Matthew 5:17

Jesus had accelerated His reputation it seems with His expression of His intent to His detractors in this verse. They thought perhaps He came to revise the Law. He came to make it understandable. Jesus is the only person that ever lived that made the Law come alive. Using life and people and miracles, He vividly explains the Law with living expressions of human plight and triumph. If we look at the Law in its condensed form, i.e. the Ten Commandments, we find that Jesus ministered to people who had broken these commandments, thus fulfilling the true purpose of the Law which is to bring us to Christ (Rom. 7:12-14; Gal. 3:24-26).

A man who realizes he has broken God’s Law is better than a man who thinks he can keep God’s Law. If Jesus fulfilled the Law and the prophets, it behooves us to let Christ live through us. If He lives though us, we grow more like Him in our character. We, in turn, are able to live up to the demands of the Law. Christ in us is the hope of glory (Col. 1:27). Jesus didn’t want people to see Him as a renaissance man. He did not come to revolutionize the religious world of His time; rather He came to seek and save that which was lost (Luke 19:10). Those who pretend they are brighter stars than others must use Christ as their model.

The message of fulfillment is a message of enrichment. Jesus promises the opposite of the religious erudite egomaniacs of His day. Their method of pursuit left men with heavy burdens much too hard for them to bear (Matt. 23:4); that is the spirit of destruction found in the heart of Satan (John 10:10). Jesus was teaching His disciples that the Pharisees were already destroying them; He was coming to fulfill them (Psalm 103:5). If your religious experience is tasking you to the max, you should reevaluate your relationship with Jesus (Matt. 11:28-30).

Word for Today
Tangential – suddenly changeable

Quote for Today
All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.
- Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)