1 H. A. W. Meyer.
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III.
Christ the Fulfiller.
Continuity with the old is part of Christ's teaching. He came to conserve. But He came to do more than that — infinitely more than that. He came also to fulfil. " To fulfil." Do we not often limit the idea of " fulfilment " to what are called the typical and prophetic parts of the Old Testament, and regard the ful- filment as just the counterpart of the type or prediction, as the reality of which only the reflection had hitherto been visible ? But "fulfilment" is far more than this. It is the completion of what was before imperfect; it is the realization of what was shadowy ; it is the development of what was rudimentary ; it is the union and reconciliation of what was isolated and disconnected ; it is the full growth from the antecedent germ.
1. Christ fulfilled the law. — The law (vo/tos) is not to be restricted here to the Decalogue ; it is to be taken in its more extended signification as denoting the entire law. The moral law was an expression of the mind of God, of God's moral nature — a revelation, or rather expansion, of the law of nature which He originally wrote in the heart of man. Sin blinded men to such an extent that it was necessary to have the law promulgated ; hence God wrote it on two tables of stone. And it stood as a public warning against sin, and as a standard of moral duty. It disclosed wants that it was incapable of satisfying, it aggravated the evil it could not heal ; and, compelling men to see their own weakness, it taught them to look forward to One who would be capable of fulfilling all its demands. This is the " fulfilling " of which Christ speaks, the completion of that which for two thousand years had been imperfect and ineffectual. " Christ ful- filled the law and the prophets," says Bishop Wordsworth, " by obedience, by accomplishment of types, ceremonies, rites, and prophecies, and by explaining, spiritualizing, elevating, enlarging, and perfecting the moral law, by writing it on the heart, and by giving grace to obey it, as well as an example of obedience by taking away its curse ; and by the doctrine of free justification
ST. MATTHEW v. 17 123
by faith in Himself, which the law prefigured and anticipated, but could not give."
Let us look shortly at three main ways in which Christ ful- filled the law.
(1) Christ fulfilled the law by meeting its requirements. — From first to last the life of our Lord was the fulfilment, in spirit and letter, of . the ancient ritual. As a son of the law, He obeyed the initial rite of Judaism on the eighth day after birth, and there was no item of the law, even to the dots of the i's or the crossing of the t's, which He omitted or slurred. He died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. What could be only partially true of His Apostle was literally true of the Lord: as touching the righteousness which is of the law, He was found blameless. Our Lord fulfilled the ceremonial law and fulfilled the moral law, since He was Jesus Christ "the Kighteous." He honoured the law by His obedience " even to death," atoning for its breach and violation by mankind, and giving, through His unknown sufferings an answer to its just dues and demands, such as could not have been afforded though the whole race had been mulcted to the uttermost farthing of penal consequences. His fulfilment, there- fore, was not for Himself alone, but as the second Adam, the representative man, and for us all.
(2) Christ fulfilled the law by spiritualizing it. — Were we to enter a room in the early morning where a company were sitting or drowsing, with sickly hue, by the dull glimmer of candles, which never had given a sufficient light, and were now guttering, neglected, and burning down to the socket, we would not think we were destroying the light by flinging open the casement, and letting in the clear sunshine upon them. We would, on the contrary, feel that by this process alone could they get the full light which they needed. Now, much in the same way the Lord Jesus came into the world, and found there, as it were, the old seven-branched candlestick of the tabernacle still burning, though dim and low, for it was not well trimmed in those neglectful years; found there the old law of Moses, moral, ceremonial, and judicial, still recognized, though a good deal obscured by traditions; and what He did was to purify and spiritualize the law. He opened upon it the windows of His spirit, illumining its
t24 A CONSERVATIVE REFORMER
every part, showing its perfection and comprehensiveness. Other teachers had taken the law, the law as it stood, and had so dealt with it as to present it in all its bareness and outwardness, its narrowness and burdensomeness ; Jesus Christ took the same law, the law as it stood, but He so dealt with it as to present it in all its fulness and inwardness, its breadth and goodness.