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Mat_5:18. Ἀμὴν γὰρ λέγω ὑμῖν ] for verily ( ἀμήν = ἀληθῶς , Luk_9:27), that is, agreeably to the truth, do I tell you. What He now says serves as a confirmation of what preceded. This form of assurance, so frequently in the mouth of Christ, the bearer of divine truth, is not found in any apostle.
ἕως ἂν παρέλθῃ , κ . τ . λ .] until heaven and earth shall have passed away. These words of Jesus do not indicate a terminus, after which the law shall no longer exist (Paulus, Meander, Lechler, Schleiermacher, Planck, Weizsäcker, and others), but He says: onwards to the destruction of the world the law will not lose its validity in the slightest point, by which popular expression (Luk_16:17; Job_14:12) the duration of the law after the final catastrophe of the world is neither taught nor excluded. That the law, however, fulfilled as to its ideal nature, will endure in the new world, is clear from 1Co_13:3 ( ἀγάπη ); 1Pe_1:25; 2Pe_3:3 ( δικαιοσύνη ). The unending authority of the law is also taught by Bar_4:1; Tob_1:6; Philo, vit. Mos. 2. p. 656; Joseph, c. Ap. ii. 38, and the Rabbins. See Bereschith R. x. 1, “omni rei suus finis, coelo et terrae suus finis, una excepta re, cui non suus finis, haec est lex.” Schemoth R. vi., “nulla litera aboletur a lege in aeternum.” Midrash Cohel. f. 71, 4, (lex) “perpetuo manebit in secula seculorum.” The passage in 1Co_15:28 is not opposed to our explanation; for if God is all in all, the fulfilled law of God yet stands in its absolute authority.
ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται ] not: until all the prophecies are fulfilled, that would then be down to the Parousia (Wetstein, J. E. Meyer, comp. Ewald); nor even till all is carried out theocratically which I have to perform (Paulus), or what lies shut up in the divine decree (Köstlin), or even until the event shall occur by means of which the observance of the law becomes impossible, and it falls away of itself (Schleiermacher); but, in keeping with the context, until all which the law requires shall he accomplished (Mat_6:10), nothing any longer left unobserved. This sentence is not co-ordinate to the first ἕως , but subordinate (Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 2. 36): “So long as the world stands shall no iota[401] of the law pass away till all its prescriptions shall be realized.” All the requirements of the law shall be fulfilled; but before this fulfilment of all shall have begun,[402] not a single iota of the law shall fall till the end of the world. Fritzsche: till all (only in thought) is accomplished. He assumes, accordingly, agreeably to the analogous use of conditional sentences (Heindorf and Stallbaum, ad Plat. Phaed. p. 67 E; Kühner, II. 2, p. 988 f.), a double protasis: (1) ἕως ἂν παρέλθῃ , κ . τ . λ ., and (2) ἝΩς … ΓΈΝΗΤΑΙ . But the parallel passages, Mat_24:34, Luk_21:32, are already opposed to this; and after the concrete and lively ἝΩς ἊΝ ΠΑΡΈΛΘῌ Ὁ ΟὐΡΑΝῸς Κ . Ἡ Γῆ , this general and indefinite ἝΩς ἊΝ ΠΆΝΤΑ ΓΈΝΗΤΑΙ would be only a vague and lumbering addition. As correlative to ἝΝ and ΜΊΑ , ΠΆΝΤΑ can only mean all portions of the law, without, however, any definite point of time requiring to be thought of, in which all the commands of the law will be carried out, according to which, then, the duration of the present condition of the world would be conformed. This thought is rendered impossible by the nearness of the Parousia, according to Mat_24:29; Mat_24:34, as well as by the growth of the tares until the Parousia, according to Mat_13:30. The thought is rather, the law will not lose its binding obligation, which reaches on to the final realization of all its prescriptions, so long as heaven and earth remain.
Observe, moreover, that the expression in our passage is different from Mat_24:35, where the permanency of the λόγοι of Christ after the end of the world is directly and definitely affirmed, but that in this continued duration of the ΛΌΓΟΙ of Christ the duration of the law also is implied, i.e. according to its complete meaning (in answer to Lechler, p. 797); comp. on Luk_16:17. “The δικαιοσύνη of the new heavens and of the new earth will be no other than what is here taught,” Delitzsch. So completely one with the idea of the law does Jesus in His spiritual greatness know His moral task to be, not severed from the latter, but placed in its midst.
[401] Ἰῶτα , the smallest letter, and κεραία , horn, a little stroke of writing (Plut. Mor. p. 1100 A, 1011 D), especially also in single letters (Origen, ad Psalms 33), by which, for example, the following letters are distinguished, ë and á , ø and ã , ä and ç . See Lightfoot, Schoettgen, and Wetstein. Both expressions denote the smallest portions of the law; see ver. 19.
[402] In this is contained the perpetually abiding obligation of the law; for that condition of things, in which no part of the law remains unfulfilled, in which, consequently, all is accomplished, will never occur until the end of the world. Of the πάντα , moreover, nothing is to be excluded which the law Contains, not even the ritualistic portions, which are to be morally fulfilled in their ideal meaning, as e.g. the Levitical prescription regarding purification by moral purification, the sacrificial laws by moral self-sacrifice (comp. Rom_12:1), and so on, so that in the connection of the whole, in accordance with the idea of πλήρωσις , not even the smallest element will perish, but retains its importance and its integral moral connection with the whole. Comp. Tholuck; Gess, Christi Pers. und Werk, I. p. 292; and before him, Calvin on ver. 17.