NOTES for Luk 16:1-31
Speaking of the new era that began with his coming, Jesus describes it this way: the Torah and the prophets were until John—clearly John the Baptist—and now, a ‘now’ that continues to this day, people enter the Kingdom by making the effort this requires. Yet this certainly does not mean that the Torah has lost its force and is no longer needed: heaven and earth will pass away sooner than a single stroke of the Torah disappears.
The Saviour's words make it clear that we live in the era of the Kingdom's coming. The former order of things has passed into history, whether we realise it or not. The era of the Kingdom's coming means that everyone who seeks it can share in it, but doing so requires the appropriate effort. Clearly, the moment must one day come when the Kingdom triumphs in full, a moment bound up with Christ's appearing in glory. The central spiritual content of the present era, however, is precisely the process of the Kingdom's entering the world.
The Torah is not thereby left in the past. This is understandable: the Torah is not, strictly speaking, a religious phenomenon, but a spiritual one. It is not merely legislation given by God or a moral code he established; it is a revelation of the spiritual laws that govern a person's relationships with God and with other people. As such, the Torah obviously cannot lose its significance in any era, even when the Kingdom is revealed in all its fullness.
At the present stage of history, in the era of the Kingdom's coming, those who seek the Kingdom need the Torah as a means of shaping their spiritual life. For the Kingdom enters the world with human participation—with the participation of those in whose hearts it has found a place. But for the heart to be ready not only to receive but also to retain that breath of the Kingdom without which there is no Christianity, it needs the Torah: the inner Torah that gives a certain form to our existence and shapes our spiritual life.
Otherwise, God's breath, the breath of the Kingdom, having touched us and even entered our hearts, will leave us as easily as it came. There will simply be no vessel in our hearts in which it can be held. Then every touch of God's breath will mean beginning a new life from scratch. And every joyful sharing in this new life will be followed by a retreat to our former state. The inner Torah is needed precisely to prevent such a retreat. Down to the last stroke. In all its fullness.