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Jesus puts us at a place somewhere in the middle, where the Truth always resides. In our passage tonight, Jesus tells us that He has come “not to abolish the law or the prophets... but to fulfill.”
Jesus certainly fulfills the Law on the Cross, the ultimate gift of Grace. Jesus also reminds us that we cannot fulfill the Law on our own right after this passage. We are in the Sermon on the Mount portion of Matthew, and immediately following this passage, we hear about how not only our actions condemn us in sin, but our thoughts as well.
We do not have any hope of fulfilling the Law on our own, but that does not mean we give up. Jesus is the only one who can make us righteous before God, but that does not mean we stop trying to do God’s will.
The Law isn’t just a set of rules given to us “willy nilly”. They are rules set forth to help us live in harmony with God and with our neighbor. That is God’s will for us in this world.
Even though Jesus is the only one who can make us righteous and whole in the eyes of God, that does not mean we stop trying to love God and our neighbor in this world. Just because Jesus has fulfilled the Law for us doesn’t mean it is abolished for us. We are still called to live into the way in which God would have us live. The Law is not unimportant. It may not be what saves us (only Jesus can do that), but it does help us continue Jesus’ work in this world.