Jesus continued, “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
There’s a host of difficulties here. Foremost among them is trying to determine what, exactly, does Jesus mean by “the law.” Is Jesus demanding that we follow the byzantine complexities of Pentateuch law? Does this mean we should be observing Jewish dietary restrictions, purity laws, etc. etc.? The Church believes not, otherwise it would not have sanctioned all the deviations from first-century Jewish religious practices that have accumulated to date.
There’s some support for this elsewhere in scripture—Jesus is constantly challenging the status quo of religious practice by dining with outcasts, and Peter in Acts receives a vision from God in which he’s told that unclean things are now made clean through God’s grace. So the meaning of this passage is hard to fathom within the larger context of scriptural authority. What’s going on here?
I think the first entry point is to consider the source. Matthew’s Gospel is often thought of as the “Jewish” Gospel (as opposed to Luke’s “Greek” or “Gentile” Gospel). Scholars have theorized that Matthew’s Gospel was either written for or grew out of (depending on your point of view on scriptural authorship) communities of ethnically Jewish followers of Jesus. At the time that the Gospels were being written down, the early Church was beginning to suffer from an identity crisis: were they a sect of Judaism, or something separate? Already, the ethnic Jews who comprised Christ’s early disciples were being outnumbered by Hellenized (culturally Greek) Jews and by Gentile converts. Jewish communities were increasingly skeptical and often downright hostile to these upstart “Nazarenes,” especially after the Jewish religious reforms that followed in the wake of the 79 AD destruction of the Temple. John’s Gospel, chronologically the last to be composed, is redolent with resentment and anger over Christians being expelled from Jewish communion—it is no accident that anti-Semites looking for (misguided) scriptural justification turn to John most often.
So Matthew is written from a Jewish viewpoint, and to first-century Jews the Law was an all-pervasive constant theme in every aspect of daily life. Respect for the law and the prophetic testaments as found in Hebrew scripture was ingrained. Jesus, then, had to be seen as one who respected this cultural heritage; Jesus is a continuation of this heritage, fulfilling it, not breaking away from it. There is an element of reassurance in what Matthew writes here: Do not be afraid, we’re not here to tear down everything you believe in.
This could be seen as very cynical, putting convenient words into Jesus’ mouth. And, it could be seen as contradicting other scriptural accounts of Jesus quite deliberately breaking from traditional socio-religious practice.
So the next entry point has to be considered: what is meant by “the Law.” I am convinced that “the Law” in this context is not the vast body of nit-picking Leviticus commandments. For this I have to look at the rest of Matthew Chapter 5 and into Chapters 6 & 7, where Jesus teaches what he believes the Law to be all about. I also have to keep in mind Jesus’ summary of the Law (the exact citation eludes me at the moment, perhaps I will edit it in later) in which he boils the whole thing down to, essentially, love God with all your heart and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus spends the rest of Chapter 5, at least, discoursing on the Ten Commandments and how they are to be interpreted. Significantly, he finds fault with what was then current interpretations, so “the Law” here is clearly being revisited.
Finally, I have to consider the last sentence of the passage. “Righteousness” is a loaded word in scripture, usually denoting a way of life that transcends law as interpreted by mere humans. Jesus frequently contrasts the piety and outwardly “correct” observances of Pharisees and Scribes (the priestly caste) with true righteousness—the latter is not assured by the former and may in fact be far divorced from it. Keeping in mind that Pharisees were considered the most accurate interpreters of Jewish law, having righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees is tantamount to saying that keeping “the Law” is radically different than what might be expected.
Ultimately, then, this passage is not about reaffirming the old way of doing things. It is in fact an introduction to a radically new manifesto, a turning of the traditional interpretation of the Law on its head. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him, Mark Antony says to the crowd—but we’ve read the rest of the play, and know what he really intends to do.
