9) Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and insubordinate...
Timothy, genuine child in the faith, we know (perfect tense: we came to this understanding at a point in time, and we still hold to it) that the law is good. We know this, there is no doubt about it. The law is good. It's perfect; if we use it lawfully. The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. Psalms 19:7
He says this right after saying these other people don't know what they are talking about. They don't know, but we do know. This is something really important to know. It separates the false, the impure, and the deceived from those who really do know.
They may be pouring their life into it. We see people spend years of their life, and thousands of dollars going to seminary, and then devout the rest of their life to the ministry. But if they miss this, they are doing it illegally. They are outlaws, criminals in the kingdom of God.
What could be so monumental? How do we use the law lawfully?
Knowing (9): we need to understand. This is the part we must understand from verse 8. We must grasp this next part to use the law lawfully, so that it will be good. This is a huge, big, important point.
The law is not made for a righteous man. Ok, but how can this be? How can this be if the law was given for everyone? No one is above the law, right? Aren't we all supposed to obey the Word of God? The only logical explanation is that there is none righteous, no, not one. The law didn't come to righteous people, because there are no righteous people. We are all sinners.
The law is for us. This list describes who the law was made for. This list describes (gasp) us. We need to understand that man is wicked, and that the law was made for sinners. We are supposed to use the law to help us see our sin.
He has already laid out the fatal flaw of not taking all of the Word of God. If we think we can pick and choose which parts are important, than we don't know much of anything. But now he takes us further into the heart attitude behind the error. To me, this explains the “why" people don't take the full counsel of God.
The problem with some people who want to teach the law is that they don't use it lawfully. They do not meditate on it to reveal their own sin. They think they're a pretty good person. Most Christian teachers probably won't come right out and say that. They know intellectually that that's wrong to say. But in their heart of hearts they think so. They study so that they can appear sharp to others. Knowledge puffs up. And they want knowledge, but they refuse to hear the reproof of the Law. Reproofs of instruction are the way of life. They are going about the whole thing unlawfully. They can even appear to be great teachers. But they side step God's way of building their house. They are not holding to all sound doctrine, because they don't want to be shown their errors. They don't want to see where they are wrong. If they did, it wouldn't be any big deal to get together and work through doctrinal differences. (But it's no fun to get together when neither person is willing to receive from the other. It's more like two Billy goats butting heads.)
These wayward teachers see the sticks in other people's eyes, but they miss the beam in their own life. The biggest sin we should see is our own sin. Then we can help others out. Then we must help others out. But if in our heart of hearts we think others are worse sinners than we are, then we are totally stupid. We don't know what we're talking about. We must apply the Word to ourselves first, instead of looking down on others. We need to see ourselves in desperate need of grace, mercy, and truth. Then we will see others as needing grace, mercy, and truth. Then we can stand firmly against their error, because we have found grace, and we want them to have the same love from a pure heart, etc.
Another way of saying this is that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. If we don't fear Him, then we don't know anything. It's an attitude of us seeing our proper place with God. Remember, these people don't hold entirely to God's Word. They want to give place to men's importance, and to stories. This is unlawful. It's illegal. It's not acceptable to God to disregard any part of His counsel.
In verse 9 he tells us it boils down to seeing the proper role of God's law. His law is to bring us to Christ. It is not to establish our own righteousness. This is what false teachers do, and that is breaking the law. The law is to help us see how bad off we are, in order to steer us to grace, mercy, and peace. If we know anything, it's that God knows best, and we need to cling fully to Him.
A good test to see if we are in the Spirit or in the flesh is this: check ourselves to see, at any given point in time, if we think we are wretched, but loved by God. Being in the Spirit is walking around wide open to reproof and help. Yet at the same time it's not discouraged. It's encouraged because we know God loves us and wants to bless us. Being in the flesh is drifting around thinking we've got everything under control. It's loosing the edge. It's coasting instead of holding down the pedal. It's not present tense fearing God, because we forget our wretchedness. It's thinking we are doing fine on our own. I spend a lot more time in the second than I would like to admit. Praise God for the blood, and that He helps me keep coming back to reality.
If someone thinks they have a better way than the Word of God, then they don't know what they are talking about. Ex: we talked to a preacher who said that 1 Co 14 looked good on paper, but he wasn't going to run his church that way. That's terrible. God help us.
Since they didn't have (much of) the NT back then, does all this talk about the law apply to us in the NT? Yes, I believe it does. We see in verse 11 that the gospel teaches the wickedness of man, just as the law did. I see the emphasis being placed on the principle, rather that limiting the focus to the Law of Moses. We must remember that they were already under the new covenant. They understood how Jesus fulfilled the law. To me, the principle that is being taught is what happens when we swerve from obeying the full counsel of God. In this point in history people were using the Law of Moses unlawfully; trying to cover themselves with it as an excuse to not follow Jesus. So I don't want to take away from any specific application that may have applied to them. But in the bigger picture, they were just avoiding the truth. They didn't see themselves as the sinners who needed to be converted by the law.
So whether someone misuses the Law of Moses specifically, or whether they misuse any of the other scriptures, the principle still applies.
This next point is a little bit of a stretch to tie into our context, but I think it is an application of these verses. People sometimes complain that everyone interprets the bible differently, and that there is no way to know what it's really saying. Why should they invest time and energy into something they can't understand? But we know that kind of thinking is wrong. The law is good. The problem is not with the law. The problem is that people are using the law unlawfully. People are relying on stories to build their doctrine, and they are becoming confused about what to believe.
This should help us see the need to stand against false teachers. Part of the problem is the bad witness of all these false teachers putting out other doctrines. And the other part of the problem is with us. We must get hungry for righteousness before we can be filled. If we want it enough, we can know the truth. The problem is not with the law. It produces great benefits, as long as we use it lawfully.
Some people say that there is no need to eat healthy because we're all going to die of cancer anyway. That's bad thinking. That's a defeatist type attitude. If we smoke and live off of junk food, we greatly increase our risk of disease. And just like it's important to eat well, so it's much more important to use God's Word properly. It can have great benefit.