles the debate and moves us on to something
much more glorious than either side of a mere theological debate
could ever lead us. Now, I suppose that if you're
listening to this broadcast, you claim to be a follower of
the Lord Jesus. If you are His disciple, then no doubt you want
to know what Christ said on this matter and to submit to whatever
it is He has said. If you are not willing to hear
and believe what Christ says, then you are not His follower,
no matter how much church you attend or how actively religious
you are. But if Christ is your Lord, then
you want to know what He has to say. You take delight in all
His Word, and His Word on any matter settles the matter for
you. So what did our Lord say about the Law of Sinai? We find
it in Matthew chapter 5, verses 17 and 18. Do not think that
I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come
to abolish, but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, 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." Now, the first thing to note
about our Lord's attitude towards the law is that He honored it.
And why shouldn't He? It was He who gave the law in
the first place. When Christ honored the law, He was simply
honoring that which He Himself had written with His own finger
1,500 years previous to His words in Matthew chapter 5. So far
as I can determine, on all but two or three occasions, whenever
God has spoken to this world, He has done so in the person
of God the Son. When God walked with Adam in
the Garden of Eden, it was our Lord Jesus, God the Son, making
an appearance. The one who identified himself
to Moses as, I am that I am, was our Lord Jesus, before He
was born as a man. Whenever God spoke to the prophets,
it was the voice of God the Son. That is one reason that John's
gospel begins with, In the beginning was the Word. The Word is none
other than the eternal Son of God, and God has seen fit to
do all of His revealing in that person. The only other occasions
of God speaking has been when God spoke to the Son or about
the Son. So we know that the Lord Jesus
honored the law of Sinai, for it was He who gave it. In Matthew,
He also honors the law by correcting the charge that He had come to
abolish the law. When they heard His word, some
assumed that He was simply setting the law aside. This was especially
true of the religious leaders of the day. Often, the way they
asked Him their questions revealed that they thought He was disputing
Moses. So the Lord says clearly, do
not take what I am saying as an overthrow of the law or the
prophets. I did not come to destroy them.
But we must be certain we understand what He meant by these words,
and in particular, the word that is translated destroy or abolish. The Lord Jesus likely spoke in
Aramaic, so we do not have the exact word that He used in the
New Testament, for the New Testament was written in Greek. But the
Greek word that the Holy Spirit inspired Matthew to use in order
to give the meaning of what our Lord said in Aramaic is a combination
of the Greek words for down and loose. It was most often used
to describe destroying something. The closest phrase in English
would be tear down. This is the same word that Christ's
accusers used at His trial when they claimed that He said He
would destroy the temple. The Word indicates a destruction
by force, a sort of act of violence. The Lord Jesus did not come to
perform any act of violence against the law. Christ further honored
the law by demonstrating that not the least part of it would
pass away unless one of two conditions was met-heaven and earth passing
away or everything in the law being fulfilled. Not the smallest
letter or the least part of a letter, like the dot over an I or the
crossing of a T, would be lost. Christ could not have expressed
His honor for the Law of Sinai any more powerfully than He did
here in Matthew chapter 5. Now, the very fact that you are
listening to this broadcast is proof positive that heaven and
earth have not passed away. The universe exists, so we certainly
cannot appeal for a removal, a legitimate removal of the law,
on the grounds that the heaven and earth have passed away. But
there is one other condition given for the legitimate passing
away of the law, and that is if the law is fulfilled. Under
no circumstances will the law be destroyed, abolished, or torn
down. And we cannot say that the law
has legitimately passed because the universe has come to an end.
But here is what we are taught in the gospel. The law has been
fulfilled. Indeed, the law and the prophets
have been fulfilled. At this point, it would be good
to make sure we understand what our Lord meant by the law. Recall
that He did not say the law. He said the law and the prophets.
In saying the law and the prophets, He encompassed the entirety of
what we call the Old Testament. But if you read what he said
further on in chapter 5 of Matthew and then what he said in chapters
6 and 7, we know that he was specifically referring to the
commandments and regulations given in the Old Testament when
he used the phrase, the law. He even referred twice to the
commandments taken directly out of the Ten Commandments. The
Lord Jesus fulfilled and brought to pass everything in the law
and the prophets. He fulfilled the demand of the
law for righteous living. He fully performed every commandment,
and He performed it in what He thought, what He desired, and
what He did. There is not a single moral or
ethical command of the law of Sinai that did not find perfect
fulfillment in the life of the Lord Jesus. We never keep any
of it. Christ kept all of it. Furthermore,
Christ fulfilled the demand of the law for the punishment of
sin. The law said, Cursed is everyone that does not continue
in every point of the law to do it. Paul says that Christ
became a curse for us as it is written, Cursed is everyone who
is hung on a tree. In his suffering, Christ became
all that it means to be cursed by God. He bore the sins of his
people in the presence of God. He was hung upon a tree to signify
that he had been cursed by God for those sins, and in six hours,
He hung there, God poured out the entirety of His wrath against
the sins that Christ bore, so much so that there was no more
that a just and holy God could demand in payment for sin. Christ fulfilled the curse of
the law. Christ, furthermore, fulfilled
all the types and prophecy of the Old Testament. He is our
ark of safety in the flood of God's wrath. He is the lamb that
Abraham said God would provide-the lamb of God who takes away the
sin of the world. He is our Passover lamb. He is
the temple of God where men meet God. He is our great high priest
who offered himself without spot to God. He is the son of David
whose reign shall never cease, the altogether lovely one of
the Song of Solomon. He is Isaiah's child born and
son given, the branch that arose from Jesse's stump, the suffering
servant of Jehovah. He is our Hosea who loves us
even in our unfaithfulness and buys us back from our own foolishness. He is Micah's breaker, who broke
the gates of death and the grave. and those gates cannot prevail
against the church's escape from death and the grave. Till all
be fulfilled, said the Lord. The word carries the sense to
be made real. Christ took all the demands,
commands, requirements, illustrations, and prophecies of the Old Testament,
and He made them real. Therefore, under the authority
of the law fulfilled, Christ replaced that law with something
new and much better. Read through this entire passage,
and note how often Christ says, But I say unto you. Now, many
would have us think that Christ was only correcting the rabbinical
abuse of the law. But twice, Christ quotes directly
from the law of Sinai, then says, But I say unto you. On Mount
Calvary, Christ wrote a much better law than he wrote on Mount
Sinai. But even more importantly than
this, Christ replaced the righteousness of the law with a much better
righteousness. In verse 20 of Matthew 5, the
Lord says that if our righteousness does not exceed that of the Pharisees
and teachers of the law, we will by no means enter the kingdom
of heaven. Can you do that? Is your conduct
more in keeping with the law than the conduct of the Pharisees?
What did our Lord mean by this righteousness that surpasses
that of the Pharisees. Well, Paul explains it in Romans
chapter 3, verse 21. He wrote, But now a righteousness
from God, apart from the law, has been made known, a righteousness
to which the law and prophets testify. This is nothing more
or less than the righteousness which the law and prophets could
only talk about, but which Christ made real by His life and death. This righteousness surpasses
the righteousness of the Pharisees and teachers of the law in several
ways. First, it is a righteousness
performed by Jesus Christ and has neither hole nor spot in
it. It is a perfect righteousness. Secondly, it is a real righteousness,
not a hypocritical based on righteousness, like that of the scribes and
Pharisees, and we might add, like the righteousness of many
of the religious folk of our day. Thirdly, it is a righteousness
we receive from God, not a righteousness we render to God. Here is one
way you may know whether you have this righteousness that
surpasses the righteousness of the Pharisees and the scribes.
Is your righteousness something you have received from God or
something you are trying to produce in order to render it to God?
In Romans chapter 10, Paul wrote that because the Jews were ignorant
of the righteousness that comes from God, they tried to establish
their own righteousness. But the righteousness we receive
from God far surpasses the righteousness we could ever render to God.
This righteousness is given to all believers without regard
to where they came from or what their lives were like. The Jews
always thought they were on a higher rung of the spiritual ladder
than anyone else. Some Jews who claim to believe
Jesus still thought that something more than faith was called for
from the Gentile. They must first become like Jews,
and then they can believe unto salvation. But in verse 22 of
Romans 3, Paul says that this righteousness from God comes
through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and is to all and upon
all who believe. For there is no difference, that
is, no difference between Jew or Gentile. In other words, the
righteousness The surpassing righteousness of the gospel is
ours apart from the law and is given to every individual through
faith and faith alone. Our Lord Jesus honored, fulfilled,
and replaced the law He gave to Israel through Moses, and
it is our privilege to live in the time of the fulfillment,
that is, the realization of all that the law and the prophets
testify. The question for you is simply this, which righteousness
are you pursuing? A righteousness of your own doing
by obedience to the law, or that righteousness which comes from
God and is received by faith alone? The difference between
those two righteousnesses is the difference between life and
death, justification and condemnation, heaven and hell. May God add
His blessing to this one.