1 Timothy 1:8

But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this, that the law was not made for the righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers and manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers... according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which is committed to my trust. (1 Timothy 1:8–11)

The law is good if you use it lawfully—not to make people good, but to convict sinners and point them to the Savior.

How Paul Came to Write Timothy

In the late spring or early summer of AD 58, the Apostle Paul was in Jerusalem. As he entered the temple, a mob of Jewish zealots grabbed him, dragged him out, and began to beat him. I guarantee you he had a bit of déjà vu in that moment, because two decades earlier this same man—then called Saul—had stood on the other side, overseeing and consenting to the martyrdom of Stephen, a follower of Jesus. Now the tables were turned. The former persecutor of Christians had become a preacher of Jesus.

Word reached the Roman centurion over the garrison in Jerusalem. The Romans ran down, pushed through the mob, picked Paul up, and carried him back to their barracks, assuming he was an Egyptian troublemaker. But Paul spoke to the centurion in Greek, which stopped the man cold. Paul stood and preached the gospel, and a riot broke out. Just about everywhere Paul went, there was either a revival or a riot—and this time it was a riot.

The Romans took him back to beat him to learn what he had said to the crowd in Hebrew. Right before they did, Paul asked, "Is it legal for you to do this to a Roman citizen?" It wasn't. That moment began a six-year period of imprisonment, trials before kings and magistrates, and Paul's appeal to Caesar, which led to his extradition to Rome and years under house arrest.

A Messy Church in Ephesus

After Paul was released, between his first and second imprisonments, he traveled with Timothy—one of his closest co-laborers and a man he had discipled—back to churches they had planted. One was the church in Ephesus, near and dear to Paul's heart. But he hadn't been there for nearly ten years, and when they arrived they found a church in conflict, full of issues and problems, like every church.

Paul told Timothy, who was probably in his early thirties:

As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, remain in Ephesus, that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine. (1 Timothy 1:3)

Timothy wasn't excited about this commission. As we read the letter, we can tell he was timid and fearful about pastoring this messy group as a young man. So after Paul left for Macedonia, he wrote this letter to encourage and exhort Timothy in how to lead this church.

The Law Is Good If Used Lawfully

We pick up at verse 8: "But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully." Why does Paul even say this? Because some in Ephesus were teaching wrong doctrine. Verse 7 tells us they desired to be teachers of the law. That's a good desire—in chapter 3 Paul says the one who desires the office of a bishop desires a good thing. But they were doing it the wrong way.

Wrong preaching and teaching produces controversial speculation and meaningless disputes, and it does not bring godly edification. It creates a church full of debaters and disputers. That's exactly what they found in Ephesus. Right preaching builds up the body of Christ; pastors, teachers, evangelists, and prophets are given for the equipping of the saints. The purpose of the commandment is love—love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. Where there's bad teaching, that won't happen.

Point one: False teachers and false teaching are known by their fruit. This is exactly what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: "You will know them by their fruits." Disputes, controversy, and a church that isn't built up are the bad fruits of false teaching. Jesus also said, "wisdom is justified by her children." You will know whether what is given forth is good by the outcome it produces. And He said men will see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven—that's our hope.

The Same Book, Different Outcomes

This matters because those teaching wrongly in Ephesus were working from the same source material as Paul and Timothy. They had the law and the prophets, and likely some of the apostles' writings—Ephesians had already been written, Peter calls Paul's writings Scripture in 2 Peter 3, and the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts had already been penned by Luke, who lived just across the Aegean Sea. They had the same source material, yet the outcome was disputes and controversy, not godly edification.

The same is true today. We have one Bible—66 books, 40 authors, three continents, three languages, 1,500 years—and yet it can be taught in a way that sounds totally different from church to church. This is behind one of the biggest objections to Christianity: people say followers of the Bible have done terrible things over 2,000 years. Honestly, it's a valid criticism, because history shows many atrocities done by people quoting this book.

How do we answer it? First, it's often a red herring—a distraction from the real point that the person has a problem between them and God. Second, it's low-hanging fruit, because dig into anyone's family tree and you'll find someone deplorable; should they be judged by that? No. But we should recognize that people have done bad things in the name of the Bible. Why?

Bad Teaching, Bad Consequences

Point two: Bad teaching can lead to really bad consequences—both temporal, here and now, and eternal. The Bible taught improperly can cause people to do really bad things and to believe really bad things that have eternal consequences. From history we know that from these very pages, minorities have been oppressed, groups enslaved, racism promulgated, people condemned and put to death, and wars waged—teaching that was off by a degree at the start but produces a catastrophe miles down the road.

Yet from the same blessed book, groups have been emancipated, minorities freed, and orphanages, hospitals, universities, and charities founded. How can the same book produce vastly different outcomes? It's not the book—it's the teaching. By this book some have been compelled to oppress, judge, hate, fight, and kill; by the same book others have been compelled to love, give, serve, and help people whose homes were destroyed by flood.

Just about everything in this world can be used for good or for bad. Fire can be good or bad. Atomic energy can be good or bad. The same is true of the Scriptures, which is why Paul writes, "the law is good if one uses it lawfully." Circle that word if. It's such an important word.

We Know the Law Is Good

We know this truth innately, because Genesis 1 and 2 tell us we were created in God's image. Since God is just, holy, and good, He has imprinted upon us in our firmware this understanding that the law is good if it's used lawfully. We want things done rightly and justly. We agree, for instance, that legislators should live under the laws they pass, that those who guarantee privacy shouldn't harvest private information, and that there shouldn't be one kind of justice for one class of people and another for everyone else. We know the law stands in a position of authority, and when it functions rightly, it is good.

Some stumble at the idea that the law is good, because there are some genuinely silly laws out there—in Connecticut pickles are required to bounce; in Georgia it's illegal to eat fried chicken with utensils; in California it's illegal for animals to mate within 1,500 feet of a place of worship. But Paul isn't talking about dumb human laws. He's talking about the law of God, the law of Scripture. It is good if it's used lawfully.

What the Good Way and the Bad Way Are

Point three: Good teachers use the good law in a good way to produce good outcomes. This raises three questions: What is the bad way? What is the good way? And what is the good outcome?

Knowing this, that the law was not made for a righteous person... (1 Timothy 1:9)

You cannot use the law correctly if you don't know this: God didn't give His law for good people, and He didn't give His law to make people good. If you don't know these truths, you will preach the good law in a bad way. How? Maybe you've stepped into a church that made it clear you weren't good enough to be there—that you had to get your life in order before you'd be welcome. Many people's objection to Christianity is, "I can't go there because I'm not good enough." Some of you were afraid the first time you came because you thought, "That's where the holy people are." Then you spent five minutes here and discovered the deplorables—all of us.

The law was not made for the righteous. This is a place for unrighteous people. None of us is worthy to come before the King of Kings; we all come in totally unrighteous.

Don't Preach Bad Law by a Fake Good Life

You don't have to stand behind a pulpit to teach the law wrongly. Point four: Don't preach bad law by your fake good life. Your life may be the only encounter with Christ anyone ever has. How many Christians have lived in a holier-than-thou way that made coworkers, family, and neighbors feel they weren't good enough to be around them? How many have said, "My kids can't hang around with your kids," or, "You can't come to my house on the holidays"? How many non-Christians have found that the obstacle to coming to church is the "righteous" Christians who aren't really righteous anyway?

That's called Phariseeism. The man who wrote this letter was once a Pharisee. Saul considered himself blameless according to the law (Philippians 3). Pharisees avoided any contact with the unholy—they wouldn't eat with sinners, and feared even a Gentile's shadow would defile them. We can fall into an accidental Phariseeism, projecting a "stay back, you unclean sinner" mentality. But what does the Bible say about Jesus? He was called a friend of sinners. That's what the religious people hated about Him.

A Barna research study found that within 24 months of becoming a follower of Jesus, the vast majority of people had no more non-Christian friends—not because they all got saved, but because believers got new friends and stopped associating with anyone unholy. That's frightening. It ought not be the case.

Who the Law Was Made For

...but for lawless and insubordinate, the ungodly and sinners, the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and mothers and manslayers, for fornicators and sodomites and kidnappers, for liars and perjurers... (1 Timothy 1:9–10)

The law was made for sinners—not to make them righteous, but to make them painfully aware of their sinfulness and acutely aware of their need.

Therefore, by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:20)

You cannot make yourself right before God by lawful good works. It's through the law that we realize we've sinned. Paul says it again:

Is the law sin? Certainly not. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law... I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, "You shall not covet." (Romans 7:7)

We all covet—looking at things we don't have and wishing we had them, especially after Apple's latest event. We wouldn't know that was wrong unless the Bible said, "You shall not covet." And "I didn't know" is no defense. I learned that riding jet skis off Point Loma with Pastor Jason—launching off waves until a red boat with a blue light came out. I didn't know it was illegal to ride within a thousand feet of the mean tide line. "Officer, I didn't know" doesn't work. It's the law, and I paid the fine.

The Law Convicts and Points to Christ

Point five: The law properly presented produces conviction of sin.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. (Romans 3:19)

The law reveals our guilt before a holy God and readies us for the remedy. "The law is our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith" (Galatians 3:24). By the deeds of the law no one is justified (Romans 3:20), but the law points you to Jesus so you can be justified by faith. That's the gospel—good news.

The trouble is, we don't like conviction—at least not for ourselves. We love conviction for other people. That's why a convicting message makes you think, "I hope my husband is hearing this," or, "I'm going to email this to my brother." Your sin looks really bad on other people. But James says the law is like a mirror: you look into the perfect law of liberty and see what kind of person you are. A mirror exposes, but it has no power to fix you. The Word of God, however, is living and powerful—it cuts deep, transforms, and directs us to the One who can transform us.

The law was made for the unrighteous... according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust. (1 Timothy 1:11)

Where does the law lead? To the glorious gospel of the blessed God—the good news about Jesus.

A Stumbling Block, and the Grace That Answers It

This passage is a stumbling block for our culture, because it lists things that are politically incorrect today—sexual immorality, including the practice of homosexuality. In 21st-century culture these are common and accepted, but the Scripture calls the practice of them sin. The Bible brings conviction, and our culture, told it can't be wrong, responds, "That hurts my feelings; I need a safe space." But dare I say it's wrong to practice immorality, whether heterosexual or homosexual.

You're free to do these things—God made you a free moral agent—but you can't practice them and go to heaven. You can't have it both ways.

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9–10)

That's the bad news of the law. But here is the awesome grace of Jesus Christ in the very next verse: "And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." There's forgiving grace for sinners. Some of you identify with that list—you were drunkards, you were immoral, you committed adultery, you were liars. But such were some of you. That's your testimony now in the past, and by God's grace He makes you new.

This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. (1 Timothy 1:15)

The law shows us our lostness—it shines a bright light and reveals how blind and far from God we are. But it doesn't leave us there, because Jesus says, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The Bible is all about redemption. He comes to seek and save that which is lost. The law improperly taught just tells sinful people, "You're condemned, you're going to hell"—and unfortunately many lost people think that's all we know. But we want to reach out and say, "Come. Come meet Jesus. He loves you, and in spite of your sin He wants to redeem you and save you."

Closing Prayer

Father God, I thank You that You sent Your Son into the world to save us. We need Your saving power. Every single one of us standing here is a total, abject failure, and we need Your grace. We thank You for Your forgiveness and Your goodness. We pray, Jesus, that You would continue that work of transformation and sanctification in each of us, making us more like You, that people would see our good works and glorify You and our Father in heaven. But God, may it never be that our lives in a self-righteous way condemn others. Lord, help us to walk in humility and grace, and to give forth the same grace that You've freely given to us. We praise You, Jesus.

If you can identify with some of the things listed here as being against God, you've been convicted by the law—but its purpose is to point you to Jesus, who came to save and rescue you. If you'd like to receive His forgiving grace today, it's as easy as ABC: Admit that you're a sinner, Believe that Christ died for your sins, and Come to Jesus confessing your sins. Pray with me: Dear Jesus, I admit I need You. I've tried to clean myself up and I can't do it. Would You come into my life, forgive me of my sin, and help me to follow You by faith? In Jesus' name, Amen.