Aramaic Word Study – Collecting a Debt – ‘Ashar – אשר Aleph Shin Resh

How Did Jesus Fulfill the Law? 

Matthew 5:17: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.”

I’ve always had a problem with understanding this passage. What made people think that Jesus was trying to destroy the law and how is it that he fulfilled the law?  I have heard a number of explanations that I guess make sense.  Some say that people teach that Jesus offered his plan of salvation and thus keeping the law was no longer necessary to be saved.  Once you get saved you no longer need to follow the law.  This is assuming that people were saved in the Old Testament by their works, that is by keeping the law.  Then when you died you were judged on well you kept the law of God as to whether or not you made it into heaven.  But now, fortunately, we are under grace and we are saved by the blood of Jesus and no longer need to be good to get to heaven. 

I have two problems with that.  One is that if that is the case then Jesus did destroy the law or the reason and necessity for the law if the law was what our salvation depended upon. Of course, that would explain what it means he came to fulfill the law, that is that Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the law and therefore we no longer need to keep the law to be saved.  That somehow just does not seem fair to the people that lived before Jesus came, because basically, no one could keep all the laws, somewhere along the line you are going to blow it, and then if it is a matter of the degree of keeping the law, how many times are you allowed to break the law before you reach that point of where you cross some random line of breaking the law just one too many times that condemns you to hell?  Does God have some accounting angel who wears a little visor and sits at a desk with a dim light and a feather tip pen jotting down all the times you break the law until you reach that magic number where he says; “Oops! You just used up your quotas and now you’re going to hell?”   

Theology was not my strongest subject when I was in Bible College or seminary but I do remember one of my theology teachers from Moody Bible Institute saying that people were saved in the Old Testament times just as they are saved today, by trusting the in the redemptive work of the Messiah. The only difference was that the people of the Old Testament looked to a future work and the people today look back at a work that was accomplished by Jesus.  Also, the poor people who died in the Old Testament had to sit in their graves waiting for Jesus to die on the cross before they could get into heaven.  I never understood that because if God does not live in time, then in God’s realm the death and resurrection of Jesus would have already taken place from the moment of the first sin. As soon as Adam sinned, the redemption was already available.  

Needless to say, I do not buy into this explanation of Matthew 5:17 that Jesus ushered in a new form of salvation through His redemptive work and not through the keeping of the laws. Actually, in the Hebrew, the words for the ten commandments are Aseret Hadibrot which means “The Ten Statements.”  God created the human being in such a way that for these human beings to be able to find enjoyment in life, get along with each other and fulfill God’s purposes they needed to follow certain instructions.  These instructions or commandments as we call them were not the guidebook to heaven but the guidebook to a fulfilling and happy life.  The guidebook to heaven is the “Roman Road” like we used to call it, the plan of salvation that had nothing to do with works or good behavior. 

So, what did Jesus mean when He said that came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it?  If we look at these words in the Aramaic, the language in that Jesus spoke these words in, we find something very interesting.  The word for destroy is ashar in Aramaic which has a wide range of meanings.  As I searched through the various usages of this word in the English language, I found one use that was very fitting for this passage in Matthew 5:17. Ashar is a first-century Aramaic word used for the collection of debt.  If I were to plug this into this verse it would read: “Think not that I am come to collect the debt left by the law, or the prophets: I am not come to collect the debt, but to fulfill.”

The word in Aramaic for fulfilling is mala’ which is a word used for filling a vessel to the brim with water. In other words, Jesus came to help us keep the law, not to replace the law.  As I said earlier, the law was given to instruct us on how to live.  But because of sin, we are continually breaking the law and hence unable to live a full and joyful life as God intended us to live. But with Jesus dying on the cross, redeeming us from our sins, we now have the potential to our lives to the fullest in peace and joy. 

Yes, Jesus died to bring us eternal life, but that was only part of it. He also died to give us the ability to keep the laws of God to experience our life here on earth in the way God created us to experience it.

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