Law for the Lawless

1 Timothy 1:8-11

Immanuel – 8/24/25

          False teachers had infiltrated the church in Ephesus, poisonous doctrines were spreading. Paul urgently sent Timothy to content for the faith in Ephesus, charging him to combat false teachings and those who propagated them, while proclaiming the uncorrupted and apostolic gospel of Jesus Christ.

          We don’t know exactly what “different doctrines” were being taught, but we do know it was a heretical mixture of paganism, Judaism, and Christianity. And though Timothy is to contend for the purity of Christian doctrine, Paul’s charge to Timothy is far higher than just that of contention.

          Read vs 5

          We have a responsibility to apply the gospel to our hearts, which purifies it; to our consciences, which cleanses it; and by obedience to sound doctrine ensure our faith in the gospel is sincere. When we steward the gospel like this, love flows out of us. Or, as the Apostle John says it,

          We love because he first loved us.                               -1 John 4:19

          The aim of all gospel preaching, the aim of all biblical teaching, is open hearts to God’s love. Then, like the breaking of a dam, as our hearts are overwhelmed by the love of God, his love comes bursting out of our lives.

Indeed, this is my aim and desire for Immanuel as I open God’s word to you week in and week out. May God’s word produce a love in us that floods the Mohawk Valley, spills over its brim into all the surrounding lands, and even waters the ends of the earth! With God’s infinite love poured into us, what could possibly contain the outflow?

          Again, such love comes from God. We love because he first loved us. So, if love comes from God, and he is the source of all love, it necessarily follows that love does not come from any other source. To put it another way, love cannot be manufactured apart from God. You cannot follow a set of rules, and if you do it just right, love comes out the other side.

          Think of marriage: What if I thought I could base my marriage on “rules for romance?” Make the bed, unload the dishwasher, write a nice note, get some flowers, plan a date, hug my wife nice and tight and presto! I love her! No, that’s insanity! I do those things because I love her. It’s crazy to think that by following “rules for romance,” it will produce love for her – like, following the rules would make me love her.

And if Meg saw me trying to follow some set of rules so I would love her, that would do nothing for her love for me! My rules have reduced her to a formula. She wants me to love her for her; because I see in her intrinsic beauty and worth. My soul is captivated by hers, and I can only respond in love. That’s what she wants. That’s what I want. That’s the nature of love! All rules are good for, in this situation, is to help me remember what she likes and dislikes. And because love already exists, I try to do the things she likes and avoid the things she dislikes.

Can you see the parallel I’m drawing? Law does not and cannot produce love. Love is born in relationship, not legal obligation.

Gospel preaching is meant to produce love. For through it we understand God’s love for us, and we in turn overflow with love – for God and for people. And just like in a marriage, following a set of rules – or laws – will neither cause you to love God nor cause you to love people. Used in this way, the law becomes an impossible burden.

That said, the Law is still good. As Paul writes,

Read vs 8

In speaking of the Law, Paul means the Mosaic Law; 613 commands given by God in the Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Law is good. Listen to how King David rejoices over God’s Law.

Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word. I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!            -Psalm 119:97-103

How good is God’s Law! With it comes wisdom and understanding, and teachings for how to walk in blessing while avoiding dangers. The Law helps us understand what God likes and what he dislikes, what he loves and what he hates. So if we love God, his Law will act as a guide for us – like a lamp for our feet, shedding light on the best way to go (Psalm 119:105).

But in verses 3-7, Paul says false teachers in Ephesus were casting the church into the darkness of a different doctrine. Desiring to be teachers of the law, Paul said they had entirely missed the point of the law. Even though they made confident assertions, they had no idea what they were talking about.

Then, in verse 8, in full polemic mode, Paul strongly implies the false teachers were using the law unlawfully. “Certain persons” considered themselves to be experts on the law, but Paul implicitly denounces them as lawless.

In chapter 4 we get an indication of how the false teachers were abusing the law. In 4:3, we read they were forbidding marriage and requiring people to abstain from certain foods. Everything God has created is good, including food and marriage, but these false teachers had so corrupted the law they used it to deprive people of good things while placing difficult and unnecessary burdens on people’s backs. And it is in that passage that Paul denounces such teachings as demonic.

Additionally, in 4:8 we get an indication the false teachers were teaching some form of bodily asceticism. Asceticism being a severe form of self-denial, or even self-harm. Its practitioners thought pain and difficulty would help them reach a higher spiritual state, or they would become closer to God. This idea is so antithetical to the God of the Bible, who cares for our bodies, that it was right for Paul to label it demonic.

The law is good, but to use the law to place burdens on people, and even get them to harm themselves, is indeed a lawless usage of the law. And yet, in what at first may sound like a contradiction, Paul says the law is for the lawless.

          Read vs 9-10

Technically, this is called a vice list. In this vice list, Paul lists types of people who practice vices. For instance, Paul doesn’t list murder, he names murderers. First come four pairs of sinful identities, then seven individual identities of vice. I’m going to move through them quickly.

The Lawless. Lawbreakers. Those who live outside of the law. They do not know God’s law and they live contrary to God’s law.

The Disobedient. People who know God’s law, but they willfully break it. These are rebels who knowingly violate the will of God.

The Ungodly. These people are irreligious, like modern agnostics or atheists. We might call them materialists, secularists, humanists, and so on. Even if they have some knowledge of the divine, they don’t want God.

The Profane. These are pagans who say they worship God but not according to God’s will. They worship false gods – like the gods of self, money, success, lust, etc. Their beliefs and practices are unholy – defiled and blasphemous.

Those are the four pairs, each identifying a type of people who are far from God and live contrary to God’s will. Now we get into the list of seven individual sins. These seven sins track with the Ten Commandments given to Moses. Paul is listing forms of lawlessness running parallel to their corresponding laws.

Those who strike father and mother. This is a euphemism for kill – those who kill their father and/or mother; the most extreme way to dishonor your parents.

Murderers. Pretty straight forward. Those who take life – even unborn life.

The Sexually Immoral. This is a catchall term for any sexual activity outside the confines of marriage: sex before marriage, hooking up, pornography usage, incest, polygamy/polyamory, adultery, and so on.

Homosexuals. As Paul writes in Romans, homosexuals are those who gratify dishonorable passions and use sexuality to rebel against God’s created order.

Enslavers. These are people who steal other people and subject them to slavery. It’s what happened with the slave trade in America. But on a scale far, far greater, it’s happening today with human trafficking and sex slavery. Modern slavery is hidden well, but nearly every metric says there are more slaves today than ever before in human history. Enslavers presently abound.

Liars. People who do not tell the truth. People who tell half-truths. People who use deceptive speech.

Perjurers. People who take an oath and break it by lying. Their lies undermine justice.

And after these eleven sinful identities, Paul says, “whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine.” Sound doctrine is the measure of what is good and true and what pleases God. The law, lawfully taught, accords with sound doctrine. And with 613 commands in God’s Law, we can clearly see that there are mountains of human thoughts and behaviors running counter to sound doctrine.

But what does accord with sound doctrine? How do we know we are listening to good teaching? How do we know when the law is being used lawfully? When the gospel is at the center.

Read vs 11

The good news of Jesus Christ – the gospel – reveals the glory of the blessed God. Blessed God, meaning God is supremely joyful, endlessly happy, and exalted in gladness. At the pinnacle of God’s glory is joy! The gospel reveals the glory of God’s joy. And one of God’s greatest joys is to bring sinners into salvation.

Thus, sound doctrine must be bathed in gospel reality. The Law must be taught with gospel truth. Grace before law. Forgiveness and love and mercy before repentance and obedience

And it is at this point that I need to back up a bit. In verse 9, Paul said, “the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient…” In other words, the law is for bad people. But the law is not to help bad people be better. In fact, the law works in the exact opposite way. The law helps sinners to see just how sinful they are – and such knowledge is crushing.

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.                                   -Romans 3:20

The law reveals what God likes and what God dislikes, his loves and hates. And because God is holy, perfect and righteous, by definition he only loves what is holy. Sin is any deviation from holiness, even the slightest crack in perfection. God created us to image him, to be a reflection of his perfect holiness. But we are not. Not only are we not holy, but we do not believe it. That’s the nature of pride; we fail to see how wicked we are.

So God gave us his Law to reveal even the slightest crack in us. The Law was given so we would see our sins, and when we look into the mirror of God’s Law, we find that we are absolutely shot through with wickedness – sinful lawbreakers on every level.

When we see how sinful we are, we are crushed. Or, as Paul writes,

 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.                                                   -Romans 7:9

For the wages of sin is death.                          -Romans 6:23

To be a sinner is to be separated from God. And since all life is found in God, the Creator of life, to be separated from him is to die. For the wages of sin is death.

When Paul says the Law is good, and there is a lawful way to use it, this is one of the things he means. Use the law to see your sinfulness. But like I said earlier, the Law is meant to be understood in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said,

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”                       -Matthew 5:17     

Jesus did what we sinners could never do: fulfilled the Law. This does not mean he lived trying to check off the boxes in the Law. It means Jesus lived in such a way that when he is measured by the standard of the Law, it reveals him to be perfect, righteous, holy. In other words, apart from the Law, outside of the Law, Jesus is inherently righteous and holy. Jesus lived in perfect love!  The Law gives us eyes to see just how perfect he is! He is the fulfillment of the Law!

And in fulfillment of the law, which says sinners will die, Jesus stood in our place and died for our sins.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.                                                          -Romans 5:6-9

Christ took our condemnation, received the wages of wrath we earned, ransomed us with his perfect blood, and covered us in his righteousness. Now, when we each come to the Day of Judgment (which we all will), and God holds the Law up to our lives, looking for the slightest crack of sin, Jesus stands in our place. Or we are clothed in Christ. And God – looking at us but seeing his Son – says, “Righteous! Holy! Perfect! My Beloved!” And we are joyfully welcomed in to live forever in the awesome presence of the Living God, our Heavenly Father.

Remember the list of vices in our passage. Let me read another one.

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.                                         -1 Corinthians 6:9-11

          We were a living list of vices, but Christ has changed everything! And by faith in him we are forgiven, free from condemnation, and beloved by the Father!

Oh amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see.

          There is yet one more way to use the Law lawfully. With it we have seen our sinfulness. We see we need God to save us. We received forgiveness and grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And now we use the Law to see what God likes and what he dislike, what he loves and what he hates.

          And because our heart loves this divine lover of our souls – the God who saves – we do what he loves and we avoid what he hates. We obey out of love. Similarly to how you love your spouse, doing what brings her joy, avoiding what grieves her, because you love her. So also do we love God.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. 

                                                                   -Romans 13:10

All of this is the gospel, the gospel of the glory of the blessed God! The Law can only be used lawfully when read in light of the gospel. Grace before law! The law reveals our need for salvation, and God has graciously provided that salvation in the life, death, and resurrection of his one and only Son, Jesus Christ. For one of God’s greatest joys is to bring sinners into salvation.

Now we the Redeemed, use the Law to light the way; that we might better learn to live in a way pleasing to God – because we love him, for he first loves us.

Oh, what joy is in this gospel, and what love flows from those who have been gripped by it! Let us not live in a way that is contrary to this sound doctrine. May lawlessness and disobedience, ungodliness and sin, unholiness and profanity, be cast from the corners of our heart as the love of God, displayed in the gospel, floods into our hearts!