Matthew 5:18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. This verse leads to a bunch of questions and different interpretations from scholars. Is Jesus speaking of the literal heavens and earth? Or is he speaking metaphorically of the temple and the Israelite nation? The Greek words translated here are: ouranos (heavens) and ge (earth). Based on Strong’s Concordance these words can be defined as follows:
Ouranos: sky, firmament, any area above the earth, heavens, the place of sun, moon, and stars, God’s dwelling place, sometimes used as a Jewish technical term for God’s dwelling place. Where would a first-century Judean (Jesus’ original audience) have considered God’s dwelling place to be?
Moses was instructed at Mount Sinai to construct and transport the tabernacle with the Israelites on their journey through the wilderness and their subsequent conquest of the Promised Land. After 440 years, Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem superseded it as the dwelling-place of God. Hezekiah calls the Temple the “dwelling (משׁכן; mishkah) of the Lord” (2 Chronicles 29:6), and Joel refers to God as the one “dwelling (שׁכן; shokhen) in Zion” (Joel 3:17). In the mid of a Judean living in the time of Jesus, the temple would have been considered the dwelling place of God, thus the Greek word “ouranos” could be interpreted as such.
Ge: world, country, region, land, ground, soil. This word could be interpreted correctly to mean literal earth but one could also put forth a valid argument that it referred to the nation of Israel (region, country) or even to the world of the 1st century Judean, which revolved around the law and the temple.
If Jesus is speaking of the literal heavens and the earth, then the law must still be in effect because obviously the heavens and the earth are still here. But Paul inspired by God said in Ephesians 2:15 that Christ set aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. But does Scripture tell us about the Law? The Law was given specifically to the Israelites through Moses. Leviticus 26:46 (NIV) These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the Lord established at Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelites through Moses. Gentiles did not have the law (Romans 2:14). However, the principles behind the commands were timeless and applied to all people (Romans 2:14) and Jesus drives that point home in his teachings, especially in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).
I say all of this to show that a valid argument can be made for either of these two interpretations of Matthew 5:18 without going beyond what is written (1 Corinthians 4:6). It’s an interesting study but the main point is that Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, which he did. And by fulfilling it he was able to offer himself once for all as the ultimate, once for all sacrifice for sin. Hebrews 10:10 “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Hebrews 10:14 or by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.