Think not that I am come to make void the law or the prophets; I am not come to make void, but to fulfil.
The Sermon on the Mount had just described a blessedness unlike anything Israel expected. That raised an obvious question. If Jesus brings in something new, what happens to Moses and the prophets? His answer settles both the authority of the older Scriptures and the meaning of His own coming.
The verses before this describe a new kind of blessedness. That raised a worry for anyone taught to honour the law:
Here was a new kind of blessedness, quite foreign to the thoughts of Israel as a natural people. So how did the law relate to Christ's teaching and to the new state of things about to come in? Did not the law come from God through Moses?… Weaken the authority of the law, and it is clear that you destroy the foundation on which the gospel rests; for the law was of God as certainly as the gospel.
Commentators press for something wider than "keep":
To "fulfil" does not mean obeying at all. It simply means giving the fulness. The Lord, like the gospel, fully confirms the law as coming from God.
One writer draws it as a portrait matched at last by its living original:
The law was like a beautiful portrait, the portrait of a perfect man… When Jesus came every feature of it found living expression in Him. He was the original. He filled out its every smallest detail, brought out all its beauty and made it alive.
He names two things, and together they stand for the whole Old Testament:
"The law and the prophets" was the recognized phrase for the whole Old Testament. They belonged to a period already past, but they had not passed away with it… Christ did not come to destroy the law and the prophets. He came to fulfil, or rather complete — fill them out. What would the Old Testament be without the New? Very much like a finger, pointing into empty space!
By fulfilling them, He also vouches for them:
Read the Gospels with a simple heart, and you will find the whole life and teaching of Jesus woven through with the truth of the law and the prophets as we have them in our ordinary Bibles. To remove their authority, you would have to tear away all the revelation of Christ in them… He was born in Bethlehem, because by God's will the prophet had said so.
He is not defending the law as an outsider. He speaks about it as its Author:
We now see our Lord speaking as the One who is greater than Moses. Sitting on the mountain, He speaks with greater authority than Moses or anyone before Him, because He has greater authority. The One who speaks about the law and the prophets, confirming and expanding them, is the One who gave the law to Moses. His fingers wrote on the tablets of stone. His Spirit revealed the visions to the prophets.
What follows presses the law into the heart. That honours the law and leaves every hearer exposed:
He then presses the law home in its deepest spiritual meaning. He searches down into the hearts of the scribes and Pharisees and shows their guilt. He magnifies the law, but in doing so, proves all to be under sin. Then, in infinite love, He goes to the cross and bears the penalty of a broken law for all who believe on Him.
Some quote this verse to prove believers must live under the law of Moses. Commentators reply that fulfilment argues the opposite:
Now what Christ's fulfilling the law has to do with putting me under it I never could understand. I should have thought the opposite was true: if it is fulfilled, that is the end of the matter. He fulfilled the sacrifices in the same way, and all the more since He speaks of the prophets as well. The word "fulfil" is used of both, and that gives it a force quite different from what people try to make of it.
What He gives is not a lower standard but a deeper one, spoken on His own authority:
Our Lord is going to expand the great moral principles of the law into commandments that come from Himself, not just from Moses… He recognized the full value of the ten commandments. But He was about to open out the mind of God in a way far deeper than anyone had thought before.
- Fill, not kill — "Fulfil" does not mean obeying. It means giving the fulness, completing what the older Scriptures had only begun.
- Filled in Him — Every feature of the law found living expression in Christ. He was the original the portrait pictured.
- Filled out to the whole Book — "The law and the prophets" means the whole Old Testament. Without fulfilment it would be a finger pointing into empty space.
- Filled to the cross — He presses the law into the heart and proves all to be under sin. Then He bears the penalty of the broken law for those who believe.
- Filled, therefore finished — Since He fulfilled the law, this verse cannot put the believer back under it. His own words are now the deeper standard.
For verily I say unto you, Until the heaven and the earth pass away, one iota or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all come to pass.
In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord promises that His new teaching does not cancel the Old Testament. Two questions follow. What does it mean that the smallest stroke of writing is safe? And does that leave the Christian under the law of Moses?
(Older translations read "jot and tittle" and "till all be fulfilled" where the ESV has "not an iota, not a dot" and "until all is accomplished.")
The verse opens with "for," giving the reason behind verse 17. One writer says "fulfil" means more than a life of law-keeping:
There is no doubt that the Lord obeyed the law. But that is not what fulfilling means. He gave the law and the prophets their full scope. He did even more, for He revealed God in Himself by His words and His ways, and He made known those secrets of the kingdom that were entirely hidden in earlier days... But nothing in the new could weaken the authority of God in the old.
The two words at the heart of the verse are marks of handwriting, not points of doctrine:
The "jot and tittle" were the smallest marks in the Hebrew alphabet. The jot, or yodh, matches our "i" — a very small letter in Hebrew. The tittle was not a letter at all, but a small mark that told one letter apart from another. So we might put it this way: "not a dot to an 'i,' or a cross to a 't.'"
The promise reaches that far down: "inspiration is here claimed for even a single letter and even a part of a letter" (A. J. Pollock).
Many read the last clause as "until people have obeyed it all." One writer finds a different Greek word here than in verse 17:
Our version translates this as "be fulfilled," but it is a different word from the one just used. Such coming to pass could not mean the keeping of commandments. No one would speak of the ten commandments as something that had to come to pass. This coming to pass has to do with the law in its wider sense, which one would say must include the prophets as well.
"Until" implies a date. One writer places the full keeping of the law in the coming reign of Christ, not in Israel's past:
Nothing of the law will pass away until it is fulfilled in the millennium, in a way Israel's history has never yet seen. The words "till all be fulfilled" point ahead to the glorious reign of Christ as King. Then every Old Testament prophecy will come true, and every word of the law will be kept.
The Lord measures His word against heaven and earth, and His word outlasts them. One writer draws both comfort and a warning from that:
This is very sweet to us. What a priceless treasure we have in the word God has given us! It is steadier than heaven or earth, more solid, more lasting. That is what we have to build on for eternity! So how careful we should be never to corrupt God's word! The Pharisees cancelled it and set it aside by their traditions.
People often use this verse to argue that believers must still keep the law of Moses. One writer answers that a lasting law is not a ruling law:
No; the law stands in all its details. So it stands within all the limits it sets for itself, and for all the purposes it was given for, and for no others. This is simple enough to understand. Yet people who use words like these to lay the yoke of the law on the necks of Christians do not understand it.
Another writer says those who press this verse "only take what is convenient and ignore the rest." For the believer, he adds, "the law the law has been fulfilled in Christ" (A. J. Pollock).
If not one stroke can be dropped, then sin cannot be waved away. It has to be dealt with:
Nothing upheld the majesty of the law like the death of Christ. He kept it in full at every step of His life. He made it great and honoured it. Yet He bore the law's curse for those who had broken it... The law demanded what man could never give, and cursed him for not giving it. Grace first blesses a man, and then makes him able to do far more than the law demanded.
- Not one letter — the promise reaches the smallest letter and the mark that tells two letters apart. God's word is safe down to a dot.
- Not cancelled — Christ gave the law and the prophets their full scope, and nothing new He brought weakened the authority of the old.
- Not yet finished — "until all is accomplished" points ahead. Writers tie the full keeping of the law to the coming reign of Christ.
- Not a yoke — the law stands for the purposes it was given for and no others, so lasting does not mean ruling over the believer.
- Not ignored — Christ honoured every letter at the cross. He kept the law in full, then bore its curse for those who broke it.
Whosoever then shall do away with one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of the heavens; but whosoever shall practise and teach [them], *he* shall be called great in the kingdom of the heavens.
Jesus has just said that not one stroke of the law will pass away. Now He turns from His own work to what His hearers must do: keep and teach even the smallest commands. That raises two questions. Which commandments are the "least"? And what does He mean by least and great in the kingdom of heaven?
Jesus speaks to people still living under the law of Moses — before the cross, and before anyone preached the gospel.
So in verse 19 He still speaks to them as the godly remnant — those who heard His voice and clung to Him. They were born of God, but under law, and still on this side of the cross and the blessings it brings to faith. He insists on obedience, first and last. Here He begins with the law. But even in this chapter He goes on to what He is saying to them, which people of earlier times never heard.
Older versions read "break." The word means to loosen a command's hold — to weaken its authority. Read this way, the verse is one of the strongest claims anywhere that the law came from God.
According to our Lord's teaching, the Law is so entirely divine that "it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one dot of the Law to become void" (Luke 16:16-17). So no one is to violate it: "Whoever relaxes [the Greek word is luo — to loosen, to weaken the authority of] one of the least of these commandments ... will be called least in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:19). To assert the divine authority of the Law more strongly is impossible.
The teachers of Jesus' day sorted the commands into grades of importance. Jesus also draws a distinction. What He attacked was their choice of which commands to rank low.
The scribes counted 613 commandments in the Old Testament in all. They divided them into laws they thought were important and laws they thought were less important. The Lord also points out a difference when He calls the command to love God the great and first commandment. Yet He at once puts the command to love your neighbour on the same level (Matt. 22:36-40). In Matthew 23:23 He accuses the scribes and Pharisees of leaving aside the more important matters of the law — judgment and mercy and faith. Meanwhile they put great emphasis on applying the law of tithes to little things like garden herbs.
Commentators differ over which commandments are meant. Some take them as the law of Sinai; others notice that verse 19 drops the word "law" and says "these commandments."
It is also possible that the Lord, when speaking here about "commandments," was not thinking of the law of Sinai. He may have meant His own new commandments, which He was just about to announce in the "sermon on the mount"... They might still have seemed "least" to His audience. Yet they were the guidelines for how the disciples of Christ should behave in the kingdom of the heavens.
The verse joins doing and teaching. That pairing points straight at the religious leaders.
The end of verse 19 again shows the contrast with the scribes and Pharisees. The Lord later says of them: "So do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practise" (Matt. 23:3). In Matthew 5:19 He links His promise to the agreement between actions and doctrine.
One writer takes "least in the kingdom" as a description of people whose place there is outward only.
The law was still valid then. So He says to the Jews here that anyone who thinks he can do away with any of it would be called the least in His kingdom. Comparing the two Scriptures we see that He speaks of people who only claim a place in the kingdom of the heavens outwardly. They have not really "entered in" (v. 20). When He appears in glory He will remove them from His kingdom in judgment (Matt. 13:41).
Taking the law this seriously does something to the person who tries.
This very attitude — doing and teaching the commandments — would of course lead a person to recognize his own need of the saving grace of the Lord Jesus. He would realize that he comes short when measured by the rule of law.
This verse is sometimes set against the teaching that believers are not under law. One writer answers that the two do not clash.
Teaching that we are not under law, and teaching men to break the commandments, are not the same thing. On the other hand, I can teach the commandments as part of the revealed mind of God. At the same time I can hold that I am not under the law.
- Authority. To "relax" a command is to loosen its grip on people — and no one may loosen what God has spoken.
- Smallness. The scribes put tithing herbs above justice and mercy. Jesus lets no one label any word of God unimportant.
- Agreement. Jesus ties the promise to doing and teaching. The leaders of His day preached without practising.
- Ranking. Least and great are places in the kingdom. Being "least" may expose someone who never entered it at all.
- Direction. Measured by this rule, everyone comes short, and that discovery is what sends a person to the grace of Christ.
For I say unto you, that unless your righteousness surpass [that] of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of the heavens.
Jesus has just said He came to fulfil the law. Now He sets a bar that would have stunned His hearers. The most respected religious men in the nation did not have enough righteousness to get in. Two questions follow. What righteousness does He mean, and how could anyone ever have it?
These were not careless men. They were the recognised experts, and no one in Israel knew a higher standard.
Since the Babylonian captivity the Talmud has added a large collection of interpretations and rules on top of the law. The New Testament calls these "the tradition of the elders." The scribes knew the law and these human rules best, and the Pharisees kept them most strictly. In Matthew 23 the Lord Jesus pronounces a sevenfold "woe" over these men and their behaviour. It was marked by self-centredness and a concern for outward appearance. They might look devout and righteous to people, but before God their attitude could not stand.
Their fault was not carelessness with Scripture but the way they placed human tradition alongside it.
As undoing the word justly sunk one to be "least" in the kingdom, faithfulness to it raised to a great place there. Clearly then the righteousness of those who entered must exceed and excel that of the Pharisee (v. 20), who honoured tradition, the word of man, and so necessarily belittled God's word.
The disciples looked up to this religion. Jesus says it will not survive God's inspection.
They looked up with ignorant eyes to the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Our Lord declares that this righteousness will not do. It goes up to the temple every day. It prides itself on long prayers, large gifts to the poor, and broad phylacteries. It will not stand in the sight of God. There must be something far deeper and more in keeping with the holy, loving nature of God. For with all that show of outward religion, there might still be no sense of sin and no sense of the grace of God — and usually there was none.
(Phylacteries were small boxes of Scripture worn on the body. The Pharisees made theirs wide so people would notice.)
The answer is not a longer list of duties but reality on the inside. The rest of the chapter shows what that looks like.
The Scribes and Pharisees were especially ritualist and external. This was letter, not spirit. Our Lord condemns a righteousness of mere outward acts. He insists on inward reality as essential for the kingdom of the heavens... As the Pharisees fatally narrowed the scope of Scripture, the Lord gave its fulness as none but He could. The first of these references is to the law of murder. But the Lord goes immeasurably farther for the kingdom.
Commentators differ on which righteousness the word "your" points to. Some read it as the righteousness lived out by those who already believe:
He does not mean the righteousness of God which He credits to those who believe on Him. The Lord Jesus, in the "sermon on the mount," does not preach the gospel to the lost, but speaks to His disciples. So "your righteousness" means practical righteousness. It shows in the lives of people He has justified through faith in Him, who follow Him by doing God's will.
Others read it as pointing the hearer straight to faith:
The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was mere self-righteousness, an attempted cover-up of their true character. We must have a righteousness that exceeds this. This is not explained for us here, but Romans 4:5 makes this far more clear.
Both readings agree on one thing. The verse gives the requirement but never says where to get it.
There is a great secret that does not come out in this sermon. First of all, there is a load of unrighteousness on the sinner. How is that to be dealt with, and the sinner made fit for the kingdom of heaven and brought into it? Through faith he is born again. He receives a new nature, a life that flows from the grace of God just as truly as Christ's bearing of his sins on the cross. There is the foundation of practical righteousness. The true beginning of all moral goodness in a sinner is the sense and confession that he has none — that he is bad. Nothing is ever right with God in a man until he gives himself up as all wrong.
The verse ends with the question of who actually gets in.
The question was raised: who is going to get into the kingdom? The answer is, "Unless your righteousness…" That is the character which suits the kingdom — not the Pharisees with their legal righteousness... We are born again, and so we see and enter the kingdom.
- Standard. The scribes and Pharisees kept the law and the tradition of the elders strictly. They looked righteous to people, but their attitude could not stand before God.
- Deeper. Jesus condemns religion of outward acts and asks for inward reality. He goes far beyond the letter of commands like the law of murder.
- Debated. Commentators differ. Some take "your righteousness" as the daily righteousness of those already justified. Others say it points the hearer to righteousness received by faith.
- Source. The sermon gives the requirement, not the remedy. New birth through faith gives a new nature — the foundation of practical righteousness.
- Entrance. The verse describes the character that suits the kingdom — and the first step into it is confessing you have none of it.