Matthew 5:17

Μὴ νομίσητε : These words betray a consciousness that there was that in His teaching and bearing which might create such an impression, and are a protest against taking a surface impression for the truth. καταλῦσαι, to abrogate, to set aside in the exercise of legislative authority. What freedom of mind is implied in the bare suggestion of this as a possibility! To the ordinary religious Jew the mere conception would appear a profanity. A greater than the O. T., than Moses and the prophets, is here. But the Greater is full of reverence for the institutions and sacred books of His people. He is not come to disannul either the law or the prophets. ἢ before τ. προφ. is not = καὶ. “Law” and “Prophets” are not taken here as one idea = the O. T. Scriptures, as law, prophets and psalms seem to be in Luke 24:44, but as distinct parts, with reference to which different attitudes might conceivably be taken up. ἢ implies that the attitude actually taken up is the same towards both. The prophets are not to be conceived of as coming under the category of law (Weiss), but as retaining their distinctive character as revealers of God's nature and providence. Christ's attitude towards them in that capacity is the same as that towards the law, though the Sermon contains no illustrations under that head. “The idea of God and of salvation which Jesus taught bore the same relations to the O. T. revelation as His doctrine of righteousness to the O. T. law” (Wendt, Die L. J., ii., 344). πληρῶσαι : the common relation is expressed by this weighty word. Christ protests that He came not as an abrogator, but as a fulfiller. What rôle does He thereby claim? Such as belongs to one whose attitude is at once free and reverential. He fulfils by realising in theory and practice an ideal to which O. T. institutions and revelations point, but which they do not adequately express. Therefore, in fulfilling He necessarily abrogates in effect, while repudiating the spirit of a destroyer. He brings in a law of the spirit which cancels the law of the letter, a kingdom which realises prophetic ideals, while setting aside the crude details of their conception of the Messianic time.