Jesus 'Fulfilled' the law? - The Matthew 5 Controversy | PD w/ David Wilber

Can the meaning of a word change the way you live? There is a hotly debated verse in the Christian world of Matthew 5:17, where it is written, 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. What did the Messiah Jesus mean when he said, fulfill? The answer to that question for you will have great ramifications. It will determine how you look upon the law of God, because you will measure that upon how you thought Jesus perceived the law of God. Many believers believe that Jesus advocated for keeping it, and some others believe that he thought to do away with the law. And after this, Jesus goes further and he also talks and breaks down many things that have been said in his day. He says, you have heard it said. But I say to you, what does he mean by those various statements? Is he also trying to replace the Torah and the prophets by some of those? Today we are going to dig into Matthew, chapter five, the Sermon on the Mount. And joining me today is my brother, David Wilbur. David Wilbur. Thank you for joining me, brother.

Hey, man, it's great to be with you again. It's always an honor. And yeah, I'm excited to get into the text.

He's an author, Bible teacher, and CEO of Pronomium Publishing. He also authored a book called How Jesus Fulfilled the Law. On this topic of Matthew chapter 5, I think to understand chapter 5, verse 17, we probably have to just give the viewers a little bit of context in the verses prior to that. Because, guys, obviously, when Yeshua is speaking about the law and he says, do not think I've come to abolish it, he is saying that because of what he has said just prior to it. So what he says is verse two. He opens his mouth and he teaches them, speaking the Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. And he goes on talking to those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, the merciful, and all of these who in this world are commonly looked down upon, those who are suffering, those who are oppressed, and he is promising them a kingdom to come where they will have deliverance. He's telling us that you may not find justice or mercy or comfort or peace in all the ways that you would desire in this world, but a new kingdom is coming where those things will be. And then he transitions into verse 17, which is what we just read earlier of do not think that I have come to abolish the law of the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. And David, it almost seems as of though the Messiah is coming to these words saying, okay, I've spoken about mercy and peace and justice, but I think people in this world, when they think of mercy and peace and grace, they sometimes think that comes at the cost of the law. And yet then the Messiah comes and says, but don't think that that's what I'm saying, because I don't think that I'm coming to abolish the law or the prophets. Tell me some of your initial thoughts on that verse.

Pretty much every scholar agrees, every interpreter agrees that if you want to understand Jesus position on the law of Moses, this is where you find it. Now they don't all agree on what his position is. They, they don't all agree on, on how to interpret this passage, but they do all agree that if you want to know what Jesus believes about this, this is where he, he gives his perspective. So it's a very important passage. And like you said, there, there is a reason why I think he starts the verse off by saying, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets that command there. Do not think implies that there was an accusation or some people that thought that he did come to abolish. The very fact that he has to say do not think this implies that there was, that there were people that did think that. And so he is correcting the record here on what was his mission with regard to the law. Craig Keener, he's a well respected New Testament scholar. He says that this passage In Matthew, Matthew 5, 17, 20, it serves as Yeshua's thesis statement. And it's, it's kind of his, his statement regarding how followers, how his followers should relate to the law. And, and the way that I think that he sets it up is fascinating here. So he says, do not think he literally commands them. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. You know, we don't want to disobey this commandment. We don't want to think that he came to do something that he said we're not supposed to think that he came to do. So what does it mean to abolish the law and the prophets? And this is a key term and it's really key to understanding the other term that he uses. In this verse that you talked about earlier of fulfill abolish, here comes from the Greek term katuluo. And this term basically means to cause to be no longer in force. It's used elsewhere to, to mean destroy, to tear down. But yeah, it basically means in, in this sense to cause to be no longer enforced, to do away with or to nullify. And what's interesting about this term is, especially when it concerns the law, is that There are other 1st century Jewish writings that use this term katuluo, as well as the related term luo that's used in verse 19, which we'll talk about a little bit later, when he says, you know, whoever breaks or whoever relaxes the least of these commandments. Yeah, right there. Whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments. So that word relaxes right there is luo, which is related to abolish Kataluo in verse 17. And so what, what's interesting about these two terms is that they are used in reference to the law, the, the law of Moses several times in other 1st century Jewish texts, namely for Maccabees and also in Josephus's writings. And in these contexts in which the, the, this term, these terms are used with relation to the law. It's all, it's in the context of the Maccabean revolt and Antiochus coming in and, and trying to get the, the Jewish people to abandon the Torah. He's outlawing the Torah. And so these words, kataluo are used in that context to describe the actions of Antiochus. So just, just to give one example, in 4 Maccabees 79 or 17 9, the author characterizes Antiochus as, quote, the tyrant who wished to abolish the way of life of the Hebrews. You also see in 4 Maccabees 5 there's an account of Antiochus. He's trying to attempt to compel the priest Eliezer to eat pork. And Eliez refuses. He says, I'm not going to do that because it would be an abolishment of the law. So Josephus also uses this word. He, he describes Antiochus as someone who wanted to put pressure, quote, put pressure upon the Jews to abolish their ancestral customs, leaving their infants uncircumcised and sacrificing swine upon the altar. And that comes from Jewish wars, chapter 1, verse 34. So these examples from Jewish literature show that to abolish the law has something to do with rejecting its authority. Abolishing the law has something to do with denying the law's authority, disregarding the commandments of the law, and even encouraging other people to disregard the commandments. Because we see that with Antiochus, he came to try to compel other people to disregard the law as well. And what's fascinating here is that is the meaning that we see in verse 19. Remember, I said that the Greek word kataluo for abolish is related to luo in verse 19 for relaxes there. So in verse 19, it says, Therefore whoever relaxes luo, one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. So there you see this notion of rejecting the law's authority. You're breaking the law, you're disregarding the law, and you're teaching other people to disregard it.

And that's. So I think that's an incredibly key point because I think a lot of people think about these terms like abolish on a purely intellectual level. They say, well, intellectually, you know, to themselves, at least until actually it's not abolished. But when it comes to the practicality of what that means, that's where it gets a little hazy. But in verse 19, it's almost like the Messiah knew where people would try and take his words. And then he really doubles down with a practical instruction. He says that what I'm saying applies not just intellectually to what you consider to be, you know, valuable, perhaps. I mean, many people would say, oh, the Lord has value. But he. He takes it further and he says, no, it's in regards to what you do. That is what I'm really talking about. In fact, that's what the whole Matthew 5 is about. Right? It's. You need to be morally as I am. You need to be walking like the Messiah does. And. And so when he talks now about the law, he says, if you. If you relax the least of these commandments, that's a. That's something that you don't do. You don't do the law. You're relaxing something.

Yeah. You're abolishing it.

Yes, that's. That's the thing.

Yeah, you're abolishing it. And that's. That's what I think is the. The thrust here is that Jesus says, I did not come to abolish the law, and neither should my followers. My followers will not abolish law either By. By, you know, by breaking the least of these commandments and teaching others to do also. Basically what I. What I think he's saying, I'm not Antiochus. Unlike Antiochus, I did not come to abolish the law. I did not come to disregard the Commandments to deny the law's authority and, and have other people deny it. I came to do something different than that. And so when we get to this other term that is used, fulfill is the opposite of what that is. Fulfill is the opposite of abolishing it.

Well, not everyone will agree with you on that.

So. But, but yeah, that, that antithesis there, because, because there's an antithesis set up here between these two terms, abolishing and fulfilling. So in order to really understand fulfill, we also, we, we have. That's why it's so important to understand the meaning of this term abolish.

Because, yeah, he's saying, I've not come to abolish, but to fulfill. So whatever. And this is what you're saying, David is. Whatever he means by the word fulfill, it is definitely not the same meaning as abolished.

Right, right. So. And everything that you said earlier too, I think is really key, is, is that it's not just abolishing it in theory like it is in practice. You know, I did not come to a. I did not come to abolish the doing and teaching of the law and prophets. In fact, my followers should do and teach the commandments. So. Yeah. Now let's talk a little bit about the, the term fulfill, if that's okay. Do you want to move on to that? Okay, so what does it mean to fulfill the law and prophets? Well, this word is used in different ways throughout Matthew and according to, like a bdag. BDAG is a Greek lexicon. Depending upon the context, it could mean different things. It could mean to carry out. It could mean to show forth true meaning, or it could mean to complete, to bring to completion. And so the question is, well, which of these definitions of this term is the, the term in Greek? Which of these definitions best fits the context here? Did Jesus come to carry out the law and prophets? Did he come to show forth the true meaning of the law and prophets, or did he come to bring them to completion? And so that is really the key question because a lot of people think that he means to fulfill in the sense of bring to completion, like sort of like fulfilling prophecy. Right. And, you know, he came to fulfill all that the law and prophets foretold of him. And now that he brought the law and prophets to completion, they're, they're set aside. They're, you know, they're, they're done away with. He. He fulfilled their purpose. And so they're, now they're irrelevant. He. He came and started something new. That, that's sort of Sort of the trajectory of. Of the thinking that people take this. And it is true that elsewhere in Matthew that that term play rao is used in reference to fulfilling prophecy. It is used and, you know, it talks about. Matthew uses it, talking about Yeshua, you know, coming out of Egypt, right, to fulfill what was written by the prophet Isaiah. Okay? And so you have that play rao used in the sense of fulfilling prophecy. So you could argue that. But I don't think that that is the sense that is intended here in Matthew 5:17. And we have to be careful here because we don't want to commit a lexical fallacy. We don't want to just take whatever definition of the. The term that we want or whatever best fits our theology and just import it into the text, because that's not being responsible. I think, you know, we. Yeah, go ahead.

A lot of people, David, are looking at things like the Strong's concordance or, you know, whatever they prefer, and they look at whatever Greek word is used in this case, and they. They go down the list of definitions and they pick the one that seems to fit what they really want it to mean. But this is. I believe what you're also saying is ultimately the. What matters is what the context reveals, because this is a complex word. I mean, I've got in front of me as well, right? It can mean. I'm just reading it in the strongs here. It can mean to furnish, can mean to execute like an office, to finish a task. It can mean to complete, can even mean expire or then fill up or make full or fully preach or perfect. So, you know, if we take these English words that I just read and we put it in there and we just read that verse in isolation, then we're just gonna have debates and arguments all day long about what this verse means. And the key is, well, what are the verses before and after saying? And how is he framing even the very sentences you've made reference to earlier? If he's saying, I have come to finish it up in terms of I have come to do it so that you don't have to worry about the law anymore, then that would not make sense with what he says right before, where he says, I have not come to abolish and think I have. And it doesn't make sense with what he says thereafter, where he says that if you relax the law, you'll be called least in the kingdom.

Right? Yeah, and you're exactly right. Is this statement fulfill? I came to fulfill the law and prophets. It's right in between in verse 16, he, he admonishes his followers to perform good works, right? He's like, you shall do good works. And then in verse 19, right after that, as you just said, he admonishes them again to do and teach the commandments. And also the overall context, the overall focus of the Sermon on the Mount, it's not about prophecy. It's not about fulfilling prophecy. It's about his teaching. It's about this is how you are to live. So the, the whole context is didactic. You know, it's focused on teaching, focusing on how you are to live. So given this context, you know, really fully doing or revealing true meaning show forth true meaning. That, that fits the idea of what's going on here. It fits the context much better than this idea of fulfilling prophecy. And so I, I would, I would take, I would take that as making a lot more sense given the context. And just a couple other things too. As I mentioned earlier, whatever fulfill is, it has to mean the opposite of abolish. And if abolish means to deny the law's authority, it doesn't really make sense to contrast that with fulfilling prophecy, you know, to bring something to completion. That, that contrast there doesn't really make sense. It also really doesn't make sense with what he says in verse 18 when he says that, you know, the, the law is going to remain as long as heaven and earth exist, right until heaven and earth pass away, nothing from the Torah will pass away. And then he goes on to say, and on the basis of that, on the basis of the fact that nothing will pass away, whoever relaxes one of the least of the commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom. But whoever does and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom. So yeah, I think the, if we read the verse in context to fulfill, I would say that to fully carry, out, to bring forth full expression that, that really fits the. The cont here. And that corresponds then to verse 19. In fact, I think this is, I think this is the strongest proof here is that you, Matthew is kind of doing a word play in the way that he, he writes down this teaching. He does a wordplay. Because I mentioned earlier, you have luo in verse 19 for relaxes that parallels abolish in verse 17 and I think does and teaches parallels fulfill. So just, just as, just as relaxes or breaks the least of these commandments, just as that parallels abolish the law and prophets in verse 17, I think dozen teaches the commandments parallels fulfill in verse 17. So you kind of have a wordplay going on and some parallelism happening here. Right. And, and then that would, that would fit then with. With the definitions that BDAG Lexicon gives is to bring forth true expression to, to fully carry out, to, to fully do and teach is what Jesus is saying here. I did not come to disregard the law's authority. I came to fully carry out the law. I came to show you to, to teach and to demonstrate how to keep the law proper properly. And, and that also makes sense as we'll get into later with. With what he says throughout the entire rest of the chapter, because that's what he goes on to does. Goes on to do is he goes on to teach the law properly. What does it mean to actually live out the law?

Absolutely. That's great. We're going to get to that in a second. I also wanted to just touch on verse 18 here a little more because he says, for truly said, until heaven and earth passes away, not an ODA nor a dog will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Now, this statement has been used by others to say that he is saying that until all is accomplished refers to his crucifixion. And, you know, but if we read it, we're seeing a first statement, okay, until heaven on earth pass away. That's the first. Until now. That's the first question. Let's just be real. Is, has heaven on earth passed away? I believe that he is speaking literally because there is prophecy speaking of the future where heaven and earth will pass away and a new heaven and a new earth will come. But then the second until he says is until all is accomplished. And of course, the Messiah did accomplish something on the cross, something amazing and great. But has all things been accomplished that he is specifically referring to here? That is, I guess, the question, but it has to be matching with the first. It's almost like he's trying to explain what does it mean when he says until heaven and earth pass away, until all is accomplished, like there is a connection between those things that there is yet as we are sitting here presently, there is yet things that he has to accomplish. And we know this from. From prophecy. We know that he is still going to set up a kingdom on earth, he's going to reign, he is going to rule, and so forth and so forth. We're still in the story of redemption as well. Go ahead.

Yeah. Well, I would just ask what is one of those prophecies that has not happened yet? Heaven and earth passing away.

Right.

Heaven and earth. It's prophesied that heaven and earth will pass away. We see that in Second Peter three. You know, Peter talks about the. The heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. That's verse 7, verse 13. He says, we are waiting for a new heavens, a new earth in which righteousness dwells. And he says in verse 10 of chapter 3, the Lord will come. The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away. Also in Revelation, Revelation 21, when, when the kingdom comes, the new heavens and new earth are established. And he says the first heaven and first earth had passed away. So that is still future. And, and I think that, I think Dr. David Turner is right here. He's a, he's a New Testament scholar, but he's talking about these two temporal clauses because as you point out, there's two temporal clauses here. He says, until heaven and earth pass away and until all is accomplished. And according to David Turner, he says these clauses are, quote, essentially synonymous references to the end of the present world and the beginning of the eschaton. Until that time, the law is valid. So I would, I would agree with Turner here that these two clauses are essentially synonymous. That heaven and earth is passing away is the last prophecy. It's the last thing to, to be accomplished in the future. And when that happens, then, then things from the law can, can begin to pass away. He was saying that the entire law remains binding until heaven and earth pass away, until the entire created cosmos, the, the fallen world that we currently inhabit. Until that goes away, nothing from the law will pass away. It's hard to really get out of that. Some people have tried. The, the most common objection that I hear is that as you said earlier, until all is accomplished, that, that second temporal clause, until all is accomplished, that must refer to Jesus's work on the cross. And so now that Jesus completed his work on the cross, parts of the law can now begin to pass away or have passed away. The problem is that that would contradict the first clause, the, the first temporal clause, until heaven and earth pass away. So that we can't really. We can't really take that, that clause to mean that if it contradicts the, the clause immediately preceding it, it also contradicts the verse 17 that we just read where Yeshua says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. If he meant that, and by the way, when I die, when I die, you know, the, the law will, will go away. That, that contradicts what he just said in verse 17. And then he says in the next verse, by the way, do and teach the Commandments. What, what does that mean? Until I die? Like I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna die on the cross and the, and, and then these commandments are going to pass away. Do and teach the commandments, though. It's very important that you do this. You're going to be least in the kingdom of heaven if you don't. But you only have to worry about it until I die. So, so that's not really. I don't, I don't really feel like.

That'S a powerful key because of course, his first coming, the point of why he has come was to die for the sins of the world. So when he says, don't think that I have come, he's talking about his purpose. He's talking about why I am here. It is not to abolish. That is not why I got on the cross. I didn't get on the cross to abolish the commandments. I came to set the captives free from the bondage of sin, the breaking of the law.

Amen. Yeah. And I'll just say one, one more quick thing on this because what you're, what you're going to hear as an objection to this is that, well, some things clearly have passed away from the law, though. And my main dialogue partner that in my book how Jesus fulfilled The law is R.L. solberg. And in his book Torahism, I, I quote him extensively throughout the book and I interact of his arguments and his, his main objection to this reading is that Jesus could not have meant what he said here. That's, that's literally what he says. He says, quote, Jesus could not have meant there would be no change in the law until heaven and earth pass away. So he couldn't have meant what he said because according to Solberg, some things have already passed from the law. That, that's, that's his argument. And then he goes on to quote passages in Hebrews and Galatians, you know, all of those passages in Unreal in other parts of the Bible that are disputed, you know, that we would dispute. But he says, because of what those passages seem to say or how I interpret them, this verse cannot mean what it says. It has to mean something different. And I just think that that is the wrong approach. So the way that I would answer that is to say that you can't take unrelated passages. You, you can't come to Matthew 5, 18 with a predetermined conclusion about what the text is allowed to say. You have to.

Jesus is allowed to say.

Yeah, exactly. You can't come to the text with a predetermined conclusion about what the Messiah is allowed to say in this verse. You have to let the text speak for itself. And, and I think that when it comes to. I'm not saying ignore everything else, but what I am saying is that you have to take the text seriously. You have to let the text say what it says and then, and then, you know, interpret the more ambiguous passages, the disputed passages. Interpret those in light of the clearer passages. One of my, one of the scholars, I quote in this book. He says that if I can find the quote here. Yeah, he says, Dr. J. Andrew Overman, he writes, quote, although this passage, he's Talking about Matthew 5, 17, 20, he says, although this passage is the subject of lively controversy, it is unambiguous and does indeed command obedience to the whole Torah. End quote. And so, and I would agree with that. I would agree that. I mean, I mean, pretty much everyone agrees that this is where you go, this is the passage you go to. To find out what Jesus, what his perspective was on the law of Moses. And, and I think that it is unambiguous. I think that what he teaches here is unambiguous. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to do that, but to fulfill them. And the passages in, you know, Galatians and, and Hebrews, they're more complex. Paul is writing to specific communities that are having spec. That have specific issues going on. We only have one side of the story. We kind of have to piece things together. And, and they're. And so that's, It's a lot more complex. And so I think a more, a more responsible approach would be to take the clear passage of, of Matthew 5, 17, 20 and kind of use that as our frame of reference for understanding these other passages instead of the other way around. We, we cannot use on. We cannot use unrelated passages in Hebrews and Paul's epistles to distort the clear meaning of, of Matthew 5, 17, 20.

So, you know, Peter speaks about Paul specifically and he talks about how Paul's letters are hard to understand. So if Peter says that, then, I mean, we all know that, but we know that the Bible even reinforces that reality. That means that we should likely approach Paul's ladders through the lens of what we know the Messiah said and stood for himself. And because we know that Paul is submitted to the Messiah, it is his. The Messiah is his king. Jesus is Paul's king. So Paul is not trying to lead us away from what Jesus is saying or something contrary or opposite. And by no means would Paul himself want us to go to his words and be like, well, Paul said this, so that's what Jesus must also mean, with the danger that we may well be misunderstanding Paul, as Peter warned. And so I would encourage anyone listening to this who's on the fence. You know, Galatians is a difficult book, for example, but it can be understood. But you will do much better in understanding it when you walk into its reading with where the Messiah stood regarding the law. Because Paul is heavy. He has a heavy hand, it sounds like when he's speaking against the law, but it's because of the issues like David mentioned that he's facing in his time. Some of those issues are very much alive today. But for him it was, you know, these people coming in to lead people away from the Messiah, saying, you can be righteous by how well you keep the law. That's a big issue. And so with that, he is, he is going to speak. It may seem like he's speaking negatively about the law, but he's speaking about the wrong application of the law. How many people have used it wrongly. And yet now the Messiah himself, standing as our salvation before us, says, don't think though, on the other hand, that I have come to abolish it by my sacrifice. Just because you believe in me doesn't mean the law is null and void. There is still a place for it in your life. And I think that's what we, we should probably soon here try and figure out what is, what did he really mean by these statements? Because that's what he's going into next. Any last things to add on that, David, before I move on to.

No, I, I, I think that that's, that's good. Yeah. But before we get into some of these, you have heard that it was said statements. I think it would be important to talk a little bit about what's going on in verses 19 through 20. We already kind of talked about verse 19 quite a bit here, but basically, yeah, verse 19 he says, you know, because the law remains valid, my followers should be doing and teaching the law, and they should be doing and teaching the commandments. And then in verse 20 he says something that's many people are kind, maybe surprised by or overwhelmed by maybe. But it says, for I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. And so what? Well, first of all, what, what does Yeshua mean by righteousness here? Well, the entire context here of this passage is Torah observance. Elsewhere in Matthew, like in, in the next chapter, in chapter six, he talks about practicing righteousness. And in the Torah itself, in Deuteronomy 6, he says that doing the commandments will be righteousness for us. And so Yeshua, he expects his followers to obey the law better than the Scribes and Pharisees. And by surpassing them in their observance of the Torah, they exhibit a greater righteousness that, that what I think is, is going on here. And their inferior righteousness, the inferior righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees is not enough to get you into the kingdom. So a lot of people hear that and, and right away they are, you know, overwhelmed. Because I, I think that there is sort of an assumption that we bring into the text as 21st century evangelicals with our church background, we kind of, we look at the Pharisees and we just assume that, you know, because of depictions and movies and all of that, that they were, they were the best at keeping the law and the prophets, like the scribes and Pharisees, they were top notch Torah keepers. Like, they were super righteous and way, way better than anyone could ever hope to be, like they devoted their entire lives to.

So it's this idea that they were, they were trying so hard and if they didn't stand a chance, then we might as well not even try in keeping these laws that they were trying to keep.

Right? Right.

And I just want to make one point before you, just for anyone listening to this who may be wondering, guys, remember that we fully believe that we are saved by faith in the Messiah sacrifice. That that is what makes us righteous for salvation. When we are talking now about this righteousness that Yeshua is speaking about in verse 20 of how we should have a righteousness that exceeds the Scribes and the Pharisees, I believe that it is on two fronts, right? I believe that, yes, we need to have that righteousness that the Messiah sacrifice imputes to us to make us holy and clean before the Father, but also that our deeds and our actions should not be like the Pharisees who. I know I'm, I'm jumping in ahead of you now. David, I know you weren't going to say this, but the Pharisees were hypocrites, right? He said, you are like whitewashed tombs full of dead man bones. You look pretty on the outside, but your cup on the inside is dirty. So they're not as righteous as we may think. Yeshua had big issue with the fact that their deeds were unrighteous.

Yeah, I thank you for pointing that out because I think that's an important clarification. The word, the word righteousness, the way that Paul uses it sometimes in his letters, you know, he uses it in a different sense here because he talks about there are two senses of the term righteousness. The same way as, like we talked earlier, fulfill. There is a sense in which it can mean to fulfill prophecy, to bring to completion, but also to fully carry out, to do to, and all that. So, so there are different senses of these terms and the context is what's important for determining what the, the biblical author is intending here. There are nuances. And so Paul does use the term righteousness in the sense of declarative righteousness. You know, we're declared righteous on the basis of what Christ did for us. You know, that's not anything that we can earn. That's not anything that, you know, we can accomplish on our own. That, that's only by the blood of the Messiah. But the Messiah And Paul too, Paul elsewhere uses the term righteousness in terms of what we do, walking out righteousness, doing righteousness. And so there, there is. And that, that would be like, in the sense of how I, I guess like demonstrative righteousness would be a different way to describe that. And, and we see this in James. Right? That's the whole. There's a lot of confusion about between Paul and James. Like, do Paul and James, Does Paul contradict the Epistle of James, for example, because James talks about, you know, faith without work instead. Right, right, right. So, so there is. Understanding the difference, the different nuances to how righteousness could be understood is key to do that. But anyway, I digress in this Context, in Matthew 5, the. The meaning of righteousness here is in regard to what you do. That, that seems very clear from the context that when he says, your righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees, he's talking about their Torah observance. You know, you ought to behave more righteously than the Scribes and Pharisees behave. Now the question is, and we already alluded to it earlier, is like, well, aren't the, aren't the Scribes and Pharisees super righteous? Like, aren't they really good at obeying the Torah? And, and so when we keep reading the Gospel of Matthew, we get the answer to that question. And the answer is emphatically no. The scribes and Pharisees are not righteous. Yeshua repeatedly accuses them of hypocrisy and neglecting the commandments. We see this in Matthew 15, right, where he says, you uphold your traditions and, and you neglect the commandments. You're breaking the commandments. You know, Matthew 23, he says, you know, the scribes and Pharisees that sit on Moses's seat, do what they tell you to do, but don't do what they do because they're hypocrites. They don't practice what they preach. You know, they, they neglect the weightier matters of the law. And so what Matthew goes on to say is actually that the scribes and Pharisees are not good at keeping the commandments. They're constantly breaking the commandments. They're constantly sidestepping the commandments. They're developing traditions to try to circumvent the commandments, to justify breaking commandments. They're like, okay, well, it's okay that I'm not honoring my parents because I got this, you know, I, I've dedicated my belongings to, you know, I've called it Corbin or whatever. So we see this constantly throughout the, the Gospels, especially in Matthew. And so it's not what I think Yeshua is saying here in verse 20 is he didn't come to abolish the law or the prophets. The scribes and Pharisees did. The scribes and Pharisees are the ones that are abolishing it because they're denying the law's authority. They're the ones breaking the commandments. They're the ones getting around the commandments and teaching others wrongly concerning the commandments. And so, yeah, the way that we surpass the scribes and Pharisees in righteousness is number one, going back to verse 19 is we do the commandments for one, you know, instead of just teaching the commandments like Yeshua talks about in Matthew 23, they preach, but they do not practice. Instead of just teaching the commandments, we must do and teach the commandments in verse 19, that's how we surpass the scribes and Pharisees in righteousness, because they're hypocrites. They don't, they don't do the commandments even though they might teach them. Another thing is that we uphold God's word itself as the standard, not, not traditions, not man made traditions. Like I alluded to earlier. The Pharisees were awesome at coming up with ways to circumvent the commandments. They came, they came up with all these traditions in order to justify breaking God's commandments. And then the most important thing, the most important way that we surpass the scribes and Pharisees in righteousness is by following the Torah the way the Messiah taught us to follow it. Because he came to fulfill the Torah, the Pharisees are the ones that abolish it. Messiah is the one that fulfills it by teaching and demonstrating the proper way to walk it out. And so we won't, we won't surpass the scribes and Pharisees in righteousness unless we are following the Messiah's interpretation of the law and prophets, unless we're following how the Messiah defines righteousness. And that is what I think the entire rest of the chapter is all about, is that the Messiah goes on and he teaches. What does it actually mean to surpass the scribes and Pharisees in righteousness.

Amen. That's good. And you know, it's interesting because he also talks specifically regarding it in verse 20. And he says that if you don't, if your righteousness doesn't exceed the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. So, you know, now you can. People can be like, well, pd David, you know, we just talked about salvation. Why is the Messiah they now coming? And he's, it seems like he's. He's saying like, this is a big deal. It's even a, a salvation matter. And I would just remind everyone of how it's written that the one who says that I know him but do not keep his commandments is a liar. So, yeah, even though we can say, you know, I'm a believer, I follow Jesus, I have faith in him ultimately. And this is also what James speaks about, which David mentioned earlier, is if you have faith, you need to have works that comes out and is produced by that faith. Faith is not just intellectual ascent. It's not just, I say this, if you truly confess and believe in your heart, then you will truly have changed works. Because the Holy Spirit's going to enable you, empower you, change your nature, write the law in your heart. That's what the New Covenant is, is it not? And then you're gonna have that righteousness in Yeshua, in Jesus and in his spirit, changing your actions, literally not going to be perfect. We're all gonna, we're gonna make mistakes, we're gonna have weaknesses, and that's what his sacrifice covers. But nevertheless, we're going to be a changed people. We're going to be new. We're going to have be a light on the hill. We're going to shine. We're going to be different, right? And so if we are like the foolish virgins who have no light, we say we're for him, but we have no oil. We haven't prepared for his coming. Right. We can say we are waiting for him, and we can even fool ourselves into thinking we're waiting for Him. But at the end of the day, our actions will matter. He is going to look at what we have done. That's also the separation of the sheep and the goats. Right? I'll just remind people of that as well. He talks about, literally, the things they have done. You have clothed the naked, you have looked after the poor. When did we do that? When do we. I mean, he talked about himself and he says. Then they say, well, when did we see you? And he says, well, when you looked after the least of these or when you didn't. Right. You did that to me. So he. He attributes these actions, which are the same things that are spoken of earlier in Matthew. Remember, we opened it up with, blessed are the meek, those who are mourning those who are poor in spirit. These people who. Jesus wants us to look after them. He wants us to uplift them. And so he does care about what we do. Right. I think that's very important. So we're saved by faith, but he wants a people after his likeness.

Yeah, we don't. We don't earn our place in the kingdom by our righteousness, but because we are members of the kingdom, we will be righteous. You know, we. We will. Yeah, we will walk out righteousness because. Because we are. We have become members of the Kingdom by virtue of the Messiah's death and resurrection. You know, who has granted us our. Our membership.

Amen. I mean, okay, David, I think let's move on to verse 21, and then we can go through some of these here. So I think for some of these, many of us will agree on what it means. Some of them, we'll dig a bit deeper. First. He talks about anger. You've heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder. We all agree on that one. Whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who's angry with his butter will be liable to judgment. Everyone whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. And whoever says, you fool, will be liable to the hell of fire. So obviously, it's written in the Torah, you shall not murder. That is universally agreed upon. But then he talks about anger and he talks about this thing that takes place in the heart. And he says, be careful, because even that will be judged. And if you start insulting, you'll be liable to the council. If you call people fool and things like that, you'll be liable to the hell of fire. So this is a great example, David, of what you've been talking about, because he's giving us an example of what it means to fulfill the law. Right? Because, okay, do not murder, yes, but you fulfill it completely. And that's that word again, that fulfillment means to complete. It's made complete in us when we fully apply it, even within our own hearts. And that. That seems to be where he's calling his followers to that as he forgave and as he had great mercy, that's what we will do. Never mind just picking up a rock, but, you know, long before we get to that.

Right, Right. Yeah. We, We. Not only are we not to murder, we are not to want to murder. You know, and. And then the next one, not only are we not to commit adultery, we are not to want to commit adultery. You know, we. So, so this is a way of upholding. I mean, those are two of the ten Commandments right there. You know, he. He's not doing away with the Torah here. He's. He's reinforcing the Torah. He. He's. He's building upon the Torah and saying, like, this is how you really keep it from the heart. And, and you know, that that's affirming it.

It's.

It's not a. It's not abolishing it. It's fulfilling it, as you said.

I mean, the next we. You mentioned adultery. So I'm gonna go to the next one after that is divorce. And he says in verse 31, it was also said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. That's from the law of Moses. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Right, David? So, I mean, some say, say that while looking at these, it seems as if, though he is coming in opposition to, you know, what Moses has given them. I just want to read one more, two more verses in just another place. Matthew 19, verse 7. Because they also challenged the Messiah on this very issue here, where they said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce to send her away? And he said, because of the hardness of your hearts. Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. So it seems as if, though the Messiah is showing us what the purpose of the law also is in one sense, and that in this case, divorce was given by Moses through God. God gave it through Moses to us. But it is a provision that's made because of the, as he says, the hardness of our hearts, that is because of our sin. God wants marriages to prosper and he never wants people to go their separate ways. But he also recognizes the fallen nature of this world and how people are going to hurt one another, how they can be something like sexual immorality, as he mentions. And there is now an allowance given for to divorce because of, as the Messiah said, because of that sin. So it seems as if, though, that God is giving laws to mitigate sin in this world. If this happens, then do this. But I think some people think that because God gives a law in order to mitigate bad situations, that that is something that God is now in favor of. You know, God in another place says, I hate divorce. Right? We know he does not. He hates divorce because that is not how it was in the beginning, as the Messiah said.

Right? Yeah. And I think the key is, except for sexual immorality, you know. Right. So, so there is. Because that, that is what the Torah actually says. You know, it says, except for, you know, if a man finds something indecent in his wife. I think that's what it says in Deuteronomy 24, something to that effect. And of course, there was a big debate in the first century. We don't have to get into all of this, but there was a big debate in the first century about what that meant constituted proper grounds for divorce. And many, once again, you have the scribes and Pharisees who are finding ways to circumvent getting out of obeying God's law. They're trying to find ways to, to justify breaking the law. And one of those ways was taking a very liberal stance on Deuteronomy 24 about what constituted grounds for divorce. And, and Yeshua was saying, no, like you, you're committing adultery if you divorce your wife without legitimate grounds, even if, even if you give her a certificate of divorce, if there, if you, there's no legitimate grounds according to the law for, for doing that, that divorce is invalid in God's eyes. And hence marrying someone whose divorce is invalid is tantamount to committing adultery. So what this, what this, this passage again shows is that Yeshua is condemning adultery. You Know, he. He's. He's trying to prevent individuals from committing adultery and demonstrating yet another example of him being committed to upholding the law. He. He is affirming the. The law's commandments concerning adultery and, and divorce and all of that. And, and he's coming against the misinterpretations of the scribes and Pharisees. The. The insufficient righteousness. Again, right? The. The insufficient righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, that is looking for loopholes, legal loopholes, to justify doing what they want to do to justify, you know, throwing their wife away so that they could go after that other woman over there that, that they want to be with. And, and Yeshua's saying, no, like that, that if that is your right, if that is your righteousness, quote unquote, you're not even a member of the kingdom, if that is your righteousness, that you would just throw your wife away, that you would throw away that commitment. And just because you gave her a little piece of paper, I mean, that. That is. So that this is Yeshua upholding the law. He is upholding the. The commandments against adultery. He is upholding the proper interpretation of Deuteronomy 24 concerning what constitutes legitimate grounds for divorce.

That's good. Thanks, brother. Okay, we're gonna move on to verse 33, where he talks about oaths. He says, again, you have heard it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. Okay, that's also a quotation from the law, but I say to you, do not take an oath at all either by heaven, for it's the throne of God. By earth, for it's his footstool. By Jerusalem, it's the city of the great king. Do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil. I'm just also going to read two more verses here just to give the reader some context, because I think what's important to understand here is again, like, how we've been going through what the Pharisees have been doing in his day. The Pharisees also did something regarding oaths, and that's what he addresses here. Woe to you blind guys who say, if anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing. If anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath, you blind fools. For which is greater than gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred right so this is what they were doing. He goes on about it, but in essence they were trying to do, like David just mentioned earlier, they were trying to make loopholes with swearing oaths that are basically saying, hey, you know, it's kind of like I'm swearing on the gold or I'm swearing on this and oh, and then, you know, the oath, they don't hold to their oath and oh, but I didn't swear on the temple, I swore on the altar, or I didn't swear on the gold or like they were trying to get out of their oaths by doing this. And that's why he says you blind guides. Same thing that he's really been doing throughout as this chapter, as the pattern has been. And in essence, that's why he just says, let your yes be yes, let your no be no. Don't try and trick people by making oaths on things that you don't actually consider valid. As he says anything more than yes or no, that comes from evil. Anything you wanted to add to that, David?

No, I think you did a perfect job there. Yeah, I would just. It's. Yeshua hates religious hypocrisy. He hates it when people pretend to be righteous when they're, they're out here finding loopholes, legal loopholes, to, to get out of actually obeying the, the law in this way. Yeshua really is a lot like the, the Hebrew prophets. Isaiah did the same thing, right? Isaiah was like, God hates your, God hates your religious mask. God hates it that you're going, you know, that you're bringing these offerings and, and celebrating the festivals and praying and singing worship songs. God hates all that stuff. If you're doing that while you're also oppressing the poor, while you're also oppressing the widow and the orphan while you're, you know, it's, and that's in many ways what the scribes and Pharisees are doing here. They're, they're finding legal loopholes to get out of actually obeying the commandments, to actually being, you know, they're trying to find ways to get out of being people of integrity who keep their word, who are faithful, who, you know, who keep their promises. And so that is what Yeshua is condemning here. And once again, that is him upholding the Torah. And that's not him abolishing it. That's not him disregarding it or saying it doesn't matter. He, he's saying, no, the scribes and Pharisees are disregarding what the Torah actually says through, through their Legal loopholes and all of that. You are to be people of integrity. I would also really quick say that this is in the context of, like, ordinary life, you know, he's not forbidding, you know, taking oaths in, like, court cases and all of that, obviously, you know, but, yeah, it's. Yeah, he's condemning, like, frivolous oaths. He's condemning people misusing oaths to, you know, to get out of.

Yeah. Even. Even feeling the need. It's like if we had a conversation and I just started making oaths left and right because I somehow feel the need to justify my statements with these, with something as elaborate as an oath. While I think the Messiah wants us to be known as a people who, as you said, are yes, is yes or nos, no. That is. That's good enough. People shouldn't need to question because our track record is one of honesty and being a good witness, you know, for our own words, you know.

Right. Yeah, that's. That's really good.

All right. And yeah, and lastly, you know, just to kind of wrap this one up is when he says in the Torah, it says, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. Nothing that the Messiah just said regarding oaths comes in contrast or opposition to that. Right. If we do swear an oath, if you are in some situation where that has happened, then that Torah law applies. You must perform what you have sworn. And that also should probably bring pause to us because there is great judgment when we make something as big as swearing of a small thing. I think that's what the Messiah was trying to caution us against. All right, next up is retaliation. You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This one is fun. But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you, take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go from two miles, give to the one who bags. Do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. Okay. So, David, any your thoughts?

I have a lot of thoughts. I'm going to try to be brief because this is something I could go on a big tangent about. So. So you have to rein me in maybe. But. Yeah. So this is. This is a. A very popular teaching from the Messiah. He is talking about a law in the Torah. It appears, like, in, like, three different places. And it's in Latin. It is called a lex Talionis, or the law of just compensation for loss, or the law of retaliation. And we see this passage that. So, so Yeshua is quoting part of the, part of the passages that, that refer to this legal principle of just compensation. The eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. And so when he, when he's referring to that, that, that's what he's talking about is these laws are given specifically in judicial context for establishing compensation for loss. That is the purpose of these laws.

And that's important because a lot of people read or hear about this and they're like, oh, does that mean. The Bible is telling me that, you know, I take revenge, like the moment that someone hurts me, I go right back and I just smack them, you know, or whatever. That's what you just mentioned. That's not about that. It is about a judicial system. And we have this in our courts today, right? If someone drives into my car, you know, and then there is going to have to be a payment, right? If they're the one who caused the damage. That's a basic principle that we have in all of our courts. And there's also, if you think about eye for an eye, what it means is there's also a, a limit and that there's a limit of liability you, they have to pay what they have caused damage regarding. But ultimately that has to be fair value. And one last thing actually just comes to mind is that it's that everyone is equal then before the law. Because if you think about many cultures today, even there are social hierarchies. And of course, in ancient cultures like the Canaanite culture, I know if a poor person was to cause damage, they would be in big trouble. If a rich person harmed a poor person, then they would be mildly punished for it, if at all. And so this is kind of leveling the playing field socially that there would be justice for those who have been done wrong against.

Yeah, you did a perfect job of explaining the purpose of the law there. It really is. Yeah, the, the judicial context is so key because as you said, it's not like the Mafia where, you know, someone, someone, you know, steals from you or, or kills someone in your family. And, and you go, and you, you go take personal vengeance. That's actually literally the opposite of what this law is for. The, the law, the law in the Torah actually is intended to prevent that sort of thing, because the Torah literally commands us, you shall not seek vengeance. And so this law requires you, if you need to seek compensation for loss, this law requires you to take it to the courts. So you can't just go out and, and seek personal vengeance. And so I'm really glad that you, you went into that. The only other thing that I would add to what you said is that the law is not meant to be taken literally in the strictest sense. A lot of people read this, like, eye for an eye, and they kind of assume, like, oh, man, that, that's like, so I have to gouge out someone's eye. If, if I, you know, destroy their eye, I have to gouge out there. Well, no, it's. It's not literal in the Torah. It's not literal. It doesn't cause for. It doesn't call for mutilation, but compensation for loss. And this is proven in Exodus 21, which immediately follows the the eye for an eye passage in Exodus 21, verses 23 through 25. It says, those who inflict bodily harm on a slave must set him free as compensation for the loss. So you, you know, he, the slave doesn't then get to gouge out his master's eye, right? He. No, he's set free as compensation for loss. Because otherwise what would, like, what would be the point of that? That, like, that's not really justice. That, that doesn't really. That doesn't really help the problem of the slave, you know, the slave's eye. And so, yeah, so the whole law is about just compensation for loss. And, and so it would seem, though, that in the first century, and I think this is kind of getting along the lines of what Yeshua is addressing here, is that this law was being misapplied outside of court to justify personal vengeance. That's what I think is going on here is it is you is being misapplied outside of the court.

And women comes to mind because there was no court system being applied there with. When they brought her. That's in a different. That's a different situation in some way. But the fact that they, they tried to go outside the judicial system.

Right, exactly. Yeah. And so what. What Yeshua is instructing here is that his followers are not to retaliate when wronged, but, you know, they are to be humble, generous, and to give more than what is asked of them. And so he's not contradicting the law here. He is contradicting its misapplication. There's a scholar, Dr. Dale Allison, if I could just read his quote. I think he summarizes it really well. He Sundays, whereas Matthew 5, 38, 42 concerns personal acts of vengeance by one wronged Deuteronomy speaks to judges about how to administer the law. It is true that 5 verse, chapter 5, verse 40 refers to the court, but Jesus is not here delivering laws for the court to, to follow. He is rather speaking about interpersonal relations and declaring that it is illegitimate for his followers to apply the lex talionis to their private problems. So he is not overthrowing the principle of equivalent compensation on an institutional level. The subject of what is appropriate for the legal process is just not addressed. That means not trying to apply a law that, you know, apply specifically within the context of the court to your private problems. Right, but so, so I think that that's along the lines of what's going on here. A lot can be said on this passage. Just, you know, as a shameless plug, I can, I, I did give a sermon on this, this entire passage at my church recently, where I go through the whole passage and, and what each of these things mean. You know, what does it mean to turn the other cheek? What does it mean to give your cloak as, as Well, I think that would probably be beyond the scope of what we're trying to accomplish here. But, but yeah, I mean, each one.

Is, is packed with, with cultural context. I know of, of what the, what it meant to the people he was speaking to.

Yeah, but I, I think, I think the key here is that he's not undermining the law here again, he's, he's upholding it and he's correcting the misapplication of it.

You know, from the beginning of this chapter, it's been about uplifting those who have been downcast and showing mercy and grace. And it's. In this world we have this weird concept of the law and the grace on these two opposite spectrums. Those who have law have no grace, those who have grace have no law. And yet we know that God is a God of order and justice, giving the law. Thinking through Moses, I also, you know, John 1:16, he says, for from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Right? And in there, he's not even there, not speaking down on the law. He's just stating a fact that God has given the law first through Moses. And then when Jesus came, he came and showed us a life of grace and mercy on his enemies, offering the world forgiveness, being on the cross, saying, father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. And so the big picture is that we need our courts to be just and we need someone to speak up when a poor man is being taken advantage of or whatever the situation is. And we also in our personal lives, need to offer grace to people who wrong us. When our enemies wrong us, we need to love them. And I think that brings us to our next. This is the last one. And he says, you've heard it said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. All right, this is very famous saying of him. Firstly, we have spoken about a few now and they've all been starting with, you've heard it was said, followed by him quoting a Torah commandment, a commandment from the, from the Bible. But in this case he is actually not quoting a saying from the Bible. He's quoting something that was going around in his day because it is as he's saying it was said. In other words, he's basically telling the people, you've heard this, you've heard this somewhere. And in this case it was you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Something that the Bible doesn't teach. Of course, the Torah itself teaches that we should love our neighbors. But the dispute in the first century was like the lawyer came to him and said, well, who then is my neighbor, right? So they were again trying to get a loophole around that one by who are they going to love, who are they going to forgive, who are they going to show mercy to, Right? Any.

Yeah. And what you said earlier is key. There is the Torah nowhere commands us to hate our enemy. That, that just does not appear anywhere in the Torah. In fact, it says the exact opposite. Yeshua is not really giving anything new here. He's bringing out the intention of the scriptures. He is bringing out God's divine intention and what it means to actually love your neighbor, who is your neighbor. What does it mean to actually love him? And we do see, we do see this in the Torah, by the way, in Exodus 23 says when your enemy falls into a ditch, right? Or when your enemies ox falls into a ditch, something to that effect. You know, you are to, to help him. And, and there's a couple other places where it explicitly references your enemy, someone you don't like, your enemy like you are to lo only go out of your way to help him. And so Yeshua is not contradicting the Torah here. He, he is once again contradicting the scribes and the Pharisees. The way that they have misused the Torah, the way that they have tried to get out of obeying the Torah by defining things a certain way.

Right. And the, the Dead Sea Scrolls, which has given us a lot of insight regarding what many people have believed in the first century, like that of the Qumran community.

I'm glad you're bringing this up. I think I know where you're going, so. Yeah.

Okay. Well, the community rule scroll, the first section of it, it says, the master shall teach the saints to live according to the book of the community, that they may see God with a whole heart and soul and do what is good and right before him, as he commanded by the hand of Moses and all his servants. Servants, the prophets, that they may love all that he has chosen and hate all that he has rejected. So in this writing, they are. It starts off good, but then they say that, well, the God is obviously against certain people that he has rejected, and we ought to hate those people. Those people who are our enemies, we are to hate. He also says in the, the second section and that they may love all the same sons of light, each according to his lot in God's design and hate all the sons of darkness, each according to his guilt in God's vengeance. And of course, there's good reason to believe that when they're talking about the sons of darkness, they're actually mentioning some of their enemies.

Amen. Yeah, I think I'm really glad you brought that quote up from Qumran, because right there we. I mean, you know, you shall hate all the children of darkness. That sounds a lot like, you know, you shall love the children of light. Right. Is what it says. You shall love the children of light, hate the children of darkness. That sounds a lot like, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. And so the, the Qumran community's Holika there, you know, they're. The way that they apply the Torah is very reminiscent of what Yeshua is addressing here. I, I don't know if I would say that Yeshua is directly addressing the Qumran community, but what, what it does show is that the, the teachings of the Qumran community are, you know, they, they show that these ideas were well known within Second Temple Judaism, like these, these philosophies and, and ways of applying the Torah that they were. That they existed within the first century. And so it's unsurprising that. That we would see some parallels here.

Amen. David, any last concluding thoughts that you have on this?

It was a blast to. Come on, man. I really am honored by the invitation. This is an amazing passage. It's one of my favorite in the entire Bible, for sure. It is just as I said at the beginning, like, if you want to know what Yeshua thought about the law, this is where you go. And, and I think that, I hope that what we both shared tonight will be helpful to people, help them kind of think through some of these, some of these questions and, and that it would at least give them perhaps a trajectory for further study that, and you know, as they continue thinking about it.

Amen. David, thank you for coming on. I mean, we've spent a lot of time speaking about these verses and I know there's so much, so many things we haven't gotten to say that we could have said. But for those who want to learn more, I know that you published a book pretty recently on it called How Jesus Fulfilled the Law, A Pronomian Pocket Guide to Matthew 5, 1720. So if you're listening to this and you would like to just dig it a little bit deeper in a book form, go check out David's book. I'll link it in the comments and the description of this video for you.

Father in heaven, thank you so much for who you are. Thank you for all of your many blessings that you've given us. Thank you for meeting our needs and thank you most of all for your son, Yeshua, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who came, who. Who died for our sins, making it possible for us to know you, to have a relationship with you, and to be empowered to fulfill the law. We are so grateful for everything you've done for us, Lord. And I just pray that as we dig into your word, as we continue learning and growing, that you will help us to, to walk in righteousness. That we would. That we would shine forth your life light as, as the Messiah said in Matthew 5. That would be that we would be salt and light, that our good works would glorify you and that many people would come to know you through our good works. And so I thank you, Lord. We praise you and we thank you in your son Yeshua's name. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Thank you, David. Really appreciate that, guys. Thank you for joining us. If this has blessed you, consider subscribing to the channel for more just like this. Go into the comments. Tell us what you think about Matthew 5. What stood out to you. We'd love to join you with further conversation over there. May the Father bless you and keep you. Shalom.