YOU ARE STANDING AMID a gathering of truth-seekers from all over Palestine and beyond, listening intently to the most radical preacher you have ever heard. He has been touring around Galilee, proclaiming the arrival of God’s everlasting kingdom, healing every disease in sight, and casting out demons. It is no surprise that this wonder-worker is generating enormous interest, but you can see that He isn’t merely someone to marvel at; He is the fulfilment of God’s ancient promise to raise up for Israel a prophet like Moses—a messenger whose words will be those of God Himself (Deut 18:15-19). Today, swamped by a sea of eager faces and hungry souls, that messenger, Jesus of Nazareth, has climbed a mountainside, just like Moses did all those years ago. You and your fellow disciples—perhaps a few hundred or so—have followed Him up the mountain, leaving the hullabaloo behind you. He is sitting on a rocky ledge further up the slope from where you are standing—a position that indicates He is about to teach. Every eye is focused on Him, every ear attuned to His voice. You crane your neck to see Him more clearly, and in that moment He looks your way.

HOLINESS THROUGH HUMAN EFFORT?

‘You have heard that it was said to the people long ago,’ Jesus announces, ‘“You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgement.” But I tell you’—He pauses for emphasis—‘that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgement … And anyone who says, “You fool!” will be in danger of the fire of hell’ (Matt 5:21-22). You all gasp. There is no fire on the mountain, no lightning or thunder above it, and no shuddering inside it, but your orthodox world is rocking. Did Jesus just speak over the top of God’s venerated prophet, Moses? Those four words, ‘BUT—I—TELL—YOU,’ are reverberating in your head. They can mean only one thing: Jesus is saying that He is greater than Moses! He is speaking with divine authority, revising and intensifying the law as if appointed to do so by God Himself. Murder, a capital offence, has never troubled ordinary folk like you, since you are not likely to deliberately kill someone. Yet Jesus has just made it worryingly easy for you to bring upon yourself the condemnation that would be yours if you had killed someone. All you have to do is despise or disparage someone in a flash of anger, and you will be as guilty of sin as a murderer.

As you continue to listen, Jesus gives similar treatment to the law against adultery—another offence to which Moses attached the death penalty (Lev 20:10). Committing this offence has always required physical contact, but now you—yes, you—can become a fully-fledged adulterer, unclean in the sight of God and worthy of death, simply by looking at another person with lust in your heart (Matt 5:27-28). Everyone around you falls into sober silence. You dare not move.

But Jesus isn’t done yet. He forbids divorce except in instances of sexual immorality (Matt 5:31-32; see also Deut 24:1), abolishes the time-honoured practice of oath-taking (Matt 5:33-37), then makes His most sweeping amendment yet. Ever since the days of Moses, you have had the legal right to inflict on an attacker whatever injuries they have inflicted on you: eye for eye, tooth for tooth, bruise for bruise (Ex 21:23-24). Not any more, says Jesus. Now, you are not even allowed to defend yourself against such a person. Rather, you must go to the opposite extreme and allow them to injure you in whatever way they wish. If they force you to do some work for them, you must do even more than what they want; and if they demand something from you, you must willingly give it to them, and more besides (Matt 5:38-41).

No longer are you to love only your fellow Israelites. ‘Love your enemies,’ says Jesus, ‘and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven’ (Matt 5:43-45). His words sink forcefully into your stomach, sit there uneasily for a moment, then explode. Loving your enemies means associating with people who are unclean in the sight of God! It means showing care and concern for people whose values and beliefs offend your deepest loyalties, passions and convictions. It means serving and blessing those who annoy you, provoke you, mistreat you. Keeping the law never just meant shunning sin, but now more than ever it also means acting with extreme kindness toward others—particularly those who behave with extreme nastiness toward you. If you don’t love your enemies in this uncompromising way, you are a lawbreaker.

Jesus’ ground-breaking commandments shock you to the core. How can you possibly obey them with the flawless consistency that God requires? He has raised the bar of acceptable behaviour up, up, up into the stratosphere! You have always been a faithful adherent of God’s law, but the game has suddenly become unwinnable: holiness is out of reach. How can you ever hope to be righteous enough for the Most High God, the Holy One of Israel?

FULFILMENT

Only a few short years later, Jesus answers this conundrum decisively. He demonstrates, in fact, that He is its answer—the answer intended by God since before creation. This is good news not only for the Israelites but for us Gentiles too, since God’s law exposes our sin just as effectively. We, like the Israelites, have turned away from God and trusted in ‘idols’ (money, possessions, lifestyle, achievements, status, popularity, control) for a sense of identity, security, and wellbeing. And we, like the Israelites, have poured scorn on our neighbour, harboured unclean thoughts about our neighbour, failed to care for our neighbour. We humans are a proud lot: we like to claim that we don’t need saving; if we have a problem, it’s one that we can fix on our own. But the LORD’s radiant commands—those decreed by Moses, and even more so by Jesus—give light to our eyes when otherwise we would be in the dark. They show us that, without God’s help, we don’t measure up to God’s standard of holiness; we are infested with sin and undeserving of His sacred presence (Rom 3:23; 1 John 1:10).

THE END OF THE LAW

Why does Jesus want to illuminate our unclean condition so starkly? Because, quite simply, He wants to put us in touch with reality. The fact is, we really are unclean; our self-righteousness really is a sham. But why burst our bubble like that? Why make us feel so bad inside? Does He enjoy seeing us shamefaced and writhing awkwardly out of realised guilt? No, He does not. He only shows up our guilt—the guilt that the law pronounces upon us—in order to remove it from us. And how does He do that? Here’s how. First, He shows by His obedient life that He is ‘a lamb without blemish or defect’ (1 Pet 1:19; see also 2 Cor 5:21; Heb 4:15)—the one who can serve as the faultless sacrifice for our sins. Then He goes to the cross and, in keeping with God’s law, becomes ‘a sin offering for us’ (2 Cor 5:21; see also Rom 8:3; Heb 7:27; 9:12,26-27; 10:10-12,14)—a sacrificial ‘lamb’ who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29,36). Although He is perfectly innocent, He takes into His own body the full force of the law’s accusatory power and suffers its sentence of death. He thus fulfils the law conclusively, so bringing it to completion and ensuring that it can no longer condemn us. The law’s finger-pointing, then, is finished forever—but Jesus Himself isn’t finished. Having absorbed the lethal sting of the law on our behalf so that it can’t sting us again, He goes on to win a crucial victory for each of us: He overcomes death itself in spectacular fashion—by rising from the grave! If there is any suspicion that our sins are still stuck to Him or that He isn’t entirely righteous, this suspicion vanishes when He ascends into heaven. God receives Him (and us with Him) into the inner sanctuary, where only the holy can dwell.

The supreme purpose of God’s law, then, was always this: to illuminate our imperfect condition (Rom 3:20) and so highlight our need for Jesus Christ, our perfect Saviour (Gal 3:24). If we claim to have never sinned, the perfect light of God’s law shows up our defects. But if we have faith in Jesus to save us from our sins, we are included in Him and have a full share in His righteousness (Rom 3:20-24,28; 4:4-5; Gal 2:16; Eph 2:4-5,8-9). We are not obliged to keep the law of Moses, since Christ has brought it to perfect completion. Rather, we are to fulfil the ‘law of Christ’ by carrying each other’s burdens (Gal 6:2). If we love our neighbour in this way, we will be fulfilling the whole law (Gal 5:14; see also Rom 13:10; Jas 2:8)—not so that we can be saved, but because we are already saved through Christ’s death, resurrection and eternal life.

So, here’s what to do: Put your faith in Jesus Christ and love your neighbour, knowing that you have been saved from your sins and made eligible to live in God’s holy presence forever.