desiring to be law-teachers, not understanding either what they say or concerning what they [so] strenuously affirm.
Paul has just told Timothy that the aim of his charge is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. Now he turns to the people who have drifted away from it. They still want a platform, and the subject they choose is the law. The sting of the verse is this: the thing they teach with such confidence is the thing they understand least.
Where the Ambition Starts
The wish to be a law-teacher is not where the trouble starts. One writer traces it back to something missing in the heart:
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.
Paul knew these men. They had shadowed his work everywhere:
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.
Confidence Without Knowledge
Paul's last phrase is about confident assertion. Strong words can hide an empty mind:
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.
What They Failed to Understand
These teachers never grasped who the law is aimed at:
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.
The Cost of the Mistake
The mistake costs more than it looks. A believer who takes the law as his rule of life gives up something real:
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.
The Same Words Today
Commentators apply Paul's words far beyond his own day. One writer shows what preaching law does to the picture of God:
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.
Another writer turns the verse on a common habit — sending brand-new believers out to teach:
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.
Summary
- Missed — the trouble starts before the teaching. These men had missed the grace and the spiritual qualities at the heart of Christianity.
- Turned — empty talk fills the gap, and it takes the respectable shape of law-teaching.
- Claimed — they wanted the teacher's title, and the law let them sit as judge instead of being judged.
- Exposed — Paul's verdict is not that they got a detail wrong. They understood neither their own words nor their subject. Loud confidence proved nothing.
- Corrected — the law is good when used lawfully. It convicts the guilty. It never makes anyone righteous. Grace saves sinners, and no law-teacher can do that work.