At several points, Jesus affirmed the authority of Scripture, which at that time would have been the Old Testament. Citing Psalm 82 in John 10:24-26, Jesus referred to the Psalm as the word of God. Another direct word of the Savior also affirms His view of Scripture. "...until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law until all is accomplished." (Matthew 5:18) In the previous verse (Matthew 5:17), He stated that He had not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. In numerous cases, such as His confrontation with the devil in Matthew 4, his comments to the Sadducees in Mark 12:24, and in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, Christ cited Scripture for moral rebuke, doctrine, and the accuracy of its prophetic writings.
To cite an historical analogy, the ratification of the U.S. Constitution did not make the state constitutions or Anglo-American common law obsolete. While the Federal constitution may have superseded certain portions of the latter writings, they remained valid and lawful, a fact that the authors of The Federalist Papers, who were at the Constitutional Convention and would have known firsthand, pointed out. It would be wrong to say that the U.S. Constitution overruled, say, Pennsylvania's death penalty for murderers, just as the words of Jesus Christ did not overrule the Biblical commandment against adultery. In fact, His affirmation of the whole counsel of Scripture is even stronger than the words of the Constitution, a positive affirmation of its authority.