Jesus said to his disciples: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.
Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven."
Source: https://dailygospel.org/M/AM/
Analysis
Today's passage is one of the most contradictory passages, if looked at face value, in the entire Gospel. We have seen Jesus contradict the Torah and old Jewish commands multiple times. Yet, Jesus said clearly in this passage that He has come not to abolish, but to fulfill. He stresses this further by saying it that not even the smallest part of the law shall be abolished, and said that if anyone breaks the commandments and teaches others, they will be called least in the kingdom. However least, at least they are still in the kingdom. This is weird, especially since Jesus has repeatedly broke the commandments, and He even teaches so. So what does any of this mean?
The word fulfill has a definition of achieving or realizing. Now it's rare for someone to say that they fulfill the law, people follow laws, not fulfill it. However, Jesus doesn't refer to merely the commandments, but He is referring to the entire Jewish scripture, that is the Tanakh, which also contains prophecies. So we may assume that Jesus is talking about fulfilling the prophecies within the Tanakh. If Jesus is referring to the actual Jewish laws, then Jesus would be referring to the validity of the laws. That is, whether they're valid and we should follow it as well, this is where things get complicated.
To abolish means to make invalid or to erase, it's weird for Jesus to say that He will not abolish the laws, when He has abolished it Himself multiple times. There are few logical conclusions we can deduce from this problem. We can only conclude that the Tanakh has been misinterpreted by the Jews, and Jesus wishes to introduce the true interpretations of the Tanakh. This would make this passage much more sensible and logical. As from the same book, varying interpretations can be taken, and Jesus can overrule the old interpretations of the Tanakh, but not the Tanakh itself.
That conclusion, while sensible at first, we must remind ourselves that Jesus had contradicted the actual commandments as it is from the Tanakh, and not just the interpretations. One of the most common is the laws of the Sabbath. Another example is matters of marriage and divorce. Here, while Jesus gives rational justifications, He is still contradicting the Tanakh, so what can we assume here? We can assume that within the Tanakh, there is a logical mechanism that will overrule and thus make the Jewish laws invalid if that mechanism is fulfilled. This is the only logical conclusion we can have, and while this means in the future I'll probably need to analyze the Tanakh as well, that is for another day. I believe that is all I have to say, have a nice day and see you tomorrow.
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