Matthew 5:17-18: "...not an iota, not a dot, will pass..."
Dec 2, 2019 15:44:15 GMT -8
alon likes this
Post by rakovsky on Dec 2, 2019 15:44:15 GMT -8
Dan,
On the thread on the Antiquities, you asked a question that made me think so much on a tangent that I made a new thread here to address your question, which was a challenge of how someone could imagine that the verses in Matthew 5 imply that the Law passed away.
Matthew 5:17-18 (ESV) Christ Came to Fulfill the Law
“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. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
Try reading that without the subtitle added by the translators (Christ Came to Fulfill the Law), and tell me how any sane, thinking person can say it means the law was done away with!
I think that you are asking a rhetorical question. If someone took the statement to mean that the law was done away with, they would have to think that it means that in the time period before both (A) heaven and earth pass away and (B) before "all" was accomplished (all being meant as something that has in fact been accomplished), nothing will pass from the Law. And you would also have to read it to mean that if anything is taken from the Law, then the whole Law is done away with, in other words, the Law would have to be seen as an inherently integrated whole requiring all its parts to be the Law.
Personally, I think that the two verses above need more information in order to be interpreted and applied correctly. There are at least three potentially confusing things that I underlined above about the two verses, in terms of exegesis.
The third issue is that it doesn't actually say "The Law will not pass away until ______", it says "not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until ____." In other words, it isn't directly talking about the Law passing away, only about parts of the Law passing from the Law. So the two verses by themselves don't say whether or not the Law itself will pass away ever. If you want to interpret it as meaning that the Law will or won't pass away, you have to see the Law as a necessarily integrated whole, whereby one of those parts passing away would mean the whole Law passed away.
The preceding sentence and the word "For..." means that the declaration that an iota won't pass from the Law until all is accomplished shows that He hasn't come to abolish the Law, but rather to fulfill it. If some of the Law had already passed away before all was accomplished, then conceivably He had not come to "fulfill, not abolish." The accomplishment while the whole Law was in place shows that He came to fulfill the Law. I think that this implies that the Law is a necessarily integrated whole, which in turn solves the third issue above. That is, the Law is an integrated whole, so therefore once either "all is accomplished" or "heaven and earth pass away", a jot or tittle passing away would imply that the Law, properly understood, has passed away.
But is my resolution of this third issue correct? Let's say that it is 65 AD and the Temple is still around. If you say that the part of the law on trial by poison for adulteresses has "passed away", then based on my reasoning, you would be implying that the Law itself "passed away."
On the thread on the Antiquities, you asked a question that made me think so much on a tangent that I made a new thread here to address your question, which was a challenge of how someone could imagine that the verses in Matthew 5 imply that the Law passed away.
Matthew 5:17-18 (ESV) Christ Came to Fulfill the Law
“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. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
Try reading that without the subtitle added by the translators (Christ Came to Fulfill the Law), and tell me how any sane, thinking person can say it means the law was done away with!
Personally, I think that the two verses above need more information in order to be interpreted and applied correctly. There are at least three potentially confusing things that I underlined above about the two verses, in terms of exegesis.
The third issue is that it doesn't actually say "The Law will not pass away until ______", it says "not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until ____." In other words, it isn't directly talking about the Law passing away, only about parts of the Law passing from the Law. So the two verses by themselves don't say whether or not the Law itself will pass away ever. If you want to interpret it as meaning that the Law will or won't pass away, you have to see the Law as a necessarily integrated whole, whereby one of those parts passing away would mean the whole Law passed away.
The preceding sentence and the word "For..." means that the declaration that an iota won't pass from the Law until all is accomplished shows that He hasn't come to abolish the Law, but rather to fulfill it. If some of the Law had already passed away before all was accomplished, then conceivably He had not come to "fulfill, not abolish." The accomplishment while the whole Law was in place shows that He came to fulfill the Law. I think that this implies that the Law is a necessarily integrated whole, which in turn solves the third issue above. That is, the Law is an integrated whole, so therefore once either "all is accomplished" or "heaven and earth pass away", a jot or tittle passing away would imply that the Law, properly understood, has passed away.
But is my resolution of this third issue correct? Let's say that it is 65 AD and the Temple is still around. If you say that the part of the law on trial by poison for adulteresses has "passed away", then based on my reasoning, you would be implying that the Law itself "passed away."
. He came to fulfill prophecy and to better explain 
