The King of the Kingdom

Having introduced and described the subjects of His kingdom, Jesus turned His attention to Himself as its King. Verses 5:17-20 contain Jesus' first reference to Himself in the Sermon on the Mount, and His self-introduction notably focuses on His relationship to the Scriptures: Jesus declared that He had come to fulfill the Scriptures, which told His audience that the kingdom whose presence He was proclaiming is the kingdom promised by God in all the Old Testament. At the heart of the Sermon on the Mount is the overarching biblical principle of christological fulfillment; in His person, words, and work, Jesus is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament - the Law of Moses itself as much as the rest of the Scriptures. This comprehensive fulfillment in Christ and its fruit in the new creation is the framework for interpreting the entire discourse, especially Jesus' forthcoming treatment of the ethic of His kingdom. In a word, the ethic of the kingdom of heaven is grounded in and expresses the fact and power of the new creation that is the focal point of Christ's fulfillment of the Scripures. To miss this is to miss the meaning of the sermon, which is precisely why Jesus prefaced His instruction in 5:21ff with verses 17-20.