The Law and the Prophets (Part 1)
by Peter Amsterdam October 13, 2015
In the course of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus devoted a significant portion of the sermon to addressing the Law and the Prophets, meaning the Hebrew Scriptures—what Christians refer to as the Old Testament.
The Hebrew Scriptures, also referred to as the Jewish Bible, and commonly known to the Jewish people as Tanakh, contain all of the same books as the Christian Old Testament, though they are divided somewhat differently and placed in a different order. The word Tanakh is an acronym (TN’K) formed by the three primary divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures:
Torah (Law): The first five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
Nevi’im (Prophets): The Nevi’im is divided into three sections: The Former Prophets, which contain Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings; the Latter Prophets, containing Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; and the Book of the Twelve, containing Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.
Ketuvim (Writings): Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 & 2 Chronicles.
When Jesus speaks of “the Law and (or) the Prophets,”1 it is generally understood that this is a shorthand way of referring to the full Tanakh, all of the Hebrew Scriptures (The Old Testament).
In this section of the Sermon (verses 17–48), Jesus gives a new outlook and understanding of Scripture, as well as shows His relationship to it. In verses 21–48 He provides six examples which illustrate the difference between the common understanding of the day and His teaching. In the next article, we’ll move on to those six examples. In this post, I’ll focus on verses 17–20, which say:
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.
Therefore 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.
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.2
The fact that Jesus opens by saying that His listeners should not think He came to abolish (destroy in some translations) the Law or the Prophets is an indication that some people thought, or said, that this was in fact what He was doing, seeing as His approach to the Law was different from traditional thinking.3 However, He unequivocally states He has not come to abolish or destroy them, but rather to fulfill them.
Jesus goes on, using His authoritative saying of “truly I say to you”4 to state that until heaven and earth pass away, not one iota, not one dot of the Law will be invalidated. When hearing Jesus refer to heaven and earth (all of creation) passing away before the Law, His listeners would have understood Him to be saying that God’s Word will never go unfulfilled. All of it will be accomplished. The iota was the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet; but in this context, it is usually understood to be referring to the yodh, the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet--Saying that the smallest letter or stroke of Scripture would not pass before Scripture was accomplished was a very strong affirmation by Jesus of the role of Old Testament Scripture.
1 Matthew 5:17; 11:13; 22:40; Luke 16:16; 24:44; John 1:45.
2 Matthew 5:17–20.
3 Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, 70. Bock, Jesus According to Scripture, 131.
4 For more on this saying, see Jesus—His Life and Message:Authority.
Director's Corner TFI