Quote:
Originally Posted by shackleton  Christ Came to Fulfill the Law
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. 18For 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. 19Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (ESV)
I understand this is a Theonomy text, what does "Until the [Law] is accomplished? What time is this referring to?
The destruction of the Temple? The Second Advent or some other time? |
In these verses it is not possible to restrict Christ's definition of "the Law or the Prophets" to the moral law alone for at least three reasons. The Old Covenant people did not so subdivide the law: so such a concept could not have been in his hearers' minds, (Bahnsen in fact provides a long series of citations from Jewish non-canonical writers to show that they held to the Law's eternity; the statements also show that this extended its least details: cf. TICE pp. 77-9). Given the ethical foundationalism of the Decalogue, none of its details can be described as "least". Christ's calling the disciples "the light of the world in vv. 14-16 transfers to the disciples a description that Scripture famously attributes to the Law as a whole in Ps. 119:105,130. (BTW, Christ's applying the light metaphor to the disciples rather than the Law, is what prompted his enemies' to think that he was out to destroy the Law.) Finally in v. 18 Christ extends the prohibition of change in the law down to its least letter and stroke.
The words "until everything is accomplished" refer to the institution of the new covenant at the cross. For it was there that Christ "fulfilled" the law and the prophets in the sense of completing their "time in office" That "pleroo" the word used here and normally translated "fulfilled" did, on occasion mean "complete a time limited condition" is certain since it is used in this sense (translating "mala" Heb "fulfill) in the Septuagint translations of Gen. 25:24, 29:21.
When Christ fulfills "the law or the prophets" he supersedes every stipulation of the Old Covenant by instituting the New Covenant at the cross. In doing so, he does not abolish the moral law with the ceremonials nor cause it to expire with the judicials and that for two reasons. First, the moral law was originally given to Adam in the garden and has been written upon all human hearts since that day. While it has been abolished as stipulations of the Sinai covenant now no longer in force, it still binds Jews due to their preexisting obligation to it as written non thier hearts, which God has not abolished. Second, an examination of the NT reveals that all the decalogue was carried over into the New Covenant as its fundamental moral axioms: for all ten commands are explicitly or implicitly stated as required.
On the other hand there is no clear example Scripture where the Hebrew mala or the Greek pleroo "fulfill" ever took the sense of confirm. (2 Kings 1:14 is not really a good example to the contrary since the context makes it clear that Nathan intended to self-conscously "complete" Bathsheba's account by adding to her account a couple of additional names of those not on Adonijah's guest list.
Athough Bahnsen provides a list of other possible examples from both testments where the word pleroo might mean "confirm" in each example he fails to prove his case since other known translations of pleroo are an equal or better fit.