What Good is the Law of Moses? – 1 Timothy 1:8-11

Summary:

In pronouncing the law “good” (v.8) Paul is teaching Timothy how to deal with those who desire to teach it (v.7). You start by acknowledging the law is as good as Moses said (Deut.4:6-8) and can do good things (Ps. 19:7,8; 119: 98). Even the man who says we are not under law (Rom.6: 15) keeps insisting the law is good (v.8cf.Rom.7:12).

But the law is good only “if” it is used lawfully (v.8). It is not made for righteous men, i.e., it’s not for saved men. Only saved men are righteous. Remember, only the righteous saved in Israel will inherit the land for ever (Ps.37:29), and only the righteous have eternal life (Mt.25: 46). None of us are righteous in ourselves (Rom.3:10), but we can be “made righteous” by the obedience of Christ (Rom.5:19).

Since there are only two kinds of people in the world, saved and unsaved, and the law isn’t made for the saved, it must be made for the unsaved, a group Paul calls “the lawless.” He also calls them “the disobedient” (v.9). Peter contrasts “disobedient” people to believers (IPe.2:7) because they “obey not the gospel” (IIThes.1:8).

God made the law for the unsaved to show them they are sinners (Rom.3:20) who need a Savior. When the Law finds its way to a “good” moral person, it makes the sin in them “exceeding sinful” (Rom.7:13). When we’re told not to do something, our fallen nature wants to do it all the more. That’s why Paul says that “the strength of sin is the law” (ICor.15:56).

Since the first commandment is not to have other gods before God, if you do, you are “ungodly” (v.9cf.Ex.20:3). Those who make graven images (Ex.20:4) are “sinners” (v.9). Since the next commandment says to keep the Sabbath “holy” (Ex.20:8), if the Jews who were under the law didn’t keep it holy, they were “unholy” (v.9). Since we’re not supposed to take God’s name in vain (Ex.20:7), the “profane” are those who break this commandment (v.9). When Paul says the law was made for “murderers,” he’s addressing Exodus 20:13. When he adds you shouldn’t kill your mother or father, he’s referencing Exodus 20:12.

Under the law “manslayers” (v.9) were those who killed people unintentionally, but in this context the word refers to those who kill anyone, not just fathers and mothers. God left the commandment “thou shalt not kill” open-ended to include even the killing of yourself in suicide. And if you don’t believe that this open-ended commandment prohibits abortion, you are guilty of age discrimination, for you are saying that it is okay to kill the old but not the young.

A whore in our day and age is a prostitute who has sex for money, so a “whoremonger” (v.10) would be a prostitute’s customer. But originally a whore was any promiscuous woman, so a whoremonger was any promiscuous man or woman, any who violate Exodus 20:14. Paul is also referencing the commandment not to covet (Ex.20:17), since coveting is what causes whoremongering (Rom.7:7). Whoremongering also covers them that defile themselves with mankind (v.10), for adultery with “mankind” is no better than adultery with a woman (cf.Lev.18:22).

The law was also made for “menstealers” (v.10), those who’d violate Exodus 20:15 by stealing the most valuable thing that can be stolen, people. “Liars” (v.10) break the commandment found in Exodus 20:16. We think of courtrooms when we think of “perjured persons,” but that’s only because perjury means lying under oath.

When Paul adds, “if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine” (v.10) according to his gospel (v.11), the Sabbath was not contrary to sound doctrine according to the law, but it is according to Paul’s gospel (Col.2:16). So if you use that law to bring a knowledge of sin on an unbeliever you are using it unlawfully.

Paul calls his gospel “glorious” to remind Timothy to remind those that desired to be teachers of the law that his gospel wasn’t contrary to the law as he’d been charged (Acts 18:13), it was a secret, unrevealed part of the new covenant, God’s glorious solution to the weakness and unprofitableness of the law (IICor.3:5-10).

The End of the Commandment – 1 Timothy 1:5-7

Summary:

Since the word “end” can mean purpose or goal, “the end of the commandment” refers to the goal of the commandment. In God’s mind the ten commandments are one (James 2:10,11), so “the commandment” (v.5) refers to all ten. God’s purpose, or goal, in giving the ten commandments was “charity,” a Bible word for love. God’s goal in giving the law was to get men to love Him and their neighbor as themselves.

But don’t change “charity” to love, for love is a feeling, charity is that feeling in action. God’s goal in giving the law wasn’t just to cause you to feel love toward God and men, it was to get you to put that feeling in action by not having others gods before Him or taking His name in vain, and by not lying to your neighbor, stealing from him, killing, etc. (Rom. 13:8-10; Gal. 5:13,14).

Only saved people have “a pure heart” (v.5 cf. Pr.24:3,4; Mt.5:8). The Jews purified their hearts by water baptism (Heb.10:22), but the Gentiles purify their hearts “by faith” without baptism, like Cornelius (Acts 15:8,9). The point is, God’s goal in giving the law wasn’t just to get everyone obeying the ten commandments, it was to get everyone saved and obeying them out of a pure, saved heart.

That doesn’t mean God doesn’t it like it when the unsaved obey the law. We know He does, for He’ll force them to obey it in the kingdom (Rev.19:15; Jer.23:5). The kingdom will begin with all believers, but when most of their children don’t believe the Lord will have to rule amid His “enemies” (Ps.110:2). Everyone will obey the ten commandments in that day, but the unsaved will obey them out of impure hearts.

But we know the law can’t change impure hearts because at the end of the millennium all who obeyed it out of impure hearts rebel against Christ (Rev.20:7-9). And it wasn’t God’s goal to give the Law so men would obey outwardly, just waiting for their chance to rebel! It was to get men saved and obeying the law “out of a pure heart.”

The process always starts when the lost hear the law and learn what sin is (Rom.3:20; 7:7). Once the lost man learns he is a sinner he sees his need to be saved and become someone who can obey the law out of a pure heart.

Similar to all this, the only ones with “a good conscience” (at least in this context) are saved people. The Jews got it by water baptism (Heb.10:22), we get it by faith alone! God also wants us obeying the law out of “faith unfeigned” (v.5). Since “feign” means pretend (ISam.21:13), “unfeigned” faith was genuine faith (IITim.1:5).

The reason Paul was saying all this is because some in Ephesus had “swerved” from the goal of charity and “turned aside” (v.6). Since three times the Bible says that Israel “turned aside” from the law (Ex.32:8; Deut.9:12,16), Paul picked this phrase deliberately to answer those who were charging him with turning aside from the law (Rom.6:15). It was his way of saying, “Yes, I am turning aside from the law, but you’re turning aside from the goal of the law.”

“Vain” (v.6) means empty, and “jangling” is overly loud jingling. We know when some turned to vain jangling they were turning to the law, for Paul goes on to say they desired to be teachers of the law (v.7). They left charity to focus on the thing that was supposed to produce charity. This led to bickering, another meaning of “jangling.”

Paul told Titus to “stop” the vain talkers of the circumcision who were talking about the Law (Tit.1:10,11). The Greek words for “vain jangling” are the same as for “vain talkers” there. Their motive was “filthy lucre.” Satan always makes sure undispensational things are lucrative.

But if the goal of the law is to get men to love God and others, and we’re not under the law, does that mean God doesn’t want us to love God and others in the dispensation of grace? Of course He does! But today it is the goal of a different commandment, the commandment of God that made Paul an apostle (ITim.1:1) and gave him a new message of grace, not law. The goal of that commandment is to get men saved by grace and loving out of a pure heart.

An Apostolic Interpolation – 1 Timothy 1:3-4

Summary:

The “so do” at the end of Verse 4 is italicized, which means they are interpolated words not found in the Greek text. But it is often necessary to add words when translating. Leave out the interpolated words in IISamuel 21:19 and there’s a mistake in your Bible. Here, Paul is telling Timothy, “As I left you behind to do things, so do them” (v.3,4).

If Paul was an apostle, why didn’t he order Timothy to abide there, why beg? The answer is, there is no denominational hierarchy in the work of God (Mt.20:25,26). Rome thinks Peter was the first pope. He wasn’t, but if he was, he didn’t believe in hierarchy (IPe.5:2,3). Apollos told Paul he’d go where Paul told him to go at his convenience (ICor.16:12), sovereign independence that is normally reserved for kings and governors (Acts 23:24 cf. 24:25).

Of course, if Paul had to beg Timothy to stay behind, it must mean he didn’t want to. He was timid, and traveling with Paul was one thing, staying behind quite another, but he manned up again. For his part, Paul was sure he’d be a good fit because the church was based in a school (Acts 19:1-9), and Tim was a bookworm. He knew the books of the Bible well (IITim.3:15), and Paul wouldn’t have left his books with someone who wouldn’t read them (IITim.4:13)

Paul wasn’t stashing him in some dead end out of the way ministry. Ephesus was the ministry that introduced Asia to God (Acts 19:9).Does that tell you anything about the power of a teaching ministry, or how God can use a bookworm?

When Paul asked Timothy to remain in Ephesus to “charge” some to teach no other doctrine, a Bible charge was a serious thing (Acts 16:23,24). Was it important when God charged Abraham to start the Hebrew nation (Gen.26:2-5). Was it important to charge Moses to lead them out of Egypt (Ex.6:13), or when God charged Joshua to lead them into the Promised Land (Deut.3:28), or when God charged the angels to guard the Son of God (Mt.4:6)? If Paul uses the word “charge,” it must be just as important to teach no other doctrine than his. And the words “no other” must be as important as they are in Exodus 20:3.

Paul didn’t just tell Timothy he should teach no other doctrine, he told him to charge others not to because he saw the seeds of apostasy before he left Ephesus (Acts 20:29, 30). This didn’t mean he could only teach Paul’s epistles (IITim.3:16); “no other” meant “otherwise” (See ITim.6:3, 4, the only other place where the same Greek word is used).

A “fable” (ITim.1:4) is “a mythical story meant to teach a lesson. The parallel passage tells us Paul was warning against “Jewish” fables (Tit.1:13,14). Judaism is the context here too, for Jews were famous for “genealogies” (v.4). They needed them to identify priests (Ezr.2:62) and kings (Ps.60:7) and their Messiah (Gen.49:10). So what kind of fables were they telling? Well, Paul warned Titus of “the commandments of men” (Tit.1:14), i.e., the commandments of the Law (Col.2:21,22), which used to be the commandments of God. When the Lord and the 12 taught the Law they healed people, and Jews who rejected the dispensational change would tell fables about men who were still healing people even after the gift of healing had ceased (ITim.5:23), just as men today tell fables, mythical stories designed to teach that the kingdom program continues.

The Jews still taught genealogies because some still thought they were saved because they were Jews (Mt.3:9), as some still think today, and some Jews thought they were better than others because they had a better genealogy (Phil.3:5), just as some saved Jews think they have a leg up on saved Gentiles today because they have a better genealogy. But “endless” means pointless, to no end or purpose, and now that Messiah had come there was no more purpose to genealogies. That’s why God allowed them to burn when the Romans destroyed the temple. Like the Law, genealogies were to “perish with the using” (Col.2:21,22). The law is used to show sinners they need a Saviour (ITim.1:8,9), and should perish with the using. Genealogies should have perished with the using of identifying the Messiah. The Law can’t build us up, “godly edifying which is in faith” (v.4) does that with “the word of His grace” (Acts 20:32).

The Title of Paul – 1 Timothy 1:1-2

Summary:

The word “apostle” means sent one, and when the Lord “commanded” and “sent” the twelve forth (Mt.10:5), they were sent forth by the commandment of God (John 12:49). Since Paul knew not everyone accepted his apostleship, he asserted that he too was an apostle “by the commandment of God” (1:1). This made his apostleship of equal authority with that of the twelve.

But if God had already commanded and sent out 12 apostles, why send out another? It’s not like they were sent to different groups of people, they were all sent to “all nations” (Lu.24:47 cf. Rom.1:5). But the 12 didn’t reach all nations, because Israel, the first nation they were sent to (Lu.24:47) refused to believe, and they couldn’t go to the rest of the nations until the children of Israel were “filled” (Mark 7:27). So God sent another apostle to all nations.

But this means God had to introduce a new program as well as a new apostle. The old plan was to get Israel saved and let them reach all nations as God’s priests. The fact that all nations today have been reached with the gospel of God proves God started a new plan. That’s why Paul told the Corinthian Gentiles that their salvation proved his apostleship. Since they were saved and Israel wasn’t, it proved he was a new apostle with a new message.

When Paul says he was an apostle “by the commandment of God our Saviour,” this shows Paul was also given a new message. In time past, God was the Savior of the Jews only (Isa.49:26), and that didn’t change with the preaching of the 12 (Acts 5:30,31). It changed “in due time” with preaching that was committed to Paul (Tit.1:2,3), when “God our Saviour” said He would “have all men to be saved” (ITim.2:3-7).

Paul also claimed he was an apostle of the Lord Jesus (1:1) who sent him (Acts 26:17) for the same reason God sent him, to offer “forgiveness of sins” (v.18) to all nations.

When Paul says Christ is “our hope,” this is different than when we as Gentiles had “no hope” in time past (Eph.2:11,12).

In his first epistle in Scripture, Paul also introduced himself as a “servant” (Rom.1:1) to let us know the kind of apostle he’d be, one that wasn’t afraid to get involved in the work of the ministry. He also introduced himself as a servant to the Philippians (1:1), knowing that if they’d adopt a servant’s heart it would fix their pride issues, specially when he reminded them their Savior became a servant (2:5-7). He also introduced himself as a servant to Titus (1:1) for that strong leader needed to be reminded that a good leader must be a good servant.

This letter was written to Timothy (1:2), a more timid man than Titus (I Cor. 16:10 cf. IICor.7:14,15). Paul writes to him about his mother, his grandmother, and his tears (IITim. 1:4,5). But this mamma’s boy was respected in two churches (Acts 16:1-3). Born and raised in Lystra, where he saw Paul stoned, he still agreed to go with Paul when the apostle asked him to, even though it meant having to undergo a painful adult circumcision (v.3 cf. Gen.34:25).

All of this proves that God can use you, even if you’re timid. Timothy fit in at Philippi better than Titus (Phil.2:19) since the church started with women (Acts 16:11,12), and about the only members named are women (Phil.4:2), leading us to believe the church consisted mostly of women. Well, Timothy was raised by women!

When Paul calls him “mine own son in the faith” (1:2), that means Lois and Eunice might have raised him in the Jewish faith, but Paul led him to the Lord. If you are raising your kids in the faith, it might take someone else to reach them.

Paul offers grace and peace to the churches he wrote to, but “mercy” to the pastors (ITim.1:1; IITi.1:1; Tit.1:1). He may have been referring to the kind of mercy that enabled him to remain single (ICor.7:25), or the food and clothing kind (IITim.1:16) when churches didn’t supply their needs, or the kind of mercy in physical illness that servants of the Lord like Epaphroditus had (Phil.2:25-27).

Brotherly Love – 2 Thessalonians 3:15-18

Summary:

Paul told the Thessalonians to disfellowship the men who were walking disorderly by not working (v.14) out of love, so he reminded them not to count them as enemies (v.15). This is similar to what Moses taught (Lev.19:17) in the context of loving your brethren (v.18). This is also similar to how, if you love your son, you will chasten him and not allow him to continue in rebellion against your authority. If you love your brother, you don’t let him continue in rebellion against God, you chasten him by having no company with him. Hey, if you are supposed to love your brother enough to return his animal when it goes astray, (Deut.22:1), shouldn’t you act if his soul goes astray?

In saying “count him not as an enemy” (IITh.3:15), Paul may have been thinking of the fornicator that the Corinthians disfellowshipped (ICor.5:9-13). To their credit they did, but then wouldn’t let him back into the assembly (IICor.2:6-8). Causing “overmuch sorrow” is not how you love a brother! So Paul told them to “confirm” their love for him (v.8). Just because a brother falls into sin, or quits going to work, is no reason to ostracize him forever. By the way, if you are the one being disobedient and find yourself disfellowshipped, react as the psalmist did (Ps.141:5).

As we said, first the Corinthians wouldn’t put the man out of the assembly, then they wouldn’t let him back in. These extremes are the “devices” of Satan that Paul warned about in that passage (IICor.2:11). Some men refuse to be the head of the home God says they are, some take it too far. Some parents refuse to spank their kids, some break their bones. Some Christians are too carnal like the Corinthians, others are too legalistic like the Galatians. Some Christians don’t rightly divide the Word and think everything is written to them, our Acts 28 brethren divide it too much and are left with only Paul’s prison epistles.

When Paul prayed that “the Lord of peace give you peace by any means” (IITh.3:16), the Lord of peace is Christ, who went to great means to give you peace with God. God could “by no means” clear guilty sinners (Ex.34:6,7), and not even the rich could “by any means” redeem his brother (Ps.49:6,7). And if you wind up in “hell” (Mt.5:22) you will “by no means” come out (v.26). But while there was no means by which God could clear sinners under the Old Covenant of the Law, Christ “by means of death” can clear believers under the New Covenant of grace (Heb.9:15).

But if the Thessalonians had “peace with God” (Rom.5:1), why does Paul pray the Lord will give them peace? Well, not all who have peace with God feel like they have it, so Paul prays they will have it experientially. It’s like how God says Israel will “possess their possessions” in the kingdom (Obadiah 17). God told them they’d possess the land (Gen.17:8), but they never fully did. He told them they’d possess the nations (Deut.9:1) but they never fully did. But in the kingdom they will. In our kingdom in heaven we will fully possess the peace God says is ours, but Paul is praying we will possess it now. All Israel had to do was believe God when He said those things were theirs, and all we have to do is believe God when He says peace is ours.

Once you possess your possessions you have to hold them or lose them. You wouldn’t think anyone could corrupt the simplicity of “Christ died for our sins…and…rose again” (ICor.15:3,4cf.IICor.11:3) but they did when the Corinthians stopped believing in the resurrection and lost their peace. But the “peace” Paul prayed the Thessalonians would retain was that of the pretrib rapture. In his first epistle to them Paul says he was concerned “lest by any means” the devil had dispossessed them of their possession of that blessed hope, and Paul lists the means he used (IITh.2:1,2).

Why’s Paul add “the Lord be with you” (IITh.3:16)? Well, when Saul said that to David, he meant the Lord who was with him when he killed the bear and lion would be with him against Goliath. In the same way, Paul is praying the Lord who defeated Satan at Calvary will continue to be with us. He will be, of course; Paul is praying according to the revealed will of God, just as he was in the “salutation” (IITh.3:17) in Verse 18. The grace that saved us will always be with us, but there is nothing wrong with saying “grace be with you”!