Reconciliation
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
21 Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Matthew 5:17-24
Well, look who it is. Law and order decided to get back together. Now, when I say that I certainly don't mean the famous television show by that name. Let's see first though exactly what I don't mean but God certainly does. My way when someone hurts me is to get suddenly, violently angry and stay that way for days. In fact, I might even go the rest of my life without addressing the matter ever again. It is into this situation that the person in our text comes bearing a gift to the altar. They had something to offer the Lord in worship it seems, but now they don't. There must be a problem then with the gift. It's a perfectly fine gift, I'll give you that. It smells alright and it even looks alright. But as a famous football coach in a movie once said, 'the attitude is like the aroma of your heart. If your attitude stinks, it means your heart is not right.'
Yeah, I guess this person's heart must not be right, because look, here they are mad at their brother. Granted, the brother must have done something worthy of offense, more than likely. Yet there's a bigger issue at play here beyond just the spiritual matters of the heart. Restorative justice is that thing then allows you to go to your brother and say, 'look I know you've messed up. This is wrong and I don't like it. It's hurt me and I don't like it and look, you've even hurt other people.' This then gives your brother the chance to say, 'look sister, you're not perfect either. Perhaps you've offended me too and didn't even know.' It's a two-way street then with both the law and the justice meeting up. Then with it comes the order that we talked about before.
Perhaps if you haven't gotten that yet, let's see another example. Here's one of the law and the prophets. The prophets were those that spoke of the future and with it a higher order. These spoke on the order then that came with the law and with it the slow march of the future, being that of the progression of time itself. Once time has caught up, the prophets will be no more for there will be no need of any such things. Alright, so what if Jesus did say he came to fulfill the law and the prophets. That's great, because now the two are wrapped up neatly and tied with a bow. The meeting of the two is found then in the perfect justice of Christ alone as the past and the future collide.
Then again what of the law and with it the order. There's bound to be some old teachers of the law that are awful upset with this sudden turn of events. I can hear them now, 'you mean to tell me that you people that come from the future think you can live any way you please and the laws of the past don't apply to you.' Granted they're perfectly good principles by which to live and nothing's really wrong with them. One speaks for instance on not marring the corners of the beards or the hairs of a man. In essence that means, don't mess up something that already looks distinguished. Otherwise, you could end up looking like someone who cares only for themselves and go from having a nice job with a prominent position in society to something else.
Now it's not nice of you to assume that you can change society to fit in with what you please, as I'm sure you are all well aware. The prophets would be of this latter part then, part of the order of society itself in a place beyond time. The law came from a moment in the past, born from a need of man to correct themselves and rightly so. In Christ though, where the law and the order meet, the two have respect for the other. It might take some time to see this at first and you might not see how any of this applies to today. Let's see if we can go on a bit more and maybe find out.