The last time we had an introduction into ethics or apologetics. I said one of the words we're going to be using is theonomy. Don't be scared by a big word. It just means ethics according to God's law, living according to the law of God. So now we're going to actually begin to dive into some of those thoughts. We looked at the fact last time of the state of immorality in society and also in the church and in the family. and kind of historically how we got to that point, starting with the creeds and moving through the Reformation and the Enlightenment and everything that came after that. So, this evening, I told you a couple of weeks ago, we were going to go to a New Testament passage and consider the law of God, particularly from the New Testament passage, because the first time you talk to Even most Christians, but anyone who is not familiar with the Law of God, and you tell them, I define my ethics by God's Law, by His Word and what He prescribes is good and evil. Most people are going to say, yeah, but wasn't that all done away with in the New Testament? Jesus said that He fulfilled the Law, right? And so the Law is no longer valid for us. It's no longer abiding. And they take that from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5. So that's what we're going to be looking at in depth this evening. We're just really going to try to break it down word by word and understand to the best of our ability what Jesus was saying here. So let me read a lengthy passage of Scripture to you from Matthew chapter 5. And really we're just going to deal with this evening verses 17, 18, and 19. But in order to really get the fullness of the context, let me start in verse 17, and then read through the end of the chapter. And really, I probably should read the whole chapter, but because we're going to start in verse 17 tonight, I'll start there with my reading. Jesus is speaking here. He says, "...think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother, without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Rachah, shall be in danger of the counsel. But whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery. And whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, commiteth adultery. Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. But I say unto you, swear not at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is His footstool, neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay. For whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil. But whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you. And pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. For he maketh his Son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Now what we understand Jesus to be saying in verses 17-20 will determine how we interpret the rest of this chapter. Many people, and we're going to go through some of these interpretations here in just a moment, but generally speaking, some people believe that Jesus was doing away with the old law and bringing in a new law. He was saying, you used to hear that it was said this, that's the way it used to be, but I'm giving you something new. I'm replacing the old with something different and new. Some people believe that Jesus was saying, I'm doing away with the letter of the law, the strictness of the law, the minute details of the law, and instead I'm going to give you some real general principles to live by. So instead of having case law, I'm just going to give you some wide-sweeping principles to govern your life by. The problem when we begin to do some of these things is that inevitably, unfortunately, we say, the Word of God does not abide forever. What God used to say isn't what he says anymore. What used to be true is no longer true. And so we do a great disservice to the Word of God. So that's why I think it's so important to understand what Jesus is saying here. When we're talking about ethics or apologetics, making a defense for our ethics, and someone says, well, I think this is wrong, and you ask them according to what standard, Well, the standard of love. Jesus gave us a standard of love. Well, can you define love for me? What does love look like in one situation over or above another? By what standard? Well, here's the standard of what we know. You don't have to believe in Jesus to know that murder is wrong. We talked about that a couple of weeks ago. So we have to establish the standard before we can talk about any concrete ethics. I can't tell you what right is and what wrong is unless we've established that we're all on the same page, we agree, what that defining standard is for what makes right right and what makes wrong wrong. So here's a couple of interpretations of Matthew chapter 5. take these as the correct answers. I'm giving you some what I believe to be wrong interpretations and then we'll get into the right ones so that hopefully you're not blindsided if someone comes to you with one of these false interpretations. Hopefully you'll say, yeah, I remember hearing about that and here's why that's wrong. There's one that I don't think we run into very often, but maybe we do in some of its forms. It's the perfectionist conception. It's the idea that in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus was taking the law and making it even stricter than it was before. So he perfected the law. We only got a piece of the law with Moses, but now Jesus is giving us the whole thing. So before you just weren't allowed to commit physical adultery, but now Jesus adds to the burden. Now he gives you even more law to go along with that. Now you can't think about it, you can't look at it. He's perfected or completed the law so that now it's even stricter than it ever was before. Another idea of interpretation is the theory of the impossible ideal. This is the idea, the interpretation, that what Jesus is doing here is he's trying to give a law that's so impossible to keep, that you're going to realize your need for the Gospel. He's not really giving you something that He expects you to keep, because His goal here is to prove to you that you can't ever keep it. And so He's not really giving a law for us to keep, but rather He's giving you an impossible ideal that anyone who tries to measure up to it realizes, oh, I can't actually do this. There's one person, or one group of people, who believe in the interim ethic. This was that Jesus was giving a law for only a very short, select period of time. It was just for the interim. They said Jesus understood that the age was about to end, depending on who you talk to, how liberal they are, they might believe that Jesus actually thought the whole world was about to end, because Jesus didn't know all things, although He claimed to know all things. But there's liberal theologians out there who will say this kind of thing, that Jesus was a captive of the moment, and He didn't realize what all was really going on, and so He was giving His disciples just some principles to live by in the interim. until 70 A.D. or until the end of the age. So now we really don't have these principles for us anymore. Jesus was just giving these to his disciples who were about to be persecuted, and so they needed to realize this ethic. There's the dispensational interpretation, which says that these laws are intended as a means of salvation for a future age. When the kingdom comes in, then people are going to have to fulfill the law in order to be saved. That's dispensationalism. In a different dispensation, in a future dispensation, God's going to reinstate the keeping of the law for salvation. Once again, this is their interpretation. I don't believe the law has ever been the means of salvation. It's always been a covenant of grace. But they'll say, God's going to bring back this covenant that you're saved by law, and so Jesus was giving that future age this teaching. There's the existential view. Jesus is offering a new state of mind. He's wanting you to look at this from a different angle. He's helping you to open up your mind. This goes along with What I was talking about earlier, just general wide sweeping principles. He wasn't really trying to give us anything to live by. He wasn't really trying to help us to see what concrete cases of right and wrong were. He just wanted you to think about it through the lens of love. He wanted you to think about it through the lens of spirituality. Existential view. There's the humanist excuse. These laws are no longer valid for us because mankind has evolved beyond that. Because we've gotten so much better with time, haven't we? Don't we see that in society? Not quite. Alright, so those are a lot of different ways that people try to explain away this passage of Scripture to where they don't have to deal with the reality of it in their life. Because if there's really a standard that says that looking on a woman to lust after her is adultery, Well, then that brings me to a whole new standard of ethics. If there's really a law that says if I hate my brother without a cause, that I'm guilty of murder before God in my heart, well that brings me to a whole new level of accountability. And so they try to explain it away with all these different theories and interpretations. Then there's the historic reformed position, if you want to call it that, which I think is the biblical position. I think this is the accurate, correct interpretation of this passage of Scripture. Which is that all through the Bible, up to this point in Matthew chapter 5 and beyond, there is unity in God's covenant with man. There's unity in God's covenant with man. It wasn't that His covenant was to Moses, a covenant of keeping the law, and to the people under the prophets, a mixture of law and hope and coming grace, and then under Jesus, grace, and then in a future dispensation, law again. But there's a unity in His covenant with man. He believes that the righteousness expressed here is a real righteousness. And if it's a real righteousness, then it's relevant. I don't know how many of you are familiar with the three uses of the law taught in the scriptures. But it's that the law is good for three purposes. It's to convict men of sin, it's to restrain public wickedness, and it's to rule the life of the believer. And so the righteousness taught here in Matthew chapter 5, these laws that Jesus is explaining, are relevant in all three of those. to convict men of their sin and bring them to Christ. Remember that one interpretation? It kind of got it right, but it just didn't go far enough. So that was the only use of it. But what Jesus is teaching here, it is relevant to convict men of sin and bring them to Christ. It is relevant in restraining public wickedness. And it is relevant in ruling the life of the believer. So that's the historic reformed position. That's the one we're going to spend the majority of our time this evening defending. because I believe it to be consistent with the Scriptures and even internally consistent in this chapter, in this passage. So, let's look once again, if you have your Bibles there, at the passage in Matthew chapter 5, verse 17. The first thing that Jesus says is, Think not. Think not. that I am come to destroy the law." Now, the idea of think not there is not a rebuttal to a previous accusation. That's not what Jesus is doing here. It's not so much, at least grammatically speaking, what Jesus is saying here, it's not so much that people had said, this Jesus has come to destroy the law. And Jesus said, you need to stop thinking that. That's not what he's saying. Instead, the idea of think not there, both in the tense that it is in the Greek and in the correct interpretation we have here in the English, it has to do with the idea of a preventative terminology. Don't even begin to think. that this is what I've come to do. Jesus knew the heart of man, and He realized that what He was about to say would cause many people to say, Oh, so you're destroying the law. I see what you're doing here. And so before he even gets into it, he says, now don't think when I say this. I'll do that sometimes when I'm preaching. Before I even make my point, I'll say, now don't take what I'm saying out of context. And then I'll give it to you, right? That's the idea that Jesus is presenting here when He says, think not. He says, I'm about to tell you something that may tempt you to think that I've come to destroy the law. But don't think that. Think not that I've come to destroy the law. Don't even begin to think that. Secondly, he says, think not that I am come to destroy the law. Now what does he mean by that? What does he mean that he didn't come to destroy the law? The word used here for destroy, do you have your Bible with you, Josh? Can you turn to Matthew 24.2? Pastor Michael, can you turn to 2 Corinthians 5.1? The word translated here as destroy is used several times in the New Testament. A lot of times it's translated as destroy. But there's a couple of other interpretations that the translators gave us that help us in understanding the fullness of this word and what was being intimated there to Jesus' primary audience. What does Matthew 24.2 say? And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. Okay, so that last little phrase there, be thrown down, is the same word, same Greek word that's translated here as destroy. And, Pastor Michael, what does 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 1 say? For we know that if our earthly house and this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Sounds like you figured out which word it was in that verse. Dissolved. The entomology of the word, when you really break that word down in Greek, the root word that it comes from has to do with the idea of disassembling. Pulling to pieces. So, Jesus is saying, don't think when I give you this code of ethics that I'm disassembling the law. that I'm breaking it down, that I'm throwing it down in order to assemble a new one. It's kind of the idea that's being presented here. So, when he says destroy, that's important because a lot of what we're going to look at when we get to the word fulfill has to do with having a proper understanding of destroy. Because he pits the two against each other. I've not come to destroy, but to fulfill. So, we need to properly understand destroy in order to understand the contrast to it. So he's not talking about personal disobedience. He's not saying don't think that I've come to disobey the law. He's not talking about excusing the law. He's talking about breaking it down. He's talking about pulling it apart as we would to a building if we wanted to maybe build something else in its place, which is a very popular theory about what Jesus is teaching here. I want to break down Moses' law so that I can give you Jesus' law. But Jesus said, don't think that. Don't think that I've come to disassemble, to throw down, to destroy the law. It's also important to note that he says, the Law or the Prophets. And the idea in Scripture, when you see the Law and the Prophets, or the Law or the Prophets, what the writer is almost always, without fail, conveying is the entirety of the Old Testament. It's the Law and the Prophets. It's everything. It's from the original Pentateuch, which contains the Law, to Malachi, the prophet, the last, from the beginning to the end. Sometimes we break it down a little bit more than that. We're talking about divisions in Scripture, and we talk about the historical books of Kings and Samuel, and the poetical books of Song of Solomon, Proverbs, Psalms, Job, things of that nature. But really you can sum it up into those two categories. Law and Prophets, beginning to end, all of the Old Testament. And as I was studying this, and as I was considering this, I thought, it's important that we use right terminology. I've used this terminology that I'm about to talk about here, and if you use it to me in the future, I'm not going to stop you. Now, you know that's not correct terminology, and depending on the context, please don't do that to me either, because sometimes we know in conversation what we mean. But when we really think about the real theological definition of what we're talking about, it's important to note that there's really not a ceremonial law and a moral law. And like I said, I've used those distinctions before. I've talked about the ceremonial law versus the moral law. But once again, think about what we're saying when we talk about the ceremonial law versus the moral law. And you realize when I say ceremonial, usually we're talking about the feasts, the sacrifices, the temple, the tabernacle, the garments of the priest, things of that nature. And the moral, we're talking about don't steal, don't kill, right? And so we use that contrast sometimes. But when we use those terms, what we're implying is that God used to be concerned about the ceremony, and now He's concerned about the moral. When God has never been concerned about the ceremony, and He's always been concerned about the moral. And that's what the prophets told us over and over and over again. That's what Jesus is telling us here in Matthew chapter 5, is that you thought because you were doing all the outward things you were right, and you weren't because there wasn't any moral reality to it. So it's not that, well, it used to be all about the ceremony, and now God's done away with the ceremony, because He hasn't done away with all the ceremony either. We still take the Lord's Supper in a very ceremonial way, the way that God commanded us to do it. Just as the children of Israel had to eat the Lamb in a particular way to remember that God passed over them, so we, eat the lamb in a very particular way to remember that God passed over us. There's still ceremony to that. It's why we switched from grape juice to wine. It's why we take unleavened bread and not loaf bread. It's why we don't eat Cheez-Its and Pepsi and call it the Lord's Supper. Because there's some reality to the ceremony. There's a moral nature to the ceremony. doing it the way that God has commanded. You remember what Jesus told Thomas when he said, you're blessed in that you've seen and believed, but more blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed. And I think Categorically speaking, Jesus was referencing at least as much, if not more, the Old Testament saints as he was the saints that were yet to come. And so, yes, before the first advent of Christ, God's people were given many more pictures than we are. We have baptism in the Lord's Supper, and those are basically the fullness of our ceremonies, of our illustrations, our pictures, whereas the Jews did have many feasts and all sorts of things built into the tabernacle and the temple, which the scriptures tell us were built after a heavenly pattern. and all of the things that the priest wore, and all of the ways that the sacrifices were made, there was all of those pictures of the coming Messiah that they had maybe more quantitatively than we do, but it wasn't a distinction between ceremony and morality. The ceremony was moral, and the ceremony without morality was despicable to God. He said, I hate your feasts. because you're not doing them with the correct heart. So neither age before the cross or after the cross was mere ceremony. It was only ceremony. God's people have always been given a law that is eminently moral And yes, included in that are some ceremonies. So I think it's important that we choose our words carefully. That we don't unintentionally imply that God used to not care about morality, but now he does. Or now he doesn't care about ceremony where he used to. Because I don't think that's accurate. John Calvin said it this way, he said, that man does not break ceremonies who omits what is shadowy but retains their effect. So he said, if someone is keeping a ceremony and he leaves out the shadowy, unclear part, and he keeps the effect, the reality of it, we wouldn't say he broke the ceremony. But he kept it. And so it is with you and I. We're called to keep those ceremonies that God has given us within the church. Yes, the shadowy has been done away with for the effect of the clarity of Christ. So now we come to the point in the passage upon which, really, our whole argument hinges. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." So what did Jesus mean by fulfill? Once again, let me give you several different interpretations that you'll probably hear concerning this passage of Scripture, and then we'll finish by considering the validity of them. Many believe that what Jesus was saying here was to abrogate, to do away with. Now, anytime you really begin to try to nail them down on that and really say, okay, so what you're saying is, Then it becomes, well, no, I do believe there are still things we need to live by. I'm just saying that... And it becomes very hard for them to define what they mean, because it just doesn't work in the context. Think not that I am come to destroy, but to abrogate. It just contradicts itself. It doesn't fit the flow. It doesn't fit the grammatical workings of the verse. It doesn't fit everything that follows it, where Jesus says, "...till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." So let's put abrogate in there. "...I am not come to destroy, but to abrogate. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be abrogated." It just becomes a self-contradictory mess. And so, when someone tells you, we don't have to keep the law, Jesus did away with the law. Where does it say that? Remember He said He fulfilled the law? Okay, let's go to that verse and let's read it your way then. And you tell me how that makes sense. And, as I said, it quickly begins to fall apart when you try to do that. Another idea is that He replaced it. He replaced the old with the new. Out with the old, in with the new. He took one out and he put another in, but you cannot replace with a new until the old has been abrogated. And we just realize that to abrogate doesn't fit the passage. So if you say he replaced it with something else, then you have to say that he did away with that which he just said wouldn't pass away. till heaven and earth passed away. So how could he have added, how could he have replaced it without discharging the old, abrogating the old? So that doesn't work either. What about if it means he supplemented or added to it? This was that perfectionist interpretation that we talked about. We only got a part of it, with Moses, but now Jesus is finishing it out for us. Well, without even taking into consideration what I already mentioned, that the prophets were constantly railing on the people for not keeping the law the way that God had commanded them to in its fullness, in its reality, in its spiritual state. To say that they only had the external portion of the law, and now Jesus was giving them the internal, begins to play some serious chinks in the internal evidence of the Scripture about itself. Brother Negrete, do you have something you can read from? Would you read Psalm chapter 19 and verse 7? And then, Pastor, would you read three verses in Psalm chapter 51, verses 6, 10, and 17? All right, so what does Psalm 19.7 say? The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. Okay, so Jesus came to perfect the law, But David said back in the Psalms, the law of the Lord is perfect. So how can you add to or supplement something that's perfect? You can't. What does Psalm 51, 6, 10, and 17 say? So it wasn't just external. He desired truth in the inward part. What does verse 10 say? Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. But I thought the law of Moses was just about the externals, just about what you did outwardly. How about verse 17? It doesn't get any better for this guy. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrived heart, O God, wilt thou not despise? But I thought the sacrifices were all about animals and ceremony. No. God has always been interested in the moral aspect. He's always been interested in the spiritual. Jesus was not, and this is what I believed for years, that Jesus was saying, the old law said this, but I'm giving you something else. But that's not what Jesus is saying here. He's saying, you've heard it twisted and misinterpreted and misapplied by the traditions of men and the doctrines of devils to mean that it's only humanistic traditionalism and external. And I'm telling you that's not what God meant it to be. I'm telling you the same thing that all the other prophets have been telling you. It's about the inward heart, the sacrifices of the heart, in an inward spiritual reality. Another interpretation, I've not come to destroy but to fulfill, is that they say, well, what Jesus was saying here was that He was coming to personally obey the law. And that in personally obeying the law, no one else would ever have to obey the law. All we would have to be is in Christ. And He's already perfectly obeyed the law, so no longer do we have to obey the law. What makes so many of these interpretations so dangerous is that they almost get there. They're almost right. Jesus did obey the law. We are in Christ, and that's where our full righteousness and justification comes from. But in so doing, what they do when they leave it merely there, is they jettison the third use of the law, and say, therefore, We can sin so that grace can abound. Basically. They won't ever put it in those words. But they'll say, there's no moral standard for us to live up to anymore because Jesus lived up to it. So now we don't have to. And they begin to propagate that very thing that Paul, under inspiration, saw coming down the line. Shall we then sin that grace may abound? God forbid. Yes, sir. You know, the way you're saying it, I have heard it preached, but they leave off your logical conclusion. I've heard that often. They just leave off the end goal and that means this. But it's just incredible. Now, there are a couple of places in scripture where the word fulfill means to obey. However, there are three other words that are more commonly used. So right off the bat, to say that what Jesus is talking about here is to fulfill, we would need the preponderance of evidence to use it that way, because usually that's not the way this word is used. So we kind of start off on shaky ground to begin with, if we want to use that interpretation. Secondly, including right here in the immediate context, in verse 19, He says, "...whosoever therefore shall break one of the least of these commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them..." That word, do, there is the word that's most commonly used for obeying the law. You do the law. You do what the law commands you to do. So he uses it just two verses later. So why didn't he use that word in verse 17 if that's what he was trying to convey? I think because he was trying to convey a different point there. So that's not comprehensive, but that's a good starting point to recognize maybe this isn't the direction Jesus was going. Another problem with this interpretation is that everything in this context in Matthew chapter 5, both in these four verses and in all the verses following, have to do with Jesus' teaching, not Jesus' life. have to do with Jesus' doctrine, not Jesus' obedience. Nowhere here in Matthew chapter 5 is Jesus talking about... There are places where He talks about, I do always that which the Father commands me to do. But that's not what He's talking about here. In the context, He's talking about teaching. He's talking about telling other men. He's talking about explaining what He believes. And so to say, This word here, fulfill, means to obey, when nothing else in the context is talking about Christ's obedience, tells us that we're being a little bit dishonest with the text and the context and what is actually primarily being conveyed here in this text. And as I mentioned, the most problematic of all is that it just leaves off what the scriptures clearly teach us is the third use of the law. It amputates a piece of the law away so that now it's only to bring men to Christ and doesn't have anything to do with restraining public wickedness or a standard for the Christian's life. So what does he mean when he says fulfill? If it's not any of those things, what does he mean? One of the vital clues here in figuring out what he's meaning by fulfill is to remember that he's directly contrasting it with the word to destroy. Right? Think not that I've come to destroy the law, but to fulfill. So in the grammatical breaking down of this passage of scripture, if we just try to understand laws of grammar and vocabulary, he's saying, I didn't come to destroy or disassemble the law, but to fulfill it. We're not just talking about an otherness, But a contrast. We're not just talking about something different, but something opposite. Right? So, let's do a little test here. Excuse my bad handwriting. You all help me out with these and guess what the fill in the blank should be. If you say, the man did not come to break the piano, but... What do you think should be in the blank there? He didn't come to break the piano, but to what? Repair the piano. Well, that would make grammatical sense. Didn't come to break it, but to repair it. That would fit, right? How about this one? The boy did not come to compliment the girl, but to... He didn't come to compliment her, but he came to... insult her. Okay, that would fit, right? He didn't come to compliment her, he came to insult her. Okay, what if instead I said, he did not come to break the piano, but to look at it. Okay, we're still talking about the piano, I guess, but that threw me for a loop. I wasn't seeing you go in that direction. He didn't come to compliment the girl, but to befriend her. Okay, that's different, that's other than, but it's not opposite to. It's not contrasted with. And so to say, He did not come to destroy the law, but to abrogate it, but to obey it, but to doesn't really fit the grammatical rules that we're used to in speaking. These are other things than destroy, but they're not opposite to destroying. So if he didn't come to break down, to disassemble, to dissolve the law, then what did he come to do? To establish, to confirm, to strengthen, to build up. All of these ideas would fit the grammatical concept of opposite of this is this. Don't think I came to destroy it, but to fulfill it. Another important aspect in properly interpreting this word, and therefore this passage, is to think of the context in which this word is most often used in English, particularly in the English Bible. And it may be hard now that you've got your mind thinking along this train of thought, but if I simply said to you, what do you associate the word fulfill with in the Bible, What do you immediately associate the word fulfill with? Is there any word association going on in your minds immediately? When the Bible says fulfill, what's it probably talking about? Prophecy. Right. So that's far and away the number one way that this word is used in our Bibles. When it talks about fulfill, it's talking about the fulfillment of prophecy. If we took this word fulfill to mean obey, we would actually do a great disservice to the idea of prophecy. Jesus obeyed the prophecy to die on the cross? Well, Jesus knew from beginning to end. That would be true. But let's say Herod obeyed the prophecy that in Ramah there is a great cry going up, a woman weeping for her children. No, he didn't obey it, but he fulfilled it. He confirmed it. He established it. It was seen to be true. And so, that's a vital sign that we're on the right track, is to compare it to the way that it's usually used in Scripture, which has to do with a confirmation, an actualization of the subject, of the topic. So then I believe it would be proper for us to say, based on all of these clues, grammatically, historically, fitting in with the whole theme of Scripture, that what Jesus is saying here is, do not begin to think that I came in order to abrogate the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abrogate, but to confirm." That's the idea. I'm not reinterpreting it here. I believe it's interpreted correctly, but that's what those words mean in a fuller, more fleshed out aspect, as it were. And this isn't a new thought. Don't think, well, Pastor Josh just interprets it that way. John Calvin, in commenting on this passage, said, by these words he declares that the former covenant will be confirmed and ratified. That's what Calvin said about this passage. C. H. Spurgeon said, again preaching on this text, the law of God he established and confirmed. Our King has not come to abrogate the law, but to confirm and reassert it." And in more modern times, Herman Ritterbos, a Dutch Reformed theologian, said, there is no antithesis either between the principles of the Law of Moses and the Sermon on the Mount. They're not opposed to each other. The latter does not abolish the former, but confirms it. So, good orthodox men, godly teachers, through many ages, have understood that's exactly what Jesus was saying here. He's not saying, I've come to replace or do away with the law. He's saying, I've come to confirm, establish, ratify, reassert the law. Personally, I'm not crazy, again, getting into semantics, about the phrase, the law of Moses. Because it wasn't the law of Moses, it was the law of God to Moses. Moses didn't come up with that law, God did. And many times we can use that phrase to kind of distance ourselves from the fact that this has divine authority, that it came from God. So let's move on. a little bit in our text. We have the word for here, which attaches verse 17 to verse 18. He's not starting a new thought here. This isn't the start of a new paragraph, like Pastor Michael was talking about last night. This is a continuing thought. These two things go together. So here's why you shouldn't begin to think that I came to destroy the Law. Here's why you should realize that I've come to fulfill, confirm, establish the Law. Why would I say that? For truly, verily, Jesus uses that phrase regularly to put an extra emphasis into what He's saying, I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass one jot, or one tittle, shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." So he says, you shouldn't think I've come to destroy it, you should realize I've come to abrogate it, because it can't be destroyed. The smallest amount of it couldn't be done away with. As long as there's a heaven in the sky and an earth beneath your feet, the law of God will stand. which is figuratively for forever. For as long as heaven and earth shall stand. Maybe forever is a little bit too extreme, but until the great conflagration, until God makes all things new, at least His law will stand. Whatever else, the stars can fall from heaven, God's word is sure. And he uses the word one twice, in verse 18. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass one jot, or one tittle, shall in no wise pass from the law. A lot of times we use this verse in passing, and we say, I know the Bible says not a jot or a tittle will pass. But Jesus is putting every emphasis possible in the confines of human grammar and its laws to emphasize just how stringently he's viewing this. Not one jot, not one tittle shall pass from the law, shall in no wise pass from the law. So he uses the word one twice to signify the smallest amount possible. And then he uses two words, two ideas, that we're not really familiar with as far as actual usage in the English language. Because the word jot has to do with the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Yod was. It's the same word that we get our word Yoda from. It's the smallest minutia, the yod or the jot. One rabbi wrote, in extra-biblical material of course, but he said, if all men in the world were gathered together to destroy the yad, which is the smallest letter in the law, they would not succeed." And that's what Jesus is saying here. He says one jot of the law, the smallest letter in the law, one of the smallest letters in the law, a single one, can't fail, can't fall until heaven and earth have passed away. So he's not just saying not one of the Ten Commandments will fail. He's not just saying not one word in one of the Ten Commandments will fail. He's not just saying not one letter in one word in the Ten Commandments will fail. He's saying the smallest letter in the law, a single one of them won't fail. as long as there's a heaven and an earth. And that word tittle that's used there has to do with the small little dashes that the scribes would put over top of the letters. most commentators believe. There's a couple of different ideas here. The entomology of the word tittle literally has to do with a horn. So some people believe it was the little swirl off of the end of the letter that would differentiate between one letter and another. Some people believe it was little dashes, like accent marks. But you get the idea there. He goes even smaller than the letter. And he says, one of the lines on the letter One of the horns on the letter. One of the accent marks. I mean, how small can we break this down to tell you, not one shall fail. Now, once again, contrast that with the idea, Jesus was doing away with the strictness to give us good general principles to live by. No, that's exactly the opposite of what he said. He said, I'm not saying here's some big general principles. I'm saying every little piece is relevant and established and confirmed. Let's look at some more Bible verses. Who do you want to read, Mr. Negrete and your family? Okay, Landon, would you look up Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 8? Gladys, would you look up Isaiah 51 and verse 6? Do you want to read in his hand? No? Alright, Josh, would you look up Isaiah 54 and verse 10. Pastor, would you look up Jeremiah chapter 33 and verses 20 and 21? And Mr. Negretti, would you look up Psalm chapter 119 and verses 89 through 92? Alright, so Landon, would you read Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 8 to us? The grass withered, the flower faded, but the word of our God shall stay forever. Okay, so the same idea. Not heaven or earth shall pass away. The grass does fade away every year, goes away. Not the word of God. It doesn't ebb and flow like that. It abides forever. Gladys, would you read Isaiah 51 and verse 6? Lift up your eyes to the heaven and look upon the earth beneath. For the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment. And they that bewail their image shall die, in like manner, but my salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished." Okay, so he says, look at the heavens, look at the earth, they're going to be gone one day. But not my righteousness, not my salvation. They'll stand, they'll be forever. What about Isaiah chapter 54 and verse 10, Josh? where the mountains shall depart and the hills shall be removed, but my kindness shall not be departed from thee, neither shall my covenant of my peace be removed. Saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." You seeing the theme here? Whatever else goes away, my kindness and my covenant won't. They'll remain. What about Jeremiah 33 verses 20 and 21? Thus saith the Lord, If ye can break my covenant of the day and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season, then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne, and with the Levites the priests my ministers. Once you can stop the sun from rising, and once you can stop the sun from setting, that's when God's promise to not have a son of David to sit upon the throne or the Levites to bear the ministry will end. Now we know that Christ fulfills that. Christ establishes that. pictures that in every way for us. He's the son of David, seated on the throne. He's the priest, interceding for us. He didn't do away with the old. He fulfilled it. It's still in full effect. And then what does Psalm 119 verses 89 through 92 tell us? For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. My thankfulness is unto all generations. Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. They continue this day according to Thy ordinances, for all are My servants. No, that's correct. So I just wanted you to see that the bracket there is talking about God's Word, His Law, and in between is talking about the heavens and the earth which are established by His ordinances, right? All of this is picturing for us that the Law of God, the Word of God, abides forever. And even if the heavens and the earth pass away, he contrasts that with the fact that my Word won't. My Law won't. My Covenant won't. My Kindness won't. My Salvation won't. All of these different words that he uses to push this theme home to us, So we read in Psalm, in Isaiah, in Jeremiah, and many other places, my law is established, my word is established, my covenant is established, and Jesus came and did away with them. It just doesn't fit the theme of Scripture, the constant refrain that we get. It's 8 minutes, 9 minutes after 8, so I'm going to give you about 5 minutes to get up, stretch your feet, use the bathroom. I don't have much left to go, so we'll come back in maybe 10 or 15 minutes. We'll come back in a couple of minutes, and I may just have another 10 or 15 minutes left, and we'll close up for the evening. So go ahead and take a break. So, picking up on that idea of God's law being perfect, being eternal, being everlasting. And I just love that whole passage there in Psalm chapter 19 where all the descriptions of God's law and His word are given as good and pure and righteous altogether. Listen to what John Murray said. And he uses a lot of big words, so I'll try to break this down to more understandable language. I had to read it four or five times to understand what he was saying, but it's good. Too often, the person imbued with meticulous concern for the ordinances of God and conscientious regard for the minutiae of God's commandments is judged as a legalist. He said, too often, the person who has really meticulous concern for the smallest details of God's law and God's commandments, too often they're judged to be a legalist. How many times have you heard that before, right? You're just being a legalist because you're interested, no ban, God's law. Well, the person who is not bothered by details is judged to be the practical person who exemplifies the liberty of the gospel. We say, that's a problem that we have. Too often, the person who's interested in the details, we say, they're a legalist. And the person who just doesn't really care about the details, I just try to live by the principles of love, we say, see, they're living in the liberty of the Gospel. Here, in this passage, in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus is reminding us of the same great truth which He declares elsewhere. He's reminding us of something that He told us somewhere else. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. And he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. That's a paraphrase of Luke chapter 16 and verse 10. But you remember that principle that Jesus taught, that the person who's faithful in a little will also be faithful in much? Why do we think that is an old when it comes to the law? We don't expect them to be faithful in the little things, in the details, just so long as they get the big things right. Isn't that many times what we use to judge ourselves by? I haven't murdered anybody. It's not like I'm a bank robber. I'm not a serial killer. You know, I never fornicate. I'm not an adulterer. Okay, yeah, I covet. Yeah, I break the Sabbath. Yeah, I lust. Everybody does that, right? I haven't done the big things. But that's not the principle that Jesus used. He said, he who's faithful in a little, will also be faithful in much. The criterion of our standing in the kingdom of God and of reward in the age to come is nothing else than meticulous observance of the commandments of God in the minutial details of their prescription and the earnest inculcation of such observance on the part of others." And basically what he's saying is he's just restating Matthew chapter 5 and verse 19. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven." If you break and teach others the least commandment, The smallest portion of it will be the least in the kingdom of heaven. But the contrast to that is not the person who does great things will be called great in the kingdom, but whosoever shall do and teach the little things. That's the context there. Whosoever shall break one of the least of these commandments shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoso shall do the least of these commandments..." That's the implication. "...do and teach even the least of these commandments, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." So the man who is interested in the details, the man who is interested in doing and teaching the little things right, will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Notice, he doesn't say, we'll make it to heaven. We're not talking about justification here. We're not talking about how you get to heaven. Do enough of the little things right and God will let you in. No. But for those who are in the kingdom of God, for those who have been justified by the obedience of Christ, active and passive, for us now, our reward, our standing in the kingdom of heaven, in large part rests upon our obedience or disobedience to the least of these things. That's what Jesus says in verse 18 very clearly. In Luke chapter 11 and verse 42, let's see if I can get over there to that. 11.42 Jesus says, But woe unto you Pharisees, for ye tithe mint and rue, and all manner of herbs, and Passover judgment, and the love of God. These ought ye to have done, and not worried about tithing. That's not what He said. I wanted to see if you'd catch that. These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. So he didn't say, because you're tithing on mint and rue and manner of herbs, that's wrong. Instead, you ought to be dealing with the internal manners of judgment and the love of God. But he says, you ought to be interested in judgment and the love of God, and you ought to be interested in tithing on mint and rue and all manner of herbs. Don't leave the other undone. Don't say, I live according to love, therefore I don't have to obey the law. No, don't leave the other undone. Do it. But also do it from a spiritual heart of judgment and the love of God. You have to have both. When you divorce one from the other, you have an empty, vain religion. The person who says, I'm just about love, and doesn't do any of the law of God, is empty. The person who says, I do everything just so, and has no love for God and judgment, is empty. It's not real spiritual, substantive worship. If then, this law is from God, and every bit of it, in full effect, then meticulous observance of God's law is the standard for those in the kingdom, is the standard for our ethics. I remember last year when, I think it was last year, I don't think it was just this last semester, I think it was last year, when Tim Yarbrough was teaching and he was talking about the law of God. Anna and I had this conversation on the way home one day. She said, determine which are the ceremonial laws and which are the moral laws. It's so hard for me to find that distinction. The Bible doesn't say, here are the ceremonial laws and here are the moral laws. And we wrestled with that for a while and eventually I came back to her and told her what I've been saying here tonight and then teaching this lesson just clarified it all so much for me in that it's all moral. Every bit of it is. So when Jesus says to keep the sacrifice, we are to keep the sacrifice. Our sacrifice is Jesus. No longer the blood of bulls and of goats, but the precious blood of Christ which was shed. The mistake of the Pharisees was not concern for detail. That wasn't their mistake. Jesus wasn't telling them, you're too interested in the details. It was externalism, humanistic traditionalism, and hypocrisy. Their kind of concern for details led them to miss the whole genius of the kingdom of righteousness. Hence, they made God's law void by their own traditions. And that was a quote straight from this book, Theonomy and Christian Ethics. So often, we imagine Phariseeism and legalism to be too concerned with the little details. But that's not the case at all. It's when our concern for the details manifests itself in relying on the external, hypocritical actions without a heart of love and judgment. And we'll close with this quote here. This is... I'm going to butcher this guy's name if I try to say it. Gerhardus Vos, I think. Something like that. Jesus, He, once more made the voice of the law the voice of the living God, who is present in every commandment. so absolute in his demands, so personally interested in man's conduct, so all-observant, that the thought of yielding to him less than the whole inner life, the heart, the soul, the mind, the strength, can no longer be tolerated. Thus quickened by the spirit of God's personality, the law becomes in our Lord's hands a living organism. So Jesus came, by His own words, to restore to the Law, or to reaffirm to those around Him, the reality that it had always had. To take away that which had become merely external and hypocritical, and remind them that it wasn't a new law of Jesus that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, but that was the Deuteronomy. In the beginning, in the law, in the Pentateuch, the command was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And so when the question was asked him to try to trip him up, which is the first and greatest commandment, Jesus didn't tell him, let me sum it up for you, let me give you a new one. Let me spiritualize it for you. He didn't say that. He said, let me point to a law, there in the Pentateuch, That's the greatest one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is, like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two hang all the law and the prophets. Not, I got rid of the law and the prophets for these two, but these two are the peg on which everything else hangs. So that's the abiding validity of the law. So, as we move through this semester and we continue to talk about ethics and standards and the law of God defining our standards in apologetics and in giving an answer, we can be convinced of the fact Now Jesus didn't destroy the law, He didn't replace the law, He didn't abrogate the law, He didn't only obey it so that we no longer have to obey it. He fulfilled it. He established it, He confirmed it, He actualized it. He gave us a reminder of what sure foundation we have. So when someone tells you, we don't have to tie, that was just Old Testament. We can commit incest. I read an article where someone was arguing for that. The New Testament never talks about incest. That was only in the Old Testament. What are we dividing God now? What was true then is now false? What was evil then is now good? Not at all. But the law of God abides forever, even if heaven and earth pass away. Any other questions or comments on that before we close for the evening? Father, we thank You for this Word and our consideration of it. We thank You for giving us an established and sure Lord of prophecy, we thank you for giving us an established and sure commandment and law and standard by which we can measure ourselves against the righteousness that you require from us. We thank you that Christ is our righteousness. that our access to God comes through His obedience to the law in every aspect. And we thank you that we still have before us a standard for Christian living. If anything, you'd help us as we work through these realities and the way that words work and the meanings that they have and the way that they interplay one with the other, that we would be slow to speak, slow to wrath, quick to hear. We would listen to Your Word and allow it to govern and dictate our lives. We thank You for these giants of the faith, these men who have gone before us, who have written so many extensive works and have wrestled and battled through these ideas in their own lives and realms so that we can have the fruit of their labor before us. Pray you'd help us to use that appropriately as well. Bless us as we go our separate ways this evening, till we come together again, in Jesus' name, amen.