Matthew 1:1 - "The Genealogy of Jesus (Part
1)"
Matthew
1:1-17 - "The Genealogy
of Jesus (Part 2)"
Matthew
1:18-25 - "God with
Us"
Matthew
2:1-12 - "The King of
the Jews"
Matthew
2:13-23 - "The Early
Sorrows of Christ" (written out)
Matthew
3:1-12 - "Preparing the
Way"
Matthew
3:13-17 - "The Baptism
of Jesus"
Matthew
4:1-11 - "The Testing
of Jesus"
Matthew
4:12-17 - "Jesus the
Galilean"
Matthew
4:18-22 - "Fishers of
Men"
Matthew
4:23-25 - "The Word and
the Power"
Intro to the Sermon on the Mount - "The Ethics of the Kingdom" (written out)
Matthew
5:1-12 - "The Blessings
of the Kingdom"
Matthew
5:13-16 - "Salt and
Light"
Matthew 16:13-28 - "The Power of the Cross" (written out)
Matthew 28 - "The Resurrection"
My evening sermon series in Matthew was interrupted by my resignation due to chronic fatigue just as I was beginning the Sermon on the Mount. I am sorry to say this means I do not currently have available a sermon on that crucial text, Matthew 5:17,18 (“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter or stroke will pass from the law until all is accomplished".) But what I do have is sermons leading up to that which should prove suggestive at least in interpreting that text.
Essential in interpreting Matthew 5:17 is Jesus' earlier statement to John the Baptist when John tried to prevent him from being baptized. "Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness" (Matt 3:15). The word "fulfil" used in that verse is the same word Jesus uses when he says he has come to "fulfil" the law and the prophets. Since, in Matthew 3:15, Jesus "fulfils" all righteousness by actually doing the deed, Bahnsen's suggestion that in Matthew 5:17 Jesus merely meant that he came to "confirm" the Law rests on an improbable supposition.
Further, the events surrounding Jesus' death and resurrection as recorded by Matthew must inform our understanding of Matthew 5:18. At Christ's death, the veil of the temple was torn in two, the earth quaked, the rocks split, and, most significantly, graves were opened and "many bodies of saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many" (Matt 27:51-53). This is the language of heaven and earth passing away and a new heavens and a new earth being proleptically established. Already we partake of the new heavens and new earth by faith; and at the last it shall be revealed. But where heaven and earth have passed away, the law also has passed away (Matt 5:18). Already we partake of the new creation where Christ has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances (Eph 2:15) and a better and more lasting ethic--the law of Christ--has been brought in with power to cause us to walk in its ways. Thus, "the righteous requirement of the Law is fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh" (whose sinful passions were aroused by the Law, q.v. Romans 7:12) "but according to the Spirit" (Romans 8:4).