Fulfilling the Law

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 19, 1867

Fulfilling the Law.

Matt. v, 17. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy but to fulfill.”

THE moral law was of vital importance, and was given for its own sake, while the ceremonial law and the promises were not given for their own sakes, but for the sake of Him to whom they specially referred. In this distinction between the moral law on the one hand, and the ceremonial law and the promises on the other, the cause is found of the difference in the results when they are respectively fulfilled. When the moral law was fulfilled, its eternal inviolability was established, while the latter ceased to be obligatory when they were fulfilled.

Christ’s fulfillment of the law and the prophets consisted both in words and in deeds, and it is precisely this essential union of doctrine and action that constitutes the difference between his labors as a prophet, and those of Moses and the prophets. The moral law which the Pharisees had perverted and divested of its essential contents, was fulfilled by him in his doctrine, inasmuch as he unfolded it in its whole fullness and depth, and traced and exhibited its reference to the inward sentiments of men. It was, at the same time, fulfilled by him in his life, inasmuch as he complied with all its demands in the most perfect manner, both as an archetype (Rom. v. 18, 19; Gal. iv. 4, 5), and as an example (1 Pet. ii, 21) of the human race. He fulfilled the ceremonial law and the prophetic promises allied to it, in his word and doctrine, inasmuch as he opened and fully set forth the deep and comprehensive meaning of these, either personally (as Luke xxiv, 27, &c.), or otherwise (John xvi, 7–15); he fulfilled both, also, in his life and actions, inasmuch as he actually and really exhibited in his own person all that was prefigured in the former and foretold in the latter. The ceremonial law was a shadow and type; Christianity brought the very image of good things (Heb. x, 1); hence, the type necessarily lost its significance and validity.—Kurz’ Sacred Hist., p. 296.