Sermon for Sunday, February 9th, 2025 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC)
Old Testament Reading:
[Psa 40:6-17 ESV] 6 In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. 7 Then I said, “Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: 8 I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” 9 I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O LORD. 10 I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart; I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation. 11 As for you, O LORD, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me! 12 For evils have encompassed me beyond number; my iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me. 13 Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me! O LORD, make haste to help me! 14 Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether who seek to snatch away my life; let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt! 15 Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, “Aha, Aha!” 16 But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, “Great is the LORD!” 17 As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God!
New Testament Reading:
[Rom 10:1-4 ESV] 1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. 2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Gospel Reading:
[Luk 16:14-17 ESV] 14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. 15 And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. 16 “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. 17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.
Sermon Text:
[Mat 5:17-20 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. 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.
Introduction
We are in Jesus’s Sermon the Mount. And at this point in the Gospel of Matthew, not much of Jesus’ preaching has been recorded. We know that, like John the Baptist, Jesus preached “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17)
What hasn’t been said yet of Jesus’s preaching, but is apparent from our text today, is that Jesus has already been preaching the Gospel of Salvation by the Grace of God made known through the gift of faith.
The reason I say that this is apparent — that Jesus is preaching Grace and Faith — is that he now addresses a question that must have come up against his preaching of Grace and Faith. He says “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets.” When someone says “the Law and the Prophets” this is shorthand for “the whole Old Testament,” all the Scriptures known to the people of that time.
While we haven’t yet been told in Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus is preaching the Gospel of Grace and Faith, we know that he does so from other places.
[Mar 16:16 ESV] 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
[Jhn 5:24 ESV] 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
And so by preaching salvation by Grace through Faith, people must have wondered what this means for the Old Testament and its laws. If we are saved by Grace and not by the Law, then what is the purpose of the law? Do we discard the law? Paul would later say “by no means.” μὴ γένοιτο May it never be.
[Rom 3:31 ESV] 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
This sort of question must have come to Jesus as well. So now 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.”
This is a critically important verse in our understanding of the relationship of the Law and the Gospel, and of the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Jesus is clear; the law is not to be discarded. He does not abolish it; He FULFILLS it.
Yet, there are MANY QUESTIONS that remain when it comes to the Law and the Christian.
In our day there are, not only Jews who seek to follow the law in all its details, but many even professedly Christian groups (as well as strange cults) that put considerable emphasis (I’d say a false overemphasis) on the Law. There are, for example, Seventh Day Adventists who advocate for an unchanged seventh day sabbath. There are Theonomists who say we should run our governments today in precisely the same manner as God commanded Israel in the Old Testament. And there are dispensationalists who dream about rebuilding the temple in Israel and perhaps even some folks who want to see the ancient sacrificial system return.
These positions are the result of a misunderstanding of the place of the Law.
We want to understand the proper purpose of the Law and its relation to Christians today.
This is a big topic. And it is certainly more of a doctrinal subject than a practical one. At least at first. But once we understand what Jesus is saying about the law, we can apply to many varying circumstances and questions.
What do we do with The Law?
There is a song, and I thought it was older, but from 1981 by the band “the Clash.” You’ve all heard it. The lyrics in one part say “Should I stay or should I go now? If I go there will be trouble. If I stay it will be double.”
That’s the sort of predicament it might seem that there is with the Christian and the Law.
It could almost be one of those trick-questions that Pharisees ask Jesus.
Because if he (or you) says “let’s keep the Law” someone might accuse you of legalism, the idea that you believe that your salvation is due to your following the Law in all its details.
But if you say “let’s get rid of the Law” a person could equally call you an antinomian – a person who is against the law. An anarchist, a person like those in the Book of Judges who reject God’s rule and “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
So if you do away from the Law there will be trouble, if you keep the Law there will be double.
But, fortunately there is a better way.
And that is the way of Christ.
So we come to our first point: the Law is fulfilled in Christ.
I. The Law Fulfilled in Christ (v. 17)
Jesus 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.”
There was an early-church heretic named Marcion who advocated getting rid of the Old Testament.
Jesus would have nothing of that idea.
The Old Testament, as He says elsewhere, speaks of Him.
He says to the Jews:
[Jhn 5:39 ESV] 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,
So, naturally, Jesus wouldn’t want to dispose of the Old Testament.
He does not abolish the law.
But he does FULFILL it.
What this means is that
Jesus lived a perfect life.
And in all that He did, He fulfilled the law.
He was even the sacrificial lamb called for in the law.
And so, fulfilling the law, Christ is our perfect savior.
God makes a way of salvation in Jesus Christ, because we cannot be saved by our own efforts.
Yet, the Law does not pass away.
II. The Law Does Not Pass Away. (v. 18-19)
The law is of great importance, even to Christians.
And, as Paul says in Romans, (I’m paraphrasing) “it is by the law that we have knowledge of sin.” The law shows us our need for a savior.
To emphasize that the law is not done away with Jesus then says this:
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.
Our version says “not an iota, not a dot.”
The King James says “not one jot or one tittle.”
The idea is that not the smallest letter, nor even a stroke of a pen that makes up part of a letter is to be done away with.
The Law of the Old Testament remains.
Another way to think of this is that the Law of the Old Testament is the Law OF GOD. And as God does not change, neither does His word, nor His law.
III. The Law and the Christian
But here is where we have to stop, and look at The Law and the Christian, because how can we say, on the one hand that the law has not not passed away, but yet some major changes have occurred.
While the Law has not passed away, not all of the Law is for All Time.
This is key so I want to repeat it.
While the Law has not passed away, not all of the Law is for All Time.
Some parts of the Law were designed for their particular times and circumstances. This especially is the ceremonial law and the civil law.
An important distinction has been made in Church history between three realms or arenas of the laws. There is the ceremonial, the civil, and the moral.
A. Ceremonial.
The ceremonial law is all of that which was connected to the temple and worship in ancient Israel. These laws were fulfilled by Christ, as both the priest and the sacrificial lamb. There is no longer a temple in Jerusalem. And we no longer sacrifice animals for sin offerings.
Our Westminster Confession of Faith explains:
God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; and partly, holding forth divers instructions of moral duties. All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the new testament.
The key word is ABROGATED.
But we’re not doing away with these against Christ’s very warning.
For one, the temple does not exist today.
And to make sacrifices today, when Christ was our once-for-all sacrifice would be an affront to God.
Then also, included these ceremonial laws we are the dietary restrictions. And we know from Peter’s dream in Acts 10 that these now longer apply. A voice came to Peter that said “What God has made clean, do not call common.”
This doesn’t do away with the ceremonial Law. It just recognizes that it had a time and place in Ancient Israel.
Such is the case also with the civil or judicial law.
B. Civil Law
The Westminster Confession again explains:
To them [the nation of Israel] also, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial [civil] laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.
This means that there are general principles by which we should arrange our laws today, but the details of the laws need not be precisely as they were in ancient Israel.
Again, I don’t believe we are going against Christ’s warning here. The civil law had its time and place, and still has an impact today.
Then there is the moral law.
This is what, above all, Christ is speaking of when he warns against people teaching against the commandments.
C. Moral
The moral law is especially the 10 commandments.
And as we continue in the Sermon on the Mount with the next passages which are examples of what Jesus has been saying about the law not passing away, the examples are all of the moral law. Three of the 10 commandments are mentioned.
You have heard it said “you shall not murder.”
You have heard it said “you shall not commit adultery.”
You have heard it said “you shall not swear falsely.”
These laws, the 10 commandments, definitely will not pass away.
And if someone were especially to teach against these laws, they would be least in the Kingdom of heaven.
But Jesus preaches Grace.
And so he is correcting the understanding of those who think that salvation can be achieved through the law.
That has never been true.
Salvation is by Faith. It was for Abraham and it is for us.
20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
This is a recognition that we need something else, someone else to save us. We need an “alien righteousness.” And we are given that righteousness by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ whose shed blood forgives our sins and substitutes it with an undeserved righteousness credited to our account.
Then, there is one more necessary step in our thinking. It shall be our application. We are saved by Christ to Live According to the Law of God.
Application: Saved by Christ to Live According to the Law of God.
We’re not dressing like the ancient Jews.
We’re not eating like the ancient Jews.
And we’re not hoping in our own righteousness like the Scribes and Pharisees.
SOMETHING has changed.
Christ has come.
He has FULFILLED the law.
Paul says in Romans:
[Rom 10:4 ESV] 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Now, we understand what that means. Christ is the end of our desires to achieve righteousness on our own. But the law remains, that we may seek to live according to it for the glory of God; to praise Him for the salvation we’ve been freely gifted.
The Luke says:
[Luk 16:16 ESV] 16 “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it.
This is an odd saying to our ears. “Everyone forces his way into it.” It is perhaps better understood in translations like the NET Bible that say “everyone is urged to enter it.” Or the CSB Bible that says “and everyone is urgently invited to enter it.”
That is, the Kingdom of God is available for you and me.
That is the Good News.
And not only is the Kingdom accessible, but the even better news is that Christ is our ticket in.
So let us praise the Lord for Christ fulfilling the law, while remembering Christ’s saying “If you love me, obey my commandments.” Praise be to God. Let us pray.