Until Heaven and Earth Passes....
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled (Matthew 5:17-18).
Be sure to read Part 1 of this short series.Let’s look closely at Matthew 5:17-18, cited above. Most of the time discussions of the passing of the Law center on Jesus’ emphatic declaration that “not one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law until it is all fulfilled.” And that discussion is valid and critical. That is not all that Jesus said, however! He said “until heaven and earth passes, not one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law.”
Now, Sabbatarians insist that this means that as long as material physical creation continues to exist, the Law (for them meaning only the Decalogue) then the Law will never pass away. (I will not discuss here the fallacy of delimiting the definition of “the law” to the Decalogue. See my book, The Passing of the Law of Moses: Torah To Telos, Vol. 1, in which I prove, very effectively, that this is not a valid claim).
The point I want to make is focused on Jesus’ statement “until heaven and earth passes, not one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law.” For Jesus, the passing of the Law was dependent on the passing of “heaven and earth”! Interestingly, few commentators focus on this, except, as noted, Sabbatarian commentators. But what is indeed noted by some prominent scholars is how the Bible does use the terminology of “heaven and earth.” G. K. Beale notes:
“…that ‘heaven and earth’ in the Old Testament may sometimes be a way of referring to Jerusalem or its temple, for which ‘Jerusalem’ is a metonymy.” (G.K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission A biblical theology of the dwelling place of God, (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 2004), 25).
Concerning the passing of heaven and earth in Matthew 5:17-18 we find this by J. V. Flesko:Reformed theologian John Brown in identifying the passing of “heaven and earth” in Matthew 5:18 writes:
But a person at all familiar with the phraseology of the Old Testament Scriptures, knows that the dissolution of the Mosaic economy, and the establishment of the Christian, is often spoken of as the removing of the old earth and heavens, and the creation of a new earth and new heavens.” (J.V. Fesko, Last things First Unlocking Genesis 1-3 with the Christ of Eschatology, (Scottland, UK: 2007), 70, citing John Brown, Discourses and Sayings of Our Lord (Edinburg: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1990 ), 1:170).
What is commonly missed in discussions of the passing of “heaven and earth” is the fact that in Jewish thought, the natural creation of heaven and earth was considered the most firm, the most solid, the most indestructible reality of all realities: Psalm 78:69 is: "He built his sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth, which he has founded for ever." And according to many sources, Josephus among them, the actual holy place and most holy place inside the Temple building were constructed like earth and heaven. The courts outside represented the sea.Finally, of numerous sources that could be cited, H. T. Sherwin Fletcher Lewis, in an in-depth study of Matthew’s use of the terminology of “heaven and earth” observed:
The temple was far more than the point at which heaven and earth met. Rather, it was thought to correspond to, represent, or, in some sense, to be ‘heaven and earth’ in its totality.” And “. . . he principle reference of “heaven and earth” is the temple centered cosmology of second-temple Judaism which included the belief that the temple is heaven and earth in microcosm. Mark 13[:31] and Matthew 5:18 refer then to the destruction of the temple as a passing away of an old cosmology. (Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis a contributing author in, “ESCHATOLOGY in Bible & Theology Evangelical Essays at the Dawn of a New Millennium” (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 1997), 157).
In light of these facts, and again, additional sources could be adduced, my point is that you must identify what “heaven and earth” it was that had to pass away for the law to pass. And there is very good reason to say, based on the scholarly statements above, that if you maintain that the Law passed at the Cross, you are thereby (logically) claiming that the temple itself and Israel passed away at the Cross- but of course that is untenable. Our choices here are somewhat limited:#1 - One can take the Sabbatarian view and insist that until the material creation passes away, Torah will not pass away. That would mean, of course, that the seventh day Sabbath remains valid today and until the “end of time.” The vast majority of Christianity rejects that idea.
#2 - Jesus was using the term “heaven and earth” metaphorically, in line with common Hebraic practice of the day, to refer to the temple itself and the very social structure of Israel. But if that is the case, one can hardly argue that the Law passed away at Calvary, since the temple was certainly not destroyed, did not pass away, at Calvary.
Now, Tom Riggle, who seems to write at least one article a day citing me as a false teacher, says that when Jesus said: “Do not think that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets, I did not come to destroy but to fulfill” that this means he was saying that all of the law that had to be fulfilled were those things that he would fulfill in his personal ministry. In other words, while a great deal of the law (i.e. the final three feast days) and many, many other prophecies found in the Tanakh were NOT fulfilled at the cross, nonetheless, per Riggle, the law passed at Calvary because Jesus had fulfilled some of the law and some of the prophecies. As we demonstrated in part one of this short series, this logically means that the final three feast days, even though they foreshadowed the eschatological consummation, they were fulfilled by Jesus while he was on the cross. This does great violence to the chronological flow of the Jewish calendar. Be sure to read that part one to see just how specious that claim is.
Jesus’ statements were unambiguous: “Until heaven and earth passes not one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law until it is all fulfilled.” Consider in light of this, that in both 2 Peter 3 and Revelation, the inspired authors were still, long after Calvary, anticipating the passing of heaven and earth (2 Peter 3:10f; Revelation 21). So, that raises the following issues:
If the heaven and earth of 2 Peter 3 and Revelation is the same heaven and earth Jesus spoke of in Matthew 5:17-18, that is prima facie demonstration that the Law did not pass away at Calvary! After all, if the heaven and earth had to pass for the law to pass - and that is what Jesus said- then if the Law passed away at Calvary, heaven and earth passed away at Calvary. However, if this is true, one has to ask, what heaven and earth did Peter and John have in mind when they were anticipating the passing of heaven and earth? It could not be the same heaven and earth that supposedly past away at the Cross, to bring about the passing of the Law.
Jesus– Until heaven and earth passed away, not one jot or tittle of the Law could pass away.
Peter and John were still anticipating the passing of heaven and earth when they wrote (2 Peter 3 / Revelation).
Therefore, not one jot or one tittle had passed from the law when Peter and John wrote their letters.
The only way to counter this-- if one insists that the Law passed away at the cross - is to say that Jesus was referring to one heaven and earth passing at the cross, but that Peter and John were predicting the passing of some other heaven and earth when they wrote.Were Peter and John anticipating the passing of material creation? That is certainly the popular futurist view, but it is not tenable. Since I am approaching this article from the preterist perspective and addressing arguments made by some preterists, I will not discuss the theory that the Bible does predict the dissolution of material creation. Suffice it to say that even the majority ancient Jewish scholars and many scholars down to this day do not believe that the Bible teaches such a doctrine. And since this article is focused on preterist perspectives, and since preterists certainly do not believe in a future destruction– or renovation - of material heaven and earth, then it is not believed that Peter and John were indicating the passing of physical heaven and earth.
So, we are back to the question, what heaven and earth did Peter and John have in mind? Well, it would be the heaven and earth that the Old Testament prophets said would be destroyed, cf. Isaiah 65-66. And to be sure, that heaven and earth was not material creation but the Old Covenant world of Israel. Revelation posits the passing of the heaven and earth at the time of the fulfillment of all that the prophets had foretold, (Revelation 10:6-7; 21-22) which agrees remarkably well with Matthew 5:17-18.
So, for those who say that the Law passed at the Cross, that demands that “heaven and earth” passed at that time as well. Since material creation did not pass at Calvary, that demands that it was some other, metaphoric heaven and earth that passed at Calvary. Yet to this date, I have not had any proponent of the idea that the Law passed at the Cross actually state that “heaven and earth” passed away at the Cross. This is a serious disconnect. Consider the following:
Jesus– Until heaven and earth passed away, not one jot or tittle of the Law could pass away.
Tom Riggle and some other preterists: The Law passed away at the cross.
Therefore, heaven and earth passed away at the cross.
If the law passed at the Cross, then some heaven and earth had to pass at that time. But if heaven and earth passed at the Cross, then once again, what heaven and earth was still to pass when Peter and John wrote? When I posed this question to Riggle, he totally ignored my question and to this date no other proponent of the passing of the Law at the Cross has answered this question either. This is a serious challenge to the idea that the Law passed at the Cross.In summary, the claim that the Law passed away at the Cross and that the final three feast days were fulfilled at that time seriously distorts Israel’s festal calendar as I have shown. In fact, it puts the last things first!
And if the law passed away at Calvary, then assuredly heaven and earth passed at Calvary, necessitating that we identify another heaven and earth that was to pass in the future of Peter and John. I find, therefore, that it is simply un-biblical to say that the Law of Moses ended at the Cross and that Israel’s final three feast days were fulfilled at the time of the Cross.
More to come. Be sure to get a copy of my book, Torah To Telos Vol. I: The Passing of the Law for an in-depth study of the subject of the passing of the Law.
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