THE BEAUTY OF BIBLICAL LAW REVEALED BY THE LIGHT OF THE GOSPEL

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which He entrusted to me.

1 Timothy 1:7-11

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Paul was concerned about some within the Ephesian church who had started to teach false doctrines grounded in “myths and endless genealogies” (1 Timothy 1:4) and so he sent a letter to his ministry partner, Timothy, to put an end to it. The call was to bring the believers in Ephesus back to the unadulterated Gospel, a Gospel centered on Jesus and the salvation from sin gained through Him.

Now, another common issue within the newly established Christian churches of the first century was the unwillingness of converted Jews to give up their past traditions, traditions that were grounded in the Law. These laws served as the standards for living within Judaism and were to be followed perfectly although no one could do this as every Jew was an imperfect sinner at heart. There were designated “teachers of the law” who invested time in the synagogues to instruct the people about the Law and their obligation to it. Over and over again in the Old Testament, we read of perpetual offerings that were rendered to God as atonement for transgressions but none of those sacrifices ever put a Jewish believer into a permanent place of peace with God. This is why God instituted a new plan for sin reparation and established it as the final covenant that would ever be needed between Him and all people, Jew or otherwise.

This new sin reparation plan is often referred to as the aforementioned Gospel and is summed up nicely by the very words of Jesus, the Lamb who took away the sin of the world (John 1:29):

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

With all this in place, let’s look at today’s passage from the first chapter of 1 Timothy as the Apostle Paul discusses both the Law and the Gospel:

They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which He entrusted to me. Vv. 7-11

Here we find the Apostle letting the Ephesian believers know that the Law was no longer the primary teaching point of the church. For sure, it wasn’t to be discounted but it shouldn’t ever interfere with the “sound doctrine that conforms to the Gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God” through His Son Jesus that was to be taught first and foremost.

To shine a little more understanding regarding the relationship between the Law and the Gospel, consider what Paul writes in his letter to the Romans:

My brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful?

Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death (7:4-10).

The law with its commandments is good if it is used properly. It exposes the sinfulness and wickedness within mankind as it was “made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers”. Like Paul, we would not know what sin was if it wasn’t for the law. And so by conscientiously considering all that God has ordered His people to do, we see just how much we fall short of being who He wants us to be and we see how we are in opposition to Him. The commandment shows us just how dead we are in our iniquities, firmly in the crosshairs of a God who hates sin and will bring His wrath and judgment to bear unless there is a saving, spiritual intervention that brings pardon.

Enter Jesus, God’s one and only Son, the One who brings eternal life to everyone who believes in Him.

The beauty found in the Law when we look at it in the light of the Gospel is that it shows us our utter hopelessness in life without Christ, the One who took us from the Law so we might belong “to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God”. We are dead to the sin that once bound us and have been given a renewed purpose, following the “way of the Spirit” vice “the old way of the written code”.

The scriptures assure us that anyone who is Christ becomes a new creation, leaving the past behind for a life patterned after Jesus, a life directed by the power of the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:17). Let us ever give thanks for the Law and how it revealed our need for salvation while we give thanks to God for saving us through Jesus His Son, the final atoning sacrifice ever needed to set us free from the bondage of sin.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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