I Have Not Come to Abolish the Law Meaning
Several years ago, my wife was at a Bible study, and the focus was on something Jesus had said when He was giving what is known as the Sermon on the Mount.
It’s found in Matthew 5, verse 17 where Jesus says, “I have not come to abolish the Law.”
And the person teaching basically used that verse to say that the Old Testament Law is still in effect today. Since Jesus said that He didn’t come to abolish the Law, then that means we should still live by the law today.
So, she just kept drilling into everyone at the Bible study how important it was to know the law and to do their best to live the Christian life by obeying God’s commandments (with Jesus’ help, of course).
When Natalie came home, it felt like she was in bondage. She felt like she had to make sure that she knew all the commandments and wasn’t going to miss out on something she was supposed to be doing or not doing.
She did not want to disobey or displease God by not following all the commandments, and it caused a lot of stress, anxiety, and worry.
Honestly, there was a real fear of where she stood in her relationship with God based on doing or not doing everything He commanded.
And this all came upon her because of Matthew 5:17, where Jesus said, “I have not come to abolish the Law.”
But the question is, “Is that really what this verse means?”
What is the “I have not come to abolish the Law” meaning?
Well, to answer that, we must look at this from the context of what the rest of Scripture says and then we’ll come back and look at this verse a bit closer.
Understanding Covenants
To understand what Jesus is saying we must know that the Bible is divided into the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, and when Jesus was referring to the Law in Matthew 5:17, He was referring to the Old Covenant.
It was a covenant God made with Moses and the Israelite nation. Here’s what it says in Exodus 19:
5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession…8 The people all responded together, “We will do everything the Lord has said.”
(Exodus 19:5,8)
Then God gave Moses the 10 commandments in the very next chapter as their part of the covenant to keep, along with all the other instructions that would come.
Furthermore, in the book of Deuteronomy, we see that if the conditions of the covenant were met, then they would receive blessings, but if they were not met, they would be cursed (Deut. 28).
What we see from Scripture is that the Old Covenant was a conditional, bilateral, and temporal covenant. (For more details, check on this blog post Old Covenant vs. New Covenant, or Bob George’s book, Jesus Changes Everything)
The point is that it wasn’t meant to last forever (Galatians 3:19). It was only given until Jesus would come and establish the New Covenant, and that covenant is completely different than the Old Covenant.
While the Old Covenant was a conditional, bilateral, temporal covenant, the New Covenant is an unconditional, unilateral, eternal covenant (Jeremiah 31:33-34).
The problem was that there was a curse the Israelite’s faced because of their inability to fulfill the Old Covenant, therefore Jesus had to come to provide redemption from the curse of the Law (Gal. 3:13) to establish the New Covenant.
This is where the rest of what Jesus says in Matthew 5:17 becomes extremely important.
Jesus Came to Fulfill the Law
In Matthew 5:17, Jesus not only said, “I have not come to abolish the Law,” but He also said that He came to fulfill the Law!
“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.
(Matthew 5:17)
Here’s the deal: Jesus could not have fulfilled the Law if He had abolished it! But since He did fulfill the Law through His death, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Spirit, that means He redeemed us from the curse of the Law and the New Covenant went into effect.
That means we no longer live under or by the Law (Old Covenant), and the rest of the New Testament confirms that for us.
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. (Hebrews 10:1)
By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete. (Heb. 8:13)
Christ is the end of the law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. (Romans 10:4)
So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ…6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. (Ro. 7:4,6)
Conclusion: I Have Not Come to Abolish the Law Meaning
Jesus didn’t come to abolish the law because He came to fulfill it. He could not have fulfilled it if He had abolished it.
Through Jesus’ finished work on the cross, He did fulfill the Law and provided redemption from the curse of the Law under the Old Covenant.
And now that He has fulfilled it, we no longer serve in the old way of the written code, but rather in the new way of the Spirit (Ro. 7:6).
Therefore, the “I have not come to abolish the Law” meaning is not that we are to try and still live under or by the Old Covenant Law today as New Covenant believers.
Jesus joins Himself to us in a spiritual union through the indwelling Holy Spirit at the moment of faith. He is the Vine, and we become His branches. He produces fruit in us and through us, and we bear the fruit He produces.
This is New Covenant Christianity. It is not a mixture of the old and the new. We abide in Jesus, and He will express His character through us in speech, behavior, and actions.
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