May 6, 2017
Today, we’re going to be in Matthew 5, verses 17-20. Jesus is going to assure His listeners that what He is teaching is not contrary to the Old Testament Scriptures. It may have sounded radical and revolutionary to their ears, but it was not a departure from God’s law and all that the prophets had written. Jesus wasn’t introducing something that was going to replace the law, it was going to fulfill it. He wasn’t contradicting the writings of the prophets, He was actually the one they had promised would come. The law was God’s revelation of what He expected in terms of right behavior from mankind. It was His brand of righteousness described in great detail. The writings of the prophets were predominantly the call of God for the people of Israel to return to Him. The prophets spoke on behalf of God, calling the disobedient Israelites back to a right relationship with God, through obedience to His law. They could return or face the consequences. They could repent or suffer God’s punishment in the form of captivity and enslavement. But they failed to return and the inevitable happened. But Jesus had come to call the people of God back to God, offering them a better righteousness they could have never produced on their own.