1 Timothy 1:9

1 Timothy 1:9

The Law our Schoolmaster.

There are some points in which we feel practically that we are not under the law, but dead to it; that the law is not made for us; but do we think, therefore, that we may surrender, rob and burn, or do we not feel that such a notion would be little short of madness? We are not under the law, because we do not need it. And just of this kind is that general freedom from the law of which St. Paul speaks, as the high privilege of true Christians.

I. There is no doubt that the Gospel wishes to consider us as generally dead to the law, in order that we may really become so continually more and more. It supposes that the Spirit of God, presenting to our minds the sight of God's love in Christ, sets us free from the law of sin and death; that is, that a sense of thankfulness to God, and love of God and of Christ, will be so strong a motive that we shall, generally speaking, need no other, that it will so work upon us as to make us feel good, easy, and delightful, and thus to become dead to the law. And there is no doubt, also, that that same freedom from the law, which we ourselves experience daily in respect of some particular great crimes, that very freedom is felt by good men in many other points, where it may be that we ourselves do not feel it. A common instance may be given with respect to prayer and the outward worship of God. There are a great many who feel this as a duty; but there are many also to whom it is not so much a duty as a privilege and a pleasure; and these are dead to the law which commands us to be instant in prayer, just as we, in general, are dead to the law which commands us to do no murder.

II. But observe that St. Paul does not suppose the best Christian to be without the law altogether; there will ever be some points in which he will need to remember it. And so it is unkindness, rather than kindness, and a very mischievous mistake, to forget that here, in this our preparatory life, the law cannot cease altogether with any one; that it is not possible to find a perfect sense and feeling of right existing in every action; nay, that it is even unreasonable to seem to expect it. Punishment will exist eternally so long as there is evil, and the only way of remaining for ever entirely strangers to it is by adhering for ever and entirely to good.

T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. iv., p. 69.