Paul’s List in 1 Timothy 1

The verses on our list so far said, in one way or another, that the law was abolished or had come to its end. This one says something gentler, and for that reason it can be more persuasive. It does not say that the law is gone. It says that the law is not for you.

“The law is not made for the righteous but for the lawless (1 Timothy 1:9). The person who has been justified has no need of the law.”

The reasoning sounds airtight. I have been justified by grace through faith, and God calls me righteous. Paul says the law is not made for a righteous person, so the law must be for other people, the wicked and the unbelieving, and it has nothing to say to me.

The way to test the claim is simple: do what those who make it do not do, and finish Paul’s sentence.

1 Timothy 1:8-11 But we know that the nomos νόμος nom'-os(law) is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that nomos(law) is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and sexually immoral persons and homosexuals and slave traders and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, according to the glorious good news of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.

Read the List

Paul does not stop at “not made for a righteous person.” He goes straight on to say whom the law is made for, and he gives a list. The middle of it reads like this: “Those who kill their fathers or mothers.” “Murderers.” “Sexually immoral persons and homosexuals.” “Slave traders.” “Liars and perjurers.”

Hold that list up beside the second half of the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 20:12-16 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long upon the ground (adamah אֲדָמָה ad-aw-maw') which the LORD your God is giving to you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not answer against your neighbor as a false witness.

The order is the same.

The slave trader is no random entry. The Torah makes the stealing of a human being a crime punished by death: “one who steals a man (ish אִישׁ eesh) and sells him … shall surely be put to death” (Exodus 21:16).

In the very passage that is quoted to set the law aside, Paul defines the law by the Ten Commandments. On either side of the list he also says what he thinks of it. Before it comes “we know that the nomos(law) is good.” After it, he says that all this is “according to the glorious good news of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.” Paul is not distancing himself from the law. He calls it good, and he says it agrees with the gospel he was given to preach.

The Speed Limit You Are Keeping

Return to the highway of Chapter 2, with its sign that reads fifty-five. This time you are driving at fifty-five. A patrol car sits by the road, and the officer does not even look up as you pass.

In a real sense, that law is not laid down for you. It is laid down against the driver doing ninety, and it has nothing to accuse you of. Yet no one concludes that the speed limit does not apply to you, or that you may now drive however you please. The sign still stands. You are simply the one it has nothing to say against, because you are keeping it.

That is what Paul means. The word for “made” is keitai κεῖται ki'-mahee, lies, is laid down. “Not made for a righteous person” does not mean that the righteous have no need of the law. It means that the law is laid down against those who break it. The commandment “you shall not murder” stands against the murderer, and it does not accuse the one who does not murder. The righteous person is not outside the law. The law has nothing to accuse him of.

Paul Says It Twice More

Paul reasons in the same way about rulers: “rulers are not a fear to good works but to evil” (Romans 13:3). That does not set the good citizen free from the laws of the land. It means that the sword is not pointed at him: “Do what is good and you will have praise from it.” The authority is still there, still bearing the sword, but only as “an avenger for orge ὀργή or-gay'(wrath) to the one who practices evil” (Romans 13:4). Chapter 10 reads both verses in full.

He reasons the same way again about the fruit of the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22-23 But the karpos καρπός kar-pos'(fruit) of the pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit) is agape ἀγάπη ag-ah'-pay(love), joy, eirene εἰρήνη i-ray'-nay(peace), patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no nomos(law).

No law is laid down against love, joy, and peace, because none of them breaks a commandment. The law has nothing to say against the one who walks in the fruit of the Spirit, and that is the very thing 1 Timothy 1:9 says.

Who Is the Righteous One?

A deeper question still remains: whom does Paul call righteous? He settled that in Romans.

Romans 2:13 for it is not the hearers of the nomos(law) who are righteous before God, but the doers of the nomos(law) who will be justified.

If the righteous are the doers of the law, then “the righteous have no need of the law” becomes “those who do the law have no need of the law,” and the sentence collapses on itself. The righteous person is precisely the one who walks in what the law says, and that is why it has nothing to accuse him of.

Why the Torah Was Laid Down

The first word in Paul’s list is “lawless.” In Greek it is anomos ἄνομος an'-om-os, one without nomos, the Torah-less one, and John defines sin by its noun, anomia ἀνομία an-om-ee'-ah.

1 John 3:4 Everyone who practices sin also practices anomia(Torah-lessness); sin is anomia(Torah-lessness).

“Sin is anomia(Torah-lessness).” Unrighteousness, lawlessness, and sin are each rebellion against the Torah, and the root of them all is anomia, living as if there were no Torah. That is exactly why the Torah was given. It was laid down against the anomois, the Torah-less, to name what they do and to stand against it. Far from removing the Torah from the believer, 1 Timothy 1:9 tells us why the Torah was laid down at all.

Paul’s Last Word to Timothy

In his second letter, Paul wrote to Timothy again.

2 Timothy 3:16 All graphe γραφή graf-ay'(written-scripture) is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for paideia παιδεία pahee-di'-ah(training, discipline) in dikaiosyne δικαιοσύνη dik-ah-yos-oo'-nay(righteousness);

The verse before it names the writings Timothy had known “from childhood”: “the sacred writings,” the Scriptures of Israel (2 Timothy 3:15). Those writings, Paul says, train the believer in righteousness.

The law, then, is not laid down against the righteous. It is laid down against the Torah-less, and it trains those who have been made righteous in how to walk. Justified by grace through faith, the believer does not stand outside the commandments. He stands within them, and they have nothing against him.

The food verses belong with these: Mark 7, the verse many English Bibles print as “Thus He declared all foods clean,” then Peter’s vision, and then Romans 14. They need more room than a single chapter, and Part Three of this book gives it to them.

One objection comes before them: if you keep the Torah, you must keep all of it. The Torah itself says what “all of it” means.