Christ is Our Righteousness

Have you ever struggled with understanding the Old Testament in the Bible? Now that we have Jesus, do we even need the Law from the Old Testament? And why does it seem like we’re supposed to follow some of those laws, like the 10 Commandments, but not others, like all the sacrifices or cleanliness laws? I mean, I love bacon! There’s 613 commandments from Genesis to Deuteronomy: are we supposed to be choosing between just some of those? That doesn’t seem consistent.

We’re one week out from celebrating Easter Sunday, and over today, our Good Friday service that will be here this coming Friday at 6pm, and our Easter service next Sunday at 10am, we’re going to be walking through a short series called “Satisfied in Christ”, looking at how the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus doesn’t just solve a sin problem for us, he fulfills the deepest desires within us.

And for this first week, we’re looking at what Jesus accomplished during his life, which in his own words here in Matthew 5, is directly connected to how we should understand and observe the Old Testament today.

ILLUSTRATION: Macie and I are doing a Bible reading plan together this year where we read a few chapters on our own during the day and then read a devotional from one of those readings and pray together each night. We’re going one book at a time, starting from the beginning, and we actually just wrapped up the book of Ruth this week, which is what we just finished studying through as a church as well.

And, I gotta be honest, it’s been easier to read since we got out of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Those books are where we find the bulk of the Mosaic Law, and some of them feel so foreign to me that it’s hard to get through. It feels easier to skim rather than to study.

Have you found yourself feeling that way when you try to read some of the Old Testament? Maybe you prefer just to skip it all together. It’s common for people to assume, whether consciously or subconsciously, that God somehow changed from the Old Testament to the New Testament—that he was more about judgment back then and more about love now. They see God leading his people to conquer nations and sending a flood to punish everyone but Noah and his family, and it’s easy to wonder, “What happened between that God and the God that so loved the world that he sent Jesus?”

But there’s a problem with the idea that God changed from the Old Testament to the New: the Bible disagrees. Malachi 3:6 says, “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” And then in the New Testament,  Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

That’s known as the doctrine of the immutability of God. He doesn’t change. And that’s actually really important for us to be able to trust him. Because no one puts their lives in the hands of someone who’s fickle. A relationship where the other person is hot one day and cold the next never feels secure. Can you imagine if that was how God is? Maybe that’s been your understanding of him.

But I want you to see from the Bible itself, that God doesn’t change. Even when passages talk about him changing his mind, we only see him relate to someone in the context of his sovereign will and waiting for them to pray as he then acts in response. He doesn’t change his opinion or shift in his character.

But that doesn’t explain what we see from the Old Testament to the New Testament. If God doesn’t change, then should we still follow every one of the 613 commandments in the Mosaic Law in order to be right with God? That’s the question Jesus sets out to answer in our verses this morning. Matthew 5:17-20 is the first of three chapters that make up the longest teaching we have from Jesus known as the “Sermon on the Mount”.

I know I’ve asked a lot of hypothetical questions already this morning, but the outline I’d like to follow for our next several minutes with the text is to actually answer three of them:

1. How does Jesus relate to the law?

2. Should we still obey the law? and

3. Why do we fall short of the law?

Let’s start with our first question: How does Jesus relate to the law? Look with me again at verses 17-18.

Matthew 5:17–18 ESV

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.

Jesus’ ministry felt subversive to many of the Jews around him. He challenged the Pharisees and other religious leaders over and over again, and it led to people wondering if the message Jesus was bringing was something contrary to the Scriptures they grew up with (when he mentions the Law and the prophets in verse 17, by the way, that’s just another way of talking about the entire Old Testament).

Jesus isn’t just pulling a random topic out of the air here. He’s responding to a sincere question: He seems to go against the religious leaders teaching the Scriptures so much—is he saying that we should just do away with them? And Jesus answers emphatically, “No!” The sense of the Greek expression we’ve translated “Do not think” at the start of verse 17 is more like the way Macie  looks at me when I tell her I’m going to tickle her: “Don’t you dare even think about it.”

Jesus is trying to be clear here. He didn’t come to do away with the Old Testament. He’s not trying to contradict it, and that thought shouldn’t even enter our minds when we understand who he is. Because the whole reason Jesus came to earth as the incarnate Son of God born as a human baby was so that he could fulfill the Law and the Prophets.

So, if we want to know how Jesus relates to the Mosaic Law in the Old Testament, then the real question we have to ask is, “What does he mean when he says he fulfills the law here in verse 17?” Well, right off the bat we can rule out that fulfill means finish. Whatever Jesus did to fulfill the law, the law’s not over.

Just look at the very next section after this one in the Sermon On the Mount: Jesus takes various laws from the Old Testament, like do not murder or do not commit adultery, and rather than say they’re over now because of his ministry, he says you thought they only spoke about our actions, and I’m saying to you that they speak about the motivations of your heart. That’s not finishing the law; that’s diving deeper into it.

No, when Jesus says he fulfills the Law and the Prophets, he’s saying he is the fulfillment of them. He completes them. He’s what they were pointing to. They provided a requirement; he provides the solution.

ILLUSTRATION: You learn a lot of things about a person when you’re with them, and one of the things I found out about Macie early on is that we disagree on Oreos. She thinks the originals are the best, and I rightly point out that they wouldn’t have made double stuff if that was the case. But do you know what we do agree on? That you can’t have an Oreo by itself. It’s incomplete if it’s not dipped in some milk.

By itself, the Old Testament creates a problem. Like the Apostle Paul said in Romans 7:7, the presence of God’s law gives us an awareness of our sin. Our kids can’t disobey me if I don’t give them any instructions to follow. When we see God’s character reflected in the commandment, “Do not lie”, we’re forced to reflect on all the ways, big and small, past and present, where we have and do in fact, lie. We’ve sinned against God.

And that’s what the law does: it establishes what living a righteous life for God looks like and simultaneously shows us how we fail to do it. Even when laws in the Old Testament would provide sacrifices for sin and washings to be clean, the people just repeated the cycle all over again as they continued to break God’s law.

And the writers of the Old Testament realized this, which is why God uses the Prophets later on to highlight the problem: the people of God need saving from God. They can’t save themselves. They need a Messiah, a Savior, and one day God is going to send one. That’s an exciting promise, but for the 400 years of silence between the last book of the Old Testament in Malachi and when Jesus was born, all those laws and promises from the Prophets about a Messiah sure felt like a dry Oreo: Lots of potential, but incomplete.

Then comes the milk. Jesus arrives on the scene, not to do away with the Oreo, but to complete the Oreo. To make our experience of it no longer dry, but instead to make it satisfying. Jesus fundamentally shifts the way we look at the Old Testament because he provides the answer to the question it created: How can we be righteous enough to dwell with a holy God? Only through the person and work of Jesus in our place.

And once again, it’s important we understand that, just like Jesus said in verse 17, his fulfillment of the Old Testament doesn’t abolish the Old Testament. The law’s still in effect. Look at verse 18: not an iota, not a dot (or we would say today, not a jot or tittle) of the law will pass away until all is accomplished.

As a side note, this statement from Jesus also makes a compelling case for the inerrancy of Scripture. If Jesus thought that every dotting of an “i” and crossing of a “t”  in the Old Testament was significant and mattered rather than simply the overall message, then that gives us the grounds to believe that the words of the Bible are, in fact, fully true words from God and not just reasonably true and approved words about God. He trusted every detail. As 2 Timothy 3 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed.”

Jesus says here that the Law won’t pass away “until all is accomplished.” And that’s not to say that there’s a point in your lifetime where God’s law might go away; he’s saying it’s in effect until God’s divine purpose in Scripture and his will for creation has been fully worked out.

This is so important for us as Christians. Because, if you understand the role of the milk, you can really enjoy the Oreo (even the ones that aren’t double stuffed). If you understand how Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets, then all 613 Commandments in the Old Testament don’t have to feel like a burden any longer. They can be a delight.

ILLUSTRATION: if you don’t know, I have a separate full time job with a marketing agency. When my boss recently asked me to think about new products we could sell to future clients even though we were making money with the services we already provide, I found it as a fun challenge. I mean, we’re already safe. My paycheck’s already covered, and I’ve been given the freedom to dream about new ideas without being desperate for those new ideas to work in order for me to keep my job.

If my boss had approached me instead and said, “Rob, we’re drowning. Our business is losing money left and right, and we’re going to have to start laying off employees soon unless you can develop a new idea to make us more money.” Oof, that’s not freedom; that’s a crushing weight. I can’t be our business’s savior.

And when we look at the Old Testament Law, we can’t be our own Savior either. James 2:10 tells us, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” That’s heavy. We can’t lift that weight, but Jesus can. The real question is, “Are you looking to fulfill God’s law yourself or are you trusting that Christ has fulfilled what you could not?” That’s what it means to be a Christian.

Jesus lived the sinless life we can’t, so when we trust in his performance rather than our own to justify us before God, then we’re freed up with how we look at God’s Law. Now, we get to do our best, empowered by his Holy Spirit, to obey his Law out of gratitude and wanting to be more like him, not so we can earn our place with him. That’s already been accomplished through Christ to those who repent of their sin and believe in him.

Now, you might be wondering, if the law hasn’t been done away with, then why aren’t we still sacrificing animals for every little bad thing we do? Why aren’t we taking baths like crazy to keep all the laws about washings in the Old Testament if they’re still in existence? Should we still obey the law? Should we only obey parts of it? But if that’s true, then why some and not others, and how is that consistent on God’s part? Let’s keep reading in our passage with verse 19.

Matthew 5:19 ESV

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.

Clearly, Jesus expects his followers to continue to observe the Law. It would be inconsistent of God not to do so. Remember, God doesn’t change, which means His Word doesn’t change.

ILLUSTRATION: My son is 3 years old, so he’s a very literal person. When he would fight us on bedtime, we used to tell him that he could tell it was time for bed because it was dark outside. Then daylight savings happens, and he makes sure to point out to us when we’re getting close to bedtime that, “It’s still light outside.” To him it feels like we’re trying to change the rules.

If God went back on his Law, we would lose our foundation for trusting him, because “what else” might he choose to go back on or just “pivot” from one day? No, we need him to still uphold his law, and Jesus says in verse 19 that he certainly does. That word translated “relaxes” gives the sense of loosening to the point of breaking, and Jesus offers this verse as a warning.

But this does leave us with a question that maybe you’ve wondered yourself in the past: Why does it seem like we’re supposed to follow some of the Old Testament commandments today but not others?

Well, like we just pointed out, the Mosaic Law is still active, but we’re not observing all of it in the same way today because it’s been fulfilled for us by Jesus. Now, what do I mean by that? You could break down those 613 commandments in the Old Testament into three basic categories: sacrificial laws, ceremonial laws, and moral laws. Jesus has completed each of those categories for us, but because each has a different purpose, we relate to them now in different ways.

Sacrificial laws were meant to atone for our sins. In Christ, we have the spotless lamb of God whose single sacrifice perfectly covered a multitude of sins. So, the need for sacrifice to pay for sin is still in effect but that price is fully paid for God’s people through Christ. So, we won’t be killing a cow at the end of our service today. Instead, we’ll observe the Lord’s supper to remember the killing of our Savior in our place.

Ceremonial laws, on the other hand, were meant to keep God’s people holy, which means set apart. They did things differently from other people because they were God’s people. All the cleanliness laws were meant to demonstrate that. But in Christ, we’re washed whiter than snow, not by water, but by the sacrifice of his blood. Jesus dying for you sets you apart and makes you more clean than anything you could ever do on your own.

That’s why we don’t observe the ceremonial laws in order to make us clean by our own effort. We have been given the righteousness of Christ. The Laws are still in effect, but they’re accomplished through Jesus.

Finally, Moral laws were meant to direct the behavior of God’s people, most notably in the 10 commandments. Like the sacrificial and ceremonial laws, God’s moral law is perfectly accomplished in Christ. Where we’ve been tempted and sinned, Scripture tells us Jesus was tempted in every way and yet was without sin. He followed the moral law perfectly for us.

This is where we get to the clarifying part, because if Jesus’ fulfillment of the sacrificial laws and ceremonial laws means we no longer have to sacrifice animals or wash ourselves to be holy and set apart, then shouldn’t that mean we also don’t have to follow God’s moral law any longer either? No more need to worry about “thou shall not kill” or “thou shall not lust”?

And in one sense, I would answer “yes”. Your ability to follow the 10 Commandments doesn’t save you. Jesus’ ability does. When he said it is finished on the cross, he meant it. And yet, Christians should still give every effort to follow God’s moral law today.

And this isn’t rationally inconsistent with the other two categories for one main reason. We strive not to covet or commit adultery, we honor our parents and don’t pursue other things over God in our lives as idols, not because we need to in order to be right with God but because we want to please God.

You see, God’s sacrificial and ceremonial laws were given so we could be made right with him, but his moral law is a reflection of who he is. It communicates aspects of his character. We shouldn’t murder, not just because it feels wrong, but because our God isn’t a murderer (Why do you think we feel it’s wrong in the first place? As broken as we might be because of our sin, we’re still made in God’s image, and our rejection of murder is true of who he is).

So, because God has freed us up from the weight of the law with a Savior who says his yoke is easy and his burden is light, we now look at God’s moral law differently. It’s not a requirement to keep God happy with us. It’s a gift and a tool to glorify God and reflect more of who he is to all of his creation.

That’s why the law is still so important to followers of Jesus. All of it is useful for learning more about God, revealing more of our sin, and pointing us more to Christ. And so Jesus says in verse 19 that you should both follow it and teach it. Because even though your ability to follow the law is not what saves you, it is the product of you growing to be more like Jesus in your life.

So, if you don’t value God’s Law, you won’t grow much as a Christian. Here, Jesus calls you “least in the kingdom of heaven.” Not “outside of the kingdom of heaven”, but least in it because you’re missing out on the blessing that comes from obeying our loving, good God.

ILLUSTRATION: Our 3 year old son doesn’t understand that when we tell him to do something, it’s for his own benefit. We’re not trying to prevent him from what’s good; we’re trying to steer him toward what’s best.

But Jesus also adds something else here in this verse that might challenge those of us here this morning who consider ourselves Christians. He doesn’t just tell us to obey God’s law. He tells us to teach it to others. And do you know who Jesus was talking to when he said this? Not professional clergy. It was the general crowd.

Every follower of Jesus has been given a responsibility from Jesus to teach others the good news about Jesus. We see that in his final words in the book of Matthew in what’s known as the Great Commission—“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

And here we see that in order to teach others about Jesus as the fulfillment, we have to teach the law as the requirement. You cannot communicate Jesus as good news without sharing about our sin as bad news. An antidote is worthless if there’s no sickness to treat, and to the extent someone sees their need is the extent they’ll be thankful for the Savior that meets it.

As your pastor, I am not the sole communicator of the gospel in our church. My job, and the job of the future pastors we bring in to serve here at Restoration is what the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 4:12: “to equip the saints for the work of ministry.” If sharing your faith and telling others about Jesus is an uncomfortable thing or a foreign thing for you, my hope is that our church will serve you well in equipping you to better engage your community with the hope of Jesus in the course of your daily, normal interactions in all the places you live, learn, work, and play.

Finally, Jesus closes out this summary of his relationship to the Law with a statement on how much we need him to fulfill it. Let’s look in our passage one more time, now at verse 20.

Matthew 5:20 ESV

²⁰ For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Why do we fall short of the law? Jesus is hinting at the answer here. The scribes and the Pharisees were the Jewish religious leaders of the day. The Pharisees had the Old Testament memorized. Talk about jot and tittle. They were meticulous to follow every law and then even added a bunch more for good measure.

And Jesus tells a crowd of normal, everyday people that their righteousness must exceed these religious elites if they’re going to enter the kingdom of heaven. Here’s the fascinating thing: Immediately after he says this, the next set of verses is Jesus launching into a “re-telling” of several of the very laws the scribes and Pharisees would have been so careful to obey. Let me read the first one to you. This is Matthew 5:21-22 (the next two verses right after what he just said).

Matthew 5:21–22 ESV

²¹ “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ ²² But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

You have heard it said, “You shall not murder.” The Pharisee kept that well. They can’t be a Pharisee and commit that sin. But then Jesus continues… “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.” We have to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees because they only ever looked at the outward appearance and God looks at the heart. They were pridefully focused on their external performance. God requires the right internal motivation.

So, if you’re here this morning, and your hope is that you’ve been good enough to be right with God, that you don’t do a lot of bad things and are generally a good person, Jesus’ words here are meant to lovingly confront us. When we consider not just our actions but our hearts, we find that we are more sinful than we ever could have imagined. But the good news of what we’ve read this morning is that the person and work of Jesus is more fulfilling than we ever could have hoped for. Jesus is enough, and he invites you to rest in him.

Let’s pray.