Our Relationship To The Law

It's frankly involves a misunderstanding among many believers as to how the law of Moses relates to us. In other words, our relationship to the law. And that's what we're going to be talking about today because I am seeing Christians getting sucked in to thinking that their relationship to the law of Moses, particularly, you know, like things like the Ten Commandments, Sabbath laws, food laws, and things like that are binding. And there is a belief that even those of us who are in Christ are still obligated to the rigors of the law. And so my goal here this morning is to try to clear up some misunderstanding and also to equip you guys if somebody, you know, comes and talks to you about this issue, or they have questions perhaps, or they make statements to you about it, whether it's about Sabbath keeping, or food laws, or just the Ten Commandments and how we need to keep those things, and so forth and so on. I want you to know how to respond because there are some very fine-sounding arguments related to this. And if we're not particularly grounded in the Word of God, and particularly what Jesus did for us on the cross, there is for us a vulnerability in the body of Christ to kind of be drawn in to these sorts of things. So before we kind of look at our first passage, and what I'm going to do here in a moment is I'm going to take a passage of Scripture that I think is one that a lot of Christians struggle with, and even stumble over. But I want to begin by defining some terms, because there are terms I'm going to be using repeatedly throughout this study, and it's important that you guys know what I mean, so that we're on the same page, as it were, related to these. And the first one is a term, and we'll put these up on the screen for you, the first one is legalism. And that's one of those kind of words that gets people's blood pressure up a little bit, because nobody wants to be told they're legalistic, nobody. Nobody wants to have you say to them, well, you're just legalistic. And frankly, there's even some misunderstanding related to what it means from the standpoint of Christians, but it is essentially a dependence on morality and works, in other words, things I do, in order to be acceptable to God. Now, I know that in the broader sense of legalism, it can be really any adherence to rules that is kind of extreme, but we're not talking about a general definition of legalism. You know, if somebody was absolutely, you know, they never went more than even one mile an hour over the speed limit, you could say to them, wow, you're pretty legalistic about, you know, obeying the speed limit. And technically speaking, in a general sense, that's an okay usage. But for biblical purposes, it's always about doing things so that God will accept me, okay? Are you with me? So, legalism, from a biblical standpoint, is what I do, what you do, so that God will accept you, so that he'll love you, so that he'll embrace you. And the other thing that we're going to be referring to quite a bit is the law and the law of Moses. And, you know, that is going to encompass really the whole law that's given through Moses, the Ten Commandments, which includes, of course, I mean, there's elements of the food laws, Sabbath regulations, feasts, you know, all that kind of stuff. It's all encompassed in the law of Moses. So, I wanted you to know it's not just limited to the Ten Commandments, which some people think that it is. So, this is the point where I want to take you to a passage that I think that people often stumble over, and it's in the Gospel of Matthew. So, turn there, please, if you would, with me. Matthew chapter 5, and this is in the Sermon on the Mount. And there's a passage of Scripture here where Jesus speaks of the law, and I have actually heard this passage quoted by individuals who feel obligated to keep the law, and they actually use this as a proof text to explain and to undergird their belief in law-keeping. And we're going to begin in, skip down to verse 17, Matthew 5, 17, and it goes like this. We're going to read through verse 20. Jesus is speaking here. He says,

Can we pray for just a moment? Heavenly Father, open our hearts to the ministry of your word today as we dig into this, as we kind of unpack this passage of scripture. Please use this, Lord, to bring wisdom and freedom and grace and understanding. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. In that few verses that we read there, there's actually quite a bit that Jesus is saying, but we're going to boil it down to three particular statements that I want to look at here this morning. And we're going to put each of those on the screen. The very first one is statement number one, the quotation from Jesus where he said, do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. It is truly amazing to me how many people will quote that part alone as a proof text. I've seen this happening among Christians, among people, whether online or face-to-face. You know, somebody will quote the beginning of this passage and say, hey, hey, listen to me, man. Jesus said I have not come to abolish the law. So, and they keep it, they stop it right there. So, if Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law, well, you know what that means. That means we need to keep the law. That means that we are obligated to the law. And then they begin to spiel from there. Now, if you're just talking to somebody, and you don't have a Bible open at the moment, and they're just quoting some of these things, you're kind of going, well, yeah, that's what it says in the Bible, you know. And then just carry you on down a kind of a, you know, a path of explaining this thing in such a way as to say, as to bring you under the law. And I want to look a little bit more deeply at this, you know, which is frankly what we often don't do. So, if you look at that statement there, that's on the screen, do not think that I've come to abolish the law and the prophets. You'll notice that Jesus says what he did not come to do, and then he says what he came to do, right. What did he not come to do? He didn't come to abolish the law or the prophets. And the word abolish is just what you had expected to mean. It means to destroy, or to throw down, literally in the Greek. Here's what Jesus said he did come to do. He said, I have come to fulfill the law and the prophets. And that is an important thing to remember, to understand, because it does get misquoted. I actually read online where a gal was arguing about, from this statement, using it as a proof text, that we need to keep the law. And she said, you know what Jesus said? He said, I've not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to uphold them. That sounds really good, doesn't it? But that's not what Jesus said. He didn't say, I've come to uphold them. He said, I've come to fulfill them, okay. So you got to be careful. And if you don't, if you're not tracking, you know, when somebody talks to you and it just doesn't sound right, the best thing for you to do is say, do you have a Bible here that we can look at? Or can I grab mine? Because let's read that together. Because often if you just start reading through it slowly, you're going to be able to deal with some of these things. You're going to be able to expose some of them. Jesus said, I have come to fulfill. And that is such an important word for you and I to think about and understand. The Greek means to make full or to complete. I have come to make full the law and the prophets. I have come to complete the law and the prophets, right? The question you and I have to ask is this, what did he mean by that? See, it's one thing to say or for us to quote what the Bible really truly does say, which is, I have come to fulfill. But what does that mean? What does it mean when Jesus says, I have come to fulfill? Well, let me start by telling you what it doesn't mean. Fulfill does not mean end. Jesus did not say, I've come to end the law. He didn't. That's not encompassed in that, the definition of that word fulfill. What's interesting about that word, it's the exact same word that is used in the New Testament when it speaks of Old Testament prophecies being fulfilled. Let me give you an example. Put it up on the screen here for you. From John 19,

Same word. Same Greek word that Jesus, you know, is recorded as using there in Matthew chapter 5, when he says, I have come to fulfill. So when Jesus fulfilled the law, he's basically telling us he is the fulfillment. He is the fulfillment of the law. And there are several Bible passages that show that, that show that Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. I want to show you just one. From Colossians chapter 2 on the screen, by the way, I'm going to be showing you lots of scriptures on the screen, so get used to looking up there. It says, therefore, Paul writing here to the church in Colossae, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink. That's the food laws related to the law or with regard to a festival. That's regarding the feast and festivals of the law or a new moon or a Sabbath related to Sabbath regulations. He says, don't let people judge you about questions about those. Look what he says here. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. I want you to notice regarding the food regulations regarding the annual festivals and feasts regarding the Sabbath observances, Paul says, and we're going to highlight this first section on the verse. He says, these are a shadow of the things to come. What is a shadow? Obviously, that's a figurative word that's used to describe not the real thing, but just a piece, a pointer, a shadow. If I were to hear you walking and then I see your shadow approaching before I actually see you, I would know that you're coming and it would point to the fact that you're coming, but that shadow isn't you, it's just a pointer. It's telling me, it's alerting me about the real thing that is upcoming. So what is the real thing that God wants us to see? That's where we highlight the other part of this verse. It says, but the substance, the substance, the real part that God wants us to see belongs to Christ. Okay. Now, again, this is just one example in Colossians where the apostle Paul brings out the fact that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of aspects of the law. And so what we gain from this is what I want to advance for you this morning as four points of fulfillment, and that's what we'll put up on the screen. For those of you taking notes, I want to lay out for you four points of fulfillment, essentially that Jesus fulfilled related to the law. First one is Jesus fulfilled the teachings of the law and the prophets in that he brought forth their full meaning. You know, the word fulfilled also means just opened up and completed. The Jews did not understand the full meaning of passages in the law. They heard things like, you shall not commit adultery, but Jesus explained to them that it was more than just physically having an extramarital relationship. Jesus said, you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, right, if you even lust in your heart for someone, you have already committed adultery. You see, Jesus gave clarity. He brought dimension and dynamic to the word, to the teachings of the Old Testament. He brought fulfillment. He filled them out and helped us to understand what they really meant. And Jesus, the next point on here is Jesus fulfilled the predictions of the law and the prophets in that he is the one they predicted. He is the promised one. He is the reality behind the shadows, right? They all point to him. They all point to Jesus. He is the, he's the one. Okay. Finally, Jesus fulfilled the moral requirements of the law and the prophets in that he fully obeyed them. And he obviously clarified their meaning as well, which we've already mentioned, but he fulfilled the moral requirements in that he lived a perfect life related to the law. You guys get that? Jesus lived perfectly as it relates to the law. He fulfilled the law. He lived, he kept the law. Jesus kept the law. He never disobeyed anything related to the law. You and I do it daily, but he never did. And in that sense, he fulfilled the requirements, the moral requirements of the law. And then lastly, and this is one of the most beautiful things, Jesus fulfilled the legal demands of the law and the prophets by his death on the cross, because that's where he took our penalty. You guys know what the legal demands of the law is, right? It's death. Isn't that what Paul said? The wages of sin is what? It's death. Okay. So we, the law is legally required to pass a sentence of death on you and me. It's legally required because we've disobeyed, we've violated the law. Jesus came and fulfilled that demand of the law by dying for us. And of course, he was qualified to die for us because he never violated the law in the first place. And that's what made him qualified. If I wanted to die for you, God would say, sorry, Paul, you can't do that. You're disqualified on the basis of you've broken my law. And if you're going to die for anybody, you'd have to die for yourself. And of course, once you die for yourself, you won't live at all. You know, well, Jesus could die for us. And then he had the power to raise himself from the dead and thus live again, causing us to have that same promise. So you can see how Jesus fulfilled these four points of biblical fulfillment. And that is, of course, why Paul wrote what he did to the Romans in Romans chapter 10, when he said, for Christ is the end of the law. That word end, interesting in the Greek, it means to set out for a definite goal, a definite point. I looked it up in my Greek dictionary, the word end, to set out for a goal, a particular goal. Jesus set out for the goal of fulfillment of all that the law demanded, and he reached it. He reached his goal. Okay? That's why Paul says Christ is the end, the completion, the fulfillment of the law, right? For righteousness. All right, the second statement we're looking at from Matthew chapter five is this section where Jesus says, therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same and so forth will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever does them, and again, this is pointed to by individuals who are into law keeping and they'll say, hey, Jesus said it right here. He said it right here. It's just as clear as day. If you relax one of the least of these commandments, right? That's wrong. You can't do that. So Sabbath keeping, you got to keep the Sabbath, the food laws, you have to keep the food laws. And on and on and on they go, says it right here. So this one really kind of tweaks people's heads. Well, you got to understand something about the people Jesus was talking to, the Jews. They were pros at relaxing the law. I mean, they had spent centuries working around the rigors of the law to suit their lifestyle or whatever. And so Jesus is reminding them in this statement that there are no, there's no allowance here to relax the law because that's what they were doing. They found all kinds of loopholes. Oh, but you know, you can do this and you can do that. Don't worry. And you know, Jesus condemned the religious leaders on several occasions saying, you know what? You guys have just introduced to the people a bunch of rules that are made up by men and you've actually violated the law of God. They were constantly doing this, but listen, listen, this is very important. Here's why none of the law can be relaxed. Here's why none of it's ever going to fade away. The law is a reflection of the holiness of God and the holiness of God isn't going anywhere. And since the law is a reflection of his holiness, the law isn't going anywhere. The law will always be the law. The demands of the law will always be the demands of the law. The righteous standards of the law will always be the righteous standards. Nothing's going to fade. Nothing's going to be minimized. You can't minimize the law any more than you can minimize the holiness of God. That doesn't mean Jesus didn't fulfill the law for us, but the law remains the same. does not change because God does not change. It is unchanging. It is eternal because God is unchanging and eternal. Final statement from Matthew chapter five, verse 17, statement number three. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Once again, the people who get tangled into rule keeping will point to verses like this and say, see Jesus said, hey man, your righteousness, you need to follow the law and you need to do it better than the Pharisees, which is pretty amazing because if they'd lived back during the time of the Pharisees, their minds would have been blown because the Pharisees were on the top of the righteous food chain as it relates to Israel and the keeping of the law. I mean, nobody did it better than them. They kept the law and then some. They also violated aspects of the law, but in the people's eyes, these guys were perfect. And yet Jesus comes along and says, oh, by the way, the righteousness of the Pharisees, the scribes, not good enough. You need to have a better righteousness. The people must have thought to themselves, okay, then I'm out. Because there's no way that I can do better than these guys. But you know, Jesus actually revealed in other places why the righteousness of the Pharisees and the scribes wasn't good enough. And you know what that reason was? It's because it was just external. It was all outward. Let me show you this passage from Matthew chapter 23. Look what it says. It says, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you're full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. See, that's why the righteousness of the religious leaders wasn't good enough. It was an external show of righteousness. And what God demands is internal righteousness. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, well, I'm still out because I'm not good enough to be a Pharisee. I can't even keep the outward thing very long, but the inward righteousness, man, I'm busted. My heart is just not, I know my heart is not always right before God. I sin, I have thoughts I know that are impure. I deal with jealousy, I deal with anger, I deal with all kinds of things that just constantly disqualify me. Well, you know what? It doesn't matter whether you keep rules or not, everybody's disqualified. Even if you do keep rules and if you keep them perfectly, you're still disqualified. You know why? Because keeping rules can't change what's going on in here. It only makes it appear to look good out here. But in here, in the heart, that stuff can't be changed by rules and regulations. I wanna quote one of my favorite passages out of the NIV from Colossians chapter two, check this out. Paul writes and says, since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why as though you still belonged to the world do you submit to its rules? Such regulations indeed. Oh yeah, they have an appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body. But look at this last phrase. They lack any value in restraining the flesh, which he refers to there, or the NIV refers to as sensual indulgence. In other words, rules cannot restrain the flesh. We can make it appear like we've whipped it into shape, but the heart hasn't changed. And that's what God looks at. He cares about and looks at the heart, right? Now, that is exactly why Paul gives this conclusion about law-keeping from Romans chapter three. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. This is one of those verses that people who are into legalism, they don't quote this. Or if they do, they misquote it. By works of the law, by keeping rules, no human being will ever be justified, ever. Are you trying to be a good person? Are you trying to keep rules and regulations? Are you trying to be acceptable to God? In other words, are you on a performance track? It's not gonna work. It can't work. You can't be good enough, okay? No one will ever be good enough by keeping rules or keeping regulations. And Paul doesn't stop there. He goes on to tell you how you can be good enough, and aren't you glad about that? Look at the next couple of verses. But now Paul writes, I wanna tell you about this righteousness of God that has been revealed. And it's been revealed apart from law, apart from rules. Although the law and the prophets actually bear witness to it, they talk about it. He says this righteousness of God, it comes through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. And you know what? That statement that he makes there at the end of that passage is so vital that you and I understand it. And this is where, again, people who get involved in rule keeping get so tangled up. They don't get it that I am righteous through faith, not through works, not through being good. God declares me righteous by putting my faith in what? The finished work of Jesus on the cross. He did it. He was good enough. He was victorious. He conquered. He won the victory, right? When I put my faith in what he did, that faith is imputed to me as righteous standing before the Father. I am righteous. If somebody comes up to me and asks me, hey, Pastor Paul, are you righteous before God? I'll say, yes, I am. Not of myself, but because of him, right? That's the point. Yes, I am righteous before God. Am I self-righteous? I have no claim to self-righteousness. There is no such thing as self-righteousness. It doesn't exist. People accuse Christians all the time of being self-righteous. Self-righteousness doesn't exist in the Bible. There's no such thing. There's only God-righteousness, and that's a gift that is given because my faith is put in him and what he accomplished. Jesus, I believe. I believe that you died for me on the cross. I believe that you conquered my penalty on the cross. You bore it. You suffered for me. I believe it. He says, you are righteous, my son. I give you my righteousness. What a blessing. I don't deserve that righteousness. Do you? None of us do. People keep telling me, oh, Pastor Paul, I just feel so unworthy. I keep telling them, it's because you are. That's why you feel that way. You are unworthy. We're all unworthy. We should get T-shirts made up. Right? I'm unworthy. And then on the back, it can say something like, but Jesus has won the victory or something like that. So the question is this. We're sitting here talking about faith, putting your faith in Jesus and what he did on the cross. So what does that, does that do violence to the law? Some people think so. People thought that that's what Paul preached. He preached that this faith business, they were saying, you know, this, the apostle Paul, may I tell you, he's going around telling people to have faith. You know what he's doing to the law? He's dragging it in the mud. He's diminishing the righteous requirements of the law, which we are commanded to uphold. That's what this apostle Paul's doing. So Paul asks this question. Look at Romans 3.31. This is really important. He says, do we then overthrow the law by this faith? In other words, do we do violence to it? On the contrary, we uphold the law. We, guys, get this, get this. We uphold the law. We're keeping the law by faith. So somebody says to me, Pastor Paul, do you keep the Sabbath? And I know what they mean. What they're asking me is, do you do it just like it was commanded in the Old Testament? In other words, you know what they're asking me? Do you keep the shadow? And you and I come back and we say no, I'm keeping the real thing. Jesus Christ is my Sabbath rest. I am resting in the finished work of Jesus on the cross. I am not working for my salvation. I'm resting in what he did and resting is what the Sabbath was all about. It's what it pointed to. It was a shadow of the things to come. The reality is Jesus. So are you keeping the Sabbath? Yes, I am. Seven days a week, right, yeah? And all the other laws that people can foist upon you, are you keeping, hey, are you and I doing violence to the law with this faith? No we're not. We're upholding the law. We are upholding the law by faith in Jesus Christ. Isn't that good news? Listen, this is freedom, you guys. This is freedom from bondage. This is freedom from legalism and being on a performance track with God. God loves you. He loves you. And by faith, you are righteous in the sight of God. What a blessing that is.