1 Timothy 1:3–11

Timothy was to remain behind to charge some that they teach no other doctrine. When Paul had met the elders of Ephesus at Miletus he had made this prediction: "For I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them" (Acts 20:29-30). Then he went to Jerusalem, where he was taken prisoner and sent to Rome. After his release he must have visited Ephesus once more. There he found the very things the Holy Spirit had warned against. Timothy was with him on that visit, between his first and second imprisonment.

We see the love that even an apostle adopts towards his child in faith. It was not at all a domineering word, though full of earnest desire for the work of the Lord.

To teach things different from the word of God is to be a strange teacher. What guesses are to a scientist, speculations are to the teacher: traps that pull us away from the revealed truth God has entrusted to us. True science bows to facts. It looks for the general principles or connections behind them, and calls these laws. The believer and the teacher do the same. To go beyond the written word is to stray and mislead.

The Apostle realised that "some" were ready to teach "other doctrines". This was true even among those who had the greatest light. The natural pride of the heart may think that much light is a safeguard against error. The Ephesian assembly teaches us a lesson worth learning. A company rich in truth, enjoying the highest ministry, still has no guarantee against false doctrine. Timothy, then, was to charge some that they teach no other doctrine than the great doctrines of the grace of God.

Paul was sure that the state of the Ephesians' souls needed Timothy's ministry to work against the sad drift away from the truth that was already there. There were "some" at least who leaned toward teaching doctrine other than the truth of God. Countering this did not need superior intellect. It needed the faithfulness that honours God. It did not need new truth either, but the truth already given, pressed home to heart and conscience.

From this some have thought that Timothy was a bishop, left there to appoint elders. But in Acts 20 we see all the elders already doing their work at Ephesus, five years before Paul wrote to Timothy. So that theory will not hold good.

In 2 Timothy 1:15 comes the sad news that "all who are in Asia" (which must have included Ephesus) had "turned away from" Paul. This surely means they gave up the truth as Paul taught it, and settled down with a lower standard... Revelation 2:1-7 gives the address to this church. Much in it speaks in their favour. Yet it also had to bring the solemn charge that they had left their first love, and the warning that if they did not repent their lampstand would be removed.

These strange teachings were of two kinds: "fables" (or "myths") and "genealogies." By the first word Paul meant ideas brought in from the pagan world, even though they were the polished theories of the Greek schools. By the second he meant ideas brought in from the Jewish world, where family descent had played such a large part.

This warning targets the Gnostic emanations — the invented "aeons" and the lists of how one came from another... The myths of our own day are no more in keeping with sound doctrine and the truth of God: evolution, which derives one thing from another in an endless chain, and the myths of destructive criticism, spiritism, theosophy, Christian Science, and other strange notions.

"Endless genealogies" please the natural mind and religious human nature alike, for they shut God out and make much of man. They assume that all blessing is a process of development handed down from one generation to the next. That is why the religious Jew made so much of his family line.

The subject itself does build us up, as the whole Word of God does. But it is useless to take it up with only your own intelligence, as the rationalists have so often done. And these are not the genealogies the apostle tells us not to give heed to (1 Tim. 1:4; Titus 3:9). He was warning against a philosophical system that tried to set up endless levels in a hierarchy of spirits.

When men set up as teachers of strange doctrine, they always wander into the region of fable and give heed to myths and endless genealogies. The love of the marvellous went to work among Christians early on. Imagination is never faith. Faith delights in knowing God and His will, and so trusts nothing but His word, however thankful it is for those who bring it. Imagination is the natural resource of people who do not know the truth.

Truth is solid and real. It is not fanciful, and it does not play to our love of sensation. It is precious, vital, practical. The things that only impress the mind or the imagination are not the things that feed the soul. Tracing your family line back to some famous ancestor may be exciting, but only to the flesh.

Clearly "edification" is not the point here. The point is the right order of the house of God, and this in faith.

The older English version reads "edifying," but the correct reading is "dispensation," or "house-law" — one changed letter in the Greek word makes the difference. Love furthers everything God has ordered as the rule of His house.

The apostle does not finish his sentence. Timothy would understand without question; so ought we. But he lets us know what he thinks of speculation: it produces barren questions for the mind. God's dispensation, by contrast, is in faith. It is faith that He uses both to dispense and to receive.

So we see that some were warned about their ministry. It had to be sound in the truth and profitable, not taken up with questions that do not build up. If they kept on with such troublesome ministry, they would show self-will, and they would surely have to be disciplined and silenced.

I am afraid the word "commandment" often gives the English reader a wrong impression. People in the Christian world turn so readily to what we call the Ten Commandments, the ten words of the law, that whenever the word "commandment" comes up, you can expect many — even children of God, who ought to know better — to slip straight back to the law without noticing. That was far from the writer's thought here... What the apostle means by the commandment is the charge he was laying on Timothy, his child in the faith and fellow worker.

The man saw that the love which fulfils these two great commandments matters far more than offering all the sacrifices the law required. The sacrifices had their place, but they were only a means to an end. Love is the goal, "the aim of our charge," as 1 Timothy 1:5 tells us. The goal is greater than the means.

The aim of the charge is not idle speculation. It is love — God's own nature — enjoyed and active. It is purity in the affections, a pure heart that sees God. It is a conscience with nothing on it, happy in God's presence. And then faith: the spirit of dependence on God and confidence in Him. What a bright state to be in before God!

Second comes a good conscience. This one is very personal, while the first takes in other people. To keep a good conscience we must obey what we have learned from God. "A sincere faith" completes the three, and it connects the soul directly with God. It brings God into everything, in simple, genuine confidence that He is supreme.

These are the effects of the gospel when it comes home to believers, and the law simply cannot produce them. The law may convict us of the hatred and impurity of the heart. It may prove that the conscience is evil. And it has nothing to do with faith... The law works out wrath, not grace, and so it brings death, not life. This is not because the law is not good and holy, but because man is evil, godless and powerless.

A sincere faith in Christ clears the conscience of guilt and produces love out of a pure heart.

The charge was not to do some great service or make some great sacrifice. It was not doing great things before men, but being in a right condition before God. Love in the heart, "a good conscience" and "a sincere faith" are qualities that God alone can see, though others may see the effect they produce in a person's life.

In the first chapter he says the goal of the charge he told Timothy to keep, and to press on the saints, was "love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith." Later in the same chapter he says, "holding faith and a good conscience," and tells him that some have put away the good conscience and so made shipwreck of the faith... Some have fallen into the great mistake of making everything of conscience and nothing of faith. It is just as great a mistake to make everything of faith and nothing of conscience.

What he calls for is love out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. The law does not produce this. Neither do human imaginings and questions. Only the gospel of grace does. Speculative questions, and anything else like them, do not touch the conscience or bring anyone into the presence of God. A sincere faith in Christ clears the conscience from guilt and produces love out of a pure heart.

The people the apostle describes were opponents who pushed the Jewish law, and he tells them plainly that they had missed their aim. Could they really claim a pure heart, or a good conscience, or sincere faith? What they showed was not love but empty talk. Through Christ even the weakest Christian walks in truth and love. We are loved perfectly, and so we love. Christ's sacrifice cleanses the heart by its power, and it makes the conscience good as well. Faith knows that all the evil and ruin are fully met in Christ's death and resurrection. So it rests at ease and pretends nothing, because all good is truly given by God and secured in His Son.

But some had turned aside from these ends of true soul-prosperity, to "vain jangling." This is simply idle, empty talk that gives no good to the hearers. They wanted to be teachers of the law. Yet Scripture solemnly declares that they understood neither what they said nor what they so forcefully affirmed. Bold, proud, dogmatic language does not always show honest conviction about the truth of what a man claims. It may instead point to a sad ignorance of the whole subject he is handling.

Some had left these great landmarks of Christianity behind and turned aside to empty discussions. And here we meet again the same corrupters of Christianity: teachers who pushed the Jewish law. They had rejected the Saviour, and then they filled the apostle's path with thorns. They wanted to teach the law. The human mind is equal to that.

The Christian world has largely turned aside in two directions. On one side it teaches made-up claims in the name of science. On the other it turns to genealogies tied to religious succession, apostolic and otherwise, with all the ritual built on that. So the religious arena is full of questioners and echoes with the uproar of vain jangling. What God aims at producing, and does produce where the truth holds sway, is love.

Those who swerved from the truth and turned aside to vain jangling — and there were many such in the apostle's day — did so because they had first let slip what once seemed to have been planted in their hearts by God.

There were some in the Christian circle who had missed these great spiritual qualities of Christianity. Lacking them, they turned aside from the truth to empty talk. Christianity rests on the grace of God, and it brings the heart and conscience of a person into God's presence. When this grace is missed, our religious nature turns aside to empty words, and men become "law-teachers".

There were some in the Christian circle who had missed these great spiritual qualities of Christianity. Without them, they turned away from the truth to empty talk. Christianity, based on the grace of God, brings the soul, in heart and conscience, into the presence of God. When this grace is "missed", religious human nature turns aside to empty words, and men become "law-teachers". Such people do not see what their false teaching leads to. They do not understand the true use of the law they insist on so firmly.

They aimed at being law-teachers, but they did not understand what they said or what they insisted on so firmly. They were clearly the same men who pressed the Jewish law on everyone, always insisting on law-keeping and its rules. They were false teachers who twisted the gospel. They followed the apostle everywhere and tried to damage his work.

Bold, arrogant, dogmatic language does not always mean a man is honestly convinced of what he says. It may point instead to a pathetic ignorance of the whole subject he is handling. And nothing is used with more ignorance than the law, by many who think themselves experts on it. They would sooner sit as judge than let the law judge and expose their own hearts. Yet that is the main purpose God gave it for.

Yet the law is good, if one uses it lawfully. Law has the bad in view, not the good. Law exists to detect, convict, and punish. Law never made a "just man," still less "the good" man… It is a sharp weapon to wound and kill lawbreakers. It was never designed to form honest motives or a life of true righteousness. Its excellence is that it spares no evil, and man is evil by nature. Grace, not law, saves sinners.

A Christian who takes up the law as the rule of his own life must first give up his place in Christ. He must abandon that righteousness of God which he is made in Him. The law was not enacted for the Christian. Of course, no Christian means such folly. But that is what the error amounts to. The very principle of taking the law for himself gives up all his blessing in Christ, though he neither knows it nor intends it.

Some were falsifying the Gospel in the apostle's day by preaching the law. Of these he says, with contempt, that they understand neither what they are saying nor the things they assert. He would speak the same way about the religious leaders of our own time. They put men under law. They urge them to come into the presence of God with vows on their lips that no one can keep. The Gospel reveals Him not as one who demands, but as one who gives. It is a solemn thing to falsify His testimony.

The custom of many nowadays is to say to every newborn soul in Christ, "Go and work for the Lord." So we hear a great deal of "preaching." But in countless cases we may well say that they desire to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

The law itself is "holy and just and good" (Rom. 7:12) whatever men may do with it. This verse says that when someone uses it lawfully, its practical effects are good. When people use it wrongly, as these law-teachers did, it does harm — though it stays perfectly good in itself.

I hold that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully. It is useful to convict of sin, but it is not made for the righteous — at least so Scripture says. Using it to convict a sinner of sin is one thing. A Christian being under it is another. The difference is like holding a sword by the handle and running someone else through with it, compared with being run through yourself. The law is good, if one uses it lawfully; it is death and condemnation if he is under it.

Law does not contemplate the good but the bad. Law is enacted to detect, convict, and punish. Law never made a just man, still less a good man. It is a sharp weapon to wound and kill lawbreakers. It was never designed to shape honest motives or a walk of true righteousness. Its excellence lies in sparing no evil; and man is evil, and that by nature.

The law was not enacted for the righteous but for sinners. So to strongly enforce it upon those who were righteous, because justified by God Himself, was not a lawful use of it.

Too many use it only to prop up their own self-righteousness. That use is completely false, for the law was not even given for a righteous man, but for the lawless, disobedient, ungodly, and sinners. It will expose and condemn sin without mercy, and it leaves the sinner — that is, everyone — under condemnation. It has no power whatever to forgive nor to justify, nor to take away the sin it exposes.

It is a very serious error to suppose the law is set aside. Far from it. The apostle in 1 Timothy declares, "the law is good, if one uses it lawfully." If the law were dead or set aside, it could not be called good for anything. What is dead is good for nothing. What then is the law good for? Not for justification, but for conviction — not as a rule of life, but as a rule of death.

There is sometimes a mistaken effort to exalt the gospel by contrasting it with, and by implication belittling, the law. This is not "using the law lawfully." Even in its most legal and condemning passages, the law holds a foreshadowing of good things to come, by implication or prophecy.

It is Christ Who above all acts by faith on the believer's soul. So he needs the word of God as a whole throughout his life, and the Spirit helps him to apply it in practical detail. This is the Christian's secret of true morality. In divine wisdom it ties the heart to the Saviour day by day. It makes the written word something to ponder constantly, for comfort and for careful application in the Spirit. But all of this is held in the sense of the true grace of God in which we stand.

The law may also be used like all Scripture that teaches the mind of God. Ephesians 6 does this with obedience to parents: God thinks so much of it that it is the first commandment with a promise attached.

It is not made for a righteous man, that is, for a Christian. "Law is not made" uses a technical word for those who are placed under it. English law applies to Englishmen, not to others; it cannot be applied to them. The only true translation is "law does not apply to" — it is not enacted for the righteous, and so it cannot direct God's people.

A believer with sincere faith and love out of a pure heart and a good conscience is righteous, and has nothing to do with the law. Possessing the righteousness which is apart from law, having the righteousness of God in Christ, the law has no power over the believer... The law was never designed to be the rule for the Christian's life. He is saved by grace, and that alone can produce godliness. It is grace which teaches him to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present age, and also gives the power for it.

Law does not have the good in view but the bad. Law is enacted to detect, convict, and punish. Law never made a "just man," still less "the good" man... It is a sharp weapon to wound and kill transgressors; it was never designed to form motives of integrity or a walk of true righteousness. Its excellence lies in this: it does not spare evil; and man is evil, and this by nature. Grace, not law, saves sinners.

The use of the law is to condemn, to kill, to deal with evil. This never could be the full expression of God. It does keep up a witness to God's hatred of evil; those who are presumptuous it leaves without excuse.

I take up Paul's words: "We know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully." A lawful use of it would be to bring its lash on the consciences of the ungodly. It would show them their sins, and how far they have fallen short of what it righteously requires... But some preach the law as a way to gain God's favour, and as the way of salvation and life. Such a man opposes the gospel. He slights God's great gift of His Son.

Such are the pairs in this dark list of human depravity. First, the inner spring of self-will and its more open refusal to submit. Next, irreverence towards God, and evil towards man. Third, impiety and open profanity. Fourth, insolent violence towards parents, without going so far as killing. That last extreme opens the general group that follows, one name after another — murderers... and anything else that is against sound teaching.

A Christian who takes up the law as the rule of his own life must first give up his place in Christ. He must abandon that righteousness of God which he is made in Him. The law was not enacted for the Christian. Of course no Christian deliberately intends such folly; but this is really what the error implies. The very principle of taking the law for himself gives up all his blessing in Christ — without knowing or intending it.

An X-ray is not used on people who are perfectly healthy. It is used to find what may be wrong in the body. So, the law is not made for a righteous man. It is made to expose the many moral ailments that afflict mankind — lawlessness, disobedience, ungodliness, and all these dreadful evils that follow here. There is no need to name them one by one. They include everything that is contrary to sound doctrine.

The use of the law is to condemn, to kill, to deal with evil. This never could be the full expression of God. It does keep up a witness to God's hatred of evil, no doubt; those who are presumptuous it leaves without excuse. But if a Christian takes up the law as the rule of his own life, he must first give up his place as being in Christ. He must abandon that righteousness of God which he is made in Him. The law was not enacted for the Christian.

Though slavery came from sin, the law of Moses recognised it and gave rules about it, and for the protection of the slaves. In the New Testament Paul sent Onesimus, a runaway slave, back to his master, who was a Christian. He did not demand his release. Instead he made a beautiful appeal to Philemon: he should keep Onesimus no longer as a slave, but as a beloved brother. The effects of sin were in the world, and God did not bring in Christianity to set the world right. While He shed light on everything and proclaimed grace to all, His purpose was "to take from the Gentiles a people for His name." Christianity taught equal treatment of slaves, as we see in several of the letters that address masters. It condemned kidnappers.

The law is a most powerful instrument of conviction for sinners. It shows no mercy to the terrible list of sins given in verses 9 and 10. But besides all these there were other things the law did not name, which were contrary to all sound teaching. The Apostle refers to these at the close of verse 10. Notice that he does not say "contrary to sound doctrine according to the holy standard established by the law." He says "in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God," for the gospel sets before us a standard of conduct higher than the law. The law did not set out the most that God could expect from man. It set out the least He demands, if man is to live on the earth. So to fall below that standard, in one thing on one occasion, was to incur the death penalty.

The word translated "sound" occurs again and again. It is the word from which we get "hygienic," so often on people's lips today. It means healthful. Sound doctrine is indeed doctrine which makes for spiritual health.

Sound doctrine is not only a correct belief in the gospel of the glory of the blessed God... but sound doctrine also means practical godliness. Sound doctrine produces a holy life, and sound doctrine must lead to a holy life.

The gospel is no less exclusive of evil than the law. But the gospel of the glory of the blessed God is the great remedy that brings health and soundness to the sick. In this, God's glory shines as it could not in the law. The law declared God's righteous judgment, but it could not reveal the love and grace of His heart.

It is the gospel of God's glory, not "the glorious gospel." Such is the hope in which we rejoice, and such the standard by which He would have us measure and reject all evil. It is a standard that allows no compromise with man's hardness of heart, as the law did, but is completely intolerant of everything opposed to God's nature and presence on high.

What could exceed the moral filth and degradation of those who had fallen short not only of the law but of "the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23)? Their portrait appears in verses 9 and 10. Then in verse 11 comes "the gospel of the glory of the blessed God," followed in the next verses by the dark picture Paul gives of himself as an unconverted man. Look before and look after, and we see nothing but the shame of cursed and unhappy man. Into the middle of it comes the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed, or happy, God. A contrast indeed!

God is now revealed as "the blessed God," because He speaks to us not from Sinai's fire and storm, but in the fullness of grace and truth of Christ. Once atonement was accomplished and the Saviour had gone up into glory, God was "happy" in acting freely in love to the lost.

If anyone asks, what is glory? We may answer, it is excellence on display. God's excellence may be on display in a way the eye can see. But it may not be. A glory of a moral and spiritual kind, reaching the heart by channels other than the eye, is no less wonderful. When Saul of Tarsus was converted, a glory struck him to the ground and blinded his eyes. But the glory of that exceedingly abundant grace of our Lord "with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus" opened the eyes of his heart without dazzling the eyes of his head. That is the glory spoken of here.

The gospel, then, is no less exclusive of evil than the law is; but the gospel of the glory of the blessed God is the great remedy that brings health and soundness to the sick. And in this gospel God reveals His glory as He could not in the law. The law did declare God's righteous judgment, but it could not reveal the love and grace of His heart.

Sound doctrine is therefore not only a correct belief in the gospel of the glory of the blessed God — what that gospel accomplishes to the glory of God, and the glory it puts on our side. Sound doctrine also means practical godliness. Sound doctrine produces a holy life, and sound doctrine must lead to a holy life.

To preach forgiveness of sins and relief from judgment, with a sure hope of heaven at the end, is good as far as it goes. But the gospel of the glory of the blessed God is according to His purpose and grace, which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the world began. It takes us out of the world in spirit now. It brings us into salvation and a holy calling, with the enjoyment of eternal life now.

This is the gospel the Lord has committed to His servants. Paul puts it this way: it is "the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted." Unspeakable privilege! Solemn responsibility! To be commissioned by the Lord Himself to proclaim that gospel far and near! That gospel is the highest display of the divine glory in the richest display of sovereign grace to man.