9th September 2024

9th September 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (Matthew 5:17-20 focus v17)


Message (Alan Burke) 


We’re focusing on one verse today where we learn that Jesus had not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, he had come to fulfil them. What does this mean for us? Well firstly think to the words that are used, ‘abolish’, ‘Law’, ‘Prophets', ‘fulfil’. They are words that we need to understand correctly if we are going to understand what is going on here. Firstly abolish. To abolish something means to do away with it. Law, well we might assume that it’s talking about the moral law summarised in the Ten Commandments but it’s not that, rather when the Law or the Prophets, or the Law and the Prophets is used together it speaks of the entirety of the Old Testament  from Genesis to Malachi. Last word for now, fulfil. It means to achieve, realise. So Jesus had come not to destroy, get rid of, do away with the Old Testament rather he came to fulfil it. 

What does that mean?


Well it means two things. Firstly the scriptures from the fall (think Genesis 3:15 when God preached the Gospel to the Devil) had been looking forward to the hope of the one that would come, the law and the prophets were to act as a big signpost pointing us to Jesus and at the same time they were teaching us how to live as the people of God. Of course there are other things that we learn of in the scriptures, but their thrust has always been to direct us to the hope we have in God through the promised one and how we are to live in response to our God as his image bearers.


Secondly the scriptures especially the moral law summarised in the Ten Commandments don’t just refer to what we do they also refer to our hearts. You might think you’re great that you keep the commandments but you’ve left them in shatters, we all have. To interpret them in a narrow sense that they deal with our outward actions just doesn’t cut it. We may keep up appearances, look respectable to the watching world, even to those closest to us but we are law breakers and as a result of our transgressions what we deserve is death (Rom 6:23). The law of God was meant to make us despair at our inability to keep it and to look to the Lord and his mercy. 


In every age there are those who have twisted the word of God to fit with how we want to live, others who have misunderstood the simplicity of it and though the meaning is plain there are those who will jump through hoops to make it say something that it doesn’t. They will do all that they can to explain a passage that they don’t like away because it would impact on them, it happened in Jesus day, it is not that the word of God lacks clarity, it is that such is our sin and our hatred of the law of God we will do what we can to make it fit with how we want to live. 


Here is the good news at this, Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets. We are sinners deserving of judgement. The good news is that Jesus had done all that is required of us. What we all deserve death the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus precisely because he fulfilled the Law and the Prophets. He was the one that the law and the prophets were pointing us to, the one in whom we have hope of salvation. None of us deserve God’s grace but for all who repent and believe they have the free gift of God, eternal life.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q86. What is faith in Jesus Christ?
A. Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel.
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