Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
All Commentaries on Matthew 5:17 Go To Matthew 5
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Why, who suspected this? Or who accused Him, that He should make a defense against this charge? Since surely from what had gone before no such suspicion was generated. For to command men to be meek, and gentle, and merciful, and pure in heart, and to strive for righteousness, indicated no such design, but rather altogether the contrary.
Wherefore then can He have said this? Not at random, nor vainly: but inasmuch as He was proceeding to ordain commandments greater than those of old, saying, It was said to them of old time, You shall not kill; but I say unto you, Be not even angry; and to mark out a way for a kind of divine and heavenly conversation; in order that the strangeness thereof might not disturb the souls of the hearers, nor dispose them quite to mutiny against what He said He used this means of setting them right beforehand.
For although they fulfilled not the law, yet nevertheless they were possessed with much conscientious regard to it; and while they were annulling it every day by their deeds, the letters thereof they would have remain unmoved, and that no one should add anything more to them. Or rather, they bore with their rulers adding thereto, not however for the better, but for the worse. For so they used to set aside the honor due to our parents by additions of their own, and very many others also of the matters enjoined them, they would free themselves of by these unseasonable additions.
Therefore, since Christ in the first place was not of the sacredotal tribe, and next, the things which He was about to introduce were a sort of addition, not however lessening, but enhancing virtue; He knowing beforehand that both these circumstances would trouble them, before He wrote in their mind those wondrous laws, casts out that which was sure to be harboring there. And what was it that was harboring there, and making an obstacle?
2. They thought that He, thus speaking, did so with a view to the abrogation of the ancient institutions. This suspicion therefore He heals; nor here only does He so, but elsewhere also again. Thus, since they accounted Him no less than an adversary of God, from this sort of reason, namely, His not keeping the sabbath; He, to heal such their suspicion, there also again sets forth His pleas, of which some indeed were proper to Himself; as when He says, My Father works, and I work; John 5:17 but some had in them much condescension, as when He brings forward the sheep lost on the sabbath day, Matthew 12:11 and points out that the law is disturbed for its preservation, and makes mention again of circumcision, as having this same effect. John 7:23
Wherefore we see also that He often speaks words somewhat beneath Him, to remove the semblance of His being an adversary of God.
For this cause He who had raised thousands of the dead with a word only, when He was calling Lazarus, added also a prayer; and then, lest this should make Him appear less than Him that begot Him, He, to correct this suspicion, added, I said these things, because of the people which stands by, that they may believe that you have sent me. And neither does He work all things as one who acted by His own power, that He might thoroughly correct their weakness; nor does He all things with prayer, lest He should leave matter of evil suspicion to them that should follow, as though He were without strength or power: but He mingles the latter with the former, and those again with these. Neither does He this indiscriminately, but with His own proper wisdom. For while He does the greater works authoritatively, in the less He looks up unto Heaven. Thus, when absolving sins, and revealing His secrets, and opening Paradise, and driving away devils, and cleansing lepers, and bridling death, and raising the dead by thousands, He did all by way of command: but when, what was much less than these, He was causing many loaves to spring forth out of few, then He looked up to Heaven: signifying that not through weakness He does this. For He who could do the greater with authority, how in the lesser could He need prayer? But as I was saying, He does this to silence their shamelessness. The same reckoning, then, I bid you make of His words also, when you hear Him speak lowly things. For many in truth are the causes both for words and for actions of that cast: as, for instance, that He might not be supposed alien from God; His instructing and waiting on all men; His teaching humility; His being encompassed with flesh; the Jews' inability to hear all at once; His teaching us to utter no high word of ourselves. For this cause many times, having in His own person said much that is lowly of Himself, the great things He leaves to be said by others. Thus He Himself indeed, reasoning with the Jews, said, Before Abraham was, I Am: John 8:58 but His disciple not thus, but, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1
Again, that He Himself made Heaven, and earth, and sea, and all things visible and invisible, in His own person He nowhere expressly said: but His disciple, speaking plainly out, and suppressing nothing, affirms this once, twice, yea often: writing that all things were made by Him; and, without Him was not one thing made; and, He was in the world, and the world was made by Him.
And why marvel, if others have said greater things of Him than He of Himself; since (what is more) in many cases, what He showed forth by His deeds, by His words He uttered not openly? Thus that it was Himself who made mankind He showed clearly even by that blind man; but when He was speaking of our formation at the beginning, He said not, I made, but He who made them, made them male and female. Matthew 19:4 Again, that He created the world and all things therein, He demonstrated by the fishes, by the wine, by the loaves, by the calm in the sea, by the sunbeam which He averted on the Cross; and by very many things besides: but in words He has nowhere said this plainly, though His disciples are continually declaring it, both John, and Paul, and Peter.
For if they who night and day hear Him discourse, and see Him work marvels; to whom He explained many things in private, and gave so great power as even to raise the dead; whom He made so perfect, as to forsake all things for Him: if even they, after so great virtue and self-denial, had not strength to bear it all, before the supply of the Spirit; how could the people of the Jews, being both void of understanding, and far behind such excellency, and only by hazard present when He did or said anything, how could they have been persuaded but that He was alien from the God of all, unless he had practised such great condescension throughout?
For on this account we see that even when He was abrogating the sabbath, He did not as of set purpose bring in such His legislation, but He puts together many and various pleas of defense. Now if, when He was about to cause one commandment to cease, He used so much reserve in His language, that He might not startle the hearers; much more, when adding to the law, entire as it was, another entire code of laws, did He require much management and attention, not to alarm those who were then hearing Him.
For this same cause, neither do we find Him teaching everywhere clearly concerning His own Godhead. For if His adding to the law was sure to perplex them so greatly, much more His declaring Himself God.
3. Wherefore many things are uttered by Him, far below His proper dignity, and here when He is about to proceed upon His addition to the law, He has used abundance for correction beforehand. For neither was it once only that He said, I do not abrogate the law, but He both repeated it again, and added another and a greater thing; in that, to the words, Think not that I have come to destroy, He subjoined, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
Now this not only obstructs the obstinacy of the Jews, but stops also the mouths of those heretics, who say that the old covenant is of the devil. For if Christ came to destroy his tyranny, how is this covenant not only not destroyed, but even fulfilled by Him? For He said not only, I do not destroy it; though this had been enough; but I even fulfill it: which are the words of one so far from opposing himself, as to be even establishing it.
And how, one may ask, did He not destroy it? In what way did He rather fulfill either the law or the prophets? The prophets He fulfilled, inasmuch as He confirmed by His actions all that had been said concerning Him; wherefore also the evangelist used to say in each case, That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet. Both when He was born, Matthew 1:22-23 and when the children sung that wondrous hymn to Him, and when He sat on the ass, Matthew 21:5-16 and in very many more instances He worked this same fulfillment: all which things must have been unfulfilled, if He had not come.
But the law He fulfilled, not in one way only, but in a second and third also. In one way, by transgressing none of the precepts of the law. For that He did fulfill it all, hear what He says to John, For thus it becomes us to fulfill all righteousness. Matthew 3:15 And to the Jews also He said, Which of you convinces me of sin. John 8:46 And to His disciples again, The prince of this world comes, and finds nothing in me. John 14:30 And the prophet too from the first had said that He did no sin. Isaiah 53:9
This then was one sense in which He fulfilled it. Another, that He did the same through us also; for this is the marvel, that He not only Himself fulfilled it, but He granted this to us likewise. Which thing Paul also declaring said, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes. Romans 10:4 And he said also, that He judged sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh. Romans 8:3-4 And again, Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid! Yea, we establish the law. Romans 3:31 For since the law was laboring at this, to make man righteous, but had not power, He came and brought in the way of righteousness by faith, and so established that which the law desired: and what the law could not by letters, this He accomplished by faith. On this account He says, I am not come to destroy the law.
4. But if any one will inquire accurately, he will find also another, a third sense, in which this has been done. Of what sort is it then? In the sense of that future code of laws, which He was about to deliver to them.
For His sayings were no repeal of the former, but a drawing out, and filling up of them. Thus, not to kill, is not annulled by the saying, Be not angry, but rather is filled up and put in greater security: and so of all the others.
Wherefore, you see, as He had before unsuspectedly cast the seeds of this teaching; so at the time when from His comparison of the old and new commandments, He would be more distinctly suspected of placing them in opposition, He used His corrective beforehand. For in a covert way He had indeed already scattered those seeds, by what He had said. Thus, Blessed are the poor, is the same as that we are not to be angry; and, Blessed are the pure in heart, as not to look upon a woman for lust; and the not laying up treasures on earth, harmonizes with, Blessed are the merciful; and to mourn also, to be persecuted and reviled, coincide with entering in at the strait gate; and, to hunger and thirst after righteousness, is nothing else than that which He says afterwards, Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them. And having declared the peace-maker blessed, He again almost said the same, when He gave command to leave the gift, and hasten to reconciliation with him that was grieved, and about agreeing with our adversary.
But there He set down the rewards of them that do right, here rather the punishments of them who neglect practice. Wherefore as in that place He said, The meek shall inherit earth; so here, He who calls his brother fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire; and there, The pure in heart shall see God; here, he is a complete adulterer who looks unchastely. And having there called the peace-makers, sons of God; here He alarms us from another quarter, saying, Lest at any time the adversary deliver you to the judge. Thus also, whereas in the former part He blesses them that mourn, and them that are persecuted; in the following, establishing the very same point, He threatens destruction to them that go not that way; for, They that walk 'in the broad way,' says He, 'make their end there.' And, You cannot serve God and mammon, seems to me the same with, Blessed are the merciful, and, those that hunger after righteousness.
But as I said, since He is going to say these things more clearly, and not only more clearly, but also to add again more than had been already said (for He no longer merely seeks a merciful man, but bids us give up even our coat; not simply a meek person, but to turn also the other cheek to him that would smite us): therefore He first takes away the apparent contradiction.
On this account, then, as I have already stated, He said this not once only, but once and again; in that to the words, Think not that I have come to destroy, He added, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
