Near the beginning of the greatest sermon ever preached (The Sermon on the Mount), Jesus said this..

“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. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks 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 practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:17-20

Wait a minute, are we supposed to be following the Jewish Law as Christians?

Is Saint Paul wrong when we wrote, “For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.” Romans 6:14

It seems like these are two contradictory statements!

Before we jump to any more conclusions, let me take a moment to unpack this.

Jesus tells us that he came to fulfil the law. He came to do what we and countless generations could never do: live up to God’s expectations for how we live in relationship. (Romans 3:23)

What is the fulfilment of the law? Or to ask it another way, what does it look like if we lived according to God’s will 100% of the time?

Saint Paul gives us the answer…

The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Romans 13:9-10

Love. Love God, love each other. Just love. When you boil it all down, the Law of Moses tells us to love.

Clearly, we don’t do that very well. God knew that and came to us (in Jesus) to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves. Jesus showed “the full extent of his love” (John 13:1b) by dying on the cross for our forgiveness. Specifically for the times we couldn’t love others.

Jesus takes on our brokenness and, in the process, fulfills the law (God’s expectations for his chosen people).

We no longer need to wonder about God’s intentions towards us. We see it clearly in Jesus. (John 3:16)

At the same time, Jesus encourages us to live out our faith by loving others without the fear of judgment and punishment. “…whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven…”

Our salvation doesn’t depend upon how “good we do” but we are encouraged to be a people of love wherever we go. Every loving thing we do is in response to what Jesus did for us. That is called discipleship.

God bless,

Pr. Ben