From: Matthew 5:17-19
Jesus and His Teaching, the Fulfillment of the Law
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Commentary:
17-19. In this passage Jesus stresses the perennial value of the Old Testament.
It is the word of God; because it has a divine authority it deserves total respect.
The Old Law enjoined precepts of a moral, legal and liturgical type. Its moral pre-
cepts still hold good in the New Testament because they are for the most part
specific divine-positive promulgations of the natural law. However, our Lord gives
them greater weight and meaning. But the legal and liturgical precepts of the Old
Law were laid down by God for a specific stage in salvation history, that is, up to
the coming of Christ; Christians are not obliged to observe them (cf. “Summa
Theologiae”, I-II, q. 108, a. 3 ad 3).
The law promulgated through Moses and explained by the prophets was God’s
gift to His people, a kind of anticipation of the definitive Law which the Christ or
Messiah would lay down. Thus, as the Council of Trent defined, Jesus not only
“was given to men as a redeemer in whom they are to trust, but also as a law-
giver whom they are to obey” (”De Iustificatione”, can. 21).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
First reading | Deuteronomy 4:1,5-9 © |
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Psalm | Psalm 147:12-13,15-16,19-20 © |
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Gospel Acclamation | Jn8:12 |
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Or | cf.Jn6:63,68 |
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Gospel | Matthew 5:17-19 © |
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