To be absolutely convinced that Jesus spoke only of the eternal law, we need only examine the true meaning of the word which has given rise to so many false interpretations. The word "law" (in Greek [Greek: nomos], in Hebrew [Hebrew: torah], _torah_) has in all languages two principal meanings: one, law in the abstract sense, independent of formulæ; the other, the written statutes which men generally recognize as law. In the Greek of Paul's Epistles the distinction is indicated by the use of the article. Without the article Paul uses [Greek: nomos] the most frequently in the sense of the divine eternal law. By the ancient Hebrews, as in books of Isaiah and the other prophets, [Hebrew: torah], _torah_, is always used in the sense of an eternal revelation, a divine intuition. It was not till the time of Esdras, and later in the Talmud, that "Torah" was used in the same sense in which we use the word "Bible"--with this difference, that while we have words to distinguish between the Bible and the divine law, the Jews employed the same word to express both meanings. And so Jesus sometimes speaks of law as the divine law (of Isaiah and the other prophets), in which case he confirms it; and sometimes in the sense of the written law of the Pentateuch, in which case he rejects it. To distinguish the difference, he always, in speaking of the written law, adds, "and the prophets," or prefixes the word "your,"--"your law." When he says: "_Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets_" (Matt. vii. 12), he speaks of the written law. The entire written law, he says, may be reduced to this expression of the eternal law, and by these words he abrogated the eternal law. When he says, "_The law and the prophets were until John_" (Luke xvi. 16), he speaks of the written law, and abrogates it. When he says, "_Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law_" (John vii. 19), "_It is also written in your law_" (John viii. 17), "_that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law_" (John xv. 25), he speaks of the written law, the law whose authority he denied, the law that condemned him to death: "_The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die_" (John xix. 7). It is plain that this Jewish law, which authorized condemnation to death, was not the law of Jesus. But when Jesus says, "I am not come to destroy the law, but to teach you the fulfilment of the law; for nothing of this law shall be changed, but all shall be fulfilled," then he speaks, not of the written law, but of the divine and eternal law.