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Mat_5:17.[399] A connection with what precedes is not to be artificially sought out. Jesus breaks off and introduces the new section without any intermediate remarks, which corresponds, precisely to its pre-eminent importance (for He shows how the Christian δικαιοσύνη , having its root in that of the Old Testament, is its consummation). On μὴ νομίς . ὅτι ἠλθ ., comp. Mat_10:34.
Ἤ ] never stands for ΚΑΊ (see Winer, p. 410 [E. T. 549 f.]; comp. on 1Co_11:27), but is always distinctive. Here, to abrogate the one or the other. I have to abrogate neither that nor this. The νόμος is the divine institute of the law, which has its original document in the Pentateuch. The further Old Testament revelation, in so far as its final aim is the Messiah and His work, is represented by οἱ προφῆται , who make up its principal part; accordingly, Ὁ ΝΌΜΟς and οἱ προφῆται summarily denote the whole Old Testament revelation (comp. Luk_16:6), partly as a living divine economy, as here; partly as γραφή , as in Luk_24:27; Act_24:14; Act_28:23; Rom_3:21. Moreover, in the expression tow ΤΟῪς ΠΡΟΦΉΤΑς we are not to think of their predictions as such (the Greek Fathers, Augustine, Beza, Calovius, and others; also Tholuck, Neander, Harnaek, Bleek, Lechler, Schegg, and others), as nobody could imagine that their abrogation was to be expected from the Messiah, but, as the connection with νόμος shows (and comp. Mat_7:12, Mat_22:40; Luk_16:29), and as is in keeping with the manner in which the idea is carried out in the following verses, their contents as commands, in which respect the prophets have carried on the development of the law in an ethical manner (Ritschl, altkath. Kirche, p. 36 f.). In νόμος , however, to think merely of the moral law is erroneous, as it always signifies the entire law, and the distinction between the ritualistic, civil, and moral law is modern; comp. on Rom_3:20. If, afterwards, sentences are given from the moral law, yet these are only quotations by way of illustration from the whole, from which, however, the moral precepts very naturally suggested themselves for quotations, because the idea of righteousness is before the mind. He has fulfilled the entire law, and in so doing has not destroyed the slightest provision of the ritualistic or civil code, so far as its general moral idea is concerned, but precisely everything which the law prescribes is raised to an ideal, of which the old legal commands are only στοιχεῖα . Theophylact well illustrates the matter by the instance of a silhouette, which the painter Οὐ ΚΑΤΑΛΎΕΙ , but carries out to completion, ἀναπληροῖ .
καταλῦσαι ] often employed by classical writers to denote the dissolution of existing constitutions (specially also of the abrogation of laws, Isocr. p. 129 E; Polyb. iii. 8. 2), which are thereby rendered non-existent and invalid; comp. 2Ma_2:22; Joh_7:23; also ΝΌΜΟΝ ΚΑΤΑΡΓΕῖΝ , Rom_3:31; ἈΘΕΤΕῖΝ , Heb_10:28; Gal_3:15.
The ΠΛΉΡΩΣΙς of the law and the prophets is their fulfilment by the re-establishment of their absolute meaning, so that now nothing more is wanting to what they ought to be in accordance with the divine ideas which lie at the foundation of their commands. It is the perfect development of their ideal reality out of the positive form, in which the same is historically apprehended and limited. So substantially, Luther, Calvin (comp. before them Chrysostom; he, however, introduces what is incongruous), Lightfoot, Hammond, Paulus, Gratz, de Wette, Olshausen, Ritschl, Ewald, Weiss, Hilgenfeld; likewise Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 314 ff., and others. Comp. Tholuck (who, however, brings together the too varying elements of different explanations), also Kahnis, Dogmat. I, p. 474, who understands it as the development of what is not completed into something higher, which preserves the substance of the lower. This explanation, which makes absolute the righteousness enjoined and set forth in the law and the prophets, is converted into a certainty by the two verses that follow. The matter is represented by πληρ . as a making complete (Joh_15:11; 2Co_10:6), in opposition to καταλῦσαι , which expresses the not allowing the thing to remain. Others (Bretschneider, Fritzsche): facere quae de Messia pre-scripta sunt; others (Käuffer, B. Crusius, Bleek, Lechler, Weizsäcker, after Beza, Eisner, Vorst, Wolf, and many older interpreters): legi satisfacere, as in Rom_13:8, where, in reference to the prophets, πληρ . is taken in the common sense of the fulfilment of the prophecies (see specially, Euth. Zigabenus, Calovius, and Bleek), but thereby introducing a reference which is not merely opposed to the context (see Mat_5:18 f.), but also an unendurable twofold reference of πληρ .[400] Luther well says: “Christ is speaking of the fulfilment, and so deals with doctrines, in like manner as He calls ‘destroying’ a not acting with works against the law, but a breaking off from the law with the doctrine.” The fulfilling is “showing the right kernel and understanding, that they may learn what the law is and desires to have.”
I did not come to destroy, but to fulfil; the object is understood of itself, but the declaration delivered in this general way is more solemn without the addition of the pronoun.
[399] Special writings upon the passage:—Baumgarten, doctrina J. Ch. de lege Mos. ex oral. mont. 1838; Harnack, Jesus d. Christ oder der Erfüller d. Gesetzes, 1842; J. E. Meyer, über d. Verhältn. Jesu und seiner Jünger zum alttest. Gesetz. 1853. See especially, Ritschl, altkathol. K. p. 35 ff.; Bleek in d. Stud. u. Krit. 1853, p. 304; Lechler, ibidem, 1854, p. 787 ff.; Weiss, ibidem, 1858, p. 50 ff., and bibl. Theol. § 27; Ewald, Jahrb. X. p. 114 ff. The collection of sayings is to be simply regarded as the source of this section, not any special treatise upon the position of Jesus towards that law (Holtzmann); comp. Weiss in d. Stud. u. Krit. 1864, p. 56 f.
[400] Vitringa, who compares ðîø , even brings out the meaning “to expound.” The explanation of Kuinoel goes back to the legi satisfacere, but gives as meaning, docendo vivendoque stabilire. Comp. Keim, “to teach the law, to do it, and to impose it.” The older dogmatic exegetes, who explained it by satisfacere, here found the satisfactio activa. See, for example, Er. Schmid and Calovius; recently, Philippi, vom thät. Gehors. Chr. p. 34; Baumgarten, p. 15. On the other hand, B. Crusius and also Tholuck. According to Bleek, p. 304, Christ has fulfilled the moral law by His sinless life, the ceremonial law by His sacrificial death, by means of which the prophecies also are fulfilled. According to Lechler, Jesus fulfils the law as doer, by His holy life and sacrificial death; as teacher, in teaching mankind rightly to understand and fulfil the commandments.
REMARK.
The Apostle Paul worked quite in the sense of our passage; his writings are full of the fulfilment of the law in the sense in which Christ means it; and his doctrine of its abrogation refers only to its validity for justification to the exclusion of faith. It is without any ground, therefore, that this passage, and especially Mat_5:18 f., have been regarded by Baur (neutest. Theol. p. 55) as Judaistic, and supposed not to have proceeded in this form from Jesus, whom, rather in opposition to the higher standpoint already gained by Him, (Schenkel), the Apostle Matthew has apprehended and edited in so Judaistic a manner (Köstlin, p. 55 f.), or the supposed Matthew has made to speak in so anti-Pauline a way (Gfrörer, h. Sage, II. p. 84); according to Hilgenfeld, in his Zeitschr. 1867, p. 374, Mat_5:17 is indeed original, but in accordance with the view of the Hebrew gospel; Mat_5:18 f., however, is an anti-Pauline addition; Weizsäcker sees in Mat_5:19 only an interpolation; but Schenkel finds in Mat_5:18 f. the proud assertion of the Pharisee, not Jesus’ own conviction. Paul did not advance beyond this declaration (comp. Planck in d. theol. Jahrb. 1847, p. 268 ff.), but he applied his right understanding boldly and freely, and in so doing the breaking up of the old form by the new spirit could not but necessarily begin, as Jesus Himself clearly recognised (comp. Mat_9:16; Joh_4:21; Joh_4:23 f.) and set forth to those who believed in His own person and His completed righteousness (comp. Ritschl). But even in this self-representation of Christ the new principle is not severed from the O. T. piety, but is the highest fulfilment of the latter, its anti-typical consummation, its realized ideal. Christianity itself is in so far a law. Comp. Wittichen, p. 328; Holtzmann, p: 457 f.; Weizsäcker, p. 348 f.; see also on Rom_3:27; Gal_6:2; 1Co_9:21.