Doctrine of the Lord # 8
8. The Statement That the Lord Fulfilled All of the Law Means That He Fulfilled All of the Word
Many people today believe that, when it is said of the Lord that He fulfilled the Law, it means that He fulfilled all the commandments of the Decalogue, and that in so doing He became righteousness and at the same time justified people in the world by that belief.
Nevertheless, that is not the meaning. Rather the meaning is that He fulfilled everything written about Him in the Law and the Prophets, that is, throughout Holy Scripture, because it has Him alone as its subject, as we said in the previous section.
The reason many people have believed otherwise is that they have not searched the scriptures and seen what is meant by the Law there.
In a strict sense the Law there means the ten commandments of the Decalogue. In a broader sense it means everything written by Moses in his five books. And in the broadest sense it means the whole of the Word.
That the Law in a strict sense means the Ten Commandments of the Decalogue is something people know.
Published by the General Church of the New Jerusalem, 1100 Cathedral Road, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania 19009, U.S.A. A translation of Doctrina Novae Hierosolymae de Domino, by Emanuel Swedenborg, 1688-1772. Translated from the Original Latin by N. Bruce Rogers. ISBN 9780945003687, Library of Congress Control Number: 2013954074.
