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MATTHEW 5:17 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Matt 5:16Matt 5:18
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. The interpretive key for the entire Sermon: Jesus came not to abolish the Law and Prophets but to fulfill them. The fulfillment is not mere compliance but the bringing of the law and prophets to their intended completion and deepest meaning. The antitheses that follow (you have heard it said... but I say to you) are not contraventions of the law but expositions of its deepest intent: the law against murder points to the anger behind it, the law against adultery points to the lust behind it. Romans 10:4 says Christ is the end (telos, goal) of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes — the law always pointed toward him, and he arrives as its fulfillment.

Church Fathers on Matthew 5:17

Having now exhorted His hearers to undergo all things for righteousness' sake, and also not to hide what they should receive, but to learn more for others' sake, that they may teach others, He now goes on to tell them what they should teach, as though He had been asked, 'What is this which you would not have hid, and for which you would have all things endured? Are you about to speak any thing beyond what is written in the Law and the Prophets;' hence it is He says, 'Think…

Gloss (Glossa Ordinaria) · medieval compilation · ord.

And that for two reasons. First, that by these words He might admonish His disciples, that as He fulfilled the Law, so they should strive to fulfil it. Secondly, because the Jews would falsely accuse them as subverting the Law, therefore he answers the calumny beforehand, but in such a manner as that He should not be thought to come simply to preach the Law as the Prophets had done.

Pseudo-Chrysostom · 5th century

He here asserts two things; He denies that He was come to subvert the Law, and affirms that He was come to fulfil it.

Remigius · 9th century
Read all 32 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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Matthew 5:17 — Community Reflections | HolyStudy