Matthew 5:17-20

"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. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." 

Rarely does one come across a passage of Scripture from which all other verses in the Bible's entirety hinge upon. In retrospect, the whole of Scripture rests upon the words of Jesus found in this incredible passage. Here we come across the crossroads of Christ's ministry where His purpose and prophesy fulfillment intersect upon the pages of the Old and New Testaments, for our Lord and Savior came not to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them. Yet despite our best efforts to cast aside the somewhat confusing customs and practices of the Old Testament as archaic and perhaps even over-the-top, Jesus crushes our perspective to disregard any Scriptural passage not spoken directly from His mouth because He is the true manifestation of the Word as a whole. Therefore, to disregard even the slightest facet of the Old Testament would be a direct rebuke of Christ Himself because "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1).

Distinguishing the Old and New Testaments first begins in its general themes: God's law (OT) and God's grace (NT). Of course, God's love is the predominant thread woven throughout every Scriptural book (from Genesis and Revelation), but it must be noted that these aspects of God's character (law and grace) cannot be viewed disproportionately. God must be true to both aspects of His character/nature, which means while He judges the sins of mankind (law), He also provides a way of escape for His children (grace by faith) for those who would call upon His name in humble repentance. Therefore, we cannot focus solely upon either the Old or New Testament as complete in and of themselves. Rather, they are one in mind, body and spirit: Jesus Christ. He is the bridge, hanging upright on a wooden cross with arms outstretched as if He is clutching the final words of the Book of Malachi in one hand and the opening words of Matthew's Gospel in the other. His Word is bound by the Communion offering of His shed body and blood for the sins of mankind that must be judged, and He is the sacrificial lamb offering Himself on our behalf as a grace offering for our salvation.

I believe most in our day and age would lean disproportionately upon grace by devaluing the strict law God provided in the Old Testament. For while logically we understand in theory the importance of the OT historically and prophetically, we live in the protective grace of the NT Gospel which dangerously tempts us by our own accord to water-down the law of God simply because we have an eternal insurance policy that covers our sins: past, present and future. The apostle Paul puts it this way: "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?" (Romans 6:1-2). "For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?" (Hebrews 10:26-29). There should be no mistake from the apostle Paul, the most prolific NT writer, and the author of Hebrews that those who profess themselves as saved by grace through faith must deliberately go against the grain that caters to the flesh and intentionally choose to live righteously in reverence unto God Almighty.

A Bible-believing, God-fearing Christian is one who actively lives out what the Bible says. Granted, he or she will ultimately fail in attaining perfection under the Law, but that is to be expected. True Christians are not deceived into thinking that life is nothing but roses when one accepts Christ as Lord and Savior. He/she is a realist, and therefore can accurately profess, "For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members" (Romans 7:22-23). A true follower of Christ embraces the law of God for it is the structure needed for a man/woman to live within healthy boundaries before God and His creation.

The great writer, preacher and pastor, J.C. Ryle, beautifully addresses the relationship between law and grace as such: "It is a symptom of an ignorant and unhealthy state of religion, when the law is lightly esteemed...let us beware of supposing that the Gospel has lowered the standard of personal holiness, and that the Christian is not intended to be as strict and particular about his daily life as the Jew. This is an immense mistake, but one that is unhappily very common. So far from this being the case, the sanctification of the New Testament saint ought to exceed that of him who has nothing but the Old Testament for his guide. The more light we have, the more we ought to love God. The more clearly we see our own complete and full forgiveness in Christ, the more heartily ought we to work for His glory. We know what it cost to redeem us far better that the Old Testament saints did. We have read what happened in Gethsemane and on Calvary, and they only saw it dimly and indistinctly as a thing yet to come. May we never forget our obligations! The Christian who is content with a low standard of personal holiness has got much to learn."

It is incredible to think that a follower of Jesus Christ could ever back down from the Word that defines who Christ is, cover to cover. For without Holy Scripture, we know nothing of the mind of God Himself nor nothing of the atoning sacrifice of Christ that fulfills every OT promise of the coming Messiah. Yet it is extremely popular today to confess faith in Jesus but not accept the Bible as 100% truth. Moreover, it is just as pervasive in our society to confess faith in Jesus yet live in disdain and animosity toward fellow "Christians." In either case, one important truth remains constant: the Word has been compromised, and as a result, truth is no longer absolute but relative, often because the Word is simply too difficult to accept and/or apply in one's life, which causes one to begin doubting whether it holds the position of ultimate authority. Bottom line: the Word is what it is because God ordained it that way. "Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him" (Proverbs 30:5). To convey even the slightest doubt that Scripture is unconditionally true implies that any portion of the Word can be refuted and not fundamentally held as absolute truth. "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book" (Revelation 22:18-19).

The crux of the Christian faith rests on the authority of Scripture. I dare say that a man or woman cannot truly grasp who Christ is without coming to terms with the Bible and specifically this passage of study, Matthew 5:17-20. This unfortunately produces a great weight of despair for the millions of professing Christians who do not believe the Bible is either culturally relevant and/or unconditionally true cover-to-cover. The magnitude of this cannot be overshadowed or cast aside for a battle of "What is truth?" is waging war upon the church. Therefore we must consider that if truth is absolute, we must conform to it accordingly or face the consequences to which that truth defines. However if truth is relative, we have lost our foundation and destruction is inevitable for there are no absolutes. Yet that is why Christ essentially came, simply stated. "Then Pilate said to him, 'So you are a king?' Jesus answered, 'You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice'" (John 18:37).

We must address our current church epidemic regarding how any professing Christian could ever dismiss the Bible as fallible, incomplete or simply historical and not practical for application. Our hearts must be thoroughly examined in order to extract any "relative-truth" virus plaguing our belief system. But the only way we can do that is to be willing to adopt a standard of truth that is absolute and unwavering. For the Christian, that should be the Bible as it alone has the power to pierce the heart of man. "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Hebrews4:12). I am completely dumbfounded though at how cancerous a lack of faith in the authority and inerrancy of Scripture has become, spreading rampantly throughout the church of Jesus Christ and creating an acceptance of various sins that Scripture clearly stands against. How can this be when there are myriads of Scriptures that point to Christ's fulfillment of OT prophesy, proclaiming the purpose of His coming and elevating the authority of Scripture as absolute? John's Gospel alone practically shouts from the mountaintops the multi-faceted identity of Christ as spirit, word and flesh that forces us to come to terms with the Bible as ultimate and absolute truth in the heart of a professing believer:

• "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1).
• "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).
• "But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:23-24).
• "So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, 'If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free'" (John 8:31-32).
• "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'" (John 14:6).
• "But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me" (John 15:26).
• "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come" (John 16:13).
• "For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me" (John 17:8).
• "Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth" (John 17:17).

I would be foolish and misguided to proclaim that I never wavered in my acceptance of Scripture as truth. Ten years ago, I certainly did waver and agreed to disagree temporarily with portions of Scripture because they didn't seem right, causing me to adopt an "I'll let God answer that when I get to heaven" approach to issues I could not reconcile logically. I fell into a common bucket like most of accepting the majority of Scripture but leaving a few issues up for debate as if I could pick and choose what was correct and incorrect in Scripture and it still hold water as ultimate, infallible authority. It was not until I came to grips with the fact that if I could refute a word, concept or topic of Scripture as false then I could refute every word of it as potentially false, that God began to open my eyes to the dangerous ground I was standing upon. Peter warned the church of this very thing: "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction" (2 Peter 2:1). How then can we deny the fact that culture has waged war upon the validity of Scripture as truth, portraying it indirectly and discreetly as open for interpretation under the umbrella of tolerance and acceptance, which in essence waters down, dilutes or even dismisses what Scripture clearly and specifically says?

I understand this tension, personally. There are those who have crossed my path of life over the years who presently live unashamed in sin, blinded to the authority of Scripture because the Word speaks directly against their sinful behavior. Consequently, they dismiss the Word as condemnation in order to transform the Word into either acceptance of the aforementioned sin or merely misinterpretation in order to justify sin. Tragically, many professing Christians have bought into this false doctrine and adopted it as absolute truth rather than relative, elevating it above what the original text of Scripture denotes. Sadly, this is the essence of post-modernistic thinking in the culturally influenced church of America that argues there is no absolute truth, particularly not Holy Scripture which is interpreted as legalistic, judgemental and downright offensive and malicious. What a tangled web the church has found itself caught in! Thankfully, Jesus warned His church of such behavior in order to direct our path:

• "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves" (Matthew 7:15).
• "And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray" (Matthew 24:11).
• "For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect" (Matthew 24:24).

Bottom-line, we must be thoroughly cleansed of any semblance of relative-truth in our theology. We must willingly and enthusiastically accept our role as ambassadors to the world of the authority of Christ and His Word for He clearly warned, "So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 10:32-33). Moreover, Jesus proclaims, "Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death" (John 8:51). Therefore, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15). My prayer is simply that at a minimum every Christian will examine his/her heart and come to terms with John 1:1, Hebrews 4:12 and Matthew 5:17, for these Scriptures provide the essential building blocks to living in absolute truth. They will challenge one's heart and force every professing follower of Jesus to either accept the Bible as absolute, unconditional truth, or denounce it as false. There is no middle ground for interpretation on this issue for Christ gives none in His Word: "Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).

In closing, I believe it only fitting that in light of John 1:1, we allow the words of Christ, Himself, to challenge and convict our hearts of any false doctrine. For the Word of God is the person of God, Jesus Christ, and He has much to say about His fulfillment of OT prophesy and the authority of His Word, the entire truth of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation which is the manifestation of His personhood and deity. "I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true. You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" (John 5:30-47).