“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter will pass from the law until everything takes place. So anyone who breakes one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever obeys them and teaches others to do so will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness goes beyond that of the experts in the law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven!”

Matthew 5:17-20 (NET2)

This passage gives us reason to believe that Jesus aimed to live completely according to the law of YHWH. It would be interesting to investigate how much of the data of the Gospels can be explained by with reference to Jesus aiming to do that. Some of Jesus’s own understanding(s) of how to live completely according to the law may be reconstructable from (teaching) passages in the Gospels.

It is arguable that Jesus aimed for something higher than ‘mere’ complete lawkeeping, perhaps a righteousness exceeding that to which the scribes and Pharisees aspired. There is reason to believe, in any case, that some of his ethical instructions went (far) beyond what was required by the law (see, for example, Mt 5:27-37).

The passage also provides evidence that Jesus warned (Jewish) disciples of his against breaking even the least of the commandments and teaching others (perhaps other Jews) to do so, or at least warned them that doing so would result in having the lowest status in the kingdom of heaven. Futhermore, it provides evidence that Jesus informed disciples of his that keeping all of the commandments would result in having high (or highest?) status in the kingdom of heaven.

Whether Jesus himself avoided law-breaking or teaching law-breaking is, for me, not entirely clear at the moment. There are some passages which may provide reason to think that Jesus’s instructions sometimes conflicted with the law (see, for example, Mt 5:38-39 and 5:43-44) or that he did not always keep the law (see, for example, John 7:53-8:11), perhaps in following his own ethical principles (e.g. ‘do not judge’).

How difficult it would be to have a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees is also not entirely clear. Arguably, they, or many of them, aspired to perfect law-keeping. But elsewhere we have evidence that Jesus accused them, or some of them, to neglecting the weightier matters of the law (see Mt 23:23).