§577At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus issued a solemn warning in which he presented God's law, given on Sinai during the first covenant, in light of the grace of the New Covenant: Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets: I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one …

§1967The Law of the Gospel "fulfills," refines, surpasses, and leads the Old Law to its perfection.21 In the Beatitudes, the New Law fulfills the divine promises by elevating and orienting them toward the "kingdom of heaven." It is addressed to those open to accepting this new hope with faith - the poor, the humble, the afflicted, the pure of heart, those persecuted on account of Ch…

§2053To this first reply Jesus adds a second: "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."2 This reply does not do away with the first: following Jesus Christ involves keeping the Commandments. the Law has not been abolished,3 but rather man is invited to rediscover it in the person of his Maste…

Proof against the Marcionites, that the prophets referred in all their predictions to our Christ. 1. Now I shall simply say, in opposition to all the heretics, and principally against the followers of Marcion, and against those who are like to these, in maintaining that the prophets were from another God [than He who is announced in the Gospel], read with earnest care that Gosp…

2. They thought that He, thus speaking, did so with a view to the abrogation of the ancient institutions. This suspicion therefore He heals; nor here only does He so, but elsewhere also again. Thus, since they accounted Him no less than an adversary of God, from this sort of reason, namely, His not keeping the sabbath; He, to heal such their suspicion, there also again sets for…

1. The things done by Christ after the manner of men, are not so done only to establish the Incarnation, but also to educate us for virtue. For had He done all as God, how could we have known, on falling in with such things as we wished not, what we must do? As, for instance, when He was in this very place, and the Jews would have killed Him, He came into the midst of them, and…

1. What I have often said, I will now say, that Christ looks not so much to His own honor as to our salvation; not how He may utter some sublime saying, but how something able to draw us to Him. On which account His sublime and mighty sayings are few, and those also hidden, but the humble and lowly are many, and abound through His discourses. For since by these men were the rat…

1. The Parable of the Tares: the House of Jesus. Then He left the multitudes and went into His house, and His disciples came unto Him saying, Declare to us the parable of the tares of the field. Matthew 13:36 When Jesus then is with the multitudes, He is not in His house, for the multitudes are outside of the house, and it is an act which springs from His love of men to leave t…

Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. The moral law, contained in the Ten Commandments and enforced by the prophets, Christ did not take away. It was not the design of His coming to revoke any part of this. The moral law stands fast for ever as a faithful witness in heaven. Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind and in all ages.

The apostle Peter has said that the Holy Scriptures are not of private interpretation, and thus we do not allow all possible interpretations. We hold that the true and genuine interpretation of Scripture is that which is gleaned from the Scriptures themselves, taken from the character of the language in which they were written, considered according to the circumstances, and exp…

For the instruction and memory of man, God has given his law, which is expressed in the Decalogue, and which holy men of God before Moses had received from the tradition of the fathers. We teach that in this law the will of God is explained to us: what he wills and what he does not will, what is good and just and what is evil and unjust. We therefore confess that the law is goo…

The Gospel is opposed to the law. For the law works wrath and announces the curse, but the Gospel preaches grace and blessing. John says: "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." Yet it is most certain that those who were before the law and under the law, were not altogether destitute of the Gospel. For they had extraordinary evangelical…

It is one and the same God Whom both the Old and the New Testament proclaim, Who is praised and glorified in the Trinity: I have come, says the Lord, not to destroy the law but to fulfil it. Matthew 5:17 For He Himself worked out our salvation for which all Scripture and all mystery exists. And again, Search the Scriptures for they are they that testify of Me. John 5:39 And the…

The Circumcision was given to Abraham before the law, after the blessings, after the promise, as a sign separating him and his offspring and his household from the Gentiles with whom he lived. Genesis 17:10 And this is evident , for when the Israelites passed forty years alone by themselves in the desert, having no intercourse with any other race, all that were born in the dese…

We affirm that God's revelation in the Holy Scriptures was progressive. We deny that later revelation, which may fulfill earlier revelation, ever corrects or contradicts it.