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From: lisa@phs.UUCP (Jeffrey William Gillette)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Fulfillment of the Law
Message-ID: <1063@phs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 12-Oct-85 09:54:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: phs.1063
Posted: Sat Oct 12 09:54:22 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 14-Oct-85 03:44:32 EDT
Organization: Duke Physiology
Lines: 54

[]

Byron Howes recently questioned the phrase "Jesus [is] the fulfillment
of the Law".  

>  Logically, one can do many things to laws, but "fulfill" is not 
>  one of them!  One can obey, disobey, make, retract and a host of other 
>  things, but not fulfill.

The common Protestant theological interpretation of this statement is
something like, "Jesus fulfilled the demands of the Law" in some type of
substitutionary sense.  St. Paul probably had something like this in
mind when he wrote that "Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness
to all who believe."  The term "end" (telos) can mean goal / fulfillment
as well as termination.

Historically, however, I doubt that this was the primary meaning of the
phrase in the early church.  Rather, Luke expands it in this way, "All
things written in the Law of Moses must be fulfilled" (Luke 24.44).  For
the early church, the primary significance of their "bible" (what we
call the Old Testament) was its prophectic announcement of Jesus.  Not
only in the "prophets", but also in the "Law" and the "writings" one
could find many prophecies which, claimed the apostles, found their
fulfillment in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Matthew carried this idea a bit further, claiming in the Sermon on the
Mount, "Do not think that I have come to destroy [katalusai - loosen or
nullify] the law or the prophets; I did not come to destroy but to
fulfill.  For truly I tell you that until heaven and earth pass away,
neither iota nor mia [references to the Hebrew yod and tittle] will by
any means pass away from the law until all things have come to pass"
(5.17-28).  The way Matthew develops this idea through the rest of
Jesus' sermon shows his concept of "fulfillment."  On one level the life
and actions of Jesus were predicted by the prophets.  On another level,
however, the ethical teachings of Jesus were "predicted" or foreshadowed
by the Mosaic Law.  Thus the moral demands and ethical expectations of
Jesus are the "fulfillment" of the intentions of God set forth by God in
the legal code of Moses.

Interestingly enough, the contemporary Protestant sense of the phrase,
working out of a particular interpretation of St. Paul, was not the
majority opinion of the early Church.  Rather writers such as Justin,
Clement of Alexandria, and, above all, Origen, argued that the Mosaic
Law as interpreted and amplified by Christ prescribes the truly
philosophical life after which Pythagoras, Plato, Xeno and the rest
earnestly sought.  Thus Jesus "fulfilled", i.e. interpreted, kept, and
served as a paradigm for, the highest standards of God's Law = the
[morally] good life.

Jeffrey William Gillette		duke!phys!lisa
The Divinity School
Duke University