In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”
The law Jesus is talking about is primarily the law of the Sinai covenant found in Exodus 20 – 24. Jesus sums up this law in his two-part agape-love commandment (Matthew 22:36-40). And so, the law that Jesus fulfills is really the “law of love.” Jesus perfectly fulfilled the “law of agape-love” by trusting and loving his Father with all of his heart, soul and strength, and by self-sacrificially loving humans by living and dying for them. For this reason, the Apostle Paul says that all of the promises made by God throughout the Old Testament covenants are fulfilled in Christ, with a powerful “Yes!” (2 Corinthians 1:20).
Jesus desires to have the “law of agape-love” fulfilled in his followers. That is why both Jesus and the apostle Paul put front and center in their vision of the Christian life (1 Corinthians 13). As Paul says in Romans 13:10, “agape-love is the fulfillment of the law.” Of course, on our own we cannot love God and others with the same radical self-sacrificial love of Jesus, but through the power of the Holy Spirit within us, we too can begin to walk in the agape-love of Jesus. Growing in agape-love should be the central goal for every disciple of Jesus!
