Fembot said:
Matthew 5:18: 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.
Jesus was a product of his times and culture and I suggest that we in the modern west have been a little careless in understanding the implications of this. On a surface reading, Matthew 5:18 is indeed a challenge to those of us who think that, at least in a certain specific sense, Torah has been retired. Those who hold the opposing view have their own challenges to face, such as Ephesians 2:15 (and Romans 7) which, to me, unambiguously declare the abolition of the Torah, at least in terms of “rules and regulationsâ€Â.
Here is Matthew 5:17-19 in the NASB:
Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18"For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19"Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven
How can one read this text and possibly think that the prescriptions of the Torah do not remain in force, given that heaven and earth are still here?
I think that there is a way to faithfully read this text and still claim that Torah was retired 2000 years ago as Paul seems to so forcefully argue that it was (e.g. Eph 2:15). My proposal (building, of course, on the ideas of others – I am no Bible scholar) hinges on the assertion that in Hebrew culture apocalyptic “end of the world†language was commonly used in a specifically metaphorical mode for the specific purposes of investing commonplace events with their theological significance.
This is not mere speculation – we have concrete evidence that this was so. Isaiah writes:
10For the stars of heaven and their constellations
Will not flash forth their light;
The sun will be dark when it rises
And the moon will not shed its light
What was going on?
Babylon was being destroyed, never to be rebuilt. There are
many other examples of such metaphorical “end of the world†imagery being used to describe much more “mundane†events within the present space-time manifold.
So it is possible that Jesus is not referring to the destruction of matter, space, and time as the criteria for the retirement of the Law. But what might He mean here? What is the real event for which “heaven and earth passing away†is an apocalyptic metaphor.
I would appeal to the phrase “until all is accomplished†and point the reader to Jesus’ proclamation that “It is accomplished!†as He breathed His last on the Cross. Perhaps this is what Jesus is referring to. I believe that seeing it that way allows us to take Paul at his word in his many statements which clearly denote the work of Jesus as the point in time at which Torah was retired.
Of course, the argument here is only sketch, but I present the above as a plausibility argument that there may be a way to legitimately read Jesus here as not declaring that the Torah will remain in force basically to the end of time.
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