Moses: Kingdom Snapshot

SNAPSHOTS OF THE KINGDOM: MOSES

By Dr. Stephen Jones:  Date: 11/01/2019:  Issue No. 375

Blog Post Date:  11-22-2019

When Joseph was given the birthright and Judah the scepter, Levi was given the priesthood.

Moses was of the tribe of Levi.

There was an interim of three or four generations between Levi and the first actual priest (Aaron, who was Moses’ older brother). Scripture says nothing about the manner in which the right of priesthood was passed down. It was not until Aaron received the priesthood that we learn which son of Levi actually received the priesthood.

Gen. 46:11 tells us that Levi had three sons: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. This is the order of names in every place where they are mentioned. This tells us that Gershon was the oldest, yet he was passed over in favor of Kohath, the second son. The reason is unknown.

1 Chron. 6:1-3 says that Kohath was the father of Amram, whose sons were Aaron and Moses. Aaron, the fourth generation from Levi, became Israel’s first high priest after the nation left Egypt.

Aaron was the oldest son of Amram. No account is given in Scripture about his birth, but we know that he was three years older than Moses. Exodus 7:7 says,

⁷ And Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three, when they spoke to Pharaoh.

So the priesthood lawfully belonged to Aaron, rather than to Moses. Yet Moses was greater than Aaron in that Moses was a priest after the Order of Melchizedek. Hence, he was able to enter the Most Holy Place and speak with God face to face, as did David some centuries later.

The Levitical order properly began with Aaron, but the Melchizedek Order was seen some centuries earlier with Shem, the King-Priest of Salem, who traditionally was the builder of the City of Salem (i.e., Jeru-salem). Shem, of course, was not the first of that Order, for he received it as part of the original birthright passed down from Adam.

Aaron, then, was the first of a different order of priests that came after Jacob-Israel divided the birthright among his sons. Levi received the priesthood portion of the birthright, which was incomplete when compared with the original.

On the other hand, Moses was the political leader of Israel, essentially holding the Scepter before Judah was qualified to produce its first king (David). By extension, his calling as a priest of Melchizedek meant that he also had the calling of Sonship that was given to the sons of Joseph.

Moses, then, was a type of Christ during the time that the birthright was divided among the tribes. As such, he was a type of Christ, under whose rule the parts of the birthright were destined to be reunited under one Head.

Christ’s first coming qualified Him to receive both the scepter of Judah and the priesthood of Levi. His second coming qualifies Him to receive the birthright of Joseph, thus unifying the previously divided parts.

The Birth of Moses

Moses was a type of Christ, based on the word that he received in Deut. 18:18, 19,

¹⁸ I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. ¹⁹ And it shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.

The apostles understood that this prophesied of Jesus Christ. Peter quoted this prophecy in Acts 3:22, 23 and applied it to Jesus. But Moses was also a type of Christ when he was very young.

Exodus 2:2 tells us that after Moses was born, his mother hid him for three months, because Pharaoh had issued a decree to kill all the males born among the Israelites. When Moses was three months old he was put into an ark and into the Nile River. The ark floated past Pharaoh’s palace, and Pharaoh’s daughter found it. She then raised Moses as her own son.

Jesus was like Moses, in that He was three months old when his parents took Him to Egypt (house of Pharaoh) for His protection from King Herod. Jesus was born on the eve of the feast of Trumpets (Sept. 28/29, 2 B.C.). The shepherds found Him “in a manger” that night, implying that he was born in a stable (Luke 2:7, 16).

Three months later, the magi arrived from the East, bearing gifts for the King which they knew had been born. As I showed in my book, When REALLY Was Jesus Born?, the “star” that they followed was Jupiter, the King’s Planet, which had “crowned” Regulus, the King’s Star, between the feet of Leo, the Lion constellation. (See Gen. 49:10).

After the magi arrived in Jerusalem, they saw Jupiter hovering over Bethlehem just south of Jerusalem on the night of December 24/25 of 2 B.C. They found Jesus and his parents in a “house” (Matt. 2:11).

That night, God told Joseph to “flee to Egypt,” because “Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him” (Matt. 2:13). It would have taken them a few days to make the trip to Egypt, so Jesus was taken into the house of Pharaoh at the precise age of three months about December 28/29. He was the same age as Moses was when Pharaoh’s daughter began to protect him from being killed.

Deliverance Under Moses

Moses led Israel out of Egypt at the first Passover on Abib 15 on the Hebrew calendar. This established the date on which Jesus, the Passover Lamb, was to redeem not only Israel but the whole world, not merely from slavery to men but from slavery to sin itself. Moses’ deliverance was great, but Jesus’ deliverance was greater.

Again, Moses brought Israel to Mount Sinai, where they received the law. That day was thereafter celebrated as the feast of weeks, known today by the Greek name, Pentecost. But here Moses failed to bring the people to the place where the law was written on their hearts.

Though he urged them to draw near to God and to hear the rest of the law (Exodus 20:18-21), in the end, he could not overcome the people’s fear. So he had to go alone into the Mount, where he received that revelation (Exodus 21-24) and then returned to tell the people what God had said.

Yet because the people were too fearful to hear God’s voice and to have Him write the law on their hearts, the law was given to them on tablets of stone (externally). From then on, those who could overcome their fleshly fear of the law would have opportunity to read the words and pray that the Holy Spirit would enlighten them with the revelation of the law, so that it might transform their character and shape all of their words and actions.

As a mere prophetic type, Moses lacked the power to write the law in their hearts. As the antitype, Jesus was able to bring about the fulfillment of Pentecost in Acts 2.

Again, as a prophetic type, Moses was unable to lead Israel into the Promised Land. When ten of the twelve spies gave an evil report, the people chose to believe them, for they lacked the faith that was seen in Caleb and Joshua.

Their refusal to enter the Kingdom occurred on the 50^th Jubilee from Adam, a Jubilee of Jubilees. The purpose of a Jubilee was to return to one’s lost inheritance. In this case, the inheritance was what was lost through Adam’s sin, because this cycle had begun with Adam.

If the people had been able to overcome their fear through faith, they would have entered the Promised Land five days later on the first day of Tabernacles. I believe that they would have become the manifested sons of God on that day and that they would have conquered Canaan during the week of Tabernacles.

Moses would have instructed them to teach the nations and to baptize them, so that the Canaanites could become Israelites in the Kingdom of God. In other words, Moses would have given them the Great Commission that Jesus later gave His disciples in Matt. 28:18-20. Their conquest would have been accomplished, not by physical swords but by the Sword of the Spirit.

Instead of killing the Canaanites, they would have killed them spiritually through baptism. They would have been crucified with Christ that they might live to walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4).

Moses was an exalted type of Christ, but he lacked the power to fulfill the Jubilee, and thus also the feast of Tabernacles. Jesus came to succeed where Moses failed. Prophetic types and shadows always fall short, but the antitype, fulfilled in Jesus Christ, can only succeed in the end. God is love, and His love never fails (1 Cor. 13:8).

Moses’ Prophetic Life

Moses’ life was prophetic on a historic level. He lived to be 120 years old (Deut. 34:7). His life was divided into three phases of 40 years each. The first 40 years of his life were spent in the house of Pharaoh, where nothing prophetic seemed to be happening. Acts 7:23 says,

²³ But when he was approaching the age of forty, it entered his mind to visit his brethren the sons of Israel.

We read further that Moses saw an Egyptian treating an Israelite unjustly, and so he killed the Egyptian. For that, he was exiled to the land of Midian, where God humbled him in the wilderness and trained him there for future ministry.

Acts 7:30 says,

³⁰ And after forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning thorn bush.

God appeared to Moses and called him to return to Egypt to deliver Israel. He then stood before Pharaoh at the age of eighty (Exodus 7:7).

After delivering Israel from Egypt, they spent the next forty years in the wilderness preparing the next generation to enter the Promised Land. Moses then died at the age of 120, and Joshua led them across the Jordan River.

These three 40-year cycles in the life of Moses represent the three cycles of 40 Jubilees for a total of 120 Jubilees. The first 40 Jubilees end with Abraham, who was called out of the land of the Chaldeans, even as Moses was called out of Egypt at the age of 40 years.

The next 40 Jubilees of Kingdom history brings us from Abraham to Christ. The 80^th Jubilee from Adam was in 26-27 A.D. just before Jesus was baptized. Just as Moses returned to Egypt at the age of 80 and delivered Israel from bondage, so also did Jesus minister when Adamic history was 80 Jubilees of age. He delivered the world from the bondage to sin.

Then, just as Moses brought Israel into the wilderness to be tested for 40 years, so also did Jesus bring us into the wilderness to be tested for 40 Jubilees.

The 120^th Jubilee from Adam was the year 1986-1987, as I showed in my book, Secrets of Time. We now live in the particular Jubilee cycle where we are crossing the Jordan River into the Promised Land of the Kingdom. It is likely that the Tabernacles Age will commence with the fulfillment of that feast some time during the 121^st Jubilee (1986/87 to 2035/36).

But why did we not enter the Kingdom in 1986?

The Great Delay

It appears that when the 120^th Jubilee arrived on October 13, 1986, no one in authority had received the revelation necessary to declare the Jubilee. This was by divine design, of course, as all things are in the ultimate sense.

In the big picture, a great delay occurred when the people believed the evil report of the ten spies (Num. 14:1, 2). If they had been full of faith, they would have returned to their inheritance on precisely the 50^th Jubilee from Adam. God had told them that when they entered the land, they were to begin keeping their rest years (sabbaths) and Jubilees.

Num. 25:2-4 says,

² Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them, “When you come into the land which I will give you, then the land shall have a sabbath to the Lord. ³ Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop, ⁴ but during the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard.

While Israel was in the wilderness, they did not farm the land, nor did they plant fruit trees. They ate manna instead. So they did not have to allow the land to rest every seven years. This was not relevant until they entered the land of their inheritance.

If they had entered the land when they were given the first opportunity, they would have begun counting rest years and Jubilee from the 50^th Jubilee from Adam. Their calendar would have followed the Creation Jubilee calendar.

However, their fear delayed them 38 years (Deut. 2:14). When they finally entered Canaan and began to mark their rest years and Jubilees, they were 38 years skewed from the Creation Jubilee calendar. Hence, they functioned under an alternate calendar, which we call the Jordan Calendar.

After spending many centuries in the land, this calendar ended with the fall of Jerusalem in 604 B.C. Judah went to Babylon for 70 years, and a remnant returned in 534 B.C. at the Edict of Cyrus, king of Persia.

Even then, their new prophetic calendar did not begin for another 76 years (the time of cleansing). Then another Persian king named Artaxerxes sent Ezra with a decree to make sacrifices for them and for himself in Jerusalem. This decree was issued in the seventh year of the king (Ezra 7:7).

This was the year 458 B.C., because Xerxes died in 465 B.C., and the first year of Artaxerxes’ reign was 464 B.C., as they now reckon it. The point is that this marked the time when Daniel’s 70 weeks began, establishing the renewed prophetic calendar.

Because the 70^th Jubilee from Adam was in 465-464 B.C., the new calendar was only seven years different from the Creation Jubilee calendar. From here on, their rest years coincided, but their Jubilees were still seven years later than the Creation Jubilee cycles.

Daniel’s 70 weeks (sabbath years) are also 10 Jubilees, which means that the 80^th Jubilee from Adam fell in 26-27 A.D., while the 10^th Jubilee of the renewed calendar fell in 33-34 A.D., the year that Jesus was crucified.

This seven-year discrepancy remained with us for another 40 Jubilees. By the Creation Jubilee calendar, the 120^th Jubilee was in 1986-1987, while the 50^th Jubilee on the post-Babylonian calendar did not end until 1993-1994.

1993 was also the 40^th Jubilee of the church’s wilderness period, coinciding with Moses’ last 40 years.

The Hezekiah Factor

My revelation of timing came in 1991 just as God began to bring me back into the ministry after an absence of 12 years. I soon discovered that the 120^th Jubilee had come and gone, and that no one had “blown the trumpet,” so to speak.

On October 2, 1994, at 1:00 a.m., I received revelation of the Hezekiah Factor shortly after arriving at a conference in Winnipeg (in Manitoba, Canada), where I had been invited as a speaker.

This revelation was based on the story of Hezekiah, king of Judah in Jerusalem, who saw the destruction and exile of Israel by the hand of the Assyrians in 721 B.C. That year happened to be the 19^th Jubilee on their Jordan calendar, but as usual, the Israelites did not keep the Jubilee, nor even any of their Sabbath years.

Samaria fell to the Assyrian army in the sixth year of Hezekiah who ruled in Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:10). Eight years later (the 14^th year of Hezekiah), the Assyrians came to take Judah and Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:13). The king appealed to God, and Isaiah the prophet responded with a promise of deliverance and a sign to prove it.

Isaiah 37:30, 31 says,

³⁰ Then this shall be the sign for you; you shall eat this year what grows of itself, in the second year what springs from the same, and in the third year sow, reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. ³¹ And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.

This was the prophetic sign by which Hezekiah would know that God was going to turn back the Assyrian army. It was a sign of the Jubilee. The first year was a sabbath year, where no one was to sow or reap. The second was the same, because the Jubilee year was a second sabbath in a row. The third year the people were allowed to work their fields.

First Sabbath = 14^th year of Hezekiah

Second Sabbath = 15^th year of Hezekiah

Sow and Reap = 16^th year of Hezekiah

So from the 6^th year to the 16^th year of Hezekiah was a ten-year cycle. The 6^th year (when Samaria fell) was a Jubilee year, but Isaiah treated this as a 10-year delay. Further, the prophet was not so concerned with vineyards and grain crops as he was with “the remnant” taking root downward and bearing fruit upward.

It was a prophecy of the overcoming remnant bearing fruit unto God, which is a major underlying theme of the entire story of Israel being “planted” in Canaan (Isaiah 5). It is also the reason the prophet had a son named She’ar-jashub, “the remnant will return” (Isaiah 7:3; 10:21).

Much like Hezekiah, I received this revelation in 1994, the 8^th year of the 120^th Jubilee. I understood then that we were to declare the Jubilee ten years late in 1996, even as Isaiah did in the days of Hezekiah.

My question was: Is this lawful? How can we do that?

The answer is found in the next story of Hezekiah. The king was ill and would have died, except that God gave him a 15-year extension (Isaiah 38:5). The sign of this, however, was that God would reverse time 10 steps on the sundial (Isaiah 38:8).

In other words, God turned back time 10 steps, and I realized that this was a reference to the late Jubilee. So we obeyed and declared the Jubilee on Sept. 23, 1996, which was also the Day of Atonement that year.

In other words, God allowed us to declare the Jubilee ten years late, and God turned back the clock in order to make our declaration applicable to 1986. Hence, though we did it ten years late, we did it precisely on time!

The Final Delay

1986-1996 marked very important endpoints, in that it marked the time when the overcomers began to emerge to the forefront in preparing to rule the coming Kingdom. But the Kingdom itself could not receive the authority until the time of the beast systems had expired.

The 2,520 years allotted to the rule of the beast empires in Daniel 7 ended in 2014-2017. God used these years (1996-2017) to train the overcomers in the principles of spiritual warfare, biblical law, and Kingdom government, so they would not repeat the sins of the beasts or the lawless rebellion of the church. Both Moses and Christ thus give us a snapshot of the Kingdom.

God's Creation Purpose: The Kingdom

THE PURPOSE OF GOD’S CREATION: PART 3

Blog Post Date:  11-18-2019

The intent of this planned series of articles is to illustrate the creation purpose of God.  Why did God create the heavens and the earth?  What was His purpose and what was His ultimate goal?  The Creator is Omniscient and timeless.  There is no past, present, and future with God.  Thus, He knows all things before they occur (in our manner of thinking), which means that God knew that Eve would be tempted and Adam would sin; and the result of that original sin upon the historical events for the past 6000 years.

The various stories found in the Old Testament (Covenant) offer many examples of types of shadows concerning events within the life of Jesus Christ and the apostles.  Books have been written concerning these portents.  Some non-believers have asked “why there is so much violence within the Old Testament”.  Why would a god of peace contain so much savagery in one section and then allow love and non-violence to be invoked within another?

The Feast of Tabernacles

The answer can be found within the Israelites actions prior to entering the “promised” land.  The purpose of Pentecost is to give all a down payment of the Holy Spirit in preparation for the fullness that is to come when the Feast of Tabernacles is fulfilled. The feast of Tabernacles is the third and final feast day in the law. It also represents the time that Israel was supposed to enter the Promised Land after leaving Egypt and after receiving the law at Mount Sinai.

Ten of the twelve spies, sent to survey the land, gave an evil report on the 50th Jubilee from Adam.  The people believed the evil report and refused to blow the trumpet of the Jubilee that would have announced their intention to enter the land. Thus, that day was turned into a Day of Atonement. It should have been a day of rejoicing and jubilation, but it became a day of mourning, fasting, and repentance for refusing to enter the Promised Land.

If Israel had made the correct decision on the day of Jubilee, they would have entered the Promised Land five days later on the first day of the feast of Tabernacles. Instead, God sentenced them to spending forty years in the wilderness. Ultimately, they entered the land at the time of Passover (see Joshua 3:19).  This is because Israel had been unable to rise above a Passover level of faith since coming out of Egypt. They had accepted Passover, rejected Pentecost, and now they did not have the faith to fulfill Tabernacles.

Their refusal to enter the Kingdom occurred on the 50^th Jubilee from Adam, a Jubilee of Jubilees. The purpose of a Jubilee was to return to one’s lost inheritance. In this case, the inheritance was what was lost through Adam’s sin, because this cycle had begun with Adam.

If the people had been able to overcome their fear through faith, they would have entered the Promised Land five days later on the first day of Tabernacles. It is believed that they would have become the manifested sons of God on that day and that they would have conquered Canaan during the week of Tabernacles.

Moses would have instructed them to teach the nations and to baptize them, so that the Canaanites could become Israelites in the Kingdom of God. That is, Moses would have given them the Great Commission that Jesus later gave His disciples in Matthew 28:18-20. Their conquest would have been accomplished, not by physical swords but by the Sword of the Spirit.

Instead of killing the Canaanites, they would have killed them spiritually through baptism. They would have been crucified with Christ that they might live to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4).

The feast of Tabernacles prophesied of the immortal body that was to clothe them when that feast was finally fulfilled historically and prophetically.  Without their glorification they were admitted within the land forty years later with a completely different mindset.

The Kingdom of God (Heaven)

The many and varied theologies constructed over the past 2000 years have lost the dominant theme that Jesus primarily preached to the people of Judea – which is The Gospel of the Kingdom of God.  Many, if not all, the pastors and exegetes expounding in the various pulpits of the world seem to have lost the foundation of His primary teaching which was, AGAIN, the Kingdom of God is here.

There was no question in the mind of Jesus, who He was, and His purpose for being in the world.  It was to redeem the world by preaching the message that the Kingdom of God is now upon everyone – first in Judea then to the remainder of the world.

Luke 4:43 NET But Jesus said to them, "I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns too, for that is what I was sent to do."

He emphatically stated “for that is what I was sent to do” and that is the primary mission of His life.  Jesus also knew that His message would come with a new standard of righteousness.  It would be in preparation of the full Kingdom of God to come at a later time.  This essential message has been ignored (or lost) by the majority (or all) of the churches.

Isn’t the Gospel about one’s personal salvation?  Yes, it would be a subplot, but the primary message is “The kingdom of heaven is at hand!”  The Gospel message is not necessarily about you but about Him.  It is about God re-claiming and redeeming a renegade portion of His creation, including the planet earth itself.  Even prior to the teachings of Jesus this news was announced by John the Baptist who was preaching in the rough territory of Judea saying, “Matthew 2:3 "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."  Was Jesus just teaching Judea and not the Church?  Highly doubtful. 

When the baptism of Jesus occurred, it was an event that was basically unnoticed by anyone outside the Jordan valley, yet it was an event that stirred up the “god of this world” into action.

action.  The kingdom of God was at hand and here to introduce it and bring it into being was God's very own Son! Yes, the devil recognized that his throne was being challenged!  After His baptism Jesus immediately went into the wilderness to fast and pray for forty days.

At the end of His time fasting and praying, along come Satan with the intention of tempting Jesus.  It is said that Satan used the same three-fold approach that was employed against Eve: i.e. lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.  Regardless of His hunger and pain, Jesus was not led into betrayal.  Afterwards He entered Galilee full of the power of the Holy Spirit.

According to Mark's account (1:15) Jesus began His public ministry by proclaiming, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."  Matthew's account (4:17) has Jesus saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 

The Gospel of Luke begins the ministry of Jesus as He enters the synagogue of His hometown Nazareth.  He is given the scroll of Isaiah and He begins reading in chapter 61:1, 2a, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."  The remainder of verse 2 (and onward) deals with the millennial aspects of God’s soon coming earthly kingdom and were not appropriate for that moment in time. 

Please note that no message of placing one’s faith in Jesus Christ for salvation can be found within the Isaiah 61.  That is not saying of faith in Jesus Christ is not important.  It is highly important, but that is not the primary message that Christ is giving to us.  The primary and most important communication is that the Kingdom of God is at hand.

The coming Kingdom as exemplified by Christ was proven by many miracles.  Not just any miracle but those that needed absolutely no healing time.  They were spontaneous i.e. instant.  No recovery period at all.  The blind could instantly see, the deaf could instantly hear, and the lame could instantly walk without any rehabilitation.

Matthew 4:23-24 NET Jesus went throughout all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of disease and sickness among the people. (24) So a report about him spread throughout Syria. People brought to him all who suffered with various illnesses and afflictions, those who had seizures, paralytics, and those possessed by demons, and he healed them.

Jesus proved that He was more powerful than Satan by cleansing various people of demon possession.  His authority demonstrated the reality of the Kingdom of God being manifested on the earth.

The Sermon on the Mount illustrates good news being preaching to the poor and comfort coming to those who mourn (proclaim good news to the poor). 

Isaiah predicted that the "mourners" would be transformed into "oaks of righteousness" by the message of the Anointed One, that they would rebuild what had become desolate, and that God Himself...

...will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people: all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the LORD hath blessed. (Isaiah 61:8-9)

Here Jesus was making it clear that He had not come to advocate lawlessness.  His message was not to be received as against the Law and the Prophets, but should instead be recognized as fulfilling the Law.  Jesus makes this clear at the beginning of His ministry, yet the Gospels go on to record that this was precisely the issue that caused so much friction between Jesus and the "Teachers of the Law." 

On one hand Jesus says that every jot and tittle of the Law will remain until heaven and earth pass away, yet on the other hand we see Jesus breaking the Sabbath (at least by the rules of the legal teachers), violating purity regulations by deliberately touching lepers and corpses, and opposing (and in fact halting) the perfectly lawful application of a punishment upon a guilty adulteress (John 8). Jesus goes on to say,

Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 5:19-20)

Through all of this we must remember the spiritual nature of God's Kingdom. For Jesus the Kingdom is occurring at the present, yet at the same time it is something to be expected and anticipated that will not arrive in its fullness until the very end.  That is why Jesus can say that "the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21) and, "If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God know that the Kingdom of God has arrived" (Matt. 12:28), while at the same time He can speak parables and make predictions that show the Kingdom arriving at the end of the age. This is the paradoxical “already but not yet” nature of the Kingdom of God.  This must be understood before we can even begin to understand Jesus' relationship with the Laws of the Old Testament.

Consider for a moment all of the jots and tittles written down throughout the Torah that concern the Levitical priesthood, the upkeep of the sanctuary, and the comprehensive and detailed system of animal sacrifices. 

Heaven and earth are both still here, yet even the most devoted "Torah-observant" Christian accepts that all of these jots and tittles are of little to no effect in the everyday life of the believer who is "in Christ."

The need for sacrifices has ceased, the Temple will soon be destroyed, and the Levitical priesthood has been replaced by the priesthood of all believers with Jesus as our High Priest.  We all realize that for all intents and purposes these areas of the Torah have been abolished by the death and resurrection of the Messiah (despite the fact that it seems that Jesus said that He had not come to abolish the first five books of the Old Testament). 

With this reality in mind it appears to become clear that Jesus' statement speaks specifically of His purpose rather than being a strict literal statement upholding "every jot and tittle" Torah observance until the end of the age. In other words, Jesus did not come for the specific purpose of abolishing the law, rather He came to fulfill it. 

Jesus made the claim to His audience that their righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees if they want to enter into the kingdom of heaven.  The scribes and Pharisees were the teachers of the law who prided themselves on a strict and literal observance of the legal aspects of the Old Covenant down to the smallest letter, yet Jesus declared that you must be more righteous than these legal experts to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

This appears rather obvious after Jesus gives His preliminary statements of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:1-20, ending with his remarks pointing to a higher standard of righteousness,

It appears that was precisely the point that Jesus was trying to make when He said that His purpose was not to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Jesus said, "The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached," (Luke 16:16). 

Luke 16:15-17 NET But Jesus said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in men's eyes, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly prized among men is utterly detestable in God's sight. (16) "The law and the prophets were in force until John; since then, the good news of the kingdom of God has been proclaimed, and everyone is urged to enter it. (17) But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tiny stroke of a letter in the law to become void.

Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant but then at the same time He gave us the Kingdom of God which is known as the New Covenant.  This new kingdom is the starting point of the ministry of Jesus i.e. Isaiah 61:8.  The Sermon on the Mount is the teaching of Jesus concerning this New Covenant which founded the way to follow Jesus and to enter into the God’s Kingdom.