Not One Jot or One Tittle

Matthew 5:17-20 

Our fourth difficult passage deals with one of the sayings of Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount.  Here Christ says, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”  In making this statement Jesus affirms the validity of the Law that was given to Moses.

A ‘jot’ is the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet while the ‘tittle’ was a small mark that is either part of a letter or attached to a letter to help distinguish two letters that are very similar like our ‘C’ and ‘G.’ There was no part of the Law, even the smallest part, that would pass away until it was all fulfilled.

 Is this really a difficult passage?  Perhaps it is one that is more misunderstood and misapplied than truly difficult. There are some religious groups today who hold that Christians must keep some or all of the Law of Moses.  Their belief is based, in part at least, on these very words.  But this is a matter of taking a passage out of context, whether intentionally or not, to support an erroneous belief.

We are not bound by the Law of Moses; neither in part, not in whole.  Speaking of that law Paul said in Colossians 2:14 that Christ took it out of the way and nailed it to the cross.  In Galatians 3:24-25 Paul tells us that the Law was given as a tutor to lead us to Christ and, “now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.”  In fact, the question of Christians and the Law was answered by the apostles and elders in Acts 15.  Please take the time to read the account given there.

Christ fulfilled the Law.  He has taken it out of the way and nailed it to the cross.  It was upon His fulfillment of it that the Law passed away.  There is no contradiction between what Jesus said in Matthew 5 and what Paul and other apostles said in other places regarding the Law of Moses.  This misunderstanding, like so many others, is easily cleared up when we remember the context.  Jesus did say the Law would not pass until it had been fulfilled (v.18).  That was after He said “I did not come to abolish but to fulfill” (v.17).

Love,

Thomas Sneed

Pond Church of Christ