Did Jesus Revise the Law?
3rd October 2005
The Sermon on the Mount (or as I referred to in this post, according to SmartChristian, “the Sermon on the Father” might be a better designation), is sometimes taken to be Jesus’ revision of the law. He did say that He has “not come to abolish [the law and the commandments] but to fulfill them.”
Then we encounter passages in which He juxtaposes the injunctions of the commandments that “you have heard it was said” with “but I tell you” of His supposedly more stringent and higher standards. It is no wonder that there is sometimes the view that Jesus’ standards supercede that of the law, or that the morality of the New Testament is higher than that of the Old. In an earlier post dealing with an issue arising from this very passage in Matthew chapter 5, the question about Jesus’ alleged revision of the command against adultery, I challenged this assumption. When we read the entire passage from verse 17 on, we find that Jesus is not really comparing the law and commandments with His teachings. Instead He is expounding the commandments and clarifying the intent of the law itself.
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