The Law Fulfilled

Text: Matthew 5:17-26
Date: The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost7/23/06

  Thanks to a visit a few weeks ago with the leadership of our congregation from our Michigan District “Congregational Ministry Facilitator,” Rev. Roosevelt Grey, there is a renewed vision and enthusiasm for the mission of St. Mark's congregation especially in terms of reaching out more intentionally to the community around us with the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A preliminary part of that vision is to make St. Mark's an inviting, attractive and pleasant place to be. That will take some upgrading and improvements to our physical facilities and grounds. In addition, of course, will be various new programs and activities to invite and draw people so that they see St. Mark's as a vital neighbor and part of their community. All of this, of course, is in the interest of developing relationships and contacts that open doors to the real task and goal of proclaiming and sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ through which the Holy Spirit calls and gathers people for whom Christ died. More important than buildings and grounds and programs, however, is that we become, more and more, an inviting, welcoming community of people of faith, hope and love. The Word of God before us today is aimed at getting beneath just the outward appearances to what our Lord calls the higher righteousness that demonstrates the real heart of what it means to be a Christian disciple and community.

  You see that we have before us today the Ten Commandments. In the words of our Lord in his foundational discourse called the Sermon on the Mount, he is warning us against two opposite errors when it comes to the meaning and purpose of the Law of God. One error is to believe that with the coming of Christ the Old Testament Law has been abolished. His very first words contradict that idea as he says, “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.” The other error, however, is the age-old idea that the way to become acceptable to God is by a meticulous albeit only outward obedience to his Law as summarized in the Ten Commandments. So Jesus points to the scribes and Pharisees of his day and says, “that's not enough!” “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” In saying this, Jesus does not mean, however, that we are to be better Pharisees. The higher righteousness he is talking about is not one of quantity but of quality. It is a righteousness of a completely different kind than that of the Pharisees and the mere outward keeping of the Law of God. It is not a more meticulous morality but one which has its origins in God's work in and through Jesus and that is had by faith in him.

  “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.” The phrase “the Law and the Prophets” means the Holy Scriptures, the Torah, the inspired Word of God written through Moses and the Prophets of the Old Testament. But now, in Jesus, the Holy Scriptures will soon include also the New Testament of the Evangelists and Apostles. His words mean to apply to the whole counsel of God.

  Unfortunately, some who have never been taught or give it much thought may wonder what the difference is between the Old and the New Testaments of the Bible. Some think that the Old Testament is just that, “old,” meaning out-of-date, behind the times, incomplete or even disposable now that the “new” testament has been established. The true relationship between the Old and New Testaments, however, is, in a word, Jesus! In Jesus the Old Testament finds its fulfillment and completion. The Church still reads, hears and treasures the Old Testament as it all points to its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. It's all about Jesus! Furthermore, nothing is removed or discarded from the Old Testament in its fulfillment. It's still all there, but it's whole truth can only be discovered in and through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus you cannot truly hear what the Old Testament has always been saying. In Jesus the entire Law is fulfilled, but in such a way that all its words and letters stay in place. That's what he meant when he said, “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.”

  Therefore we have this warning, “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.” We dare not change either overtly or by misinterpretation the divine Word of the Holy Scriptures. And this applies also to the New Testament as St. Paul said to the Corinthians, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.” As we have received the pure Word of God for ourselves so we are to be careful to hand it on in its pure, unadulterated form to our children and to others without adding or taking away from it. This seems simple enough until you consider the very real temptations that exist to downplay the Bible's real message. Military chaplains of all denominations constantly fight for the right to proclaim the Gospel in its fullness against the wishes of some who want them all to preach only a generic, inclusive so-called gospel that doesn't offend anyone's denominational sensitivities. The Biblical teaching that it is not given to women to serve as pastors in the Church makes the Roman Catholic Church, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, The Southern Baptist Convention and other smaller groups look, in their faithfulness to the scriptures, like dinosaurs not in step with modern times. The ancient practice of the Christian Church not to allow the unbaptized or the uninstructed to participate in the sacrament of the altar is interpreted by some as being unloving. There are always pressures to “relax” or reinterpret the teaching of Holy Scripture, and they must be resisted and avoided at all costs.

  One other popular misunderstanding of the Bible is that the Old Testament is all Law, meaning only judgment and condemnation, while the New Testament is all Gospel, meaning only grace, forgiveness and salvation. It is true that a proper distinction of Law and Gospel is needed for the proper interpretation of the Bible. But there is plenty of Gospel in the Old Testament and also Law in the New. The worst thing about that kind of confusion is that people may get the idea that God was only a stern and wrathful judge in the Old Testament, but now in the New Testament he has changed his mind and become a big softy, meaning, of course, that he lets people “off the hook” to get away with anything they want because there is no unforgivable sin. When was the last time you heard a sermon about the threats of eternal judgment and condemnation in hell for those who have rejected God's offer of grace and salvation? The old “hell-fire and brimstone” preachers of days past were not preaching the Gospel when all they were trying to do is “scare the hell out of you,” but the Gospel isn't Gospel unless it is spoken to those who have first become aware of their desperate need of deliverance from the wrath of God against sin.

  Now, when Jesus says he hasn't come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it, he is certainly, of first importance, speaking of himself, of his own active and passive righteousness, his own keeping of the Law of God perfectly for us and then his own paying of the price of our sin and lawlessness by his atoning and vicarious sacrifice on the cross for us and for our salvation. But now he turns to us and says, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” So the fulfillment of the Law is not just something we stand by and watch him do. It begins there, but there is something about it that is also fulfilled in us, that changes us.

  So he turns to the Ten Commandments and reveals the heart of God's Law. He speaks of the Fifth Commandment, saying, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder.'” Then, as the very God Who gave the Commandments in the first place, he explains, “but I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.” You have not “kept” the 5 th commandment, as the Pharisees thought, simply because you have never actually, physically murdered anyone. Sin is not just a matter of your actions or lack of them but of the heart. “Murder” includes all anger and hatred and judgment that leads up to it. More than the mere prohibition of murder and anger, the heart of this commandment is the will of God that we be about the work of reconciliation, that we be a forgiving people leaving all judgment to God. Now this is a hard saying, but it means that there is to be no cause for anger among Christians! Anger belongs to God alone, which, in Christ, even He set aside! By becoming angry the one who claims to belong to Christ becomes a liar because he misrepresents God in Christ. As the Apostle John put it, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” To refuse to be reconciled with anyone is a sign that you no longer belong to Jesus or are actually a member of his Body, the Christian community or Church. If Christ lives in you, however, you become a brand new person. As we heard the Apostle Paul's famous words, in baptism we died and were buried with Christ “in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” This newness is shown chiefly in the ministry of reconciliation, the forgiveness of sins.

  Now there is one more misinterpretation of this Word and that is when people confuse the two kingdoms, the kingdoms of the left and right hand, of government, office and vocation in the world on the one hand and of the kingdom of Christ on the other. For God has given the authority to judge and punish evil to the government, to teachers and to parents. When leaders of church bodies, for instance, urge the government to cease our current war against terror and terrorism, they are actually undermining God's provision for outward peace in the world by executing judgment and punishment against evil. Parents are not to withhold the rod or appropriate punishment of their children when they are disobedient or are in danger. So pastors and preachers are to warn and discipline when false doctrine or teaching threatens the pure proclamation of the Gospel. “In the kingdom of Christ there is to be no anger, only kindness and love; the heart is not to be bitter against anyone, and neither mouth nor hand are to cause anyone grief. But in the kingdom of the world, in secular and domestic headship, there mouth, tongue, and hand, in accord with each person's rank and function, should act, reprimand, and punish all who do what is wrong and refuse to perform what they are commanded. If they refuse, then punishment is in order, not indulgence and mercy” (Luther).

____________________
Rev. Allen D. Lunneberg

Contacts:

deblocascio.stmark@sbcglobal.net

Pastor: Rev. Allen D. Lunneberg
7979 Commerce Rd.      (1/4 mile east of Union Lake Rd.)
West Bloomfield, MI 48324
Phone: 248.363.0741
Fax: 248.363.4755