Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. – Matthew 5:17
Amazon is moving into Australia. And for many business owners and traders, this move may be seen as the destruction of business as usual.
Same as it was with Netflix and Blockbuster, or Google and Yahoo’s search portal.
But what is destruction to those business ownership actually Amazon simply fulfilling the mandate of obsessive customer service.
A mandate that many businesses have abandoned in the name of simply “making a living” or “exploiting a business opportunity”.
But those who are equally committed (or more so) to the overriding mandate of “obsessive customer service” – regardless of size – will probably be fine.
In the same way, Jesus didn’t come to destroy the law or the prophets…even though the results of His ministry seemed to destroy what people had defined as “the law” or “the prophets”.
The governing mandate of the law and the prophets was to proclaim Christ:
Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. – John 5:39
They were simply shadows of that which was to come, trailers for an upcoming feature movie.
And once the movie is released and starts to play, nobody goes back to the trailers…because the content of the trailer is found- in perfect context – within the movie.
So Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the tabernacle, the temple in Jerusalem, circumcision, observing of special days, ritual washing, ritual sacrifices for sin, John the Baptist, the Pharisees and Saducees, the entire Old covenant…is supplanted, subsumed and superseded by the new and living way (Hebrews 10:20).
No more “business as usual”, because the main event has finally arrived.
And this new and living way is fulfilled in Jesus…who is obsessed with mankind’s salvation…which was the mandate behind the law and prophets in the first place.