He is the fulfillment of the law

I was doing a ropes course today. When you start, they connect you to a harness which ensures you don’t fall while you go through a course of hanging platforms and wire-thin bridges suspended in the air. You'd think that the safety of the harness would give me all the confidence I needed to dash through the course, but time and time again, I'd still get disoriented by the unstable platforms, wobbly ropes and distance from the ground.

Towards the end of the course, I wondered whether this is what Jesus meant when he said:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 

Matthew 5:17

Consider that the law is like the hanging platforms and wire-thin bridges. It is the course. The Lord gave us the law for the sake of holiness. Exodus 19:5-6 says: "Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, 6 but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites".

However, I want to first highlight the practical value of the law rather than the theological one. To understand why the course was good, you have to look at what was happening off the course. The surrounding nations didn't have a structured path; they were wandering in the mud and darkness of the abyss below, inventing their own brutal rules, sacrificing their children, and living in moral chaos. Here is some of the good that the law practically did:

1. Advanced Public Health and Hygiene

Long before the discovery of germ theory, the Torah instituted strict laws regarding sanitation, quarantine, and diet that would have drastically reduced the spread of disease compared to their neighbors. These included isolating the sick, safely disposing of human waste outside the camp, and strict purification rituals after touching the dead. (Leviticus 13:45-46, Deuteronomy 23:12-14, Numbers 19:11-16)

2. Economic Resilience and Poverty Prevention

Surrounding nations often had massive wealth disparities, where a few elites owned everything and the lower classes were trapped in perpetual debt-slavery. The biblical Law created a unique social safety net designed to prevent generational poverty. This was achieved through the regular cancellation of debts, the return of ancestral land in the Jubilee year, the prohibition of charging interest to the poor, and the command to leave the edges of fields unharvested for the destitute to gather. (Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 19:9-10, Leviticus 25:8-10, 35-37)

3. Agricultural Sustainability

The Law included commandments that inadvertently gave the Israelites a long-term agricultural advantage. Just as the people rested on the seventh day, the Law commanded that the agricultural land be left to rest (fallow) every seventh year. This prevented soil depletion and restored vital nutrients, ensuring long-term crop yields in a region where famine was a constant threat. (Exodus 23:10-11, Leviticus 25:1-7)

4. Social Cohesion and Widespread Education

In most Ancient Near Eastern cultures, literacy and the knowledge of laws or religious texts were tightly guarded by a small class of elite priests and royal scribes. The Torah democratized knowledge by making the Law public. It required the text to be read aloud to the entire assembly—including women and children—and commanded parents to teach the laws to their children daily, fostering an incredibly unified, culturally resilient, and educated society. (Deuteronomy 6:6-9, Deuteronomy 31:10-12)

5. A Rested Workforce

The concept of a mandatory day of rest every seven days was unheard of in the ancient world. Slaves, laborers, and even working animals in surrounding nations were often worked to exhaustion. By mandating a universal weekly Sabbath that applied to absolutely everyone—including servants, foreigners, and livestock—Israel ensured a healthier, more productive, and less physically broken populace. (Exodus 20:8-11, Deuteronomy 5:12-15)

The Limit of the Law

In light of the law's goodness, we still learn from the New Testament that the law was imperfect:

Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities, it[a] can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who approach.

Hebrews 10:1

Each time I stepped onto a hanging wooden plank, it would shake violently. The wooden steps weren't making me clumsy; they were revealing my inherent clumsiness. The law, like the wooden steps, is particularly good at showing me where my footing is wrong, but it has no redemptive or salvation power. That is what it means that the law is imperfect.

What then should we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’

Romans 7:7

The devil is very aware of this, and he uses it to his advantage. As you run your race, the real enemy of progress is despair. Despair is far more dangerous than losing your footing. Which leads me to my main point.

The Silent Hero

We have so far discussed the course, and the difficulty of navigating the course. But we have not yet spoken of the silent but capable hero, the harness. As I was traversing through the course, it fascinated me that I could at times forget about the harness, but whenever I lost my footing, it would without fail "divulge" it's presence. Whenever I lost my footing, grace would appear. Not as something I willed myself towards, but as an undeniable reality.

As you might guess, the harness is Jesus. Jesus is the fulfillment of the law in the same way that the harness is the fulfillment of the rope course. The harness isn't an excuse to abandon the course, rather it is the ever-present confidence that you can complete the course. It is your confidence - at all times - that it is already done. The gospel is not that we are holding on to Jesus, but that he is holding on to us. It is not that we love him, but that he loves us.

We live in a society where failure almost always results in a loss of relationship. If you don't miss a quota at work, you lose your job. If you don't meet your partners standards, they break up with you. The gospel totally crushes this narrative.

 Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:16

The Strategy of the Enemy

This is good news, but Satan also knows the good news, so we must ask how he uses it to his advantage.

As you run your race, the real enemy of progress is not your failure to stop doing a particular sin. Satan knows the scripture. He knows that Jesus will never leave you nor forsake you. So what does he do? He feeds your ego and bolsters your pride. The pride which denies the harness or even the need for it. The pride which celebrates your good works is the same pride that magnifies your bad ones. The true enemy is Despair. Despair is far more dangerous than losing your footing. If you lose your footing, the harness will support you without question. Despair is that which causes you to remove the harness altogether. In this regard there's two kinds of despair. One kind occurs because you have fallen so many times that you deem yourself unworthy of the harness. You give up on yourself. The other kind occurs because you have taken so many clean steps forward that somehow the enemy has convinced you that you don't need it. You give up on the harness.

The good news is this, every shortcoming, every failure, and every disappointment is so that Jesus can be glorified. Everything that has happened in your life that should have taken you out but failed is a testament to the Glory of God, Jesus Christ. The invitation is to live a life of vulnerability. A life where we can speak the words of Paul:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

2 Corinthians 12:9