The Fulfillment of the Law: A Sermon on Matthew 5:14-19
Oops!
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus delivers some of His most challenging words about the Law. He declares that not even the smallest iota will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. He then warns that whoever relaxes even the least of these commandments will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
These words have created confusion among Christians for centuries. To illustrate this tension, let me share a scene from the TV show The West Wing, where President Bartlet confronts someone advocating for a strict Old Testament interpretation. He says,
“I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She’s a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? My Chief of Staff insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side?”
Ugh!
The tension is real. Jesus declares that not even the smallest letter will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Yet here we sit, violating the Old Testament law by wearing clothes of mixed fabrics, eating foods the Law declared unclean, working on the Sabbath, and, yet, we somehow feel secure in our salvation. Are we the very people Jesus warns will be “called least in the kingdom of heaven”?
And what’s more, if Jesus meant that every detail of the Law must be kept, then how do we explain His own apparent violations? He healed on the Sabbath, touched lepers, ate with sinners. Disclosing the Clue to Resolution
We have a crisis!
But, what if we’ve been asking the wrong question? What if the issue isn’t whether we follow the Law, but what it means for the Law to be “fulfilled”?
This is how St. John Chrysostom understood it: “He said not ‘I am come to destroy,’ but ‘to fulfill.’ For by ‘fulfilling’ He means not transgressing it, but rather performing it perfectly, and adding even more.”
The key is that word “fulfill”—πληρόω—to complete, to bring to its intended end. But to understand this, we need to see the bigger story Scripture tells.
Aha!
From the beginning, God’s purpose was to dwell with humanity. In Eden, we see this perfect communion—God walking with Adam and Eve, heaven and earth joined together. But humanity chose rebellion. We were exiled from paradise, cut off from God’s presence, subjected to death.
The entire Old Testament was God’s patient work to restore this broken relationship. The Law wasn’t an end in itself—it was pointing toward restoration. Every sacrifice whispered of a greater sacrifice to come. Every ritual cleansing spoke of a deeper cleansing needed. This is what Jesus means when He says the Law will be “fulfilled”—not that we must keep every regulation, but that its ultimate purpose will be accomplished.
This is illustrated in Acts 10, when Peter receives his vision of unclean animals and a voice saying “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” Peter responds: “No, Lord; for I have never eaten anything unclean.” But the voice persists: “What God has cleansed, you must not call common.”
When Cornelius’s messengers arrive, Peter understands. This wasn’t about food—it was about the fulfillment of God’s plan. The barriers separating clean from unclean, Judean from Gentile, were temporary measures pointing toward something greater. The Law was being fulfilled, not abolished.
Whee!
What was that fulfillment? God became human in Jesus Christ. He lived among us, died our death, and rose again—destroying death itself. God’s original plan was being fulfilled: to dwell with humanity in an even more intimate way than even Eden offered.
This is the fulfillment Jesus speaks of when He says “not an iota will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” The “all” being accomplished is the restoration of God’s presence with humanity—heaven and earth coming together again. The Law pointed toward this reunion; Christ accomplished it.
God now dwells with us—as a human being 2,000 years ago, through the Holy Spirit today, and as King when heaven and earth come together completely. This is the Gospel’s fulfillment, not our ability to keep regulations about mixed fabrics or dietary restrictions.
Because this fulfillment has begun—because heaven and earth are being joined together in Christ—we live as if the Kingdom is already fully present. We don’t follow dietary laws about clean and unclean animals because the true separation isn’t between foods, but between the old creation and the new creation breaking in.
Yeah!
Jesus calls us to be “the light of the world” and “a city set on a hill.” We are lights because we live as people who know that God’s ancient plan is being fulfilled—that heaven and earth are being joined together again. This is the Gospel’s fulfillment that Jesus promised.
What does this look like practically? First, we live with confidence in what God has accomplished, not anxiety about what we must accomplish. When we fast before communion this morning, we’re not fulfilling a legal requirement. We’re preparing our hearts to receive the One who has bridged the gap between heaven and earth—the very fulfillment of the Law.
Second, we live with generosity because the barriers have been removed through fulfillment, not through our efforts. The walls that once separated clean from unclean have been torn down by God’s work, not ours. We welcome the stranger and care for the outcast because God’s plan includes all of humanity, and this plan has been fulfilled in Christ.
Third, we live with hope because we taste the fulfillment now. When we gather for the Divine Liturgy, we’re participating in the reality that heaven and earth are being joined together. The Kingdom isn’t just a future promise—it’s the present fulfillment of everything the Law pointed toward.
This is what it means to be “great in the kingdom of heaven”—understanding that the Law has been fulfilled through God’s work, not our work. We live in the reality of this fulfillment: God dwelling with us in the most intimate way possible.
The Law pointed toward this day when heaven and earth would come together. And now, in Christ, it’s being accomplished. This is the Gospel’s fulfillment that Jesus promised. We become lights in a world that still lives as if God is far away, when in reality, He has never been closer.
Amen.