June 6

Matthew 5:17
 
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill”—Matthew 5:1717Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. (Matthew 5:17).
OUR Lord tells us He came not to destroy, but to fulfill, the law. By His perfect obedience to all its sacred precepts He magnified the law and made it honorable (Isa. 42:2121The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honorable. (Isaiah 42:21)). By His sacrificial, vicarious death on the cross, where He bore the condemnation of the broken law, being made a curse for us, He became the end of the law for righteousness, to all who believe (Rom. 10:44For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. (Romans 10:4)). That law was a ministry of death and of condemnation (2 Cor. 3:7, 97But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: (2 Corinthians 3:7)
9For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. (2 Corinthians 3:9)), because of man’s inability to keep it. He who was never under its condemnation took our place and died in our stead. Now we who believe are not under law, but under grace (Rom. 6:1414For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. (Romans 6:14)). This does not free us from the responsibility of seeking to glorify God in our lives, but it puts our obedience on much higher than merely legal grounds. Born from above, “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Rom. 5:55And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. (Romans 5:5)). This becomes the motivating principle of the new life. As we are now occupied with the risen Saviour, we obey God’s Word out of devotion to Him, and so the righteousness of the law is “fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:44That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:4)).
“Our sins were laid on the Saviour’s head,
The curse by our Lord was borne,
For us a victim our Surety bled,
And endured that death of scorn;
Himself He gave our poor hearts to win—
(Lord, never was love like Thine!)—
From the paths of folly, and shame, and sin,
And fill them with joys divine.”
—J. G. Deck.