16 The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it. 17 And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than 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. (Luke 16:16-18 KJV)
William Burkitt’s Commentary
Our Saviour in these words gives the Pharisees to understand that their contempt of his person and doctrine was the more inexcusable because they lived in and under the clearest light of the gospel: the preaching of the law and the prophets continued but until John the Baptist came among you; since which time the gospel has been clearly preached both by him and myself unto you; and it has pleased God to give my doctrine great acceptation in the world. Though you Pharisees reject it, yet everyone, that is, very many, press into it; so that the doctrine which you mock, the holy doctrine of the gospel, others will embrace. Yet lest, while Christ spoke thus highly of the gospel, the Pharisees should reproach him as a destroyer of the law, he shows that the obligation of the moral law was of eternal force, and that heaven and earth should sooner pass, than the obligation of the law cease; which yet the Pharisees most shamefully violated, particularly the seventh commandment, which they brake by permitting and practising divorces, upon unjustifiable grounds.
Learn hence, that the moral law, in all the branches of it, which is summarily comprehended in the ten commandments, is an eternal rule of life and manners, which is to stand in force as long as the world stands, and the frame of heaven and earth endures.
BURKITT | Luke 16:1-7 | Luke 16:8 | Luke 16:9 | Luke 16:10-12 | Luke 16:13 | Luke 16:14 | Luke 16:15 | Luke 16:16-18 | Luke 16:19-21 | Luke 16:22-23 | Luke 16:24 | Luke 16:25 | Luke 16:26 | Luke 16:27-28 | Luke 16:29 | Luke 16:30 | Luke 16:31 |