Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Timothy · About this commentary
The Law Is Good If Used Lawfully
1 Timothy 1:8-11
8 But we know that the law is good if a person uses it lawfully, · WEB
The law is defended and the would-be teachers of it are not, and the distinction turns on who the law is aimed at.
Verse 8 makes a concession that is really a claim: we know that the law is good. Nothing in the letter's quarrel with these men involves treating the law as a problem. What is at issue is use — the law is good if one uses it lawfully, and the wordplay is deliberate. There is a lawful and an unlawful way to handle it, and the men wanting to teach it have found the second.
Verse 9 states the principle: law is not laid down for a righteous person. That is easily misread as abolition, and the list that follows prevents it. The law is not the instrument by which a righteous person is made righteous, and it is not a set of levers for the teachers of verse 7 to pull. It is aimed at what it names.
And what it names, across verses 9 and 10, tracks the second table of the commandments in order — those who strike father or mother, murderers, the sexually immoral, slave-traders (which is theft of a person), liars and perjurers. The list is not random abuse; it is the commandments read as a description of what they were given to confront.
Verse 10 closes the list with a phrase that does the letter's work throughout: whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. The word is medical — healthy teaching, as opposed to the diseased craving for controversy the letter names later 1 Timothy 6:4.
settled What this mark means