Contradiction claim
Does God’s law remain in force, or is it abolished?
Matthew 5:17-19 records Jesus saying he came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it, and that not one jot or tittle shall pass from the law. Ephesians 2:15 speaks of the law of commandments contained in ordinances being abolished in his flesh.
2 source records · no review date recorded
How to read this record
Passages side by side
TextThe primary text, as seeded. Nothing here is summarised or paraphrased.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
For verily 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.
Whosoever 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.
Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
Why they appear to conflict
AnalysisEach side states a proposition attributable to its passages. A claim is not assumed to have exactly two sides.
Matthew
The law is not destroyed; not one jot or tittle passes from it until all is fulfilled.
Matthew 5:17 · Matthew 5:18 · Matthew 5:19
Ephesians
The law of commandments contained in ordinances has been abolished.
Ephesians 2:15
Formal analysis
AnalysisA contradiction requires a proposition and its incompatible counterpart under materially equivalent conditions. Every dimension below must hold for the formal test to succeed.
No formal analysis has been recorded for this claim yet. Until one exists, the classification cannot be stronger than a descriptive category.
Analytical questions
AnalysisWhat a researcher must answer to classify this record. Open questions are recorded, not resolved by preference.
- Do "the law" in Matthew and "the law of commandments contained in ordinances" in Ephesians have the same extension?
- What does "fulfil" mean in Matthew 5:17, and does fulfilment entail continuation?
- Does the temporal clause "till all be fulfilled" set a terminus?
- Is Ephesians speaking of the law’s function as a dividing barrier rather than of the law as such?
Hebrew / Greek relevance
LanguageThe Greek verbs rendered "destroy", "fulfil" and "abolish" each carry a range, and the extension of "law" differs between the two passages. The classification depends on those questions.
Textual variants
ManuscriptA variant is a transmission phenomenon, never in itself a logical contradiction.
No textual variant record is linked to this claim.
Manuscript evidence
ManuscriptManuscript evidence has not yet been curated for this record.
Narrator and speaker analysis
AnalysisWhat the narration establishes, distinguished from what would additionally establish that the reported event occurred.
No narrator or speaker analysis has been recorded for these passages yet.
Proposed harmonisations
InterpretationEach proposal records the premises it must supply that the text does not state. Premises are never injected silently.
The two passages refer to different things
Ephesians addresses the ordinances that separated Jew from Gentile; Matthew addresses the law as divine instruction.
Premises this proposal must supply
- textualThe two uses of "law" differ in extension.
Editorial Harmonisation Cost Heuristic
2 / 5 — Ordinary contextual inference
Ephesians 2 is explicitly about the barrier between two groups, which supports a narrower extension there. Ordinary contextual inference, though it leaves the force of "fulfil" in Matthew unresolved.
Reviewed by CodexTrace Editorial Board on 2026-09-07. This is an editorial heuristic, not an objective measurement.
Critical responses
InterpretationArguments that the proposed reconciliations do not succeed, treated structurally the same way as the harmonisations.
No critical response has been recorded for this claim yet.
Analytical classification
Analysis- Classification
- Theological tension
- What it means
- Statements about God, law or salvation resist joint reading without a semantic or covenantal distinction.
- Requires formal analysis
- No
- Review status
- reviewed
- Source collections
- codextrace_research
Sources
SourceEvery externally-sourced claim on this page resolves to one of these records.
- [1]
CodexTrace. "CodexTrace editorial research". licence: CC-BY-4.0
Critical / scholarlyotherCC-BY-4.0 - [2]
King James Version (Authorised Version)
"King James Version (Authorised Version)". licence: public-domain-us
Primarytranslationpublic-domain-usLink unverified
Related records
TextCommunity
CommunityCommunity discussion requires a configured Supabase project on this deployment. Research pages are unaffected.