Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Matthew 5:17

"Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil." — Matthew 5:17 (ASV)

The formula “Do not think that” is a teaching device used by Jesus to clarify certain aspects of the kingdom and of his own mission and to set aside potential misunderstandings as to the nature of the kingdom . Comparison with 10:34 shows that the antithesis may not be absolute. Few would want to argue that there is no sense in which Jesus came to bring peace (cf. comment on 5:9). Why then argue that there is no sense in which Jesus abolishes the law?

Jesus’ mission was not “to abolish” (GK 2907; a term more frequently connected with the destruction of buildings [24:2; 26:61; 27:40]) “the Law or the Prophets,” i.e., the Scriptures. The disjunctive “or” makes it clear that neither is to be abolished.

The nub of the problem lies in the verb “to fulfill” (GK 4444), for which a variety of interpretations have been offered. The best one says that Jesus fulfills the Law and the Prophets in that they point to him, and he is their fulfillment. Therefore we give “fulfill” exactly the same meaning as in the formula quotations, which in the prologue (chs. 1–2) have already laid great stress on the prophetic nature of the OT and the way it points to Jesus. Even OT events have this prophetic significance . A little later Jesus insists that “all the Prophets and the Law prophesied” (11:13).

The manner of the prophetic foreshadowing varies. The Exodus, Matthew argues (2:15), foreshadows the calling out of Egypt of God’s “son.” The writer to the Hebrews argues that many cubic regulations of the OT pointed to Jesus and are now obsolete. In the light of the antitheses (vv.21–48), the passage before us insists that just as Jesus fulfilled OT prophecies by his person and actions, so he fulfilled OT law by his teaching. In no way does this “abolish” the OT as canon, any more than the obsolescence of the Levitical sacrificial system abolishes tabernacle ritual as canon. Instead, the OT’s real and abiding authority must be understood through the person and teaching of him to whom it points and who so richly fulfills it.

The chief objection to this view is that the use of “to fulfill” in the fulfillment quotations is in the passive voice, whereas here the voice is active. But it is doubtful whether much can be made out of this distinction. Three conclusions are inevitable. (1) If the antitheses (vv.21–18) are understood in the light of this interpretation of vv.17–20, then Jesus is not primarily engaged there in extending, annulling, or intensifying OT law, but in showing the direction in which it points, on the basis of his own authority (to which, again, the OT points). (2) In vv.17–20 Jesus presents himself as the eschatological goal of the OT, and thereby its sole authoritative interpreter, the one through whom alone the OT finds its valid continuity and significance. (3) This approach eliminates the need to pit Matthew against Paul. Paul well understood that the Law and the Prophets pointed beyond themselves (e.g., Romans 3:21; Galatians 3–4; cf. Romans 8:4) to Jesus, which is where, on the face of it, Matthew also intends the focus to be.