Uses of the Law: Unlawful Uses (5)

1 Timothy 1.5, 6

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered assay into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law…

We might suppose that the goal of the Law of God is that we should become good. We might try teaching the Law of God to our children, so that we might make them obey and be good. We might hold the Law and its threats before our congregations, so that they will be good. But if by “being good” we mean only securing some outward conformity to a standard of goodness somehow based on the Law of God, we are not using the Law in a lawful manner.

The goal of our instruction in the Law is not goodness. The goal is love. “Goodness” without love may as well be a clanging cymbal. Where love is present, goodness will show forth. If we use the Law to teach or require anything other than love for God and neighbor, then we are not using the Law in a lawful manner.

This is not to suggest that keeping the Law “for goodness’ sake”, or working for laws reflective of the goodness of the Law, are not goals to be pursued. But the purpose of the Law is to promote love for God and neighbor. Thus we fall short of the Law’s purpose, and we use the Law in an unlawful manner, when, by making mere outward goodness our objective, we fail to demonstrate the way in which the Law serves to promote love.

Sound teaching always seeks love as its ultimate outcome.

For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the life of faith, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.ailbe.org and click on our Book Store.