Firstly, it means that Christ came to keep the law on the positive side. When He lived on earth, He kept every aspect of the old law. No one else has ever kept the ten commandments; the Lord Jesus kept them completely. He kept the law of the old dispensation in a very positive way.
Because Christ kept the law, He became the perfect One. His perfection qualified Him to die on the cross for us. This is the keeping of the law in a negative sense. This is the second way Christ has fulfilled the law. All of us have broken, transgressed, the law. But our transgressions have been dealt with through the Lord’s substitutionary death. On the cross He was our substitute, dying for us to fulfill the law’s requirement on the negative side.
To fulfill the law also means that Christ complements the old law by His new law. This is expressed by the word, “But I say to you” (vv. 22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44). Christ’s keeping of the law qualified Him to fulfill the requirement of the law through His substitutionary death on the cross. Christ’s fulfilling the requirement of the law through His substitutionary death on the cross brought in the resurrection life to complement the law, to fill the law to the full. The old law, the lower law, with its keeping-demand and punishing-requirement, is over. The kingdom people, as the children of the Father, only need now to fulfill the new law, the higher law, by the resurrection life, which is the eternal life of the Father.
Christ’s substitutionary death brought in the resurrection life. When this resurrection life comes into us, it is able to do the wonderful job of completing the law. It enables us to fulfill the higher law. By the resurrection life within us, we are able to be kept not only from murdering others, but even from being angry with them or hating them. This resurrection life is much higher than the natural life, for it is actually the divine life, the eternal life, the life on the highest plane. This highest life within us can fulfill the requirements of the highest law.
In the New Testament, Matthew, the book of the kingdom, comes first with the requirements. Then John, the book of life, comes with the life to fulfill these requirements. By our natural life, we are not able to fulfill the requirements given in Matthew 5. But in the Gospel of John we have the highest life that enables us to meet the highest requirements. All Christians love John, but not many love Matthew. I doubt if I have ever heard a Christian say that he loves Matthew. Some of you may say that the Gospel of Matthew is too troublesome and that John is very simple. It says that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God, and that the Word became flesh, full of grace and reality (John 1:1, 14). The Gospel of John has many golden verses, such as John 3:16. In this Gospel there are very few requirements and demands, but there is the rich life supply. However, in the New Testament, Matthew comes first, not John. We cannot afford to bypass Matthew. Nevertheless, many Christians have been instructed to do this. Thirty-five years ago I was taught that new believers should not read Matthew. I myself charged new believers not to read Matthew first. I said that if they read Matthew chapter one first, they would be frustrated in their reading of the Bible and think that it was too difficult to read. Hence, I told the new believers to begin their reading with the fourth book, the Gospel of John. Then I would tell them to read Romans or some other book, but not Matthew. But we need to come back to Matthew. Matthew needs John, and John is for Matthew. Matthew gives us the highest requirements of the kingdom, requirements that can be fulfilled only by the divine life revealed in John. In order to fulfill the requirements of the kingdom of the heavens unfolded in Matthew, we must receive the supply of life found in the Gospel of John.
Jesus, the new King, did not come to abolish the law of Moses. Rather, He came to uplift the standard of the old law. Now that the requirement has been so greatly uplifted, it is no longer the old law, but the new law of the kingdom of the heavens. Christ uplifted the standard of the old law in two ways: by complementing the old law and by changing it. In verses 17 through 30 we see the complementing of the old law. The change of the law begins with verse 31. In this message we can cover only the complementing of the old law.
Verse 18 says, “For truly I say to you, Until the heaven and the earth pass away, one iota or one tittle shall by no means pass away from the law until all come to pass.” After the millennial kingdom, the old heaven and old earth will pass away and the new heaven and new earth come in (Rev. 21:1; Heb. 1:11-12; 2 Pet. 3:10-13). What the law covers extends only to the end of the millennial kingdom, whereas what the prophets cover extends to the new heaven and new earth (Isa. 65:17; 66:22). This is why both the law and the prophets are referred to in verse 17, but only the law, not the prophets, is mentioned in verse 18.
The fulfillment of the law will last until the end of the millennium, at which time the heavens and the earth will pass away. Before that takes place, not one iota or tittle of the old law will be annulled. However, what is covered by the prophets goes farther than the millennium, reaching into the new heaven and the new earth.
Christ fulfilled the law in three ways. He Himself kept the law. However, because we did not keep it, He died on the cross for our transgressions of the law. His substitutionary death brought in the resurrection life, which has been imparted into our being. By His resurrection life we are able to fulfill the requirements of the new, higher law. By these three steps Christ has more than fulfilled the old law. He kept it, He died for us, and His death brought into us the resurrection life to strengthen us for fulfilling the requirements of the new law. Today we are not trying to keep the lower law; rather, we are keeping the uplifted, higher law through the highest life that is in us. Now we are able to keep the highest law.