Jesus tells us in his most famous sermon (Matthew 5-7) that if our righteousness doesn’t surpass the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, then we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. The importance of this statement can’t be minimized. We must know what it means.

Jesus makes this statement when he is defending his relationship to God’s law. Jesus had quite the reputation as a law-breaker, which was mostly guilt by association. He blessed “wrong” people, welcoming them into his community of learners. This made him look like he didn’t care about God’s rules — that blessing could be bestowed without following the law.

Jesus counters this criticism by saying that he hasn’t come to abolish the law. And he goes further: anyone who relaxes a commandment or teaches other to do the same will be the least in the kingdom. But to understand Jesus’ relationship to the law (and, hence, our own) we need to understand one word. Fulfill.

Jesus doesn’t want us to forget the law. But he doesn’t want us to follow it either. He wants us to fulfill it. He wants us to go beyond the conformity to a rule to a inner quality of life where love flows out to God and others.

Jesus fulfilled the law by doing what was best for others even at personal cost. His life was a life of love. His commands, then, are not new rules to make feel even more sinful. They are new precisely because they bring to completion what the law always pointed to: sacrificial love. By extension, in God’s kingdom we can safely love others, even when it doesn’t directly benefit us, because God is taking personal responsibility to take care of us.

To fulfill the law is to move past the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, where conformity is replaced with freedom, fear with love.