Matthew 5.17

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill (pleroo) them.

The following comments are from D.A. Carson’s work in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Matthew Chapters 1-12, pgs 143-144:

The best interpretation of these difficult verses says that Jesus fulfills the Law and the Prophets in that they point to him, and he is their fulfillment.  The antithesis is not between “abolish” and “keep” but between “abolish” and “fulfill.”  For Matthew, then, it is not the question of Jesus’ relation to the Law that is in doubt but rather its relation to him!  Therefore we give pleroo (”fulfill”) exactly the same meaning as in the formula quotations, which in the prologue (Matt. 1-2) have already laid great stress on the prophetic nature of the OT and the way it points to Jesus.  Even OT evetns have this prophetic significance (see 2.15).  A little later Jesus insists that “all the Prophets and the Law prophesied” (11.13).

As in Luke 16.16-17, Jesus is not announcing the termination of the OT’s relevance and authority, but that “the period during which men were related to God under its terms ceased with John” (Douglas Moo, The Lord Jesus’ Authority and the Law, pg. 1); and the nature of its valid continuity is established only with reference to Jesus and the kingdom…The chief objection to this view is that the use of “to fulfill” in the fulfillment quotations is in the passive voice, whereas here the voice is active.  But it is doubtful whether much can be made out of this distinction

 

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Tags: Christians and the Law, does the Law continue, fulfill the law, Jesus Christ, pleroo