Do not preach nor teach the gospel with zeal unless you are certain that Christ had called you into this service, for He weighs not only your words, but your acts as well. If you do not do what you talk and preach, you are a hypocrite and a deceiver. If you do not conduct yourself prudently, your testimony will be meaningless. Your acts are the measure of your words.
Christ alone is the perfect teacher of the Law of Moses and of His own Gospel. He did not cancel any essential commandment of the Law but fulfilled them in explanation and teaching and lived them out in His perfect life. Christ protected the infallibility of the inspiration of the Old Testament by His clear declarations. Who will then dare to claim that the scriptures of the Old Testament and the Prophets are corrupted after having been verified by the Son of God? Neither the least jot nor the smallest tittle of His divine inspiration has passed away or been changed. It is stupid to despise the Old Testament, its promises and commandments proclaimed to the patriarchs and chosen prophets, for God, from antiquity, spoke to men during their history and their particular situations. The Word of God is neither a fantastic philosophy nor a common subject. The Holy One chose sinners and made a covenant with them, guided them by His Law and punished them in His anger. Those who attack and reject the Old Testament are poor indeed, for they reject the Word of God and consequently God Himself.
Woe to the man, who is called by the Lord to preach the whole Word of God, but changes it a bit or denies its inspiration. It would be better for that person to have a large millstone tied around his neck and be drowned. Everyone who changes, falsifies, or criticizes the Word of God wrongs not only himself but new believers as well. When Christ calls you to preach, announce His word with fear and wisdom that you might not be a reason for the hardening of yourself and others.
Christ invites us not only to the Old Testament, but also to Himself. In Him the Word of God became flesh. He was the Law moving among us, the incarnate love of His Father. So let us adhere not to lifeless letters but to the living Son of God. He has fulfilled the Law by His deeds on earth. He is now perfecting it by His faithful intercession and will complete it in His second coming. Then, the necessity to Law ends, for the heavens and the earth will pass away; our Lord creates a new earth and a new heaven in which those born of the Holy Spirit will dwell in righteousness.
But since we are still on earth, Christ declared to His disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you” (John 13:34). With these words, Christ summarized the Mosaic Law and His own Law in one sentence, making Himself, the measure of our love. Thus, He is our incarnate Law, for He lived out what he said.
The Son of Man knows that no man can fulfill His law completely; therefore, He established through His atonement a comprehensive justification and granted His followers the power to fulfill His commandments. Let us not serve God and men by our own ability but by the guidance of the power of His grace, as Paul, the apostle, admitted, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). Accordingly, neither the Law of Moses nor any Christian Law can press on us any more since they have been fulfilled by Christ for us.
The Law of Moses was given to train us in repentance and to judge us spiritually, but Christ came to fulfill the law in our place. The Holy Spirit comes to us as law and also as the power to fulfill it at the same time. He pushes us to keep it through His remaining in us.
Observe that the care of God concerning His law extends itself even to subtle details that seem to be of least account in it, “one jot or one dot”; for whatever belongs to God and bears His stamp, be it ever so little, shall be preserved. The laws of men are full of imperfection, but God will stand by and maintain every jot and every tittle of His law.
Some people claim that the books of the Old Testament had been corrupted. But in these verses we read the unique confirmation of the infallibility of the unchanged Torah, Psalms and Prophets by the Son of God. Whatever critics may say is of no value compared to the authority of Jesus, who is truth in Himself.