All the imperfect elements in the Old Testament――and, of course, they are imperfect――reach fulfilment in the New. They enshrine the will of God at a certain stage. Therefore they are worthy of respect. They are to be realized, not violated. And so our Lord goes on to warn His disciples lest, in the enthusiasm of the new teaching, they should think that they could best show their zeal by disparaging elements in the old law under which they had been brought up. For it is always the case that when people have learned something new, their first impulse is to show what they have learned by disparaging what they knew before. Thus our Lord warns them of the low place in His kingdom which they will hold who exhibit towards even the details of the older teaching a spirit of destructiveness, and of the high esteem which will be accorded to the reverent handling of it. (2) Then our Lord passes to the other side of the question. The old law was imperfect; the new law is to supersede it. The new law is to supersede it both as it is represented in the actual standard of its professors, the scribes and Pharisees (v. 20), and then, more than that, it is to supersede it even in its actual principles (vv. 21‒48). First, as regards its professors: “For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.” It is well known what the scribes and Pharisees represented. They had left out of consideration the prophetic teaching in the Old Testament and the prophetic element in the books of Moses――all that made light of outward observances by contrast with moral holiness or, still more, as divorced from it. They had made the observance of the ceremonies “the be-all and the end-all” of religion. Thus their religion was pre-eminently external and, as such, unprogressive. It was a religion, again, which with the help of dispensations and evasions could be practised without much spiritual or moral effort. Hence it ministered to self-satisfaction and hypocrisy. Thus our Lord continually judges it, and here He warns His disciples not to suppose that His revision of the old law is to result in the establishment of an easier religion than that of scribes and Pharisees. The requirement of obedience will be deeper and more searching. But our Lord goes back behind the professors upon the law itself; and He proceeds in detail to deal with the old moral law, in order to deepen it into the law of His new kingdom. There are two points to which I would call attention, which apply to all these modifications or deepenings of the old law.