Not one Jot or Tittle

Jesus said:

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For truly I say unto you. Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.

Whoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:17-20.

This passage tells us that Jesus said that he did not come into the world to destroy the law (bring it to an end), but he came to fulfill it. (bring what the law and the prophets). He said that not “one jot or one tittle would pass from the law until all of what the law and the prophets promised. So what exactly is a jot and a tittle? A jot is the name of the least letter of an alphabet or the smallest part of a piece of writing.Jot is and English form of the Greek word iota or the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet and corresponds to the Roman letter i. The Hebrew form of this word is jod or yodr, the smallest letter of the square Hebrew alphabet. To this day we use the word jot to mean “a tiny amount”

A tittle, which sounds as if it were a combination of tiny and little is even smaller than a jot.  It is a small stroke or point in writing or printing. In classical Latin this applied to any accent over a letter, but is now most commonly used as the name for the dot over the letter ‘i’. A tittle is also the name of the dots on dice. The word tittle was replaced by the word dot in the the 1700s. Today we may say “dot your i’s, but back in Chaucer or Shakespeare’s day, would have said to “tittle them.

Therefore, when verse 17 says that not one jot or tittle would pass until all the law be fulfilled, this contradicts what much of the church world tells us. The law did not pass away when Christ died on the cross, because heaven and earth both still exist.

Whoever breaks even the least of the commandments and teaches that the law and the prophets have passed away will be the least in the kingdom, but he whose behavior consistently lines up with the law will be the greatest in the kingdom. The only man who consistently obeyed the law was Jesus himself.