Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. (Matthew 5:17–18)
The Law and the Prophets do these two things: they both prophesy about Christ, and they establish a law of how to live, both of which Christ fulfilled. He fulfilled the Law concerning Himself when He was born and called Emmanuel, when He was circumcised, when He was presented in the temple and a sacrifice was offered for Him, namely, two turtledoves or two doves, and when He was in Egypt. When He returned to Nazareth, when He rode a donkey to the temple, when He was praised by children, when He was crucified between wicked men, when He drank vinegar and gall, when He commended his spirit into the hands of His Father when He left behind His clothing to be divvied up, when He descended to hell and visited all who slept there, when He ascended in a crashing sound, when He sat at the right hand of God, when moreover He will come, calling the earth from east to west when He will sit in the valley of Jehoshaphat and judge all the nations, He fulfills the prophecies, because unless these things had happened, all the prophets would be liars. But now they have been fulfilled and will yet be fulfilled, when the stars fall and the sun is darkened and the moon is turned the color of blood and when the sky will be folded like a book.
But inasmuch as it is a law of how to live He fulfilled the Law in two ways. First, He set free the outward forms of the Law but fulfilled completely its inner truths. For example, in the Law it commands that one ought not to do any servile work on the sabbath except what is necessary for the soul, namely, that which is necessary for human life. This is symbolic because God ceases from His work on the sabbath. But spiritually, according to the truth of the gospel, the servile work is sin, because “everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” But every good work is not a servile one but a free one and is done for the freedom of the soul, although it seems that the very work is a physical work at first glance. Do you see then that Christ fulfilled the Law when he worked on the sabbath and did not break it? That He revealed it, not hid it? Again, it had been written that one ought not to touch leprosy. This has a figurative meaning, for leprosy is understood to be sin. Thus, when Christ touched leprosy, He did not break the Law but fulfilled it. By cleansing the leper, He worked righteousness, not sin. And thereby He touched righteousness, not sin, which is truly leprosy. For He who did not sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth, certainly did not touch leprosy, that is, sin.
Anonymous, Incomplete Commentary on Matthew 10
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