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Last Sunday we spent time with one of the most misread sentences in the entire Sermon on the Mount — "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" (Matthew 5:17).
That word fulfill is doing a lot of heavy lifting, and many of us don’t notice it. Jesus isn't softening the Old Testament or making it optional. He's also not binding his followers to every last detail of the Sinai covenant's ceremonial code. He's doing something far more significant — he's announcing that everything the Law and the Prophets were pointing toward has arrived. In a person. In him. The story hasn't been interrupted or overridden; it has landed exactly where it was always heading.
That's a different claim than most of us were taught. And it matters, because if you misread verse 17, you'll misread everything that follows.
Which brings us to what's coming this Sunday.
Having established that he didn't come to abolish, Jesus immediately begins to demonstrate what fulfillment actually looks like. He does it through a series of examples — and the first one is going to be uncomfortable in the best possible way. He starts with murder. Specifically, with what the Law has always said about murder, and what Jesus says God's law has always been reaching toward.
Most of us are fairly confident we've kept the sixth commandment. This Sunday might complicate that confidence a little.
We'll be in Matthew 5:21–26. Invite someone to join you.
— Pastor Justin
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