Find it here: Triablogue: Why I’m not a Calminian.

R. Albert Mohler Jr. was too young to head the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He thought so. Everyone thought so. But the board was impressed by his youthful vigor and clear plan to restore the seminary’s confessional identity. He was only 33 years old when he assumed the presidency in 1993. Soon thereafter at least 96 percent of the faculty of the largest Protestant denomination’s flagship seminary’s left.

Pharaoh had absolute authority. He was the law.

This is a sermon I preached July 15, 2009, during the 7 p.m. Wednesday service at Evangelical Church of Fairport, N.Y.

All Scripture references are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Audio: I Did Not Come To Abolish (Right-click on link to download audio)

Matthew 5:17-20

17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

I Did Not Come To Abolish

When Jesus came onto the scene, beginning His ministry at the age of thirty, He must have seemed pretty radical. I mean, here was a man who had not been a rabbi, or a priest, or a scribe. Jesus had been a laborer, a carpenter’s son — just your everyday sort of guy. While I’m sure that people must have noticed something different about Jesus, that He was an exceptionally well-behaved boy — those things about His childhood that we don’t know, but that Mary treasured up in her heart — Jesus had lived a normal and relatively obscure life in a small town quite a ways off the beaten path.

And now here He was speaking not just like the rabbis and priests and scribes, but audaciously, confidently, clearly — and probably to many presumptuously.

Remember later in Matthew, in chapter 13, when Jesus spoke in parables? The people hearing Him preach were absolutely astonished! The people hearing Jesus said:

“Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? 55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? 56 And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” 57 And they took offense at him.

The people hearing Jesus were offended because Jesus spoke as one who had equality with God!

And Jesus also spoke out against the legalism and outward ritualism of the Pharisees. He did that quite often; noting that the Pharisees tithed their “mint and dill and cumin” — in itself not wrong, as they were faithfully keeping the law by doing so — but criticizing them for concentrating on the letter of the law while ignoring the weightier matters, the matters of “justice and mercy and faithfulness.” (23:23)

Or as Jesus said in further rebuking the Pharisees, “First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.” (23:36).

Remember that as we continue. Remember Jesus’ admonition about paying attention to the weightier matters. Remember Jesus’ rebuking of the Pharisees to concentrate on the cleanliness of what’s inside. Remember the differences between an external code of conduct — a law of letters — as opposed to what’s inside, the internal law of the Spirit.

Although Jesus spoke out against the interpretation and practice and self-righteousness of the Pharisees, He made it quite clear that He was not doing away with what was in the Hebrew Scriptures. It was not what was written in the Scriptures that was the issue. It was not the Holy Word that was wrong, but that men in their actions had missed entirely what the Law written in the Scriptures actually meant. They should have seen the Messiah, who now stood before them. As Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” But instead of seeing the promised Christ right before their eyes, the Pharisees instead saw in the Scriptures and created in their interpretation of Scripture all sorts detailed rules to follow to achieve their own utterly worthless self-justification.

But on the Pharisees’ attempt to be righteous by scrupulously, methodically, and externally meeting the visible requirements of the Scriptures, they had profaned those very Scriptures. The Pharisees had focused on the appearance and forgotten the heart. The Pharisees had concocted extra rules and loopholes to seem as if they were meeting all the requirements of the law, but in doing so the Pharisees ignored the intention of the law.

We’re going to look at the meaning of these four verses as well as looking as four major implications of this passage.

First, that by speaking as one with authority and by fulfilling the Law and the Prophets, Jesus has declared Himself to be the Law.

Second, we’ll look at how a person, especially the Person of Christ can be in Himself Law.

Third, we’ll see how the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel point to how Law is given to the believer in the form of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

And last, we’ll look at how Christ as Law impacts the believer, how a law embodied in Jesus Christ is obeyed … as opposed to a Law of Letters etched in tablets.

There are certainly many more aspects in Christ’s fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets than just the ethical conduct of believers. But the reason we’re looking specifically at this aspect is that because in Reformed circles — particularly among conservative Presbyterians and among most Reformed Baptists — this passage, Matthew 5:17 in particular, has been used to make the Ten Commandments the rule of life, the “perfect rule of righteousness” as the Westminster Confession of Faith says.

Don’t get me wrong. The Ten Commandments are certainly instructive to us. But we, as Christians, have a higher ethic and a higher standard of righteousness, and that is the perfect righteousness of Christ. Christ’s perfect righteousness is our standard. We walk not as those under the law, but we walk in the Spirit.

So, let’s begin with verses 17 and 18.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish (or destroy) the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”

So that we’re on the same page …. the phrase “the Law or the Prophets” refers to the entire Hebrew Bible. Law means the five books of Moses: Genesis through Deuteronomy. The Prophets: those are the works of the major and minor prophets.

The word abolish, as the Greek is translated in the ESV (or as destroy in other translations) is pretty clear. The same Greek word translated as abolish or destroy is also used in Matthew’s Gospel when Jesus speaks about the Temple. Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

Jesus did not come to destroy the Old Testament Bible — although much that is written in the Old Testament does not apply to us in the same way as it did to Israel because Jesus has fulfilled it. No, Jesus did not come to shred, tear up, overrule, annul, abrogate or call null and void the Law or the Prophets.

Jesus Christ came to fulfill all that was written in them. He came to fulfill, NOT to destroy.

Fulfill can mean a number of different things to us. If you order something by mail order or on the internet, the merchant will fulfill your order. If you apply for a job, there are certain requirements you must fulfill to qualify. Or if you want to graduate from high school or college, you have to fulfill all of the course requirements. Or if you want to be president of the United States, you have to fulfill the constitutional requirements of being 35 years old and a natural born citizen. (Or so it says.)

In each of those cases, in each of those definitions of fulfill, you must meet what is asked of you or do what is required of you. In those examples, to fulfill is to meet a standard or to do what is asked or ordered.

But Jesus did more than that. Fulfill has a much deeper meaning here. Matthew uses the Greek πληρόω, for fulfill, 17 times in his Gospel.

In 15 places, Matthew uses that word in the sense of fulfilling prophecy:

• The virgin birth fulfills Isaiah 7:14;
• the flight to and return from Egypt fulfills Hosea 11;
• the weeping over the slaughter of the boys two and under fulfills Jeremiah 31:15;
• later, the healing of Peter’s mother in law fulfills Isaiah 53:4, “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”

In all of these cases, and in the other three Gospels, the word “fulfill” — when speaking of the person and work of Jesus Christ — means more than meeting requirements.

Again, in all but two places in Matthew’s Gospel where this word for “fulfill” is used, it is used in the sense of fulfilling prophecy. To fulfill when we are speaking of Christ means “to bring to fruition.”

Everything in the Law and the Prophets, every author from Moses to Malachi, everything written from 1400 B.C. or earlier to 450 years or so before His birth … everything was brought to fruition by Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, in Matthew 11:13, “For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John (the Baptist).”

Many, many places in Scripture testify to this.

In Luke 24, the risen Christ was on the road to Emmaus with two disciples. In verse 27 it says, “[B]eginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

In John chapter 5 verses 39, Jesus says: “39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,” and in verse 46 and 47, “[I]f you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. 47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

In Acts 2 at Pentecost, Peter expounds the Old Testament Scriptures and shows how they point to Christ. In Acts chapter 7, Stephen does the same thing … and Stephen becomes the first martyr of the church. And in Acts 13, Paul uses the Hebrew Bible to point to Christ.

And the letter to the Hebrews outlines redemptive history — the actions of God in Christ to redeem the elect to Himself from a fallen people — all culminating in Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ HIMSELF is shown to be the fulfillment of Scripture. The writers of Scripture, the Apostles in their preaching, Jesus Christ in His words — and the Holy Spirit as the author of Scripture all testify that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the lens through which we view all of Scripture.

The word “hermeneutic” refers to the method that a person uses to interpret what Scripture says. On this side of the Cross, Jesus Christ is our hermeneutic; it is through Him that we understand all of the Scriptures, the Old Testament and the New Testament alike. All of Scripture is about Christ!

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the lens through which we view all of the Bible.

All of the Old Testament points to Christ. The Old Testament presents types and shadows that show a picture of Christ. The Old Testament presents history — redemptive history — that is fulfilled in Christ.

All of the Old Testament remains in Scripture and all of the Old Testament commandments remain, but the commandments of the Old Testament remain only as fulfilled in and as transformed by Jesus Christ!

Whoever Relaxes

What about those Old Testament commandments?

“19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Therefore. That word throughout Scripture — especially in the teachings of Jesus and in the epistles — means, “because of what I’ve just said.” Sometimes, especially with Paul, it can mean the first several chapters of the letter!

Jesus has made a proposition — a truth claim — in verses 17 and 18. He has stated the following truth: the Law and the Prophets are not revoked; He has come to fulfill them. They testify to Him. They are a testimony to Jesus Christ.

Therefore, since all of the Old Testament testifies to the person and work of Jesus Christ, since all of the Old Testament testifies to the Messiah who came to fulfill all of what the Scriptures say, anyone who relaxes, who sets aside, who ignores what the Scriptures say will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.

Has there ever been anyone other than Jesus Christ who has been able to do all of what was required in the Law of Moses? Jesus Christ lived a perfectly sinless, holy and righteous life and met all of the requirements of the Law of Moses — not just the Ten Commandments — but all of the law.

The righteous nature of Christ as fully God, and the obedience to all of the law in Christ as fully man made it possible for Him to be our substitute. Jesus’ perfect righteousness and Jesus’ perfect obedience as one righteous made it possible for Him to atone for our sin. Jesus did that so those who believe in Him would be seen as righteous by our perfectly holy and perfectly righteous Almighty God.

Jesus Christ is the only one who has done all of what was required in the Law and the Prophets. And He is the one who taught us what all of the Law and the Prophets meant. Jesus Christ — as the One who has done what the Law and the Prophets require and as the One who taught what the Law and the Prophets say — Jesus Christ is the One great in the kingdom of heaven.

Verse 20:

“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

In their day, the Pharisees were known for their scrupulous keeping of the law. Now, the Pharisees deservedly get a bad rap for their legalism, for putting rules on top of what God had commanded, but in their day, the Pharisees were considered quite righteous by the rank and file Jewish people.

But, Jesus says, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees. …”

How much does our righteousness need to exceed that of the Pharisees? They were already very good — excellent, unsurpassed — at obeying the Law. Do we need to be a smidgen better than the righteousness of the Pharisees? How about twice as righteous as the Pharisees? Ten times as righteous? A thousand times as righteous? A million … or a billion times as righteous as the Pharisees?

All of those numbers, those multipliers, signify a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. And all of those numbers mean nothing. I mean literally — and I mean mathematically — those numbers mean nothing.

You see, Paul reminds us in Romans that among men there is nobody at all who is righteous. “There is none righteous! No, not one.” (Rom. 3:10)

So, if there are no men righteous, not one, then that means that the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, even times a billion, still equals nothing. There is no righteousness in them at all. Even the very best Pharisee is tainted by sin. And we can see through the words of Jesus that their hearts are tainted because they are missing the weightier matters.

What is required to enter the kingdom of heaven is perfect righteousness.

What is required to stand in front of a Holy God is PERFECT righteousness.

Perfect — absolutely spotless, blameless, perfect — righteousness.

Only Christ has that perfect righteousness. And only clothed in His righteousness can we — or could those Pharisees — enter the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus Christ did come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. He did fulfill every iota and dot, every jot and tittle, the smallest letter and the tiniest stroke of the pen. Jesus is the One who teaches the law and the prophets perfectly. Jesus is the One who keeps the law that He has fulfilled. Jesus alone is the one called greatest in Heaven.

The Law of Moses required complete obedience. Failure to obey just one part of the Law meant failure to keep all of it. (As Paul wrote in Galatians 3:10, “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’”) The only one to achieve complete obedience to the law of Moses is Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ “is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” (Heb. 1:3) The Law of Moses was only a representation, an expression of God’s righteousness, given on stone tablets at Sinai and in commands relayed through Moses. But it wasn’t THE righteousness of God. Only Jesus Christ is the “exact imprint of His nature.”

The Law of Moses represented God’s will for Israel and God’s authority over Israel. As it says in Deuteronomy 30:9-10:

9 The Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your cattle and in the fruit of your ground. For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, 10 when you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that are written in this Book of the Law, when you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Jesus Christ does the Father’s will. “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.” (John 5:30)

And as it says in Matthew 28:18, to Jesus Christ has been given all authority on Heaven and on Earth.

So if in Jesus Christ incarnate is revealed the highest expression of God’s righteousness; and if in Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all that God promised to Israel; and if in Jesus Christ is obedience of all that was required of Israel; and if in Jesus Christ is all authority on heaven and on earth, then our conclusion is this: in this New Covenant, Jesus Christ is Law.

All of the things the Law of Moses represented and required are a shadow of the Messiah: the ceremonies, the sacrifices, the righteousness, the need to obey, and the authority — all those things that were shown prophetically in the Law — are fulfilled completely in Jesus Christ.

All that the prophets wrote about the coming Messiah is fulfilled completely in Jesus Christ.

The Word of God made flesh, the incarnate Son of God, the Messiah, with all authority on earth and in heaven — Jesus Christ is Law.

How Can A Person Be The Law?

Now, wait just a minute, you might be saying. How can a person — even one of the three persons of the Trinity — how can a person be Law?

Let’s take a look at that before we move on to the implications, or rather the outworking, of Christ as Law.

When we think of the word “law,” we typically think of a rule or a statute, something written that we have to obey. In the Bible, the Ten Commandments were given through Moses as written laws. So were the rest of the 613 detailed laws that were the essence of the spiritual, cultural and civil life of the Israelites.

In the United States, we speak of this country (or at least we used to speak of this country) as being a nation of laws and not of men. And the reason for that was so that one man, one king, could not have all authority in himself.

There have been many times in history where a king was the law, or many times in history that a person was the law. Think of Pharaoh in the time of Joseph, or in the time of Moses. He was a law unto himself. What he declared was the law of the land. He spoke, and it was carried out … or else those who didn’t carry it out were carried away. Think of more recent times, for example, totalitarian dictatorships. Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong. All of them were infamous dictators, despots, tyrants of the 20th century. They had for a while absolute power and authority. What the dictator says, goes. He is a law unto himself. In him is all the authority in that country.

How about another example? How about in the Old West? I’m sure it has been fictionalized for the movies a bit, but this has been on film and on television countless times. Picture this scene: The outlaws, the bad guys — wearing their black hats, of course, and needing a shave (and probably a bath) — the outlaws come riding into town, firing their guns into the air. The bad guys then tie up their horses, mosey on into the local saloon, and start to raise havoc. Bottles get smashed, the chandelier gets shot from the ceiling, the piano player ducks for cover and the bartender dives behind the bar.

Then, walking through the swinging double doors, silhouetted against the light outside, comes the sheriff. He fires a warning shot. And he says, “Listen, all a you. I’m the law in this town.”

That sheriff, the man with the gun and the badge, was the law. In him was all authority in that town.

At the transfiguration of Christ, on the mountain, Peter, James and John see Jesus in His transfigured glory with Moses and Elijah. God then appears as a cloud and the voice of God says to them, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

Jesus Christ is the exact representation of God’s righteousness and Jesus Christ is the One with all of the authority on Heaven and on Earth. “For in him,” Paul writes in Colossians, “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.”

So, if a king, or a dictator, or a sheriff can be the law in a person, how much more can Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the very expression of God, His exact image, the exact imprint of His nature — how much more can the Word who became flesh be law?

It is the very nature of Christ that we are to reflect, and it is the very person of Christ whom we are to obey.

The Commands of Christ Are Not Given As Laws

A person, however, is not a set of external codes. Jesus Christ is the Word of God, but he is not a rule book, or a legal document, or any sort of a list of laws, statutes or codes.

Now, most assuredly — and I want to make this abundantly clear — we are to heed all of the teachings of Jesus Christ and we are to obey all of the commands, the imperatives, that are given to us by Jesus Christ.

But there is a distinction. The commands of Jesus Christ are not laws — emphasis on the “s” in laws — those commands are not laws in the way the Laws of Moses are laws. Most of the instruction given to us by Jesus and the Apostles — especially Paul — even those given as commands, are in the form of exhortation or encouragement. The commands of Jesus and of the Apostles are saying to us, “This is who you are in Christ; be who you now are.”

Much of what is in the New Testament Scriptures comes to us in the form of indicatives. For example, the Beatitudes at the start of Matthew 5 describe the nature of those in the kingdom of heaven. They are not commands, but they are indicatives. Indicatives: meaning that they indicate something or they describe something. In the Beatitudes, they describe the blessed ones who inherit the kingdom of heaven. They describe the new nature of the believer.

The commands we have in the New Testament have mostly to do with the heart or the nature of the believer. They serve to instruct us in our walk or help us conform to what we are to be in Christ. Let’s take a look at some examples:

(Matthew 22:36-40): “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

The command here of Jesus is internal; it is of the heart. The command of Jesus is to love. You can command it, but you can’t create love by commanding it. It is a command that tells you to be what you are or what you have been recreated to do.

(Eph. 5:25): “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. …” Again, love. Be loving. Be one who loves.

(Titus 2:7-8): “Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, a dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.” Show yourselves to be Christ’s, Paul says. Show what it is to be His.

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15) This is like Christ’s command in Matthew 22. Love God; love your neighbor. Not stuff. Again, this love, this is intrinsic to, this is part of who we are in Christ. It can’t be instituted by threat. It can only be instituted by God.

Each of these, while commands to us, while imperatives for us, are not given in the form of laws, but as imperatives that drive the indicative. In other words, they are commands that illustrate to us, implore us, exhort us, make plain to us, how we are to be as Christ’s elect.

Similarly, the words of Matthew 5:21-48 … the “you have heard it said, but I say to you” sections, known as “the antitheses”, speak about the heart and the inward nature of the believer rather than simply just providing outward commands to follow. These are imperatives that again serve both to describe the nature of who we are in Christ and tell us to be what we are to be in Christ.

Jesus certainly does use some hyperbole to get the point across. When He says to tear out your right eye or cut off your right hand if it causes you to sin, Jesus is not commanding us literally to do that, but Jesus is using that drastic idea, that picture, to graphically illustrate the seriousness of sin.

If what Jesus were giving us were meant to be a law, wouldn’t you think He would have given it to us in Levitical fashion? Jesus would have said something like, “If a man lusts after a woman, he shall have committed adultery. He shall tear out his right eye which has made him lust. This is the law for lust.”

Instead, Jesus has used overstatement to create a powerful internal understanding of the heinousness of that sin.

Again, let’s be clear. While all of these are given by Jesus and the Apostles in the form of commands that we must obey as Christ’s, they are not given to us in the form of laws like the laws of Moses. The purpose of these commands, these imperatives, is to exhort you to follow the new nature you have as a believer, and their purpose is to exhort us to be who we are in Christ.

Even so, there’s more to than just teaching someone by means of the Word about what it looks like, or what you must do, to obey Christ. The Scriptures have commands, but you must also be given the ability to follow those commands. You must be born again … witness Nicodemus, who knew the words of the Scriptures, but as a teacher of Israel still did not understand. You must be indwelled by the Holy Spirit to understand. You must have Jesus Christ as your Lord and Master.

Jesus cannot be your Law unless you are His.

With laws — rules, external codes — you can be taught how to behave … under threat of punishment or fear. Quite frankly, without Christ you can even be an awfully nice atheist. I’ve known a few atheists who probably are nicer, more philanthropic, and more altruistic than I’ll ever be … and it pains me to think of them headed to Hell. Most of us have known some sweet human beings who nevertheless did not know the Lord. And now that they are gone, they are not with Jesus. It’s so, so sad.

But as nice, as good-natured, as kind as they were, it’s still an essential doctrine of Christianity that you aren’t saved by your works. Your own works — no matter how good they are in the eyes of men — your own actions do not make you Christ’s. Only His saving grace and the work of the Holy Spirit within you to give you a new nature can do that.

And all of that’s the key to how we obey the person of Christ. Not through following external codes, but through the working of the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit in us. Only by being created as new creatures in Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit can we obey Him.

Hearts of Flesh

So far we’ve seen that Jesus in His incarnation came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them completely. We’ve seen with the support of other Scripture that in fulfilling the Law and the Prophets completely, that Jesus Christ is Himself the Law of the New Covenant.

We’ve seen that the New Testament doesn’t give us laws, but gives us instruction and exhortation. It does that primarily in indicative form — this is who you are in Christ — but the New Testament also does this in imperative form — in commands to either do this or be this … because of who you are in Christ. Those New Testament commands and instructions and exhortations are the Holy Spirit discipling us in what it means to be in Christ through God’s Holy word.

But to complete the picture of how Christ is Himself the Law of the New Covenant, we need to see how the Law and the Prophets are fulfilled in Him. We’ll see that fulfillment by reading the words of the prophets in the light of Christ and in the light of the Gospel.

Remember when we spoke of hermeneutics, the lens through which we view Scripture? Let’s view the prophets through that lens, the lens of the Gospel, the lens of Jesus Christ, and see what that tells us about Christ, the Messiah promised to the people.

Let’s first look to Isaiah.

In Isaiah 42 and 49, we see Christ as the suffering servant, the Messiah who will sit on David’s throne and deliver the people. We see that this servant, the Messiah, Christ, will himself be given as a covenant for the people. In Isaiah 42:1, it reads:

“Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.”

That’s one of the prophecies that Matthew, in 12:6-8, lists as fulfilled by Christ. Jesus Christ, the suffering servant, the Messiah, will bring forth justice to the nations.

Isaiah in verse 4 also writes that this Messiah will be law, even to the remotest lands:

“He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law.” The coastlands, meaning the shores of the Mediterranean — representing the outer reaches of civilization. The Messiah will spread His law to the distant nations.

Later, Isaiah in 42:6-7 writes:

“I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.”

The servant, chosen by God, who Matthew proclaims is Jesus Christ, is given as a “covenant for the people” and a light for the nations. Christ, the Messiah, is that covenant. Isaiah 49:8 also calls the suffering servant a “covenant for the people.”

But for which nations is this suffering servant, Christ Jesus, the light for the nations? Is it just the nations of Israel and Judah?

That’s answered in Isaiah 49:6: “I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Paul quotes that verse in his discourse, his sermon, at Antioch of Pisidia in Acts 13, to show that Christ came not just for the Jews.

The Messiah, who sits on David’s throne, who is Jesus Christ, is given as a covenant for the people, a law for the people, and a light for all nations.

What is the nature of this covenant?

Jeremiah 31:31-33 says:

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Hebrews 10:12-15 points to this passage and links it to Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice. The inspired writer of Hebrews tells us that this sacrifice of Jesus Christ and this writing of the law on the heart by the Holy Spirit is for Jew and Gentile alike. And Luke 22:20 also ties Christ to this phrase “new covenant” when he uses the words found in Jeremiah: “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

Christ’s blood is poured out to ratify the New Covenant that is inaugurated in Him. As it says in Jeremiah about that new covenant: “I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts.”

Similarly in Ezekiel 36:27, “And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” I will put my Spirit within you.

The Holy Spirit is put within, poured out upon, given … to all believers. The giving of the Holy Spirit to us -means that we are indwelled with the exact imprint of God. We are indwelled with the righteousness of God!

That giving of the Holy Spirit fulfills Jeremiah. The Holy Spirit indwelling in us puts the law — God’s will and God’s righteousness — within us. The Holy Spirit writes that on our hearts. Don’t miss that: the Holy Spirit as the righteousness of God puts that very righteousness in us as believers.

The Holy Spirit causes the believer to obey Christ, fulfilling Ezekiel. The Holy Spirit is the righteousness of God, in perfect alignment with the will of the Father and the Son. That righteousness is given to us, causing us to walk in God’s ways.

All of these prophecies are fulfilled in the inseparable person and work of Jesus Christ, through his sinless life, his death, his burial and his resurrection. Jesus Christ came from the Father to accomplish this. He declared “Tetelestai … It is finished!”

And finishing what He came to accomplish, He returned to sit at the right hand of the Father; Jesus returned to the glory He willingly left to utterly and completely defeat sin and save for Himself a people.

Jesus did that to crush sin and save you and me.

The Spirit of Christ Is The Law of Christ

First, we saw that Jesus Christ in His person is the prophetic fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, the prophetic fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Secondly, we saw that Jesus Christ, as the exact imprint of God, Jesus Christ as One whose will is exactly that of God, and Jesus Christ as One who has been given all authority on earth and heaven. He Himself, Jesus Christ IS the law. Jesus Christ, the fullness of the deity, is the Law of the New Covenant.

Then, we read three prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. We saw that in Isaiah, the Messiah is the suffering servant who is given as a covenant for the people, a law for the people, and a light for all nations. In Jeremiah (as confirmed in Hebrews), we saw that the law of God will be written on the heart of the believer. We saw in Ezekiel that it’s the Spirit of God given to the believer that not only writes the law within us, but causes us to walk in God’s ways.

So, to sum things up so far: Christ fulfills the Law and the Prophets. Christ is the Law in the New Covenant. In that covenant, the gift of the Holy Spirit is the imprint and will of Christ — Christ’s law and God’s very righteousness — indwelling in the believer.

Walking in the Spirit

If living as a believer means to walk in the Spirit and to trust the Holy Spirit as your law and as your ethic and as the very essence of your life, what does that look like?

Paul gives us a beautiful picture this. He gives us a wonderful illustration of walking, — of living — in the Spirit in chapter 3 of his second letter to the Corinthians. We could spend weeks just on this chapter. I’d love to have the opportunity to do that with you at another time, Lord willing. But I want to introduce this very key topic of walking in the spirit, at least broadly. Then, we’ll look at Paul’s words from his letter to the Galatians, to give you a sense of how this all ties together.

Paul, echoing language from Ezekiel 36:27 and Jeremiah 31:33, opens this discussion by writing in verse 3, “And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” Paul can see the work of the Spirit, the changed ethics, the radically changed lives of the Corinthians. Paul sees this as evidence of the New Covenant taking hold in the lives of the people of Corinth. Paul sees the law of God, the very righteous nature of Christ, written on the hearts of the people. And Paul makes reference to the “tablets of stone” of the Ten Commandments to contrast an inward nature as opposed to external codes.

Paul continues in verse 5:

5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Paul contrasts the law of letters, the Law of Moses, the law of the Old Covenant with the new covenant, a covenant of the Spirit. The Spirit of God, the very righteousness of God, is far superior. How could it not be superior? It gives life to those who have received it and not condemnation like the Law of Moses.

Paul elaborates on this in verse 7:

7 Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory.

The ministry of death, the Old Covenant, whose very law brought condemnation to all who could not keep it — which was all of Israel until Christ came — that ministry of death still had glory, because in its law, it represented the righteousness of God. And in its words, in the words of the Old Covenant, it proclaimed the coming Christ.

The Law of Moses — and in particular the Ten Commandments, those tablets of stone — those laws are prophetic because they show a picture of the righteousness that Christ would fulfill and the righteousness believers would attain in glory. We will have no other Gods; we will not murder; we will not lie. We will one day in glory be righteous and sinless.

Now to verse 17, where Paul shows what the Spirit of the Lord can do; what the Law of Moses could never do:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

We have been given the Holy Spirit. And where the Spirit of our Lord is, there IS FREEDOM.

As Paul also writes at the start of Romans chapter 8, you, believer, indeed have been made free.

8 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

Freedom. Freedom!

The ministry of the Holy Spirit frees us from the chains of the law, freed us from sin and death, freeing us to be the new creatures in Christ He has made us to be: renewed in the image of Christ and one day to be transformed completely to that image.

The theme of life in the Spirit is also a major one for Paul in Galatians. While the judaizers are trying to shackle the Galatians under the law of Moses, Paul reminds them that they are new in Christ and led by the Holy Spirit. Paul writes in Galatians, starting in verse 16:

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

The active, personal involvement of the indwelling Holy Spirit in the life of the believer takes the place of the external law. The Holy Spirit guides the conduct and conscience of the believer, guiding the believer, transforming the believer, growing the believer in grace, and producing in the believer the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control,” those are all indicatives, all descriptions of the believer’s new nature. This, dear Christian, this is who you’ve been born from above to be.

And as Paul writes, “against such things there is no law.” No law of letters can put the fruit of the Spirit in you. No rules can make you a new creature in Christ.

It is the “mind of Christ” as Paul writes in 1st Corinthians, this union with Christ through His Holy Spirit, that is our law. Christ’s nature, given to us, becomes our nature.

When Jesus has gone and the Holy Spirit has come, “you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you,” spoke Jesus in John 14:20.

And in 1st John chapter 2 verse 24, “Let what you heard from the beginning (the Gospel) abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father.”

This is not like the covenant God had with Israel. This is a new covenant. Christian, the very nature of God, the very righteousness of Christ is indwelling in you — Christ Himself is written on your heart. You do not have a set of rules written on your heart — you do not have the Ten Commandments tattooed on your left and right ventricles. The heart of the Living God has been given to you by His Spirit.

What Does This Mean Experientially?

What does this mean to have the Spirit in us? What does it mean to us in our Christian walk? How does this play out experientially, as they say? Or as the older theologians might say, experimentally? How do we live in the Spirit?

We could go on for weeks on this subject as well. Perhaps we’ll have the chance down the road. If you are a believer, you probably already have a very real sense of the Spirit that dwells in you. You already have a keen sense of the Spirit that has transformed you from what you once were, or from what you could have been.

If you’ve known Christ from a young age, perhaps all you have ever known is the peace of God that that surpasses all understanding. And if that is so, you truly have been blessed.

If you have memories of what you once were, when you were under the power of the prince of the air, and if you now live as Christ’s, if you now live indwelled by His Spirit, you know you would never want to go back. And praise God that you will not — those He justified, He also glorified, Amen?

In either case — knowing God your whole life, or knowing Him after a terrible life — you have a palpable sense of what it means to have that gift of the Holy Spirit. That Spirit of Christ which is a down payment for what you will be in glory. The Spirit, which seals you as Christ’s own.

How do we walk in the Spirit? We must constantly look to the Cross and look to the finished work of Jesus Christ; we focus, as Paul wrote in Philippians, on “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise,” we think about these things.

We don’t beat ourselves up with the Law. Paul says in Romans that the Law brought his flesh to sin. No … we focus on the Spirit. We look to the Cross. We turn to Christ!

Does This Mean We Don’t Need Scripture?

Now, some might ask — and people do, believe me — “does what you are saying mean we don’t need the Bible to tell us what is right or wrong, or what is sin or not sin?”

By no means!

We’ve already reviewed several verses that serve to instruct or exhort us on how we are to live as Christ’s. And indeed, all of Scripture, which is inspired — which is authored — by the same Holy Spirit that dwells in the believer is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim 3:16-17)

On this side of glory, in these corruptible bodies, we still absolutely need the discipling of the Holy Spirit via the word of God. We need all of what Scripture teaches us: what the Law and the Prophets tell us about Christ and what the New Testament tells us about living as Christ’s.

We absolutely need the Word of God. But that word is not a law book or a rule book. It is the living Word that gives us life and testifies to the Spirit of Christ in us.

And we do need the fellowship of our brothers and sisters. We need the church that God has given us. We need that church to support us, to encourage us, to reprove us, to correct us and train each other in righteousness. As Paul writes to the church in Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the Law of Christ.”

Fulfillment

We’ve covered a lot of ground here. We looked at the meaning of Matthew 5:17-20. We looked specifically at how in the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, Jesus brings many things … but we focused on just one aspect of that fulfillment, the replacement of the law of letters with the giving of the Holy Spirit to the believer.

We have seen that Jesus Christ did not come to destroy the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill all that they wrote about Him.

Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law and the Prophets by becoming the suffering servant given as a covenant, as a law, and as a light for the nations.

Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law and the Prophets by obeying all of the Law of Moses because of His own righteousness.

Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law and the Prophets by bearing our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law and the Prophets by defeating death in His resurrection.

Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law and the Prophets by giving the Holy Spirit to us, so that in His Spirit, Christ could indeed be Immanuel, God with us.

Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law and the Prophets by sealing us with that Spirit, as a promise of our future glory.

Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law and the Prophets by becoming sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus Christ fulfilled all of the Law and the Prophets.

And in Jesus Christ, only in Jesus Christ, are we fulfilled.

Christ is the final revelation of God to human beings (Heb. 1:3). Therefore, he also is the final revelation of God’s righteousness and goodness. The moral goal for Christians is to be conformed to his image (2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 4:13–16, 22–24). This renewal also is closely associated with the Holy Spirit, who comes as the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:6–11). Paul’s contrast between “the works of the flesh” and “the fruit of the Spirit” fulfills the Old Testament contrast between the way of life and of death, the way of wisdom and of folly (Prov. 6–9).

But in what concrete directions does the Spirit work? The New Testament puts love of God and love of the brothers at the center of its exhortations (Gal. 5:14; 1 Cor. 13; Heb. 13:1; 1 John). This love is an outgrowth of the Old Testament commands to love God and love neighbor (Matt. 22:34–40). Genuine love is not in tensio n with the commandments of God, but leads to fulfilling them (John 14:15; Rom. 13:8–10; Gal. 5:14). Love is deepened by the example of Christ’s love (John 13:34–35) and the empowering of the Holy Spirit (John 14:15–26).

Since God remains righteous in both Old and New Testament, the basic principles of Old Testament moral standards continue into the New Testament. Not only the basic principles but every detail finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God that Christ inaugurates (Matt. 5:17–20). But the way of fulfillment involves changes and displacement of what was temporary and shadowy, because it is superseded by the reality of Christ (Mark 7:19; Acts 15:9–10; Col. 2:16–17; Heb. 8–10).

New Testament ethics is also distinctive in its goal. The goal is honoring the name of Christ (Phil. 2:11). We look forward to a new heaven and a new earth in which God and the Lamb are central (Rev. 21:1–22:5). Our short-range tactics, as well as long-range strategy, should derive from our awareness that we are soldiers of Christ involved in spiritual warfare (Eph. 6:10–20; 2 Tim. 2:3–4; Rev. 2–3). The New Testament presents us with this spiritual warfare, involving angels and demons as well as human beings, not merely to enlarge our understanding of the various kinds of beings in the world but so that we might reckon practically with the importance of our allegiance to our Commander and Chief. We are citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20; Eph. 2:19) and pilgrims and sojourners on earth (Heb. 11:13– 16; 12:22–29; Rev. 7:13–14).

There are those who would reduce that “final revelation of God’s righteousness and goodness” to a set of codes or rules. The codes of the Old Covenant are part of the “temporary and shadowy;” what they reveal about Christ and the believer is the concrete of the New Covenant.

“For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:6, ESV).

The Rape of Solomons Song Part 4–conclusion

Dr. MacArthur writes in part:

One of the fundamental problems with this whole discussion is a refusal by many to acknowledge the crucial (and elementary) distinction between strong language and obscene language. …

Scripture condemns heretics in powerful, sometimes indelicate, terms (e.g., Galatians 5:12). But the Bible is never smutty, and the strong language in Scripture certainly doesn’t make profane language or filthy joking acceptable (Ephesians 5:4).

I’ve found myself defending Mark Driscoll often in discussions — online and in person — but not this time.  MacArthur is right when he laments the effect this has on young pastors and students.  Too many — and I fear this is a big problem among Acts 29 churches — try to out-Driscoll Driscoll in their dress, their speech, and their need to be perceived as hip. His effectiveness, and that of those who emulate or try to top him, is not measured by coolness.  His effectiveness, and that of any preacher or evangelist, stems from a clear presentation of the Gospel.

Not all that Mark Driscoll does to reach the culture is wrong; most of it is right.  And Driscoll is indisputably a gifted communicator.  (I was particularly thrilled with his repeated emphasis on the Gospel on ABC’s Nightline.) However, Driscoll is in a specific place with a specific audience, and much of what he does interacts with that specific culture.

So … his approach is not appropriate everywhere.

And, as Dr. MacArthur points out, some of it is not appropriate anywhere.

I’m most grateful for his latest post, “Margin Notes: special ‘warfare’ edition“. I think you’ll be benefited by it, too. (I’m also most grateful for his preaching and teaching!)

You might also wish to check out some of his sermons.

He writes:

I’ve designed this site to be a resource for New Covenant Theology (NCT). NCT is a hermeneutic (a way of interpreting the Bible) that clearly shows how the Bible fits together because it is unencumbered by a pre-conceived system of theology that drives its interpretation in any one direction. NCT is free of any system of theology that would force it to interpret Scripture as that system demands, allowing NCT to interpret Scripture free from any pre-conceived theological bias.

I’m looking forward to checking out all the resources he has included on the site as well as following his blog and participating on the discussion board he has set up.