Week 36 Matthew 5
In his first long sermon the Lord told his audience something pretty important about himself and about the OT: 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.
It wasn’t the Lord’s plan to scrap the OT. He intended to fulfil it. He didn’t figure it was a bad document. But it was an unfulfilled one. Some extra input was needed. Some fulfilling.
Fulfil isn’t an absolutely clear word to me but I think it means something like the OT needed to be completed…brought up to a condition of full realization…totally actualized…carried out…finalized.
At first I thought that fulfilment was explanation and I got that idea because the Lord used the example of murder and said the law against murder needed to include pre-homicide factors like anger jealousy pride envy hatred desire dissatisfaction and like that…explaining that there’s more to murdering someone than just murdering him.
But now I’m not sure that’s the point. The Lord said he’d come to fulfill the OT. Not to explain it (even though he did explain sometimes). To fulfil it.
Did the OT need fulfilling? Apparently. As good as it was as a stand-alone document it wasn’t fully adequate. It needed fulfillment. And whatever-all the Lord Jesus was responsible to do on earth OT-fulfilment was one of his tasks.
Note: quote from Matthew 5:17 (NASB). Three other versions also said ‘fulfil’. JB Phillips said ‘completed’.