Luke 16:16-18 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

The law and the prophets were until John:— Our Lord having in the preceding verse developed the specious and hypocritical pretences of the Pharisees, observes to them, with respect to his own conduct, which they blamed so much, that the law and the prophets, the dispensation which made a distinction between men, accountingsome clean and others unclean, continued till John came; and that from the commencement of his ministry, the kingdom of heaven, or gospel dispensation, was in some degree preached, which admitted all persons upon repentance, without distinction:—every man presseth into it, harlots, publicans, and sinners. Yet lest they might have imagined that in speaking thus, he lessened the authority of the law, (by which the distinction between clean and unclean things had been established,) he added, Luke 16:17. It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than for one tittle of the law to fail."The ceremonial and typical law must befulfilled in me, as well as the law of innocence; and the moral in the righteousness of my followers (Matthew 5:17.): and to shew how far I am from allowing the least breach of the law, or countenancing impurity of life in my followers, I do absolutely condemn a practical tenet very common among you, and teach in contradiction to it, that whoever putteth away his wife. &c." Luke 16:18. These hypocrites, while they feigned a high veneration for the law, bytheir exact observation of lesser duties, violated on many occasions its greatest and mostsacredprecepts.Forexample,they defiled themselves with the pollutions of lust; though they were so scrupulous of touching things unclean, that they would not go into the company of publicans, lest they might have been polluted by them. Nor was this an accusation without grounds; for their lust discovered itself by their frequent divorces. They put away their wives as often as they took any disgust at them, or liked other women better.