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Matthew 5:17-20
Jesus has been giving instructions through the blessings of His words in Matthew 5:3-16, and then, in Matthew 5:17-20 makes a very bold yet important declaration. In Matthew 5:17 (NKJV) Jesus opens this passage by saying to His disciples, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.” Please take note here that Jesus is giving these instructions to His disciples/those who believe in Him, His purpose in ministry, and are living their lives by His guidance.
The Law and the Prophets is referring to the first five books of the Old Testament/Law of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), while the Prophets/writings of the prophets is referring to the remainder of the Old Testament. The Law and the Prophets, together, points to a time of/establishment of the fulfillment of them; the Law that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai is the list of requirements that man would need to fulfill in gaining righteousness/favor in an established relationship with God in obedience to the standards in which He (God) set forth as man’s Creator and ultimate authority. The Law did not only set forth the requirements for man in gaining righteousness/God’s favor, but in its longevity shows man’s incapabilities of producing such results because of the sin that is in man; it points to a need for another way to righteousness. The Prophets speak throughout the remainder of the Old Testament of the incapabilities of man in obtaining righteousness and of the need for God to save man from his own insufficiencies. The LORD speaks through the Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 42 in declaration of the coming “Elect One” as is found in Isaiah 42:1 (NKJV), “Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights!” And in Isaiah 42:9, “Behold, the former things have come to pass, And new things I declare; Before they spring forth I tell you of them.” At the baptism of Jesus the heavens opened and a voice was heard stating, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17); this is also recorded in Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22; John 1:32-34. When Jesus died on the cross, the fulfillment of the Law was completed and the, “former things have come to pass, And new things I declare; Before they spring forth I tell you of them” (Isaiah 42:9). Jesus is being and doing the things in which the LORD declared through the Prophet Isaiah. The greatest part of this connection is that Jesus, as God in human form, is not making a blasphemous remark but is reiterating what He Himself has already stated through the Prophet Isaiah and making one of the many connections of the Old Testament/Law to the New Testament/ “new things I declare” as Jesus is declaring new things in His ministry that will be effective once the fulfillment of them has taken place with His death, burial, and resurrection.
Jesus adds in Matthew 5:20, “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” The righteousness Jesus is speaking of is not the righteousness of God in which Jesus will establish once He fulfills the old and brings in the new through His work on the cross, His burial, and His resurrection, but that of the righteousness of man. During the time of Jesus’ physical ministry, the scribes and Pharisees were considered the “most righteous” people as they put their focus on following the Law as best as it could be; but as best as it could be is not keeping all the Law as is the commandment of God (Deuteronomy 6:17-18). The Pharisees made for themselves their own way of following the Law that would show their own righteousness as being better than others, as if being better than others would put them closer to the righteousness of God. Don’t get me wrong, the intentions of the Pharisees were sincere, but they changed the way in which the instructions of God were presented so as to present themselves as righteous when in fact they (or anyone else) was not in the eyes of God. Instead of humbling themselves in the presence of God and acknowledging their sins and a need for God to forgive them (with a pure and sincere heart to God), they chose to create a curved grading scale in which they could perceive themselves to be righteous. God does not grade on a curve. He alone is righteous; He alone is just; and He alone is holy. Psalm 14:1-3 (HCSB) declares, “The fool says in his heart, ‘God does not exist.’ They are corrupt; they do vile deeds. There is no one who does good. The LORD looks down from heaven on the human race to see if there is one who is wise, one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one.” This passage leads us to the need for God – to the need to be saved – to the need for a new way as the old way shows us the sins of man but cannot save us from it. In the Old is a promise for the coming of the New. The New has arrived in the form of God Himself coming to the aid of humankind in His physical form – Jesus, the Savior of the world! (John 3:16-17).
This is the fulfillment of the promise through the Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 42:9 (NKJV) declaring, “Behold, the former things have come to pass, And new things I declare; Before they spring forth I tell you of them.”
This is the unfolding of the whole story of the Bible as all things point to the sinfulness of man and his incapabilities to overcome it, the need for a New way – the need for a Savior, and the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament in the life, ministry, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Many of you may profess that doing works of good deeds is a vital part of one’s righteousness in our salvation in Christ Jesus, and I agree. The difference is that the good deeds and works that we do in our salvation in Christ Jesus must be understood that it is IN CHRIST JESUS and nothing that we can do or accomplish without first humbling ourselves to Him and asking of His forgiveness, because it is through what He has done for us and not what we can do for ourselves that matters. The question is, “Are you doing your good works and deeds for yourself or in respect and submission to the things that God would have you to do for Him?” The sincerity of the heart and living a life in the righteousness of God is only found in the righteousness of the gift that He offers us in our need for a Savior – in our need for a better way. The only righteousness that matters to God is the righteousness that He offers us through His one and only Son Jesus, whom He sent into this world to pay the price for the sins of all mankind so that we, in our faith in Him, may obtain the righteousness of God that saves us from our sins.
Dear LORD,
You created us to strive to be the best that we can be in our own eyes so that we could learn that in our own eyes is not enough to fulfill the righteous requirement of the Law of the Old Testament. You created us to have a mind to distinguish between good and evil so that we would know that there is a better way than that in which we live in this world. You created us with a desire to be set free from sin and be filled with peace in our hearts. You sent us a Savior to make it all possible by letting go of ourselves and putting our trust in Your ways which are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). You have given us a gift of righteousness that we cannot obtain by ourselves, but is a gift that in being a gift can only be accepted or denied. Please open our eyes to the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, and to the fulfilling of the Old in the New – in Christ! In Jesus name I pray, amen.