In Paul Carrington's sermon titled 'The Grace of Law,' he delves into an essential part of the Sermon on the Mount, focusing on Matthew 5:17-20. Carrington emphasizes that misunderstanding these verses can lead to a flawed perception of the Gospel. He explains that Jesus came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it, signifying the continuity and importance of the Old Testament teachings. The sermon highlights the transformation of a Christian's character through the Beatitudes, making them salt and light in the world, and discusses how true righteousness, both imputed and inculcated, is vital to living a life that glorifies God. Carrington contrasts the joyless, external law-keeping of the Pharisees with the empowered righteousness that stems from a transformed heart in Christ. He stresses that the moral law remains relevant and is strengthened by the Gospel, urging Christians to embrace the law with delight as a guide for living righteously. The sermon concludes by encouraging believers to walk in the power of Christ, who enables them to live according to God's principles and embrace the grace of the law.

Good afternoon. This afternoon we are back in the sermon on the mount and we're really in a an important I would say critical part of the sermon on the mount in fact if you misunderstand this these four verses that we're going to be looking at this little paragraph then you miss really the the rest of the entire sermon on the mount. And I would even dare say misunderstanding this particular paragraph really contributes to a very, very low, I would say very poorly, view of the gospel itself. So it's really worth paying attention to here. And we're going to be in Matthew chapter 5 and we're going to be reading verse 17 down to verse 20.

I'll read it and then we'll pray. 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. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Heavenly Father we come to you here again this afternoon Lord to thank you for your kindness, thank you for your mercy, thank you for leaving us your word and this recorded sermon especially Lord We pray that you would help us to have a right understanding of these very words that dropped from the lips of our Savior. Lord, help us to understand them, to grasp them, to treasure up all your word in our hearts, Lord, and that we may be changed by them. Lord, we thank You for hearing us when we pray, Amen.

Amen. Well if you've been with us from the beginning here, what we've been seeing in the Sermon on the Mount really is with the Beatitudes, what the Christian man really is in his character, what he's been made because of who God is and what he's done. He's been made a new creation and of course those of us that are Christians we are very very well aware that we're still affected by our old nature but nonetheless we're new creations at the same time and then because of this new character that we've been given we see what the Christian man actually is in the world. He becomes salt and he becomes light. And so his whole life purpose is now to display the glory of God to the end that others will be drawn to him.

That's really that first couple of sections, the Beatitudes followed by those two word pictures of salt and light. Well, how practically is this to be done? How do we live in the world? How do we actually conduct ourselves so as to bring maximum glory to God? That's really what this next section of the sermon addresses.

This is kind of a newer section that goes on really to the end of the chapter. And it deals with the idea of true righteousness. But it's not only true righteousness which is imputed like we heard about this morning, but it's also the righteousness that is inculcated into the lives of those who now are his followers. They start living differently. And it's vital really, as I said earlier, to understand this little section here to the rest of the sermon.

You know, when you were lost, the commands of God, the law of God, it was grievous. I've talked to so many different people who have, you know, they've newly become Christians and you've heard those testimonies as well, how it was such a grief to hear of the law of God, the word of God, but now as they've come to know God, it takes on a whole new meaning and it becomes their joy. You know, in fact, The Pharisees had made religion such a drudgery, right? It becomes something just empty and hollow. It was joyless law keeping without really any power in it.

And so they effectively had reduced the entire law of God to outward performance, ticking boxes and so on and so forth. You know, but the man, the man who has a new heart, he delights in righteousness, God's righteousness that's found in the law. He delights on that in the one hand. And he's also empowered to live it out on the other hand. To live in the light of God's law as well.

So he's now been reconciled to God because Christ has fulfilled the law on his part. And now the law becomes a delight for him to actually live. Martin Lloyd-Jones, he says it so wonderfully, I couldn't find anything kind of more clear on these four verses. He says of verse 17 and 18, so the first two that we're going to be dealing with. He says everything he is going to teach going forward is in absolute harmony with the entire teaching of the Old Testament scriptures.

And then 19 and 20, the following two verses, this teaching which is in such harmony with the Old Testament, is in complete disharmony with and actually contradicts the teaching of the Pharisees and the scribes. And so perhaps a good title for this section that we're in here today is the grace of law and just like We often struggle, you know God's sovereignty and man's responsibility Oftentimes we we also wrestle with and we pit against each other grace and law, don't we? We kind of see them as irreconcilable. But really what Christ is showing us here is really the unity. And they're brought together so beautifully here.

In verse 17 he says, do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill." So as we talk about righteousness, what is the Christian's relationship to the law or the prophets? And really, that's what Jesus is saying here. It's really code for the Old Testament. What is the relationship to the Christian and the Old Testament?

Well, there's no better person to ask than the very author and the finisher of our faith. He's just begun his ministry. And what's happening, just for the context, men are trying to fit him into a category. He's caused already great consternation. He's causing confusion as he goes about his ministry.

Where did he go to seminary? What sect is he a part of? You know, where did he get his doctrine and his credentials? His whole manner, the way he teaches, is totally different than what we're used to. And so all these different questions He teaches in parables.

Things from nature are actually brought into his discourses and he spends time with sinners and chooses uneducated men as his disciples. These were kind of the things that were swirling around as Christ kicks off his ministry. And so right from the beginning, he doesn't want his disciples to be confused. He heads it off at the pass and he says, "'Do not think that I came to destroy the law "'or the prophets.'" And as I said earlier, what he's saying is, and what he's about to teach is in total harmony with what has gone on before. It's as though he's saying, if you sense contradiction in anything I am about to say, the problem is not mine.

It's the reigning religion and teaching of the day that's off. You teachers are the ones that have done the harm. Everything has become wooden, joyless, heartless, and misrepresentative of God. Now I'm gonna set that right. Not only will I keep the law perfectly, but will fulfill all the messianic prophecies contained in the Old Testament.

You see this really isn't just an ancient problem is it? You know we were talking earlier just with a different different brothers you know even today with as a Christian you may have felt this or maybe even this is part of your Christian experience. Well, we have no problem believing and even celebrating the messianic prophecies. When it comes to the role of the law of God, there's a lot of confusion in the world, maybe even in our own hearts over this matter. You know, the legalist, on the one side, he wants the antinomian to get out of his ditch and come a little bit more his way.

And then you've got the antinomian who insists that if only the legalist would clamber out of his ditch and come more his way, then everything would be set right. Somehow they'd meet in the middle and all would be well, but both are wrong. And we'll see in a second why that's true, because both of them have a wrong view of righteousness, true righteousness, and they're in great danger. You know, nothing perhaps is more clarifying to me at least, as you kind of grapple with this whole view of the law then looking at the interaction that the Lord Jesus had with the rich young ruler you'll remember that account it's found I think in at least Matthew and Mark and this rich young ruler he comes to Christ in one account, he falls before Him on his knees, and we know how that begins. And he had a misconception of righteousness that Christ perceived right away.

And he says, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? And so Jesus tells him, keep the commandments. And he tells, he says, which ones? And Jesus starts going down the list. You know, he names four or five.

And it's as though the young man cuts the Lord off. He says, no, no, no, I've been doing all these since I was a boy. I'm good. Like a pre-conversion Paul, you know, Paul writes about this in Philippians, concerning the righteousness which is in the law, he says blameless. Paul had been satisfied with a muddy puddle so to speak, But when he saw the ocean that is the righteousness of Christ, he began to see things as they really were.

He calls it dung refuse. All his own personal attainments. He counted them all as rubbish. You remember that account, of course. Well Jesus tests him because he says, no, no, I've been keeping the commandments.

Keeping God's commands aren't really my problem, but is there something more that I can do to attain eternal life? And so what does the Lord Jesus do? Well, he tests him on the very first command. And he says, go sell everything that you have and come and follow Me. And of course, we know the account that this young man, he went away very sorrowful.

And The challenge that he had was that he had his riches. He's this rich young ruler in his heart. And this isn't a rule for everybody, but Jesus is saying, part with the first idol, the very first commandment. You shall have no other gods before me, and you will come and follow me." And he couldn't do that. And I think so many times, I think this is the reigning religion of our day, when you talk to a hundred people and that can generally be The response.

Oh, I'm a good person. You know I do this but they're always comparing themselves with things around them and even ourselves can get into this bit of a habit and whether you lean more legalistic or You lean kind of more antinomian my hope today is that you don't go back to your muddy puddle and just be satisfied there when you have this whole ocean of righteousness before you that's in Jesus Christ. You know, he wants his disciples to get this so clearly that nothing I'm going to say is in contradiction with the Old Testament. He's not going to subvert the Old Testament like so many like to say he was doing, but rather what he's going to do is unfold and make it more clear. And if you want to really ask yourself this, has anyone in Scripture had a higher view of the Scriptures than the Lord Jesus Christ?

Really there's none. He quotes it over and over. And sometimes Christians can have a somewhat lower view of the Old Testament itself. And that can be such a danger, you know. I remember I was talking to a lady, kind of got into a bit of a debate, and we were talking about, Scripture, we were talking about abortion actually, and she was kind of saying, well where does it say it in the Bible?

So I went, no no, show me in the New Testament. So am I folly? I said okay. So I went to the New Testament. No no, I just want to know, show me the red letters and I want to see the word abortion.

In other words she had reduced and truncated the entire revelation of God to just the words that Jesus had spoken, the red letters. In her mind that was the word of God. But the head of the church, Jesus Christ, what does he say? He says that the Scripture cannot be broken. Remember on the road to Emmaus, what was the glory of that sermon?

When he opened to them the Scriptures, and their hearts began to burn within them, he was revealing what the Scriptures had said all along. And here what's happening is he says, I'm gonna fulfill these Scriptures. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. That means to give full obedience to it and to carry it all out. That's really what he's saying here in verse 17.

And then in verse 18 he says, surely 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." And here we have, if you if you look into King James, it's that first time we ever see the term verily, verily. It's a beautiful statement. Really what it means is amen, assuredly amen. He starts a sentence with amen. This is trustworthy.

This is firm. Mark what I'm about to say very, very carefully. He doubles down and he puts his seal of authority on it. He says, 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. And notice here in the first verse, he talked about the law or the prophets, and now he comes down and he speaks especially about the law.

And he says, heaven and earth. Now in the minds of his hearers on the Sermon on the Mount, on that mountainside, there's nothing more stable in the known universe than the heavens and the earth. The most expansive, the most permanent thing in the physical world were the heavens and the earth. And what he's saying is that this most permanent thing is more subject to change than a seemingly unimportant jot, which is the smallest Hebrew letter, or a tittle, just a stroke that differentiates one letter from another. Just maybe it even helps us as children, the difference between the letter in the lowercase C and an E is just a little dash.

Or the difference between the name Sarai and Sarah. It's a little tiny indication or change in the letter. And what he's trying to say here is that in my economy, in God's economy, there stands a greater likelihood of the things most permanent, the heavens and the earth being dissolved than a tiny letter or dash being changed and falling through the cracks. Wow. He's really got a high view of the Scriptures, especially of the law.

And when we talk about the law, you know, it's helpful, I find, just to kind of look at it and consider really the three aspects of the law. We have the moral of course, and we'll talk a little bit about that. You have the judicial and the ceremonial aspects of the law. The judicial laws is really the laws that were given to govern over the nation of, physical nation of Israel. And there's a lot of good things that are in there that we can take and apply, even in our day in our nation.

But that was abrogated or fulfilled around 70 AD with the destruction of the nation. And then we have the ceremonial law, and those are, you know, we have the sacrifices, maybe the pilgrimages to the temple, to the tabernacle, and all of these were prefiguring Christ, and they were fulfilled on the cross. But the moral law is something else altogether. You know in the Second London Baptist Confession there's a whole chapter on the law and in paragraph 5 it says this, speaking of the moral law, it says, The moral law forever requires obedience of everyone, both those who are justified as well as others. This obligation arises not only because of its content, but also because of the authority of God, the creator who gave it.

Nor does Christ in any way dissolve this obligation in the gospel. Instead, he greatly strengthens it. I'll read that again, nor does Christ in any way dissolve this obligation in the gospel. And so the moral law, it's really important that we understand that it's not only rooted in creation, which is important, but it's actually rooted in the character of God himself so that we can say it is wrong to murder. Why?

Because God is the giver of life. It is wrong to commit adultery. Why? Because God is faithful. And you can go down the various aspects of the law.

Unlike the ceremonial and the judicial law, the moral law was placed also in the Ark of the Covenant. The Ten Commandments, that's where it was placed. Kind of in a separate, It's viewed separately. And so we've just seen that everything that Jesus is going to teach is going to cord and be in absolute harmony with the entirety of the Old Testament scriptures. And now in verse 19 and 20, what he's saying is that this teaching, which is in harmony that I'm teaching, which is in harmony with the Old Testament, is in complete disharmony with and contradicts the teaching of the Pharisees and the scribes.

Look what he says in verse 19. He says, whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does and teaches them he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. And so because there's nothing so stable, there's nothing so rock steady as the truths contained in the moral law of God, anyone who teaches otherwise or contradicts that will be brought low. And here can be a word to those of us and those in the world that have perhaps more of an antinomian slant. You know, the Lord, He doesn't want His disciples really to be deceived or confused at all on this matter at all.

He's basically saying, look, tampering with the great laws of God carry massive consequences. We don't want to tamper with God's laws. And in a Christian world where dispensationalism dominates and a suspicion of anything authoritative, the law of God is under constant attack. You know, like the first question that's asked in the Bible, did God indeed say? Men also question the purpose, the role, sometimes innocently, but sometimes because they simply don't want to be brought, they think beneath its power.

They dismiss the law of God altogether. It's been reduced a lot of times to a maximum of nine commandments. I was at a church not too, too long ago, and there was like a mini Sunday school, not in the sense of just kids, but it was open. And all the people were sitting there right before church, and the pastor happened to be speaking on the Sabbath, and basically saying how it's no longer in a forest, and he gave his whole kind of apologetic around it. And I was just sitting there and not saying anything, but my kids were there, and I'm like, oof, you know, I'm gonna have to correct this when I get home.

And then he asked, did anyone have anything to say or any questions? And so I, Russell, should I say anything or not? And I ended up saying something and I asked him, so is what you're saying there are only nine commandments now? And he smiled and he began to kind of, you know, dance around a little bit. But a lot of times that's what can happen is we can dismiss and pluck out things that we don't really like.

You know, Martyn Lloyd-Jones in the same very chapter that he's writing about the moral law of God, look what he says here. And he writes about this with lamentation. He says, quote, there is a type of religion, and alas, It seems to me that it is becoming more common, which does not hesitate to teach that as long as you go to the house of God on Sunday morning, it does not matter very much what you do with the rest of the day. The Lord's day is a day that is meant to be given as much as possible to God. We ought on this day to put everything aside as far as we can that God may be honoured and glorified, and that his cause may prosper and flourish." And so where the sin isn't willful, Sometimes it can be that we're ignorant, you know.

I remember being early on as a Christian, I didn't understand the law and how its role, how it was to play out, and that's fine, perhaps ignorantly. He says, what he's saying here is that this man will be regarded as a poor teacher. It doesn't necessarily mean absolute exclusion. He says, least. You'll be regarded as least in the kingdom of heaven.

It's kind of curious statement that he makes. You know, Matthew Henry says the law is the Christian's rule of duty and he delights therein. Why should it be so lightly esteemed? That's what he asks us. So may the Lord preserve us from this spirit of the great downgrade, that temptation really affects every single age.

You know, we see a word here to those that might lean maybe more antinomian, but there's also a word to those of us that may have more legalistic tendencies as well. In verse 20, he says this, for I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. And so again what he's been saying is that his teaching in no way contradicts the law or the prophets and here we find the first mention of the word Pharisees, scribes and Pharisees really, and you know it was it was common knowledge in his time in Christ's time that the most the people that most closely represented God and most closely represented and adhered to the law and the prophets were none other than the scribes and the Pharisees. So was it possible to exceed them in righteousness? You know to his hearers this would have been probably the most shocking statement that he's made so far in the Sermon on the Mount.

Your righteousness should exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. We'll get to what that means, but think about this for a second. You know, the scribe was a man that was in high demand to make copies of Jewish literature, especially the law, and then they would be tasked with preserving it for future generations. That was their whole reason for being, their whole purpose. And so who could know it better?

Imagine every day that's your task. You're writing out the law of God. The judicial, the ceremonial, the moral, that's what you're doing. But they weren't only copyists. They were also teachers.

In fact, a lot of them would have their own disciples as well. But what's amazing is that when you get to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, it says this, and so it was when Jesus had ended these sayings that the people were astonished at his teaching. Why? For he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes." There was some gap. They were, they had this knowledge but something that was missing in the whole context of what it meant to actually know the one that they were representing.

And a Pharisee, who is a Pharisee? This was a sect that was kind of born probably a hundred and sixty, two hundred years earlier during the reign of, during the time of the Maccabees. And these were the really, really the most outstanding men in the nation. At their peak there was about 6, 000 Pharisees in the nation of Israel. And the word Pharisee, you know what it means?

It means separated one or separatist. And that really colors their whole religion. You know they were extremely particular. You can imagine, you know when Jesus says in Matthew 23, you pay tithes of dill, mint, and cumin. I mean it's this picture of a man going to his little herb garden and making sure he's separating 10% of his herbs to go and give at the temple.

They wore their phylacteries, you know, these scriptures they would have right there on their forehead and tied up and bound on their arms. And they would really go all out to make sure that they were, you know, clean, at least from an outward perspective. And I mentioned the Sabbath just a minute ago. Well, on the other side, those who disregard and say, ah, it's not important or it's no longer in force, you had these men who were so fastidious on the Sabbath. In fact, it was the thing that, more than any other commandment, probably drew Christ into conflict with them.

Not because he broke the Sabbath, but he didn't regard all the added things that they had attached to the Sabbath. And so that put him in bad stead with these men and gave them really a platform to launch most of their attacks against the Lord himself. And so what could this possibly mean that your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees? Is he telling us that after all you've got to earn your salvation? Well no, we've already seen in the Beatitudes that you've been changed.

It was a matter of being and a heart change that took place. And of course with the salt and the light. Does this mean somehow that we've got to score keep and make sure we have more points than the scribes or the Pharisees. I think what he's really saying is he's talking about a qualitative difference of righteousness. We're talking apples and oranges, two totally different types of righteousness altogether.

You know, you've got in the Pharisees and the scribes, you've got a righteousness that really originates in man, and it's carried out in the strength of man. When Jesus made that statement, he says, I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. He didn't mean those that are truly righteous but he says basically he's calling those who assume that they're already right with God, those who think that they're already in right standing with God. And so the Pharisees, they were proselytizing and they were doing all sorts of things to call men to righteousness, but they had no power to actually affect righteousness in those who actually became their followers because they couldn't get to the heart. And so what happened is they had to satisfy themselves with an external law keeping that missed everything.

But on the other side, what do we find? We find a righteousness that is imputed. We find a righteousness that is imputed. We find a righteousness that is actually not just imputed and you're declared innocent, but on the other side you're empowered, you're enabled to live in this world. That's what the rest of the sermon is actually gonna be about.

But he wants us to stop here, make sure that we don't pass this particular point before we go on to the rest. So the Christian is not under the law in the sense that he's beneath the condemnation of the law, or that keeping it determines his standing with God. That's not what he's saying. But neither is the Christian released from walking according to the law as a rule of life. So hopefully you can hold those things together.

It's actually really beautiful and quite simple. But being a Christian, it does not only mean that all my sins have been washed away, and I've passed from death to life, which is amazing, astounding, but also that I've been given this new nature to live. And God's law now, at one point perhaps was grievous, but now it becomes something that I admire. Have you ever done that when you're now reading Deuteronomy and you're saying, what kind of wisdom does our God have? And he set this up thousands of years ago for a nation to live by.

Such beautiful things. I always look at the one, you know, where you don't take the mother and the egg together or you don't boil a baby goat in its mother's milk. There are laws that have to do with love and true heart. There's kindness and all sorts of considerations that are all lodged in the Word of God. And so Christ now is in me.

Right? He's the one who kept the law perfectly, but now he's in me, and now I have a desire to honor and to obey my father. And how do we do that? By observing his law, by living according to his principles in the world, not outwardly, but with the spirit and the design of the law, which as it was originally intended, and that's where we'll go next. You have heard that it was said, whatever, but I say to you.

So he's going to actually give you the true heart of the law as we go forward. And so best of all, he gives us the power, a power we never had before, to obey that I never possessed. And so not that you'll obey it perfectly and keep it perfectly, none of us ever do, but it is nevertheless a rule of life. And so some of us, we can suffer from this truncated view of holiness. We can reduce it maybe to the simple avoidance of things and keeping away from things.

Or maybe we can focus on areas that we perceive to be strengths while focusing less on things that maybe I'm not so good at or maybe take longer or whatever, but they could actually be even more important. Remember at the end of the day that ours is a heart religion. That's really what's so critical. For me, perhaps most men, what I found is that it's much, much easier for me to focus and discuss ways of providing and putting food on the table than on my need to love more selflessly as Christ commands. Do you find that as a temptation?

Right? It's so much easier. I can focus on this because I can do it. I'm built that way. But man, mercy and loving selflessly, That's going against my very nature.

But Christ enables us over time to put on more and more of that. For women, would you rather talk and discuss modest dress? Or your need to develop a meek and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. See, what's easier? Both are important.

Don't get me wrong. He doesn't provide for his family is worse than an infidel, right? Modesty is a beautiful thing. But we can kind of strain it and not swallow camels. We can give more weight to some things than to others and miss the deeper things that God wants to work in us.

For young people, you know, do you focus on preparing for the future, not fully comprehending that the greatest input to your future is whether or not you honor your parents, your father and your mother. You see, it's easy to get everything else in order, but there's something that is even more weighty and more important. So remember what he's made you. Remember what he's called you to. And not only called you to, but unlike the Pharisees, unlike the scribes, he enables us to carry it out.

And we'll see that as we we go forward. So walk in the power that he provides. He's gonna give us the strength and little by little more and more Christ will be formed in us as we walk it out and his ways become our ways. And this is truly the grace of the law, because of the goodness of Jesus Christ. So embrace it, embrace him, and walk in the steps that he's laid out for us.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you this afternoon again, and just thank you for your word, Lord. We pray to be a people enabled, empowered to live the way you would have us to live. Lord, please help us to have corrected views of who you are and how your law applies and how we ought to regard all of scripture. Lord help us to treasure it even as we go into the week.

Lord I know sometimes we can be in certain parts of the scriptures that even seem boring or monotonous but Lord you said every single part of it is purposeful and important. Help us to regard your word and to imbibe it Lord, to love it. We ask you to help us as we go into this week in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.