For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Ver. 18. For verily I say unto you] This is his ordinary asseveration, which he useth in matters of weight only. For a vain protestation comes to as much, for aught I know, saith a worthy divine, as a vain oath. (Capel on Temptation.)
Till heaven and earth pass] And pass they must. The visible heavens being defiled with our sins that are even glued unto them (εκολληθησαν. Quasi bitumine ferruminata), as Babylon's sins are said to be, Revelation 18:5, shall be purged with the fire of the last day, as the vessels of the sanctuary were that held the sin offering. "The earth also, and all the works that are therein, shall be burnt up," 2 Peter 3:10. And this the heathens had heard of, and hammered at, that the world should at length be consumed with fire, as Ovid hath it (Esse quoque in fatis meminit, &c., Metam., lib. i.), and Lucretius disputeth it according to the natural causes. But Ludolfus of the life of Christ doth better, when he tells us that of those two destructions of the world, the former was by water, for the heat of their lust, and the latter shall be by fire, for the coldness of their love. Aqua, propter ardorem libidihis; igni, propter teporem charitatis, ii. 87.
One jot] Which is the least letter in the alphabet. Irenaeus calls it a half-letter; and Luther rendereth this text, Ne minima quidem litera, not so much as the least letter. The Jews fain that jod was added to the beginning of a masculine name, as in Jacob, Israel, &c., because it was taken from the end of a feminine, Sarai; solicitous lest the law shouldt lose one iota. (Nescit Scripturae vel breve iota sacrae. Prov.) But what meant the Popish glossator to say, that the writings of the Fathers are authentic, et tenenda omnia usque ad ultimum iota? Shall the Fathers be put in equal balance with the Holy Scriptures?
Or one tittle] Not a hair-stroke, an accent on the top of a Hebrew letter, the bending or bowing thereof, as a little bit on the top of a horn. The Masorites have summed up all the letters in the Bible, to show that one hair of that sacred head is not perished.
Shall in no wise pass from the law] The ceremonial law was "a shadow of good things to come," saith the apostle, Hebrews 10:1. This good thing was Christ. When the sun is behind, the shadow is before; when the sun is before, the shadow is behind. So was it in Christ to them of old (saith one). This sun was behind, and therefore the law or shadow was before. To us under the gospel, the sun is before, and so now the ceremonies of the law (those shadows) are behind, yea, vanished away. Before the passion of Christ (wherein they all determined) the ceremonies of the law were neither dead nor deadly: nec mortiferae, nec mortuae, saith Aquinas. After the passion, till such time as the gospel was preached up and down by the apostles, though dead, yet (for the time) they were not deadly. Non mortiferae, utcunque mortuae. But since that they are not only dead, but deadly to them that use them, as the Jews to this day Et mortuae, et mortiferae. As for the moral law, it is eternal, and abideth for ever in heaven. saith David, Psalms 119:89. And albeit some special duties of certain commandments shall cease when we come to heaven, yet the substance of every one remaineth. We live by the same law (in effect) as the saints above do; and do God's will on earth as they in heaven. God himself cannot dispense with the breach of those laws that be moral in themselves (because he hateth sin by nature, not by precept only); such are all the ten commandments but the fourth. The fourth commandment (say divines) is moral by precept, not by nature; and so, the Lord of the saboath may dispense with the literal breach of the sabbath. Of all the moral law, it is the opinion of some of our best divines (Zanchius, Prideaux), that since the coming of Christ it bindeth us not, out of any foregoing institution, as delivered to Moses in the mount; but as it is agreeable to the law of nature, which is common to Jews and Gentiles; and as it was explained and confirmed by our Saviour Christ in the Gospel. To conclude, the ministerials of this law shall pass away together with this life; the substantials shall pass into our glorified natures and shine therein, as in a mirror for ever.