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Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Jesus came in continuity with the revelation of the Old Testament. It was not as though through Moses God was doing one thing and then set it aside to do something different through Jesus Christ. It was rather that the entire trajectory of the Old Covenant was toward Jesus himself. This means we will need a bit more nuance to distinguish between law and grace, letter and Spirit, than to simple see them as opposed to one another. It would be better to see the first as a preparation for the second, a preview of the better things to come.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.
It was necessary for Jesus to give this caveat lest the people mistake the Sermon on the Mount for something entirely new and different. After all, it contained all of those "You have heard that it was said" and "But I say to you" pairs. But what Jesus would go on to say was to bring to fulfillment the original purpose of the law, which was to change, not just behavior, but hearts, not just external actions, but motivations.
The risk with the Old Covenant was that it could be twisted by fallen human nature and made to appear to say what it did not really mean, as we see many times exemplified by the Pharisees. Remaining at the literal level allowed men to remain in some sense in control over the text rather than controlled by it. Such control would not preclude a sense of entitlement from being among the chosen, nor even a sense of pride from being, at least in appearance, faithful. The New Covenant solved this insufficiency not by abolishing the Old but by adding to it the gift of the Spirit.
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (see Second Corinthians 3:5-6).
We know that the word of God is sharp (see Hebrews 4:12). It is in fact too dangerous to handle apart from the Spirit. Without the Spirit we end up bringing death to ourselves and to others, measuring things in terms of limited human understanding, and then judging ourselves and others accordingly. When everything begins and ends with our control rather than surrender to God there is no protection against an ever increasing growth of pride and judgment within our hearts. Without a beginning in mercy we have no context or sense for how we can or should show mercy to others.
Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees
which I am teaching you to observe,
that you may live, and may enter in and take possession of the land
which the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.
Now that the gift of the Spirit has been poured out the Law itself is able to take on great value for us who read by that Spirit. We can see in it evidence of God's own heart and open ourselves to his work within us to make our hearts like his own. Even those ceremonial precepts which no longer apply still have plenty to teach us. We do not celebrate Yom Kippur, but because our great high priest has made atonement once for all (see Hebrews 10:10). We no longer celebrate Passover. But precisely because our Passover lamb was sacrificed we do keep the Easter feast of the New Covenant (see First Corinthians 5:6-8).
However, take care and be earnestly on your guard
not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen,
nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live,
but teach them to your children and to your children's children.
Much more so than the wilderness generation must we remind ourselves of the mighty deeds the Lord has done for us, defeating sin and death and opening the way to resurrection and life. So too should we try to remember and give thanks for all that the Lord does within our individual lives. It might seem as though such blessings would be easy to remember, constant sources of refreshment and renewal. But the enemy is surprisingly skilled at stealing these memories from us if we don't return again and again to Jesus with thanksgiving for their gift. May we join together with the psalmist in praising the Lord for all that he has done for us.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.
For he has strengthened the bars of your gates;
he has blessed your children within you.
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