Luke 16:16-18

“ The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it. 17. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than for one tittle of the law to fail. 18. Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery. ”

But, adds Jesus (Luke 16:16), a new era is beginning, and with it your usurped dominion comes to an end. Since the time of John, that law and those prophets which you have made your pedestal in Israel are replaced by a new dispensation. To the religious aristocracy which you had succeeded in founding there follows a kingdom of God equally open to every man (πᾶς); all have access to it as well as you! Βιάζεσθαι should not be taken in the passive sense, as Hilgenfeld would have it: “Every man is constrained by the gospel,” but as a middle, in the sense of to hasten, to throw themselves. There is, as it were, a dense crowd pressing through the gate which is now open, and every one, even the lowest of the publicans, is free to enter. Recall here the parables of chap. 15. But while this repentant crowd penetrates into the kingdom (Luke 7:29), the Pharisees and scribes remain without, like the elder son in the preceding parable. Let them beware, however! That legal system on which they have founded their throne in Israel is about to crumble to pieces (Luke 16:16); while the law itself, which they violate at the very moment they make it their boast, shall remain as the eternal expression of divine holiness, and as the dreadful standard by which they shall be judged (Luke 16:17). The δέ is adversative: but. It indicates the contrast between the end of the legal economy and the permanence of the law. This contrast reminds us of the antitheses of Matthew 5, of which this saying is a sort of summary: “ Ye have heard that it was said...; but I say unto you...” Jesus only abolishes the law by fulfilling it and confirming it spiritually. Κεραία, diminutive of κέρας, horn, denotes the small lines or hooks of the Hebrew letters. The least element of divine holiness which the law contains has more reality and durability than the whole visible universe.

The two verses, Luke 16:16-17, are put by Matthew in the discourse of Jesus regarding John the Baptist, Luke 11:12-13, inversely in point of order. We can easily understand how the mention of John the Baptist, Luke 16:16, led Matthew to insert this saying in the discourse which Jesus pronounced on His forerunner. We have seen that in that same discourse, as given by Luke (chap. 7), this declaration was with great advantage replaced by a somewhat different saying, Luke 16:29-30; and if, as Bleek owns (i. p. 454 et seq.), Luke decidedly deserves the preference as to the tenor of the words, it will doubtless be the same as to the place which he assigns them; for it is in general on this second point that his superiority appears.

Ver. 18. Not only in spite of the abolition of the legal form will the law continue in its substance; but if this substance even comes to be modified in the new economy, it will be in the direction of still greater severity. Jesus gives as an example the law of divorce. This same idea meets us, Matthew 5:31-32; it tallies fully with the meaning of the declaration, Matthew 19:3 et seq., Mark 10:2 et seq., which was uttered in this same journey, and almost at the same period. Jesus explains to the same class of hearers as in our passage, to the Pharisees namely, that if Moses authorized divorce, merely confining himself to guard it by some restrictions, there was a forsaking for a time of the true moral point of view already proclaimed Genesis 2, and which He, Jesus, came to re-establish in its purity. Luke and Matthew do not speak of the case of voluntary separation on the part of the woman referred to by Mark (Mark 10:12) and Paul (1 Corinthians 7:10-11). And Paul does not expressly interdict the divorced man, as Mark does, from contracting a second marriage. Those shades in such a precept cannot be voluntary; they represent natural variations due to tradition (Syn.) or to the nature of the context (Paul).

The parallels quoted leave no doubt as to the real connection of Luke 16:18 with Luke 16:17. The asyndeton between those two verses is explained by the fragmentary character of Luke's report. What remains to us of this discourse resembles the peaks of a mountain chain, the base of which is concealed from view, and must be reconstructed by reflection. As to the compiler, he has evidently refrained from filling up at his own hand the blanks in his document. The disjointed character of this account has been turned into an accusation against him; but it ought rather to be regarded as a proof of his conscientious fidelity.

Does the context, as we have just established it, leave anything to be desired? Has Holtzmann ground for regarding this piece as a collection of sentences thrown together at random? Or is it necessary, in order to justify Luke 16:18, to regard it, with Schleiermacher, as an allusion to the divorce of Herod Antipas from the daughter of Aretas, and his unlawful marriage with Herodias, a crime which the scribes and Pharisees had not the courage to condemn like John the Baptist? Or, finally, must we, with Olshausen, take the idea of divorce in a spiritual sense, and apply it to the emancipation of believers from the yoke of the law, agreeably to Romans 7:1 et seq.? No; the explanation which we have given, as well as the authenticity of the context, appear to be sufficiently established by the parallels quoted (Matthew 5:18-19; Matthew 5:31-32; Matthew 19:3 et seq.; Mark 10:2 et seq.).

The saying of Luke 16:17, proclaiming the eternal duration of the law, has appeared to some critics incompatible with the Pauline character of Luke's Gospel. Hilgenfeld alleges that the canonical text of Luke is falsified, and that the true original form of this passage, as well as of many others, has been preserved by Marcion, who reads: “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of my sayings to fail.” But, 1. The manifest incompatibility of our canonical text with Marcion's system renders it, on the contrary, very probable that it was Marcion who in this case, as in so many others, accommodated the text to his dogmatic point of view. 2. Could Jesus have applied the word tittle to His own sayings before they had been expressed in writing? 3. The parallel, Matthew 5:18, proves that the expression in its original meaning really applied to the law. If such was the primary application in the mind of Jesus, would it not be extremely surprising if, after an earlier Luke had departed from it, the more modern Luke should have reverted to it? Besides, this supposition, combated by Zeller, is withdrawn by Volkmar, who first gave it forth (Die Evangel, p. 481). Zeller, however, supposes that the evangelist, feeling the anti-Pauline tendency of this saying, designedly enclosed it between two others, intended to show the reader that it was not to be taken in its literal sense. But would it not have been far simpler to omit it altogether? And does not so much artifice contrast with the simplicity of our Gospels?

According to the Talmud, Tract. Gittin (Luke 9:10), Hillel, the grandfather of Gamaliel, the man whom our moderns would adopt as the master of Jesus Christ, taught that the husband is entitled to put away his wife when she burns his dinner. We can understand how, in view of such pharisaic teachings, Jesus felt the need of protesting, not only by affirming the maintenance of moral obligation as contained in the law, but even by announcing that the new doctrine would in this respect exceed the severity of the old, and would conclusively raise the moral obligation to the height of the ideal. The declaration of Jesus, Luke 16:17, about the maintenance of the law, is, besides, perfectly at one with St. Paul's view (1 Corinthians 7:19): “The keeping of the commandments of God is everything;” comp. Romans 2:12: “As many as have sinned under the law, shall be judged by the law. ”

On the basis of this introduction, announcing to the Pharisees the end of their paraded show of righteousness and the advent of real holiness, there rises by way of example the following parable. To the words of Luke 16:15, that which is highly esteemed among men, there corresponds the representation of the sumptuous and brilliant life of the rich man; to the predicate, is an abomination in the sight of God (same verse), the description of his punishment in Hades; to the declaration of Luke 16:17 regarding the permanence of the law, the reply of Abraham: they have Moses and the prophets.