“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).
Jesus’ mission and message, like his person, are so closely tied to the Law and the Prophets that he reveals their intention, their end. Here at the close of the Sermon on the Mount, in what is so often characterized as the kernel of Jesus’ message, we find in close proximity the Law and the Prophets. His message is not to be divorced from them.
How often we remember the Golden Rule (although not often enough) but untether it from its old, old Mosiac moorings.
To be sure this “the Law and the Prophets” forms somewhat of an inclusio with his opening “the Law and the Prophets” in Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
