“…the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate…and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust.”
–First Epistle of the Holy Apostle Paul to Timothy, ch. 1
A reflection:
This passage addresses that the law (a moral code, as it were) is not for the moral, “righteous,” person, but for the immoral and, therefore, “lawless.” Though the condition of the fallen human person is not only that of a “moral insubordinate” –which naturally presupposes action in opposition to what is right, correct, and good of the human person–the very actions of the fallen human person provide indication of the “condition” of that person. But beyond speaking to the point that law addresses more indicators of, and ontological condition in, humanity, I observe this simple statement: that the law is “for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane…and if there is anything contrary to sound doctrine” (gr. didaskalia, see 1 Tim. 1:9-11). There is an essential link between law (gr. nomos) and doctrine (didaskalia). We often consider that law pertains strictly to the moral disposition of the person, and that doctrine pertains specifically to one’s knowledge about God (as in formal/academic theology); but what we find here is that the law provides proof of our condition by way of our acting in opposition to it (and thus in opposition to what is natural to man) and that any contradiction to “sound doctrine” is also such an indication. How does one contradict “sound doctrine”? Not by proving one’s own lack of knowledge–this is more often self evident in many of us!–but by living in a way that is not in accord with the apostolic teaching, which essentially orients itself to the “glorious gospel” (v. 11). We know that the Gospel is not “a theology” to be held in the mind of the Christian, but an acute awareness of this statement of Christ: “I am the way, the truth, and the life…”
