The Law and the Prophets

Fulfillment is a key theme in Matthew. With the arrival of the Messiah, the time of fulfillment had commenced. But what were the implications for the Law of Moses? In his ‘Sermon on the Mount’, Jesus provided clear answers. He did not come to adjudicate the interpretive disputes between competing Jewish sects over the details of the Law but to FULFILL the “Law and the Prophets.”

Mercy, not Sacrifice

Forgiveness connects the call of the tax collector to the healing of the paralytic – Christ’s authority to forgive sins – Mark 2:13-17.

When Jesus pronounced the paralytic man’s sins forgiven, he offended the Scribes and Pharisees and alienated them further by showing mercy “to sinners,” individuals considered unacceptable by religiously observant Jews. Seeing the Nazarene eating with “tax collectors,” the Scribes and Pharisees insinuated that Jesus was also a notorious sinner – (Mark 2:1-17).

The Greater Moses

In Matthew, the life and the deeds of Jesus echo key events in the history of Israel; not that he reenacts them, but rather that he brings the things that God began in the past to their intended fulfillment. He is the Greater Lawgiver foreshadowed in the story of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt. By presenting parallels between Moses and Jesus, Matthew sets the stage for the teachings of the “Coming One,” especially as represented in his ‘Sermon on the Mount’.