Spurgeon's Cigar

A couple days ago a friend of mine asked me, “What did Jesus mean when he said that he didn’t come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it?” I gave my initial thoughts, but decided to sit down and study this passage and related passages. The question began to gnaw at me some, and lead me to sit at my kitchen table, with two Bibles (easier to cross reference that way), Calvin, and Matthew Henry for seven hours. It was a great deal of fun. Tish, I think, was a bit worried about me. She had left the house around 5:30 and came home at 10:00 to find that I hadn’t moved. Below are some of my thoughts, and I welcome the comments of others. 1. First, we must define what Jesus meant by “the Law” and “the Prophets.” If you asked a Jew in the first century what he meant by the Law, I imagine the answer would include the moral, dietary, and ceremonial law, encompassing even the Temple economy. By the prophets, a contemporary of Jesus would understand that to mean essentially what we would understand...

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. I Corinthians 11:28 I have known a few Pharisees who say, “I cannot take holy communion because I am not worthy.” What ignorance! What arrogance! The worthiness of communion derives not from the communicant, but from the One with Whom we commune; His flesh and blood, not ours, make us worthy of communion with a Holy God and the holy saints. He who abstains from communion denigrates the infinite efficiency and glorious efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice, and silently testifies that he clings to abiding sin. Paul allows no exception; he commands self-examination, not that we should abstain from communion, but that we should forthwith “eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.” Paul’s exhortation is no feeble suggestion but an apostolic imperative, the negligence of which grieves the Holy Ghost and thus sins against Christ and His church. Paul’s word for “examine” is dokimezato, a term applied to the exami...