Uses of the Law: Unlawful Uses (4)

1 Timothy 1.6, 7

Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

It is unlawful not to use the Law of God. It is unlawful to use the Law as a means to salvation or to achieving a righteousness of our own. And it is unlawful to use the Law as a way of vaunting one’s status within the believing community.

The Law of God is a complex, mysterious, and beautiful body of divine wisdom, justice, and love. It is not easily mastered.

Yet it is the duty of every believer, as we shall see, to make proper use of the Law; and, in order to do so, we must understand the Law. For this we engage in personal reading and study. But we will also look to wise and experienced teachers for help. Yet any putative teacher of the Law who uses his position in order to boast about what he knows or to vaunt his knowledge above others has made the Law of God his own servant. And this represents a gross misuse of the Law.

The Law of God, as all of Scripture, intends to exalt and glorify God only. Any time we use the Word of God to impress others or to advantage ourselves over them, we have made the Law our servant, a means for our exalting, rather than God’s, and this is yet another unlawful use of the holy and righteous and good Law of God.

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