The Law Fulfilled: Trusting God's Truth Over Our Understanding

Matthew 5:17-20

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Have you ever felt lost? Confused? Have you revisited an old memory - maybe trying a snack from your childhood - only to be surprised, and maybe even disappointed, by the reality? Very often I find that if my wife and I are having a disagreement we can eventually recognize a miscommunication at the root of it. And that in itself is not so uncommon - miscommunication. I often say that communication is the best tool we have, which is quite unfortunate for how lousy it is.

What makes it lousy? Communication itself is neutral - think of it like white paint. Color is added by our interpretations and our reliance upon our own understanding. If my wife says to me, “Kaleb, I would like to get a new vehicle.” She is inviting me into conversation, stating a want, and opening a discussion with clear direction. For me, however, many things may come up. If I wasn’t thinking about this as a possibility, it really may take catch me off guard.

As a result of what she said, I may experience a sense of concern, or worry, and even some internal tension, or anxiety. If I react with either of these, I am taking the natural white she presented me and adding green: “We can’t afford a new car. Your car is fine.”

To that, she may feel frustrated with some deeper feelings bubbling up underneath. She adds pink to the color schematic: “Why do you always get to decide. When do I get what I want?” And so on…

What started as a neutral color - white - became a muddied mess; a glob of color that couldn’t properly be identified. The more we go back and forth like this, the more that colors may be added, deepened, and the overall presentation of the canvas, or the conversation, would become further distorted.

I may become confused - I clearly am talking about green. "I don’t know why she’s bringing up pink and blue. Those have nothing to do with this - it’s really just a matter of green.” She, likewise, will also note that tension. “He only ever thinks about green. What about blue, and pink, and even yellow! I don’t even get to bring up yellow because he never can recognize pink.” As we each rely upon our now interpretation of reality, as we really dig in and try to make ourselves understood, we do not find clarity and mutual understanding. We become lost.

Jesus addresses this same tendency in this passage. Many expected a Messiah who would overthrow Rome, establish Israel politically, and restore the nation's glory. Others questioned whether Jesus' teachings meant He was setting aside everything God had revealed through Moses. In every case, the problem was not a lack of Scripture. It was that people had begun interpreting God's revelation through the lens of their own expectations. They pulled scripture through the lens of their desires, their wants, and their understanding of what they and their society needed.

This is deeply human. Rather than allowing God's revelation to shape their understanding of reality, they reshaped God's revelation to fit the reality they had already decided upon. And it is this tendency that Jesus recognizes and presents back to us:

Human beings continually replace God's revealed truth with their own interpretation of reality.

Jesus gives us something greater than instruction alone. He gives us a true understanding of human nature. He responds to how easily we shift from reliance upon God’s truth to reliance upon our own understanding - and we do this for very many different reasons. But we do it, and that’s what matters.

In these moments, what did you cling to? Did you grasp for understanding? Meaning? Did you seek explanation and interpretation? Did you fight to convince, to feel heard? I imagine you did. It’s only human to do such things.

But what if instead you stepped back from the need to know - to understand. What if instead you observed, experienced, and received? Instead of looking to make sense of things, what if you, instead, only had to believe and step faithfully? The burden of becoming your own authority, of determining what’s right based on our own understanding, would be a weight removed. Here Jesus again invites us into this position of reverent reliance upon God.

Faithful Surrender is not abandoning understanding.

It is submitting your understanding to God’s revelation.

When we listen to his words here, we can observe a clear contrast. Jesus says that he has come to fulfill the Law, and that the Law must be obeyed. He then brings us into comparison with the Pharisees. He tells us that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Imagine being told that your righteousness must exceed that of the most devoted, disciplined, Scripture-saturated people you know. On the surface, it seems hopeless! These are men who have dedicated their lives to studying scripture, teaching God’s word, and living in alignment with His teachings. How could I possibly do better than them?Jesus responds to this very notion. He is inviting us to surrender our expectations to his revealed truth and to let go of what we think things ought to be like. And underneath that is this:

You cannot surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees externally. So righteousness must come from somewhere deeper.

Have you ever tried to become good enough for God by trying harder? If so, you're in good company. The Pharisees spent their lives trying harder. They memorized Scripture, guarded traditions, and pursued outward righteousness with remarkable discipline. Yet Jesus tells His listeners that even this is not enough. Not because righteousness doesn't matter, but because genuine righteousness cannot be manufactured from the outside in. It must flow from a heart transformed by God.

This is what we are given as we enter into Jesus’ sermon on the mount. This is the prequel. He gives us this to chew on before he teaches what it means to abide in God. He wants our foundation to be set so that we can receive what he is saying as truth, rather than obscuring it with our expectation, interpretation, and understanding.

This is what awareness begins to uncover. We were never created to carry the burden of determining truth for ourselves. We were created for relationship with the One who is Truth. The more tightly we cling to our own understanding, the heavier life becomes. But when we surrender the need to define reality and instead receive God's revelation, something remarkable happens. The weight begins to lift. Peace is no longer found in having all the answers. It is found in trusting the One who does.

As you step away from this article, and before we dive into the subsequent passages in Matthew, Jesus’ teaching of the sermon on the mount, I invite you to rest in this consideration:

Notice where you've quietly trusted your own interpretation more than God's revealed truth. Are you willing to let that go?

If this reflection challenged or encouraged you, I'd love for you to continue this journey with me. Revisit my previous blogs in this series here.

The Sermon on the Mount is more than a collection of teachings—it is an invitation to see reality differently, to surrender our understanding to God's truth, and to learn what it means to faithfully follow Christ. Subscribe below to receive future reflections, and if someone came to mind while you were reading, consider sharing this with them. My prayer is that together we would continue growing in awareness, choosing faithfulness, and learning to faithfully surrender.

Until next time—Selah.