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Christ Confirms and Expounds the Law of Moses.
Good works Jesus has just urged. He now proceeds to give a definition of good works from the Law. He makes clear His position with regard to the Law:
v. 17. Think not that I am come to destroy the Law and the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
The teaching of the Kingdom, the Gospel which He came to proclaim, is a doctrine radically different from the teaching of Moses. But it does not invalidate the demands of the moral law as taught by Moses, it does not substitute a new moral law. Jesus rather emphasizes its proper understanding, and for that reason takes great pains to explain its spiritual content. He wants to fulfill, to bring out fully, the real import, to counteract the influence of the shallow, superficial explanation then in common use; and then to render a perfect obedience to the Law. He who might abrogate all its demands, who has power to modify any of its injunctions, places Himself under the Law, Gal_4:4, and, by fulfilling its every letter, cancels the law of the letter. And He fulfills the prophets. Whatever, in the revelation of the Old Testament, is type and prophecy, finds its completion, its realization in Christ the Redeemer, Col_2:17.