On Abolishing and Fulfilling (Week 22, Jan 22)
Reading
Matthew 5:17–19
Silent Reflection
Remarks
“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 (NIV)
I hate to say it, but the Bible is not always clear on when it is the right time to do what. For example, if Torah says you are not to do any work on the Sabbath (it does), but it also says that if your or your neighbor’s ox falls down, you have to help it up (it does), what do you do when your neighbor’s ox falls down on the Sabbath? If you leave it there, you break a law about the fallen ox; if you help it up, you break a law about Sabbath. (And if you say helping it up isn’t really “work,” have you ever tried to lift an ox before?)
Because of inherent ambiguities like these, the teachers of the law in Jesus’s day (and beyond) gave many extended rulings and interpretations (like, so many) that became known as halakhah. So, Torah means teaching and halakhah means the path one walks. The halakhah were the rulings the teachers came up with to help people know how to interpret and apply Torah to daily life—to their walk. It’s not unlike how sermons function in our churches.
In Jesus’s day, when it came to the various rabbinical interpretations and rulings (like those about oxen and Sabbath), they had an expression for agreement or dissent. If you had completely gotten it wrong and had interpreted something totally backwards—if, for example, you had ruled that you should leave the distressed ox to rot so that you wouldn’t commit a personal holiness foul on Sabbath—someone might say you had abolished Torah. But if you had correctly interpreted the Law—perhaps saying you ought to set aside the mandate against work in order to alleviate your neighbor’s suffering—they might say you had fulfilled Torah.
So, when Jesus said, “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,” he didn’t mean he was there to check the box on a whole list of regulations to appease a God who was just waiting to destroy someone over a lustful look at a woman. He meant he was there to show us in both his words and his actions the truest, deepest meaning and intent of Torah, especially concerning relationships. He was there to lay out the correct interpretation of the Law with both his words and his life.
And so what interpretation is that? What does Torah’s greatest expression look like? How do you decide between the ox and the Sabbath?
Jesus said it.
“On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” he said in Matthew 22 (ESV). Which two?
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. … You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Paul said it in Romans 13 (ESV):
[The commandments] are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” … [L]ove is the fulfilling of the law.
Paul also said something about when I have it all but don’t have love, I’m a what? A noisy gong. A clanging cymbal (1 Corinthians 13, ESV). You know what a noisy gong is? It’s a summoning bell that doesn’t freaking summon anything. No one listens to it or comes running at the sound of it. No one cares how exemplary you are if you don’t love. No one cares how right your theology is if you don’t love. Without love, your moral perfection is immoral, and your sound doctrine is heretical.
What the Law and Prophets hang on is love. If that sounds fluffy to you, remember that it’s not just about oxen and Sabbath. It’s about how we treat enemies and strangers. Remember, your rabbi’s love took him to his own crucifixion. Jesus came along and showed that fulfilling the Law was both simpler and way, way harder than the fine print suggested. Truly walking the path, living out right halakhah, is a matter of taking what is simultaneously the simplest and most profoundly difficult way, which is to say that keeping the Law has always been a matter of love. Love for God and love for neighbor—especially the neighbor you love to hate. Because the thing is, we all love love right up until we don’t. We all reach the limit of where our own love will take us. Sacrificial action for the good of not just your friends and family, but for strangers who have no way to benefit you. Even for enemies who have wronged you. This is what everything in the Law and the Prophets and the Sermon on the Mount was always pointing us to.
Silent Reflection
Response
What are some definitions of love? What are the things we say we love?
What is the way Jesus loved?
Are there certain people you think do not deserve love? Are there people that, were you told to love them, you would feel offended?