Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
G2647
?ata??´?
kataluo¯
Thayer Definition:
1) to dissolve, disunite
1a) (what has been joined together), to destroy, demolish
1b) metaphorically to overthrow, i.e. render vain, deprive of success, bring to naught
1b1) to subvert, overthrow
1b1a) of institutions, forms of government, laws, etc., to deprive of force, annul, abrogate, discard
1c) of travellers, to halt on a journey, to put up, lodge (the figurative expression originating in the circumstance that, to put up for the night, the straps and packs of the beasts of burden are unbound and taken off; or, more correctly from the fact that the traveller’s garments, tied up when he is on the journey, are unloosed at it end)
Part of Speech: verb
A Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: from G2596 and G3089
Citing in TDNT: 4:338, 543
Naturally Christ did not come to destroy the law but he did come to fulfill it:
Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
G4137
p????´?
ple¯roo¯
Thayer Definition:
1) to make full, to fill up, i.e. to fill to the full
1a) to cause to abound, to furnish or supply liberally
1a1) I abound, I am liberally supplied
2) to render full, i.e. to complete
2a) to fill to the top: so that nothing shall be wanting to full measure, fill to the brim
2b) to consummate: a number
2b1) to make complete in every particular, to render perfect
2b2) to carry through to the end, to accomplish, carry out, (some undertaking)
2c) to carry into effect, bring to realisation, realise
2c1) of matters of duty: to perform, execute
2c2) of sayings, promises, prophecies, to bring to pass, ratify, accomplish
2c3) to fulfil, i.e. to cause God’s will (as made known in the law) to be obeyed as it should be, and God’s promises (given through the prophets) to receive fulfilment
Part of Speech: verb
A Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: from G4134
Citing in TDNT: 6:286, 867
The word means to complete. When something is incomplete then is completed it is done and finished. Something new then can be started and this is what Christ came to do. The old law was completed so a new law (which is a new Covenant) could be introduced.
It wouldn't be proper to introduce a new law if the old one was not completed and only following that law perfectly could fulfill it.
So the old law was fulfilled and completed and could then be replaced by a new law. This makes the first law "old" which Paul said was decaying.
Destroying something and completing something have the same exact results, in this case decaying:
Heb 8:13 In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
First of all, the law is the words of a covenant so the decaying of the covenant includes the law of that covenant:
Galatians 3:17 And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.
Here something called the covenant is also called the law and we know this is the Sinai covenant and the law of Moses because of the dating of it coming 430 years after the promise to Abraham.
God has had covenants with various peoples but as far as the Sinai covenant and the law of it, it started at Sinai with Moses.
Heb 8:13 In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
Paul is using the analogy of the law having been alive like a created living creature who at some point dies and decays and eventually that carcass vanishes. That is the same result had the same creature been destroyed like being near a bomb that explodes. Death and decay and vanishing would also take place.
I think Christ is being clever in denying he was going to destroy the law, but by fulfilling it having the same result as destruction. One is less offensive than the other but the same result is still the same result.
So, while Christ did not destroy the law, he did do something else that did result in the law being made old, replaced by something new, and a figurative death occurring and a figurative decay and vanishing that took place.