6. We have left till the last the much-debated passage Mt 5^""-", since it is helpful in our inter- pretation of it to have before us the application of the principle in detail. The opening words of the passage, ' Think not that I am come to destroy tlie law or the prophets,' show clearly that Jesus was con.scious that His teacliing might not un- justifiably seem to carry this implication with it. There was an element Avhich suggested a revolu- tionary attitude, but it was a mistaken inference that He meant to destroy the Law or the Prophets ; it Avas His intention to fulfil them. It is important to okserve here and elscAvhere the Avay in Avhicli Jesus combines the Proijliets Avitli the LaAv. Un- like the current theologj' of His time. His teaching brought the Prophets into equal prominence Avitli the LaAv ; and it is of the OT system as a Avhole that He is thinking, and not simply of the legal enactments Avliich constituted for the Rabbis almo.'-t the Avhole of religion. Yet it Avould l»e a mistake to infer that the Levitical requirements are here left out of sight. It is true that both the Kabbis and Jesus recognized degrees of importance among the laAvs, though their emphasis Avas very difl'er- ently placed. Yet the Levitical laAvs Avere equally Avitli others regarded by Je.sus as laAvs of God, >o that, in a comprehensive statement of the relation of His teacliing to the religion of the OT, He could not leave them out of account. Noav, Ave have already seen that the teaching of Jesus came into conflict not simply Avitli the Tradition of the Elders, but Avitli the Levitical laAVS of purity ; that He ex- plicitly abolished the laAvs of clean and unclean food, and looked forward to the cessation of the temple Avorship. Accordingly, Ave must give such a sense to His Avords as Avill harmonize the ex- planation of His intention not to destroj- the LaAV Avith the fact that He did abolish some of its precepts, and contemplate the impossibility, through the destruction of the temple, of a large part of its injunctions. The unifjing con- ception is contained in the Avord 'fulfil' (TrXripwaaL) Jesus does not mean that He came to render a perfect obedience to the LaAV and the Prophets in His own life. The fulfilment forms an anti- thesis to the destruction. The destruction Avas such as Avould be accomplished by His teaching, not by His action, and similarly the fulfilment is something effected by His teaching. Besides, it is very difficult to believe that Avith the freedom of His principles, Jesus should have attached any
LAW
LAW OF GOD
15
importance to the perfect carrying out in action of the Law and the Prophets. What is meant is that, to use a familiar illustration, the gospel fulfils the Law as the flower fulfils the bud. Jesus sees in the Law a Divinely ordained system, but He is conscious that it is stami^ed with immaturity and defect. His function is to bring out its in- trinsic significance b^- disengaging and carrying to perfection the principles entangled in it. Thus He does not abrogate the Law, but He ti'anscends it, and, in doing so, antiquates it. In Beyschlag's wortls, ^t is ' confirmed and transformetl in one breath.' What this means is admirably explained by Stevens in the following words: 'Jesus fulfils the OT system bj- rounding out into entire com- pleteness what is incomplete in that system. In this process of fulfilment all that is imperfect, piovisional, temporary, or, for any reason, needless to the perfect religion, falls away of its own accord, and all that is essential and permanent is conserved and embodied in Christianity' (The Ihcologif of the New Testament, p. 19).
The two following verses (Mt 5'^-'^) create much difficulty. They seem to assert a permanence of the Law and its minutest details, and to affiiTu the insignificant place assigned in the Kingdom to anj' who should set aside one of the minor commandments. In view of the attitude adopted by Jesus towards the law of uncleanness, the Sabbath, and divorce, it is not surprising that doubts have been exjjressed as to the genuineness of the saying. It is out of the question to argue with Wendt that ' the law ' is not a written law but an ideal law, for the reference to the jot and tittle implies a written law, and there is nothing to indicate that 'the law" is used here in two different senses. Beyschlag argues for the genu- ineness of the saying, which is also attested by Lk 16^" ' It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one tittle of the law to fail.' If it is genuine, the best explanation is that given by Ceyschlag, that we must explain here of spiritual fullilments. No commandment, even the most trifling, is a mere empty husk ; each has a Divine thought Avhich must come to its rights before the liusk of the letter is allowed to perish (XT Thcol. i. 110 f. ). It is, however, very difficult to believe that tills interpretation is correct, inasmuch as it would be Iiard to imderstand what Divine idea Jesus could think was latent in innumerable trifling details of the Law. The immediate impression made by the words is surely that the Law, to its minutest details, was to be regarded as permanent. When we remember how bitter was the controversy created by the (juestion of the Law in the Early Church, it is not easy to avoid the conclusion that here we have an expression from a Jewish- Christian point of view, according to whicli Jesus is made explicitly to disavow the movement led by St. Paul, not indeed that St. Paul is regarded as outside the Kingilom, but as one of the least in it. It would, liowever, be perhaps too far-fetched to connect the words 'least in the kingdom of heaven ' with St. Paul's designation of himself as the ' least of the apostles. '