Jesus and the Law 

Jesus fulfilling the Law means he does what the Law was never able to do, which is to break the power of sin, overthrow death, and lead us into the eighth day of creation, writes Joe Haward

Jesus did not come to ramp up the power of the Law to new levels. His teaching wasn't designed to impose even stricter holiness codes that demanded an ethical standard never before seen. His goal wasn't a people who followed an ethical code of behaviour that was impossible to attain, yet demanded by God. He didn't come to make people slaves to moral codes for fear of eternal punishment.
 
In his Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus says, "You have heard it said, but I say to you…", I don't believe he is saying, "You think Law is strict? You ain't seen nothing…" Jesus fulfils the Law, he doesn't create an even more punishing version.
 
So, then, what does it mean for Jesus to fulfil the Law?
 
When he teaches that to hate is to commit murder in your heart, or to lust is to commit adultery, he is declaring the total invasiveness of sin. We might say, he is teaching total depravity. Now, before people think I've flipped to Calvinism, I honestly haven't! I'm attempting to reframe the idea. Total depravity is the idea that within the very heart of humanity, at the very core of our existence, we are sinners, and that determines our very identity. Yet I think there is a better way of understanding things.
 
Sin is no joke. It has corrupted all things, in ways we can't even comprehend. Its sickness has spread and contaminated the whole cosmos, bringing death to all things. This is not some kind of inherited guilt from humankind's first parents, but the spread of sin into the very fibre of all existence. Yet still we bear the very image of God, the divine spark; at the core of our existence, of who we are in identity and humanity, is Christ himself, even if sin mars that image in us. So then we might better say that sin is total depravity.

Humans are not totally depraved, rather, sin contaminates everything. In other words, everything from our thoughts, inner hearts, to our actions, have been distorted by degrees we are unaware of. This is what Jesus is teaching. It’s not enough to say sin has made us commit acts of murder, but that it distorts and contaminates the very desires of our heart.

But the solution is not an ever stricter adherence to the Law. Rather, it is found in relationship with God. “So every good tree produces good fruits, but the diseased tree produces bad fruits. A good tree cannot bear bad fruits, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruits.” (Matthew 7:17–18) In other words, it is not our actions, but where we are planted. Relationship with God is the telos (meaning our ultimate goal and purpose) of humanity, not the pursuit of holiness codes.

Various Church Mothers and Fathers highlighted how human desire, no matter how corrupted, is ultimately a desire for God. We strive for the Good, yet sin disorientates our desires, as Irenaeus (c. 130 – c.202) once said. So even our sinful desires are ultimately a desire for God. Only God, not the Law, can reorientate us to our Good end, namely our beginning, which is Christ Himself. This is why Jesus said that the first and greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God out of your whole heart and out of your whole soul and out of your whole reason and out of your whole strength.” (Mark 12:30)

Jesus fulfilling the Law is that he does what the Law was never able to do, which is to break the power of sin, overthrow death, and lead us into the eighth day of creation. Jesus did not come to impose an even heavier Law burden upon us. We simply cannot carry it. As Jesus said to the religious leaders, such burdens do not come from God.


Image | Timothy Eberly | Unsplash

Joe Haward is a pioneer Baptist minister, Senior Chaplain for the NHS, Business Chaplain, and freelance writer. His debut novel, Every Drop, is released on Friday 13 October.

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