Does the Gospel Abolish the Law? Jesus & Paul – by Brad Jersak

Matthew 5:17-18

17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

Ephesians 2:14-15

14 For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us, 15 abolishing the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, (Ephesians 2)

Do Jesus and Paul contradict each other?

A surface reading appears to confirm that, and solutions built on that assumption create new problems. The worst of these is relegating Jesus’ entire teaching ministry prior to the Cross to the Old Covenant, thus abolishing the Sermon on the Mount as ‘works righteousness’ to be despaired in place of Paul’s gospel of grace and stripping grace of its transforming power.

But if not that? A parable.

I was driving home from the grocery store one afternoon, hurrying to drop off ingredients at home and then racing back to my office. I admit that I was speeding, and that the main reason I watch my speedometer is to avoid getting caught and ticketed. External motivation. But on this day, as I approached an elementary school, I became conscious that children may be playing outside and abruptly slowed down. I didn’t want to harm anyone. Internal motivation.

Just then, a police officer jumped out from the side of the road to wave me down. When he came to my window, he demanded, “Where is it?”

“Where is what?” I asked.
“Don’t play dumb,” he said. “Where is it?”
“I honestly don’t know what you mean?”
“Your radar detector.” Remember those?
“I don’t have one,” I said.

He didn’t believe me, so he reached in to pulled down my sun visor to see for himself. Nothing was there.

“How did you see me?” he pressed.
“I didn’t.”
“Then why did you slow down so abruptly?”
“I just remembered that there was a school zone. I didn’t want to hit a kid.”

His radar camera indicated that I wasn’t speeding, but his eyes were sure I had been. It was inconceivable to him that I would slow down without fear of law enforcement. On this occasion, however rare, my braking reflected care for others more than worries of a speed trap.

Jesus Did Not Come to Abolish the Law

That story might help us understand Jesus when he says he didn’t come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. He proceeds to exegeting some of the Torah laws and showing us that you can keep them strictly on the outside—“Hey, I didn’t murder anyone. I didn’t cheat with anyone.”—and still miss the point. Jesus doesn’t abolish these laws, as if his finished work on the Cross removes all the moral and ethical guardrails. Nor does he fulfill them himself so that we don’t have to, as if his obedience to the Father means we’re now free to harm others with impunity.

Rather, he fulfills the law with a far deeper righteousness than his religious opponents: his transforming grace leads us to fulfill the law through the internal motivation of love for God and for our neighbor. Obedience to God’s law of love doesn’t work your way into heaven—it’s what we become as heaven works its way in us.

The English word ‘abolish’ in this passage is the verb katalyō. It carries the sense of tearing down or demolishing a building, or of invalidating someone or something. Jesus compassion for those condemned by the Pharisees and excluded by the Temple raises the accusation: “Aren’t you destroying the Torah’s authority?” Jesus denies it. “That’s not my mission. I am here to fulfill it by revealing its depths in grace-transformed hearts and lives. You won’t need to obey God to look good to others or avoid getting caught or fear being punished. You’ll obey God because your new heart will beat with love and grace. Simply following Jesus and graciously living by his Golden Rule (the Royal Law of Love – James) will fulfill every requirement of the Law without needing to keep track of all the rules.

What the Gospel Abolishes

Paul uses a different verb when talking about the law being “abolished.” In fact, as the capitalizing indicates in the NRSVUE, he’s not even talking about “law” in the same way.

In Ephesians 2:15, he uses katargeō. This verb doesn’t mean “destroy” or “demolish.” The sense is more like “render inoperative” or “bring to an end.” And he’s very specific in referring to the “law of commandments and ordinances”—the Mosaic boundary markers (“dividing wall”) between Jews and Gentiles.

Paul isn’t negating the call to love God wholeheartedly and our neighbors as ourselves at the heart of Torah. Rather, he shows us how Christ has superseded in himself the ways the Old Covenant functioned as a wall that Christian Jews had weaponized in Paul’s church-plants to separate and exclude others (Jew vs. Gentile, male vs. female, free citizens vs. slaves). He names circumcision, food laws, and purity regulations as aspects of the law rendered obsolete by the New Covenant. In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul uses the same verb to portray Jew-specific externals of the Old Covenant as fading away the Spirit’s internal work of grace in ‘the one new Human.”

The Supposed Contradiction Dissolves in Fulfillment

As we better understand the context and vocabulary, the supposed contradictions dissolve. Jesus denies that he came to destroy the Law—he came to fulfill it in himself and internalize it in us as grace, love, and compassion. Paul’s focus is how the exclusionary, external aspects of the Old Covenant are rendered inoperative through Christ.

Far from contradicting each other, Jesus and Paul are describing different aspects of the same gospel we know as the Jesus Way—how grace changes our hearts to love one another (Jesus) and include one another (Paul). Within love, the whole law is fulfilled. Against love, there is no law.

If I were to so internalize Jesus’ care for children in playgrounds, I could proceed without reference to the law as an external marker threatening to punish or promising to reward me. But rather than abolishing the law, I will have fulfilled all its demands from its very point and the reason the law was composed in the first place. How Jesus accomplished this in himself is not meant to absolve us of love, but to transform us by love into his image.