Christ, the Law & the Prophets

“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” (Mt 5:17).


The question before us is “How did Christ fulfill the Law and the Prophets?” In other words, how has He fulfilled the Torah? In order to answer that question we must first understand a few terms. Three critical terms are “law”, “prophets” and “fulfill.” The word “abolish” is quite straightforward and consistent in meaning in English and Greek as well as Hebrew. According to Merriam-Webster, it means “to end the observance or effect of.” In other words, it means to do away with something, to annul it, to destroy it and so on.

How then do we define the word law? The word in Greek is nomos. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica nomos is, “‘law,’ or ‘custom’. For the Greeks, law generally was thought to be a human invention arrived at by consensus for the purpose of restricting natural freedoms for the sake of expediency and self-interest.” In Greek culture, the nature of law was principally forensic or legal. Law was largely concerned with human rules devised in order to minimize various kinds of harm that one person may inflict on another. Law was also understood as the grease by which the wheels of commerce within society were able to turn freely. It was a worldly concept and different from the Hebrew concept of “Torah” which—though it nevertheless included a legal aspect—was a more comprehensive term meaning “teachings” or “instruction” as opposed to the more restrictive “rules.”

The ideas expressed by the Greek word nomos and the Hebrew word Torah are dissimilar; while overlapping to a degree, they come out of profoundly different—even opposing—worldviews. Fundamentally, Greek law was a human invention. Torah was a gift from God to Israel. Nomos was worldly, Torah was divine. This leads us to the observation that we should be very careful when we employ these words. They are definitely not interchangeable! We need to be mindful that when Christ says by way of Matthew that He has come to fulfill the Law, He has the Jewish idea of Torah in mind, not the Greek idea of Nomos. Moreover, this is not just hair-splitting. The Bible can only really be understood when seen first through a Hebrew lens, not a Greek. The Bible is essentially the outcome of God expressing Himself in a Hebrew context, even when—in the NT—He uses the Greek language to do so. To misunderstand this is not a matter of indifference.

Next, we have the word “Prophets” by which our Lord was referring to the prophetic, especially Messianic, writings. Luke 24:27 makes this explicit. The OT (Tanakh) consists of three broad categories: the Torah, which is the first five books of Moses (but in general parlance the entire OT), the Nevi’im, which is the collected writings of the prophets, and the Ketuvim, which is the collection of general writings of various genres (primarily history and poetry). So our Lord was saying in our verse from Matthew that He was fulfilling, not doing away with, the writings of at least two of the three sections of Scripture. However, since Biblical culture understood Torah to represent the Scriptures as a whole, He is really implying that He has come to fulfill the entire OT or Tanakh. This fact should cause us no discomfort.

Let’s examine the word fulfill. In the Greek of our verse, the word is pléroó and according to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon means “to cause God's will (as made known in the law) to be obeyed as it should be, and God's promises (given through the prophets) to receive fulfillment.” Notice that “fulfillment” does not exclusively mean embodiment or exemplification. Christ does not just embody or exemplify the Torah or the Prophets. He fulfills them by fully accomplishing their conditions and requirements. During His earthly ministry, he did what was written in the complete Torah but also, He did what Israel’s prophets said the Messiah would do. He fulfilled the requirements by being obedient to them.

There are far too many Messianic prophecies to examine, or even list, here. Depending on how you define a messianic prophecy, there could be over three hundred legitimate prophecies fulfilled by our Lord. As well, there are different “levels” of prophecy, some with greater impact than others. Moreover, some prophecies are more explicit while others are less so. Many messianic prophesies happened to Christ in a “passive” sense. That is, He was not actively bringing them about by His words or actions, as is the case with Deut. 18:15-19 or Zech. 11:12. Other prophecies were brought about by His active participation, such as Isa. 53:7 and Zech. 9:9. (Of course, even a passive fulfillment from a human perspective is an active fulfillment from the perspective of the Godhead.)

But since by obeying them He was not thereby annulling either Torah or Prophets, what He was really doing was upholding—that is, defending or witnessing to—their validity and authority. (It is worthy of note that the Bible Society in Israel translates Matt. 5:17 as “Do not think that I have come to nullify the Torah and the Prophets; I have not come to nullify but uphold.” If uphold is in fact the better word—and it’s a big if—the implications for Christians could be profound. For instance, in their preface to The Delitzsch Hebrew Gospels, the translators state that, “The difference between ‘fulfill’ (as it is commonly translated) and ‘uphold’ is immense. ‘Fulfill’ tends to imply doing something to change either the Torah itself or the role that it plays. ‘Uphold’ is the exact opposite: to support and maintain the Torah’s unchanging message and its continued relevance." One could argue this to mean that—at least in some respects—the Torah is still binding on the modern gentile Christian! This is made as plain as can be from the passage concerning the young ruler who approached Christ and asked how he could obtain eternal life. Christ’s answer is very straightforward, “‘If you would enter life, keep the commandments.’ He said to him, ‘Which ones?’ And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and mother, and, you shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matt. 19:17b-19). In addition, in verse 21, He drives home the point by saying “If you would be perfect, [Matt. 5:48] go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Instead of relaxing the commandments He actually makes them more stringent (as He had already in His Sermon on the Mount and as Isaiah foretold of Him, Isa. 42:21) with the additional commands for the young man to love his neighbour, to give away all his possessions, and to give up any other attachments in order to follow Christ. He was demanding (not asking for) single-minded devotion. (Christ was certainly aware that the young man kept the commandments imperfectly to say the least. If it could ever have been possible for mortals to keep the law perfectly, Christ’s incarnation and penal death would have been unnecessary. Instead, He shows the young man through the additional requirements that He was miserably unable to keep the Torah according to God’s standard of righteousness and perfection. If he were truly capable of keeping the traditional commandments, he would have had no trouble keeping the additional three.)

In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ makes it plain through His five “You have heard…” statements (Matt. 5:21, 27, 33, 38, 43) that He is not abrogating or abolishing the law, nor is He illustrating by example that the law is of no further use or is still not required in some way. Indeed, it’s hard not to see that in this sermon Christ supports the Law and Prophets (but not as a means for obtaining salvation, an essential caveat). In these five statements, the Lord builds His hermeneutic upon the solid foundation laid by the Torah, or in other words, He is going deeper into the Torah, teaching that there is more than face value to be discovered.

Furthermore, in Matt. 23: 2-3, Christ makes it plain that He expected His disciples to follow the Law of Moses (i.e. the Torah) and to heed and obey the word of the OT prophets in spite of the fact their efforts would be insufficient. “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, [i.e. having inherited his authority] so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.” (The problem with this verse is that it sounds like our Lord is condoning the Pharisaical teachings and only condemning their hypocritical actions or lack thereof. However, I feel certain that this is incorrect. This is made plain in several places such as Matt. 23:13-33 and Mark 7:1-13. Matt. 23:33 is perhaps Christ’s strongest denunciation of these people in the entire NT, leaving His position crystal clear. The Pharisees had so corrupted the Torah—not only its very words, but also its intended purpose—that people were unable to be guided by it as a spiritual tutor. This is reinforced by a version of the Gospel of Matthew that a few scholars such as George Howard and Nehemiah Gordon (not to mention the early church fathers Papius and Clement) believe to be the underlying Hebrew original of Matthew’s account. In that version, Christ does not say, “So do and observe whatever they tell you.” Rather He says, “So do and observe whatever he tells you” the antecedent of “he” being Moses. If this is the case, it is devastating evidence that Christ is upholding and not just completing the Torah.)

Indeed, Christ is clearly teaching here that the Torah and the Prophets are authoritative as a basis for ethical and moral behaviour. However, it might be argued that His words in these verses are to be accepted only contingently since He had not yet fulfilled the Law and the Prophets through His atoning death alone; it being understood by the Church that His atoning death closed or completed the Torah and every prophecy concerning Him. This is implied by most English translations of Matt. 5:17 in their use of the word “until” (Gk. heōs, Strong’s # 2193)) which in itself is a perfectly legitimate translation. However, most translations ignore the small but very important Greek word “an” (Strong’s # 302) following heōs and which is an untranslatable word making the statement following it conditional or contingent. The time that the word until is referring to (“until all is accomplished”) is not the moment of Christ’s death, (which was imminent) as this would leave much still unaccomplished and unfulfilled, including the great tribulation, the second coming, the binding of Satan, the millennial age, Armageddon, and of course the eschatological final judgment, to name a few. It therefore must mean that the Torah and the prophetic writings would remain in place up to the point in history when all things (every single one) are accomplished. We know from Scripture that the ultimate accomplishment or fulfillment will be the Day of the Lord and the Great White Throne judgment at the last when Christ judges the nations, brings in the eternal state, and history ends. We just don’t know when that will occur (Matt. 24:36). This is the contingency implied by the words heōs an. When all things are accomplished, then and only then will the Torah—along with all the rest of Holy Writ—become redundant.

How did Christ uphold the Torah and the Prophets? He did so by maintaining their authority, particularly of the moral law, as well as the authority of the prophets to interpret, explain or mediate the will of God (Deut. 8:3, Matt. 4:4); by teaching doctrine based on Torah; by exemplifying Torah moral values through His perfectly righteous life and by completing the Torah as well as the prophecies concerning Himself through His atoning death, bodily resurrection, and in the future, His second coming and the final judgment.

No one can seriously doubt that Christ upheld the moral Torah (summed up in the Decalogue or Ten Commandments) but what about the civil and ceremonial aspects of Torah? Did He uphold these? I understand that both the civil law and the ceremonial law were actually Israel’s application of the moral code within the context of national life. The moral code was the basis and ultimate justification for all the various requirements of both civil and ceremonial Torah. (By the time of Jesus’ ministry the leaders within Judaism had forgotten this and had simply added a multitude of burdensome regulations not found in Scripture i.e. Matt. 15:8-10; Mark 7:6-8, citing Isaiah and Ezekiel). Therefore, because of this, by upholding the moral Torah, He was also upholding the other aspects of Torah as well. Moreover, we have evidence from such verses as Luke 17:14; Lev. 13:1-2, 6, and 9 that Christ was both very familiar with ceremonial law and had no misgivings about maintaining or upholding it. Matt. 17:24-27 reinforces Jesus’ willingness to support and uphold the requirements of the ceremonial law. In this particular case though, He makes it plain that neither He (as the firstborn son of God, the King) nor His disciples (as adopted sons) were any longer bound by these ceremonial requirements. This is especially so in the case of the sacrificial system which was at the very heart of the ceremonial aspect of the Torah. By being the final offering for sin (Heb. 9:13-14, 22, 25-26 etc.), Christ has paid our debt, God having nailed it to His cross (Col. 2:14).

As far as the civil law is concerned, we have the example of Matt. 22:20-21 to indicate that Christ was not an opponent of civil law and was obedient to it as long as it did not conflict with His spiritual kingdom (John 18:36). And certainly, we have the testimony of Peter and Paul in their epistles maintaining this neutrality with civil authorities.

With this brief survey, my intention has been to demonstrate that Christ not only did not abrogate the Torah (i.e. Law)—He in fact was a staunch supporter of it and made it a requirement for all those who would follow Him. And of course, that means that we too must support and maintain the Torah, since God gave it to the remnant, His people, of which we are now a part (Rom. 9:24-26; 11:17-18; Eph. 2:19 etc.). The ramifications of this conclusion are apt to take many by surprise. A case in point is the question of the Sabbath, which is firmly imbedded in the moral law of God. God has never changed the obligation of righteousness to observe His—not the Jewish—Sabbath or day of rest (Matt. 12:8); it is as binding on us as are the other nine commandments. The problem for the Church however—the dilemma she is in—is that the Sabbath is not Sunday, it is Saturday. If we maintain a rest on the first day of the week instead of the last, we are guilty of disregarding, if not disobeying, the fourth commandment and as James tells us in his epistle, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it” (James 2:10).

SOLI DEO GLORIA