The unbelieving Pharisees heard Jesus parable and responded with ridicule. According to the account, their ridicule stemmed from their being “lovers of silver” or money. (Luke 16:14) They highly esteemed wealth. In their view, the rich who lived up to the traditional interpretations of the law had God’s special favor. The unbelieving Pharisees despised the poor, considering them as accursed people who were ignorant of the law. (Compare John 7:49.)

Responding to the sneering of this particular group of Pharisees, Jesus identified them as persons who justified themselves before men or tried to make themselves appear as upright or godly before others through outward acts. “But God,” Jesus continued, “knows your hearts” (the deep inner selves or the real motivations). Humans, however, are limited largely to what they can perceive by means of their senses and cannot penetrate the deep inner selves of others. Therefore, what humans may regard as lofty according to their flawed estimation can be the very thing that is abominable in God’s sight. (Luke 16:14, 15)

With the coming of the Messiah, the time had come for all the Israelites to repent and avail themselves of the privileges and blessings associated with this grand development. Jesus indicated that a new era had dawned, saying that “the law and the prophets were until John.” Both the law and the prophets pointed forward to the coming of the Messiah, and John the Baptist identified Jesus as that promised one. Therefore, as Jesus said, from then on the evangel or good news about the kingdom of God was being declared. (Luke 16:16)

Respecting entrance into the kingdom, the last Greek word in Luke 16:16 is a form of biázo, meaning “to be violent” or “to use force.” In this context, the term biázo appears to denote the strenuous effort all would be putting forth to be part of the realm where God is Sovereign. A number of translations make this significance explicit. “The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the good news of the kingdom of God is being proclaimed, and everyone with the utmost earnestness and effort is pressing into it for his share in it.” (Wuest) “But since God’s kingdom has been preached, everyone is trying hard to get in.” (CEV)

The coming of the Messiah also meant that the time had arrived for revealing the true significance of the law. Regarding it, Jesus said it would be “easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for a letter fragment [karaía; literally, horn] of the law to drop out.” (Luke 16:17) The Greek term keraía here means a small part or stroke of a letter. In the Hebrew alphabet, the letters daleth (D) and resh (R), for example, are very similar and can easily be confused. Therefore, a seemingly insignificant change in the appearance of one letter can change the meaning of a word, especially when the reader had to supply the vowel sounds.

In his teaching and the life he lived, Jesus upheld the spirit of the law and did not in any way act contrary to its purpose. He revealed that it ultimately served to identify him as the promised Messiah. For not even a small part of a letter to drop out of the law assured that it would remain unaltered, with no possibility existing of any failure to attain its divinely designated objective. It would thus prove to be easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for even a minor change in the law to take place.

While considering themselves to be upholders of the law and insisting on the letter of the law, the unbelieving Pharisees repeatedly violated the spirit of the law. The law, for example, allowed divorce but also revealed the binding nature of marriage. In the beginning of Genesis (which the Pharisees recognized as part of the Torah or law), marriage is represented as a permanent union of a man and his wife. (Genesis 2:24)

Jesus called attention to the binding nature of marriage and thereby showed that the Pharisees were wrong when they regarded divorce as a husband’s authorized right. He said, “Everyone divorcing his wife and marrying another commits adultery, and the man marrying a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Luke 16:18)

It should be noted that the legal provision for divorce, to which Jesus on another occasion referred as a concession made out of regard for the hardheartedness of the men, served to protect a woman from hateful abuse and a charge of adultery upon entering into a relationship with another man. Without a certificate of divorce from the husband who had dismissed her, a woman would have been punished as an adulteress. Jesus, therefore, expressed the reality of the situation when a divorced woman married another man. Both the man and the woman would then have committed adultery, but the certificate of divorce protected them from being thus legally charged and punished. At the same time, Jesus revealed that the man who divorced his wife to marry another woman also committed adultery. This would be because he acted contrary to the precedent of the first union mentioned in Genesis, which was for the man and his wife to be married for life. (Matthew 19:4-8)

Jesus’ teaching about divorce also indicated that a profound change in one’s personal life would be needed to be part of the realm where his Father is Sovereign. Based on their reaction to Jesus’ comments about divorce, his disciples recognized that marriage was far more binding than they had previously thought. (Matthew 19:9, 10)