5 - What Did Jesus Mean When He Said He Came to Fulfill the Law?
Updated: Sep 1
Does “fulfilled” mean abolished—or does the Gospel reveal something much deeper?
In our first four posts, we've been following one question at a time.
We began at Creation:
Who has the authority to sanctify?
We discovered that God created, rested, blessed, and sanctified the seventh day.
Then we asked whether human religious authority ever claimed the right to change what God had sanctified.
We examined the New Testament and asked whether the apostles ever taught Christians to keep Sunday instead.
And then we went back to Jesus Himself.
Jesus called Himself:
“Lord even of the Sabbath.”— Mark 2:28
He said:
“The Sabbath was made for man.”— Mark 2:27
And when describing a future crisis, He told His disciples:
“Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath.”— Matthew 24:20
So now we encounter one of the most common objections in the entire Sabbath discussion:
“But Jesus fulfilled the law.”
What does that mean?
Did Jesus fulfill the law so that it could be discarded?
Or is there something much deeper happening?
Let's slow down.
Jesus Used Two Completely Different Words
Matthew 5:17 is crucial:
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.”
The Greek text deliberately contrasts katalyō (“destroy/abolish”) with plēroō (“fulfill”). (Bible Hub)
And that matters because Jesus doesn't say:
“I did not come to abolish the law, but I came to abolish it in a different way.”
He establishes a contrast.
Destroy ≠ fulfill.
And then He immediately says:
“Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.”— Matthew 5:18
Whatever Jesus means by “fulfill,” we should be extremely cautious about turning the word into a synonym for abolish.
But What Does “Fulfill” Actually Mean?
This is where we need to resist another temptation.
We shouldn't simply grab a dictionary definition and declare the case closed.
The best way to understand a word is to examine how the author uses it in context.
Matthew places Jesus' statement at the beginning of a section in which Jesus repeatedly says:
“You have heard that it was said...”
and then:
“But I say to you...”
Jesus goes deeper.
He moves from outward behavior to the heart.
Murder becomes anger.
Adultery becomes lust.
Retaliation becomes love for enemies.
Jesus isn't lowering God's standard.
He's revealing its depth.
The law isn't being thrown away.
Its true intention is being brought into full view.
And Then Jesus Says Something Even More Difficult
Immediately after saying He did not come to abolish the law, Jesus says:
“Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.”— Matthew 5:19
That's difficult to reconcile with the idea that Jesus was announcing the disappearance of God's commandments.
And notice the sequence:
Matthew 5:17 — “I did not come to abolish.”
Matthew 5:18 — “not one jot or tittle will pass.”
Matthew 5:19 — warning against breaking and teaching others to break the commandments.
Then:
Matthew 5:20 — righteousness.
That's not an argument for legalism.
It is actually setting us up for something much deeper.
Because Here Comes the Real Problem
Jesus says:
“Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”— Matthew 5:20
Wait.
How can our righteousness exceed the Pharisees?
They were commandment experts.
They knew the law.
They memorized Scripture.
They tithed.
They fasted.
They prayed.
They kept religious regulations.
And yet Jesus says their righteousness isn't enough.
Why?
Because the problem was never simply whether they knew the law.
The problem was what they were using the law for.
The Law Cannot Become Your Savior
This is exactly where Paul's argument in Romans becomes essential.
Paul says:
“By the works of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight.”— Romans 3:20
Why?
Because the law cannot manufacture righteousness in a sinful human being.
Jack Sequeira makes this distinction explicitly in his Romans material: Paul's phrase “apart from the law” concerns justification by faith, not the abolition of God's law. Jack points directly to Romans 3:31, where Paul anticipates the objection:
“Do we then nullify the law by this faith?”
Paul's answer is:
“Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.”
Jack's point is that Paul cannot simultaneously be teaching that the law has simply been abolished and then say that justification by faith establishes it. (Jack Sequeira)
That's the context we need.
So What Does the Gospel Do With the Law?
The Gospel does something extraordinary.
It removes the law from a position it was never capable of occupying:
the position of Savior.
The law can tell us what righteousness is.
The law can expose sin.
The law can reveal our condition.
But the law cannot give a dead sinner life.
Paul says:
“Through the law comes knowledge of sin.”— Romans 3:20
And later:
“The law is holy, and the commandment holy and righteous and good.”— Romans 7:12
So notice the distinction:
The law is not the problem.
Sin is the problem.
Humanity is the problem.
And our attempt to use God's law as a ladder to climb our way into righteousness is the problem.
Jack's Romans 7 material makes this distinction very clearly: liberation from the law's jurisdiction does not mean the law itself is sinful. He says the law is holy and spiritual, while the sinful human being is incapable of meeting its righteous demands. (Jack Sequeira)
Then What Does “Not Under the Law” Mean?
Paul says:
“For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”— Romans 6:14
That sounds enormous.
So what does Paul mean?
If “not under law” means:
“God's law no longer exists,”
then we immediately have a problem.
Because Paul says:
“Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.”— Romans 3:31
And:
“The law is holy.”— Romans 7:12
And:
“The law is spiritual.”— Romans 7:14
And then Romans 8 says something even more remarkable:
“That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”— Romans 8:4
So Paul's Gospel isn't:
Law → salvation.
Nor is it:
No law → salvation.
It is:
Christ → righteousness → faith → Spirit → transformed life.
The Difference Is Everything
Legalism says:
“I obey so that God will accept me.”
The Gospel says:
“God has accepted me in Christ; therefore I live from that relationship.”
Legalism makes obedience the root of salvation.
The Gospel makes Christ the root and obedience the fruit.
That is why Sabbath keeping must never become:
“I keep the Sabbath so God will save me.”
That would destroy the Gospel.
But neither should we say:
“Christ saved me, therefore God's righteous standard no longer matters.”
Paul won't allow either conclusion.
Paul Actually Says the Opposite
Galatians gives us another important statement:
“Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not!”— Galatians 3:21
And Paul immediately explains the limitation:
“For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.”
There it is.
The law cannot give life.
That's the issue.
Not that God's law is bad.
Not that God's law has become irrelevant.
It cannot give life.
Only Christ can.
And Now We Can Understand the Sabbath Differently
This is where our entire investigation begins to come together.
What does Sabbath say?
God creates.
God completes.
God rests.
God blesses.
God sanctifies.
And humanity is invited to rest in God's work.
That sounds remarkably like the Gospel.
We don't create ourselves.
We don't recreate ourselves.
We don't sanctify ourselves.
We don't manufacture righteousness.
God does.
That's why the Sabbath cannot be turned into a badge of self-righteousness.
If anything, properly understood, it confronts self-righteousness.
It says:
Stop trying to become your own savior.
Rest in the work of the Creator.
So Did Jesus “Fulfill” the Law?
Yes.
Absolutely.
But the question is:
What did He fulfill?
He fulfilled everything the Law and the Prophets pointed toward.
He fulfilled righteousness.
He fulfilled the promises.
He fulfilled the prophetic expectations.
He fulfilled what humanity could never accomplish.
And He did what the law could never do:
He gives life.
That is why we must never reduce “fulfilled” to “abolished.”
Jesus Himself introduced the statement by saying:
“I did not come to abolish.”
And Paul's Gospel doesn't contradict Him.
Paul teaches that justification is apart from works of law, while simultaneously insisting that faith does not nullify the law. (Jack Sequeira)
And Now We Have to Ask the Hard Question
If “Christ fulfilled the law” does not automatically mean:
“God's law disappeared,”
then what do we do with Paul's statements about:
being dead to the law?
being released from the law?
not being under the law?
Those are real statements.
We shouldn't hide them.
We shouldn't explain them away.
And we shouldn't simply say:
“That's the ceremonial law.”
Because Paul's argument is bigger than that.
So our next question becomes:
Because Romans 7 may contain one of the most important explanations of the entire Gospel.
Paul says we have been released from the law's jurisdiction.
But then he immediately says:
“Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and righteous and good.”
How can both statements be true?
That is where our investigation goes next.
One layer at a time.
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