“Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets,
I came not to destroy, but to fulfil.
This dramatic statement can be viewed in a number of ways (although the list is by no means exhaustive).
As an emphatic statement, stressed by a denying of the negative, that His coming into the world was in order in Himself to totally fulfil all that was pointed to by both the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 1:23; Matthew 2:15; Matthew 2:23; Matthew 4:15; Matthew 8:17; Matthew 12:17-21). Thus by it Jesus is seen as saying precisely what Matthew is declaring in his Gospel, that He has come as the fulfilment of all that the Scriptures have looked forward to (see Matthew 10:34-36; Matthew 11:3-5; Matthew 12:40; Matthew 16:21; Matthew 20:28; Matthew 21:42; Matthew 22:42-45; Matthew 26:24; Matthew 26:54; Matthew 26:56; and for example Luke 10:23-24; Luke 22:37; Luke 24:27; John 5:45-46). His is a building up not a pulling down.
As a statement that He has come to fulfil all that was demanded by the Law and the Prophets in order to prepare Himself to be the perfect sacrifice without blemish (1 Peter 1:19), and/or in order that He might be the fully ‘innocent' One Who was fit to die on behalf of the guilty (Matthew 20:28; Matthew 26:28; see Isaiah 53:9 and compare 1 Peter 2:22.)
As a general statement of His attitude to the Law and the Prophets, prior to considering it in some detail in what follows, so that no one might be in any doubt of His support for and commitment to, the Law and the Prophets. The first part of His statement being thus seen as a negative which is intended to underline the second part. (‘Far from coming to destroy the Law, He is saying, I have come to fulfil it').
As an introductory statement to what is to follow, as He moves on to explain what being a light to the world will involve, the contrast not suggesting that anyone has said otherwise, but simply being in order to doubly emphasise that His purpose in coming was for the purpose of bringing about the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets in the way in which He will now speak of them, and not to set them aside, even though at first glance it might seem that He is doing otherwise.
As a general warning, which was not specifically connected with what has gone before, that they were not to take what He was about to say in Matthew 5:21 onwards as an attempt to destroy the Law, but rather as a means of seeking to achieve its fulfilment
As indicating that by describing His disciples as the light of the world He is not suggesting for one moment that the Law and the Prophets are not also be seen as the light of the world as believed by many Jews (consider Psalms 19:8; Psalms 43:3; Psalms 119:105; Psalms 119:130; Proverbs 6:23; Isaiah 8:20), and assuring them and others that it is actually by following the light of the Law in the light of their new experience of God that they will themselves be the light of the world. Thus Jesus may be seen as assuring them that He is not by His previous description of His disciples annulling the Law. Indeed, as He will go on to point out, He wants all to know that He requires them to treat the Law so seriously that they embrace every last bit of it.
As combating suggestions that had arisen, or might arise, that He was seeking to destroy the Law of Moses and the prophetic interpretations of it. For in attacking the oral Law built up by the Scribes around the Law of Moses He would certainly be seen by some as doing precisely that very thing, because of the sacredness in which they held their traditions (Matthew 15:2-3). Thus Jesus may here be seen as wanting His disciples, and all who heard Him, to recognise that in spite of His attitude towards ‘the tradition of the elders', which He considered did actually make void the Law (Mark 7:13), He was not Himself here seeking to destroy the Law of Moses itself but to honour it. Indeed that He had come to ‘fill it full' by bringing out its full meaning.
We do not necessarily have to select just one of the above. Jesus might well have been embracing a number of them in His mind in an overall, majestic statement that He was here to fulfil the Scriptures in every detail and from every angle (as He then emphasises), so as to make them flower in every aspect of what they declare, both instruction-wise, and prophetically. For we must not let the term ‘Law' deceive us. It covered the whole of the Pentateuch, not just the regulations but its whole future expectations. The Pentateuch depicts the establishment of the Kingly Rule of God over His people (Exodus 19:6; Exodus 20:1-18) and is also written with the expectancy that the Kingly Rule of God will be permanently established in the promised land. That was the whole purpose of the deliverance from Egypt, and why Moses climbed the mountain so that he could survey the land of His Kingly Rule before he died (Deuteronomy 34). The Law was expecting the seed of the woman to bruise the Serpent's head (Genesis 3:15 compare Romans 16:20). It was expecting Shiloh to come to Whom would be the gathering of the people (Genesis 49:10). It was expecting a star out of Jacob (Numbers 24:17). It was anticipating a King Who ruled according to God's Law (Deuteronomy 17:18-20). It was anticipating another prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15). All that is why Matthew has pointed out in Matthew 2:15 that The Exodus deliverance will go forward in Jesus.
For as we have seen and are to see, there is no doubt that Jesus did see the Law and the Prophets as being fulfilled in Himself, that He did see Himself as coming to give His life a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28) and as a sacrifice for sin (Matthew 26:28), that He certainly never suggested that the Law and the Prophets were not binding on Himself and His disciples (Matthew 23:2), even though at times He did reinterpret them in order to give them a greater impact, and that He did exhort men to keep God's Law and rebuked those who treated it lightly.
Furthermore as He was in this very sermon about to lay the fullest emphasis on the need to observe God's Law, not only in letter, but in spirit, it would seem very capricious not to include this in what He was intending to indicate. But it should then be noted that His sermon did not stop at that. The expounding of the Law was in order to lead on to the need to seek for the spiritual wellbeing which would enable them to fulfil it (Matthew 7:7-13) and to the recognition of Jesus' Lordship, in the light of which they should live (Matthew 7:22-23). It thus covers both instruction and prophetic attitude, as well as revealing Him as the Coming One above and beyond that. For the second part of His sermon, and even parts of the first, are very reminiscent of the prophetic attitude, and indeed few would deny that in fact He goes even beyond the prophets in His requirements, while His reference to His status as ‘Lord', in such a way as to indicate that their attitude towards Him, and His attitude towards them, would determine their eternal destiny (Matthew 7:21-23), is not only the fulfilment of what the prophets had spoken, but a clear indication that He is present as the Sovereign Lord and Judge in a way beyond what even they expected. He is the Shiloh Who is to come to Whom the people will gather (Genesis 49:10). He is Himself the Judge of all the world (Genesis 18:25). And this is especially so as He then closes off the Sermon by stressing His own sayings, rather than the sayings of Moses (Matthew 7:24; Matthew 7:26). Thus we will not go too far wrong if we are inclusive rather than exclusive when we consider His meaning here in the light of the whole sermon.
Note on The Oral Law.
After the Exile there had been great concern among the faithful concerning the keeping of the Law of God, and as time went by a group of Scribes gradually built up who sought to analyse and interpret the Law in detail in order to help the people to know what they should do in order to keep it. These interpretations then grew and grew in number, and were passed on by the Scribes to their students, who in turn became Scribes. And as will happen with human beings the detail took over and the spirit behind them was excluded (the same would also happen with the church). They analysed the Law into over six hundred stipulations, and sought to comment authoritatively in some detail on all. These authoritative pronouncements were a part of ‘The Traditions of the Elders'. But they had become a burden too grievous to be borne. The idea had originally been good, but of course not all the interpretations were of the same quality, and the multiplicity of them was simply confusing, not to say overpowering. Furthermore some of them were simply ways of avoiding the original intention of the Law, even though sometimes with sympathetic intent. Jesus put them to one side and refused to accept their authority. He felt that too much stress was being laid on them, and that they often actually evaded the Law, or interpreted them in a way that was more profitable for the Scribes and their supporters than for the people (Mark 7:9-13). And in fact He would now set about reinterpreting the Law in another way, in a way that took people away from trying to keep a list of rules and emphasised rather the taking up of a right attitude towards each other, towards material things, and towards God. Get the attitude right, He was saying, and the Law would then, as it were, look after itself.
End of note.
‘Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets.' Any thought of the destruction of the Law would have been abhorrent to every Jew (and indeed to Jesus Himself). The people might empathise with His partial rejection of the traditions upheld by the Scribes and Pharisees (for the fact that it was only partial see Matthew 23:3), but they would not have accepted the idea of the destruction of the Law itself. It lay at the very heart of their beliefs, as in fact it did His, and they loved it and trusted in it. They did not want it removed or destroyed. He was seen as acceptable precisely because they did actually believe that in Him and in His teaching the Law was being given its full weight and authority, as supported by His own prophetic authority. He was a full upholder of God's word (unlike the Scribes and Pharisees, although they would have claimed to be - Mark 7:9; Mark 7:13).
This then does raise the question asked by some as to whether Jesus was speaking about the whole Law or just the moral law. It is doubtful whether such a thought would have crossed anyone's mind in those days. Such distinctions were not then made. All was seen as God's Law. He was thus speaking about the whole Torah. But certainly Jesus did gradually introduce the idea that He was replacing the old ordinances of the Law, not by them ceasing to be a part of God's revelation, but by His own fulfilment of them (Matthew 20:28; Matthew 26:28), so that once the ultimate sacrifice had taken place there was no requirement for any further sacrifices. The revelation with regard to this was thus not abrogated, it still stood firm but was fulfilled through a greater and better sacrifice (which is the message of the letter to the Hebrews). All the ritual obligations were fulfilled in Jesus Christ for those who believed in Him.
And He elsewhere also drew attention to the fact that the lessons behind the old rituals having been learned, they no longer needed to be given such emphasis (Mark 7:15-23). What needed rather to be learned was the lessons that they contained. Thus while He Himself observed them, the old laws of cleanness and uncleanness were to be seen rather as pointing to the need for God's people to keep themselves from all that could be seen as coming short of the ideal, all that connected with sin and the dust of death. And now that same purpose was to be fulfilled by God's people separating themselves from the impurity of sin, the thing that really spoiled man within (Matthew 15:17-20; Mark 8:18-23). By separating themselves from what was really unclean they would become sons of God (2 Corinthians 6:16-18, compare Matthew 5:9), so that the rituals that had once been the evidences of a people separated to God as His holy people, were no longer required, having been replaced by something new, deliverance from all the sins of the inner heart (Mark 8:18-23), a process already begun in the disciples (Matthew 5:3-9). In the end therefore it is true that it is the moral aspect of the Law that is seen as still retaining its full usefulness, but not because the law was seen as needing to be replaced or was rejected as such, but because having achieved its ends parts of it were to be seen as having been filled to the full, with the lessons of the old Law made redundant and replaced by the new.
‘I came.' Compare Matthew 11:18; Matthew 21:32, where ‘John came'. The thought in both cases is that both John and Jesus came from God, but it clearly does not indicate pre-existence in the case of John. It rather in both cases emphasises that they have a mission from God. However, in John's Gospel Jesus would certainly be seen as emphasising His pre-existence (John 3:13; John 8:58), and Matthew has earlier given an indication of something similar in that He is seen by him as ‘God with us' (Matthew 1:23).
‘The Law or the Prophets.' The Law was technically the first five books of the Bible (‘the Torah' - God's ‘Instruction'), but the term was soon used loosely by some to describe the whole of the Scriptures (John 12:34; Romans 3:19; 1 Corinthians 14:21), including the Psalms (John 10:34). As far as they were concerned God spoke through it all. This may therefore be why Jesus did not feel any need to continually mention the prophets separately once He had made the position clear. The expression ‘The Law' could then be seen as covering both. The ‘Prophets' included the former prophets (many of what we call the historical books, from Joshua to Kings), as well as the great prophets themselves. But notice the ‘or' which indicates that here the two ideas, while close, are also to be seen separately.
The Law unquestionably had a special importance for the Jews. It was always read first in Synagogue services, and at this stage all who claimed to be Jews (including also the Samaritans, although they would not have seen themselves as Jews, nor have been seen as Jews) would without exception have seen the Law as central to their religion, and pivotal (the whole Law not just the regulations), while the prophets were variously assessed, with some leaning towards putting great weight on them, while others gave them less of an emphasis, although apart from the Samaritans all probably gave them some weight. Thus the mention of the Prophets as well as the Law in what was the opening verse of the central part of the sermon (see above) may well be seen as indicating that, in spite of the emphasis He would now lay on the Law, in viewing Him it was necessary to look wider than just to the Law. He was not to be seen as just another expounder of the Law. He was also the fulfilment of the flowering of both the Old Testament Law and the Old Testament prophecy.
‘Not to destroy, but to fulfil.' The negative emphasises the positive, a device often used in Scripture. It brings out that His aim was the exact opposite of destruction. For His aim was to confirm, to build up and to cause to flower, and His purpose was to establish all that the Scriptures spoke of. It was to build it up and fulfil it in order to make both Law and Prophets come to completion. That is the purpose of His coming. It is to ‘fill both to the full'. And this includes the fulfilling of all the expectations and promises of both, for the Law also contained prophecies of the future, both typologically (Matthew 2:15; Matthew 2:23) and prophetically (Genesis 12:3; Genesis 49:10; Numbers 24:17; Deuteronomy 18:15, all of which were also interpreted prophetically at Qumran), while the Prophets were full of them. So His aim was to bring both to their fully determined end.
It may be asked, why did Jesus speak of the possible destruction of the Torah, even if it was only as a negative? At least three answers are possible:
1). His purpose may have been to emphasise the positive by contrasting it with the negative. Thus He may be seen as saying, ‘Rather than coming to destroy the Torah and the Prophets, I have come to bring them to their ultimate completion.' Thus His purpose may have been in order to underline their indestructibility, something He then brings out in Matthew 5:18.
2). He may have been hinting at a comparison between His own positive attitude towards them, and the negative attitude of the Scribes and Pharisees whom He saw as by their teachings slowly strangling the Law, and making it void through their traditions (Matthew 15:6; Mark 7:9; Mark 7:13).
3). He may have been combating rumours that were already in circulation that He was a destroyer of the Law.
That the confirming of the Torah is at least a part of His purpose comes out in His continual emphasis on the fact that it must be observed; that the building up of the Torah is a part of His purpose comes out in that He does go on to ‘build it up' in the following verses; and that the final fulfilment of the Torah is part of His purpose comes out in that His Sermon ends with Him being revealed as ‘Lord', where He is clearly to be seen as both Arbiter and Judge (Matthew 7:22). And as the first two suggestions certainly concentrate on the Law needing to be lived out, the inclusive reference to ‘the prophets' as an alternative in Matthew 5:17 emphasises that the third is very much included in His thinking, and that His words therefore also unquestionably signify bringing the Law and the Prophets to their full fruition in Himself, so that not one part of them will be lacking in accomplishment, something which is His own constant theme (see Matthew 10:34-36; Matthew 11:3-5; Matthew 12:40; Matthew 16:21; Matthew 20:28; Matthew 21:42; Matthew 22:42-45; Matthew 26:24; Matthew 26:54; Matthew 26:56; and for example Luke 10:23-24; Luke 22:37; Luke 24:27; John 5:45-46), as well as being the theme of Matthew as we have already seen.