Jesus, the Fulfillment

What exactly are the Law and Prophets and how would Jesus have fulfilled them? To the Israelites who were given the Law and Prophets, the Law is the first five books of our Old Testament and the Prophets are all those other books written by prophets of God. These Scriptures contain specifics about the values of the LORD, His priorities that reflect His nature, character and things of concern about His created beings— His autobiography delivered to us that we may know what matters to Him.

Galatians 3 talks about the Law and it’s purpose in what may be a different light than we think. Common conception is that Law is all the things we can’t do and if we don’t do those things, we will be right with God but not quite:

Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.¹

The Law was never meant to establish relationship with the LORD but rather to help us understand He is so vastly different that relationship can only be restored through the Intermediary, our Advocate yet to come. Our translation says the Law was our Guardian until Jesus came. ‘Guardian’ is a word from the Greek culture for the tutor responsible for teaching young boys the way of their father. In older translations, ‘guardian’ is called ‘schoolmaster’ but neither fits our modern systems. The Law was given to teach us the heart of the Father, to bring us up in His values, to lead us forward toward Him. The Prophets came speaking to specific issues of the nation that were not in agreement with the desires of God, pointing to the will of God and encouraging us into the ways of the LORD.

“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. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.²

We need to get our minds around the Law and Prophets being an earlier expression of God’s values and desires for the welfare of His Creation rather than a punitive code. Jesus came to make God manifest in a way that we could more readily comprehend and to finish the way for us to draw near to God. Jesus is the fullness of the LORD incarnate not engraved on tablets but manifest in a living, dynamic, speaking, teaching, loving Way we are less likely to mis-comprehend. He is the fulfillment of God’s Way back to Himself which is beyond the ability of the Law and Prophets to bring us, tutor us, back to the LORD. Did we see the LORD in the Law and Prophets? Mostly not. Do we see the LORD in Jesus? Are we looking?