Well this Advent we are thinking about “Christmas According to Jesus” in the conviction that if we are really to grasp the meaning of Christmas, we cannot do any better than to focus on some of the key statements that Jesus Himself made in the gospels that tell us about how He understood what was taking place that day in Bethlehem when He came into the world.
And this week I’d like to invite you to turn with me in your copy of God’s Word to Matthew’s gospel and to chapter 5, verses 17 through 20. You can find that on page 810 if you’re using one of our church Bibles. The context, of course, is the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus, as we’re going to see, Jesus gives us a statement programmatic of His mission that speaks to the meaning of that first Christmas. If you look at verse 17 you’ll see it. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” So why did Jesus come? That’s the question we are asking in these Advent sermons. What was the first Christmas about? Well the answer here in this text is that Jesus came to fulfill the law and the prophets. Christmas is about the mission of Christ to fulfill the Word of God. I want us to unpack that idea from our passage under two broad headings. First of all, in verses 17 and 18, we’ll learn that Christmas according to Jesus here is literally and actually the hinge of history. It is the hinge of history. And then secondly, verses 19 and 20, Christmas according to Jesus, therefore, requires us all to face the claims of the kingdom. So Christmas is the hinge of history, which means in turn that we must all face the claims of the kingdom.
Before we get to all of that, as always, let’s pause and pray and ask for the Lord to help us as we read His holy Word. Let us all pray.
Our God, now we bow before You and into our darkness we pray You might shine the light of truth, the light of life, the light of the world, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God that shines in the face of Jesus Christ. For we ask this in His holy name, amen.
Matthew chapter 5, beginning at the seventeenth verse. This is the Word of God:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy Word.
The Hinge of History
You’ll notice verse 17 opens with the words, “Do not think.” Jesus is about to tell us why He came into the world, but He starts, quite helpfully I think, by correcting some misconceptions. “Do not think,” He says. “Here’s what you mustn’t think about My birth that first Christmas.” Even in Jesus’ own lifetime it seems the reason for His first coming was misunderstood, and so He is speaking here to set the record straight. I find that a helpful place to begin because let’s face it, clarity about who Jesus is and why He came remains a pressing issue even today. Like the people of Jesus’ generation, we too regularly still misunderstand His mission, why He came. And so here He is telling us that it’s not enough merely to have our own ideas on the subject; frankly how we prefer to think about Jesus could not matter less. What matters is that we get to the truth about that first Christmas. What is it really all about?
One of our beloved Christmas carols imagines the night of Christ’s birth and has us sing, “O Little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by. Yet in the darkness shineth the everlasting light. The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” And in many ways, that last line is what Jesus says His birth was all about in our text this morning. “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” In verses 17 and 18, Jesus is telling us He came that first Christmas to be the hinge of history. The hinge of history.
Notice how he puts it in the text. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Now that expression, “the Law and the Prophets,” as you probably know, is just shorthand for the whole of the Old Testament revelation contained for us in holy Scripture – the Law and the Prophets; it’s shorthand for the Bible that Jesus had and used. And apparently some people thought that He came in order to render it all null and void. He uses the word that is translated in our version – do you see this – He uses it twice over – the word “abolish” in verse 17. It was a word that was sometimes used to describe the destruction of a building. Jesus Himself uses it in precisely that way in Matthew 24 verse 2. He’s talking about the destruction that will befall Jerusalem in AD 70 when the stones of the temple, He says, will be “torn down.” That’s the same word that He uses here that we translate in our passage as “abolish.” So more is meant simply than just the end of the Law and the Prophets. It is a brick by brick dismantling, a total destruction, as if Jesus were a wrecking ball come to demolish the entire edifice of the old covenant. That, it seems, is what some people were tempted to imagine was His true mission.
And at one level, who can blame them? Beyond all dispute there was indeed something quite revolutionary about Jesus’ life and ministry, wasn’t there? People had never seen anything like it. His birth attended by angels, singing the glory of God. Shepherds from the fields, wise men from a far country come to adore Him. And as a slightly older child, the rabbis in the temple are astonished at His handling of holy Scripture. And throughout His ministry, He taught like no one ever had as one who had authority – Matthew 7:29, and many other places, as people are astonished at the way He taught the Word. His life rang with the beauty of an incomparable holiness that no one could ignore when confronted by it. And so perhaps inevitably some people began to wonder if His real mission was to overthrow everything that had come before Him and to wipe the slate clean and to make a fresh start on a completely new basis. But Jesus says nothing could be further from the truth. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”
Ever since that first Christmas, this now is the age in which we have all been living – the age of fulfillment. The Old Testament scriptures prepared for and spoke about Jesus’ coming and they did so in a whole variety of ways, didn’t they? As we’ve seen from our studies in the book of Galatians, the Law of Moses was given to be a guardian, a school master, teaching the Jesus people about their need of a Savior who one day would come to deliver them. And then there are the patterns of typology that shape the old covenant Scriptures in sacrifices and temple and priesthood and prophets and kings. And all of the core elements of the old covenant system of religion pointing to the person and work of Christ, setting who He is and what He came to do vividly before the eyes of faith among the people of God. And then there are the oracles of the prophetic books from Isaiah through Malachi speaking of one like a son of man, the son of David, the servant of the Lord, the righteous branch, the root of Jesse. “And of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end.”
And we could zoom out even further from that, couldn’t we, and we could say the whole pattern of Israel’s national life and the very structure of Old Testament scriptural revelation as a whole spoke of Christ who was yet to come. The Bible, remember, regards Israel as God’s typological son, called out of Egypt, given a law and told to obey. But like Adam before them, Adam the prototypical son of God, Israel did not obey and fell under divine judgment. But one would come who would be born of a virgin. That is to say, He would interrupt the regular course of human generation, signaling that He is now the beginning of a new humanity, a second Adam. And He would do in the wilderness of a fallen world what Adam did not do in the paradise of an unfallen world. And like Israel, He too would come out of Egyptian exile. He too would face temptation in the wilderness. He too would pass through the waters of the Jordan. But unlike Adam who did not obey God’s Law in the garden, and unlike Israel who could not obey God’s Law in the wilderness, Christ, the only begotten Son of God, the second Adam and the true Israel would fulfill every promise and obey every precept throughout His earthly life and ministry. And though judgment fell on Adam for his sin and on Israel for their sin, judgment would fall on Jesus Christ but not for any sin of His own but for our sin and for the sin of all His people.
And that is what Jesus is saying here when He tells His disciples that He came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. He’s saying, “It’s all about Me! It’s all been pointing to Me and preparing for Me. You remember John 5:39 where Jesus remarks to the obstinate and unbelieving Jews, “You searched the Scriptures because in them you think that you have eternal life. And it is they that bear witness to Me.” Or after His resurrection in Luke chapter 24 when He appeared to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Luke tells us that beginning with Moses and all the prophets, the Law and the Prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself. “This,” Jesus says, “is why Christmas really happened, you know. I came into the world to bring the entirety of old covenant promise and precept to its new covenant fulfillment in My birth and life and death and glorious resurrection.”
But what exactly is meant, what’s the difference between “fulfilling” the Law and the Prophets and “abolishing” the Law and the Prophets? “Do not think that I have come to abolish them but to fulfill them,” He says. Surely now that Jesus was born we can just be New Testament people and leave all that difficult and odd Old Testament stuff in the past. Right? Surely Christmas means we don’t ever have to fool with Genesis through Malachi again. Is that what it means? Well look at verse 18. “Until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” An iota is a reference to the smallest Hebrew letter, Yod, and a dot probably refers to an apparently minor stroke of the pen that distinguishes Hebrew letters, one from the other – Bet from Kaf or Dalet from Resh. Just a tiny seraph, a little stroke of the pen, is all that makes a difference between them. The point is, even though Jesus has brought about the fulfillment of the patterns and promises of the old covenant, He has not in any way dispensed with the truth taught in them or the model core of the divine law that binds the consciences of all people everywhere to that obedience that God demands. In fact, He tells us here that the authority of God’s self-revelation remains absolute, extending all the way to the placement of letters on the page and to the merest stroke of the pen.
Which, by the way, shows us Jesus’ view of the Bible. Do you see it here? I wonder if you feel the same way towards the holy Scriptures. It is binding, authoritative, divine revelation. And He’s saying to us, “We can’t do without a single pen stroke of it.” Part of the message of Christmas, I hope you’re beginning to realize, is that the written Word of God, all of it – the promises made in the old covenant and the promises kept in Jesus’ Christ in the new covenant – all of it now commands our attention and claims our obedience. The first coming of Christ doesn’t render parts of the Bible unnecessary. Rather, it confirms their authority by fulfilling their promises. Because Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea and laid in a manger, this book in every word has demonstrated itself to be what it claims to be – the very Word of almighty God.
And as we take that in, do you see how the vast tectonic plates of human history are moved by this one seismic event – the birth of Jesus Christ? He is the hinge of history. The pivot upon which all the ages turn. We are right to sing of the little town in Bethlehem, that “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” Aren’t we? From the dawn of history, everything has been leading to this moment. All the lines of Scriptural revelation pointed to it and now converge upon it. All the types and shadows of the Old Testament have anticipated it and all the promises of God have guaranteed it and all the hopes of all the people of God were focused upon it. And now with the birth of Jesus Christ, the great moment of fulfillment has come at last. Christmas is the hinge of history.
The Claims of the Kingdom
But look at the text again with me and notice not only is the birth of Christ the hinge of history, it therefore also necessarily presses upon us the claims of the kingdom. The hinge of history. Now secondly, the claims of the kingdom. Often our thinking about Christmas is encrusted with a thick pattern of raw sentimentality and the problem with a purely sentimental approach to the Christmas story is because it’s so subjective and personal, it’s far too easily dismissed. If it’s value lies only in how meaningful it is to you, well then I don’t need to pay it much attention if it doesn’t particularly resonate with me. But if instead this is actually public truth with cosmic consequences, changing fundamentally and forever the way in which human beings may approach God, no longer by way of ceremony and sacrifice but now only by means of the obedient life, death and resurrection of Jesus, if that’s what’s really going on in the Christmas story – and Jesus has told us that is exactly what was going on – well then everyone now will have to reckon with it. It can’t be dismissed as subjective, sentimental and personal. You will have to decide what to do with the claims of Jesus Christ this Christmas.
And isn’t that exactly what Jesus is saying here if you look at verses 19 and 20. Since His coming does not abolish the Law but fulfills it, verse 19, “Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Alright, so according to Jesus – do you see this in the text? There are three possibilities for us when it comes to citizenship in the kingdom of heaven. Do you see them in the passage? First it is possible, he says, to be in the kingdom, to be a citizen, but to be called least in the kingdom because of our relative indifference to obedience to God’s Word. Or secondly, it’s possible to be in the kingdom and be called great in the kingdom because of our faithful obedience to God’s Word. Or thirdly, it is possible never to enter the kingdom of heaven at all. And into which category you fall has to do with how you relate to the Word that is now fulfilled, the Word of God fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and therefore all the more authoritative and compelling now that He has come.
And do notice also very carefully that the special target of Jesus’ words seems particularly to be those who teach. Do you see that in the passage? Jesus is talking about whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, or whoever does them and teaches them. And then He mentions the scribes and the Pharisees in verse 20 who are considered by the average Joe in Jerusalem in those days to be the epitome of careful obedience to the Law of God, and they typically assumed for themselves the role of teacher among the Jewish people. So Jesus is focusing on the teachers. And what is, I think, particularly striking is that Jesus says, “Whether you are great in the kingdom or least in the kingdom, either way, if you want to enter the kingdom at all, your righteousness had better exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees.” I wonder if you see the inference. Even the least in the kingdom is more righteous and is a more reliable guide to others in understanding and obeying the Word of God than the Pharisees were. That is what Jesus is saying. The Pharisees thought they were masters of legal obedience, didn’t they? Scrupulous and detailed in their careful adherence to every ceremony, every ritual, their obedience to every obligation. But you see, they were so focused on external obedience to outward forms that they miss the spirit of God’s Law altogether.
If we were to keep on reading in verses 21 through 48, we’d actually see Jesus begin to work His way through portions of God’s Law in order to show not just the outward conformity to the letter of the Law with which the Pharisees apparently contented themselves, but to show us the deeper, spiritual meaning of the Law that reaches all the way down to the deep motivations of the human heart. So for example, verse 21, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.” Or verse 27, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Jesus wants His disciples to see that in the wake of the first Christmas, now that He has come, His fulfillment of the Law in no way weakens our obligation to be holy. In fact, His coming clarifies the true, inward character of that obedience required of us all. Jesus’ standards are not lower, looser, or lesser than the Pharisees. They are higher, far higher! This is what righteousness really looks like, He is saying. It penetrates not just to your behavior but to your heart, to your motives, to the hidden inclinations of your soul.
And that is really scary if you think about it. It’s really scary. Here’s the question it forces us to ask. If even the least in the kingdom of heaven has a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, and they were such sticklers for careful obedience after all, and if the righteousness that Jesus calls for is far more exacting, far more comprehensive, so far reaching, so total that it touches not just what I do but every part of who I am and how I am wired – what I love, how I think, how I feel – if that’s the standard even just for entry into His kingdom, well man, I’m in big trouble. I’m in big trouble. But listen, if you’re thinking like that, I want to tell you how glad I am, not because I want you to be distressed, but because even though it’s uncomfortable, it means that actually the real message of Christmas is beginning to sink in. Without the baby of Bethlehem and the Man of Calvary, you are indeed in big trouble. Me too. That’s why Christmas matters so very much. Do you see? We are quite right to be distressed by Jesus’ words here, aren’t we? There is no way, none at all, for us to be righteous enough to enter the kingdom of heaven; not on our own merits for sure.
Jesus is telling us that if all the righteousness we have is formal and outward, a righteousness like that of the scribes and the Pharisees, a civic righteousness perhaps, even a merely religious righteousness, if all we’ve got is mere “churchianity” and nothing more, well then we never will enter the kingdom of heaven. We need something altogether different. A righteousness of an entirely different character. What we need is what Jesus was born that first Christmas to provide. We need His righteousness reckoned to our account to qualify us on the basis not of our goodness but of His to become citizens of the kingdom of heaven. His perfect righteousness that far exceeds the righteousness of any other. And we need a new righteousness of our own, worked into our hearts and worked out in our lives by the power of the grace of Jesus Christ; the righteousness that ought to characterize everyone who now lives as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus was born, Christmas happened, to give you both – His righteousness imputed, reckoned to your account in your justification, and His righteousness imparted to you in sanctification. Right standing before God and right living in the world. The double righteousness that we need.
This is the righteousness that alone exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees because Christmas is the hinge of history, because the birth of Christ brings the Scriptures to fulfillment, the claims of the kingdom – do you see this now – they are so very pressing and urgent. The question Jesus is asking us is, “Does your righteousness, today right now, exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees?” It must. It must if you are to enter the kingdom of heaven. Are you going to enter the kingdom of heaven? The only way is to accept the greatest of Christmas gifts – the righteousness of Jesus Christ that He was born to provide. “How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given; so God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven. No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive Him still the dear Christ enters in.” It’s the only way, the only way. You must be robed in the righteousness of Christ if you are to gain entry to the kingdom of heaven.
May God give you grace that that greatest of all Christmas gifts might be yours indeed. Let us pray.
Our God, we bow before You with gratitude and wonder that You should give Your Son, Your only Son, the Son whom You love, to be born one of us, to fulfill all Your promises, to keep all Your precepts, to bring the Scriptures to their fulfillment, to bind them upon our consciences and then to provide in His person, in His obedience and blood, the only deliverance from the condemnation our sins deserve, that Your standards in Him might be met for our sakes. And so now together again, or perhaps today for the very first time, we come running to Jesus. Our righteousness, our righteousness is as filthy rags, not a righteousness that exceeds the empty formalism even of the scribes and the Pharisees, a threadbare, ugly thing, truth be told. And so today now before You we repent of our righteousness. We rest instead on the righteousness of Jesus, praising You that He was born that first Christmas that it might become ours. Have mercy on us then that we, all of us, may enter and become great in Your kingdom, obeying Your Word and teaching others to do it also. For we ask it in His name, amen.