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This is the third part in my notes on the Pastoral Epistles. Comments are not just welcome but highly desirable!

The Purpose of the Law

1:8 But we know that the law is good, if one treat it as law, 1:9 on the understanding that law is not made for the upright, but for the lawless and unruly, for the impious and the wicked, for the sacrilegious and the profane, for those who kill fathers or mothers, for murderers, 1:10 for the promiscuous, for homosexuals, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and for any other thing contrary to the sound doctrine 1:11 according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.

Notes

Craig S. Keener writes, "Philosophers believed that wise people did not need laws, because their wise behavior itself modeled the moral truth on which laws were based. For Paul, this ideal was true for Christians; laws were necessary only to restrain those who were inclined to sin." (1993) Here one may quote Philo, Antiphanes, Menander of Carchedon, and Maximus of Tyre. Philo writes in Allegorical Interpretation, 1.94, "There is no need, then, to give injunctions or prohibitions or exhortations to the perfect man formed after the [Divine] image, for non of these does the perfect man require." The sentence of Antiphanes (408-331 BCE) says, "The one who does no wrong is in no need of law." Menander of Carchedon says, "Wherever good is found, it is better than the law." Maximus of Tyre (125-185 CE), in Discourses 16:3, states, "Truth and healthy understanding and morality and knowledge of the law and right cannot be acquired in any other way than by actually doing them, just as one can never learn the craft of shoemaking unless one actually works at it."

Raymond F. Collins writes, "In an aside, the Pastor offers a reflection on the law. He describes it as good but with a proviso: that one live in accordance with the law (ean tis auto nominos chretai; see Josephus, Ant. 16.2.3 §27). The tense of the verb, a present subjunctive, suggests a reference to future conduct along with some hesitancy as to whether a person can actually live in full accord with the law. The apostle himself had affirmed that everyone has sinned including those under the law (Rom. 2:12; 3:23). Explaining that all have sinned, including those of the circumcision who are bound to follow the law (cf. Gal. 3:22; 5:3; 6:13), Paul had stated that Jewish teachers did the same wicked things that Gentiles did (Rom. 1:29-2:1). They dared to teach others even as they themselves violated the precepts of the law (Rom. 2:17-23) and were prone to the same vices as the Gentiles were." (2002: 29)

A. T. Hanson writes of the phrase provided we treat it as law, "literally 'use it lawfully', and 'lawfully' is a most unPauline word. The sense seems to be 'if you do not contravene the law, you can respect it and see its point. But if you break it, it is there to condemn you.' In Paul's writing the main function of the law is to show men up, to bring them to a realization of their impossible predicament. There is no hint of this in the Pastorals. In fact, according to Paul, you only realize that the law is excellent after you have broken it." (1966: 24-25) And of the reference to a righteous man, Hanson writes, "Nothing could be further from Paul's teaching! See Rom. 3:10, 'There is no just man, not one'." (1966: 25)

Jouette M. Bassler contends, "The author presents as the only legitimate use of the law its application as a moral restraint on the lawless. This is far from Paul's view (see, e.g., Rom 2:12-16; 3:20-31; 8:1-8; Gal 3:19-24) and the author does not develop it carefully. Instead he lists people of various lawless categories for whom the law is lawfully (i.e., 'legitimately') intended. (The wordplay is deliberate.) This is the first of several vice lists in the Pastoral Letters (see also 6:4-5; 2 Tim 3:2-5; Titus 3:3). Such lists were often coupled with lists of virtues and used in moral exhortation (see, e.g., Gal 5:19-23; Col 3:5-17; Philo Sacrifices of Abel and Cain 22-27, 32) or, as here, to vilify opponents (see, e.g., Rom 1:29-31; Lucian Runaways 16) (McEleney 1974). This particular list seems to be carefully constructed in two distinct parts. The first part describes the lawless in terms used elsewhere in these letters to define the opposing teachers and their activities. These teachers, e.g., are also described as 'disobedient' or insubordinate (Titus 1:10; Gk. anhypotaktos), a word suggesting the resisting to authority that is anathema to this author (see 2:11; 3:4; Titus 2:5, 9; 3:1). Their actions are said to lead to godlessness or impiety (2 Tim 2:16; cf. Titus 2:12) and unholy behavior (2 Tim 3:2; cf. 1 Tim 2:8; Titus 1:8), and what they do is repeatedly described as profane (4:7; 6:20; 2 Tim 2:16). Whatever the opposing teachers were saying about the law, the author is suggesting here that its proper use is as a moral restraint just for the likes of them. The second part of the list seems deliberately to echo the Decalogue: 'for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars, perjurers' (vv. 9b-10; cf. Exod 20:12-17). The effect of the combined list is to link the disobedient, godless, unholy, and profane behavior associated with the opposing teachers with actions condemned by the law they profess to teach." (1996: 41-42)

J. L. Houlden writes: "But what can he mean by the law (v. 8)? Surely he cannot mean what Paul would almost certainly have meant in such a context, that is, the Jewish Law. Writing to a Christian audience some fifty years after Paul's death, he must surely mean the moral teaching accepted by Christians. And the fact that he can use the term without explanation or qualification is itself an indication of how far the Church has travelled since Paul's day. Not only has it lost the edge of his teaching on this matter (perhaps that was inevitable); it has now developed its own moral system, as it were alongside that of Judaism and no doubt other schools of thought in the contemporary society, and can refer to it quite simply as 'the law'." (1976: 53)

George W. Knight writes, "Paul has shown how the law may be used lawfully in accordance with its purpose as an ethical guide to warn against sin. He has demonstrated this by presenting a list that shows that the Decalogue is so understood in the OT. He has concluded by stating that this is also the ethical perspective of the truly healthy teaching based on the gospel, so that both it and a proper use of the law concur in terms of their concern for a righteous life and in their teaching against sin. Thus when the law is rightly applied as an ethical restraint against sin, it is in full accordance with the ethical norm given in the gospel as the standard for the redeemed life. A different use of the law, for example, in a mythological or genealogical application to the righteous, is thereby shown to be out of accord with the law's given purpose and the gospel and its teaching." (1992: 91-92)

J. L. Houlden points out: "Two words are particularly characteristic of this writer: the ungodly (asebeis) introduces a family of words common in the Pastoral Epistles (and, within the New Testament, those other late writings, II Peter and Jude). Eusebeia, the positive noun in the family, occuring first in 2:2, signifies 'piety'. It is one of the leading qualities which form the common ground of esteem shared by these Christians, Hellenistic Judaism and respectable paganism: it was a virtue greatly approved at this time and its use is a small sign that in these letters we are moving from a Christianity which is wholly on the crest of the wave into a degree of acceptance of a pluralist society. In the LXX, the great majority of occurences are in the late book, IV Maccabees. The other typical word is sound (from hugiano). It comes eight times in these letters (never in Paul) and again illustrates the writer's values." (1976: 59) Houlden also observes, "The transformation of Paul into a pure moralist reaches its climax in v. 11, where the ethical commonplaces which have just been listed are identified as the substance of the glorious gospel. The Paul who wrote Rom. 1:16 would hardly have seen it thus (though cf. Rom. 2:16, where the Day of Judgment is part of Paul's gospel)." (1976: 53)

L. T. Johnson writes: "kill fathers, . . . mothers . . . murderers: Each of these words represents an extreme violation of the commandment not to kill; none of them occurs elsewhere in Paul or the NT, but each fits within the wider Koine. Spelled patraloias, the first term appears in Aristophanes, The Clouds 911, 1327; Plato, Phaedo 114A; Josephus, Antiquities 16:356. Marcus Aurelius lists the parricide among the worst of possible moral offenders (Meditations 6:34). The mother-killer (matraloas = Attic, matraloias) appears in Aristophanes, Eumenides 153, 210; is given recognition and definition in Plato, Laws 881A; and is found also in Lucian, Assembly of the Gods 12. The two terms appear together in Plato, Phaedo 114A. The noun androphonia (manslaying) occurs in Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1107A. In Pindar, Pythian Odes 4:252, it is a term applied to women who kill their husbands. In Plato, Phaedo 114A, it refers to simply a murderer. It should be noted that in 2 Macc 9:28, the wicked king Antiochus is termed androphonos and blasphemer, and in 4 Macc 9:15, the word is combined with 'godless.'" (2001: 170)

Raymond F. Collins writes: "The Pastor then adds a specific sexual vice, 'active homosexuals' (arsenokoitais). The term was apparently coined by Paul (1 Cor. 6:9) in reference to the kind of male homosexual activity prescribed by Lev. 18:22. Jewish men were enjoined from having sexual relations with other men as part of the strict code of sexual mores that distinguished Jewish men from Egyptians and Canaanites (see Ep. Arist. 152). Paul shared the traditional Jewish view that acts of homosexuality among men were the result of idolatry (Rom. 1:18-27; 1 Cor. 6:9). For Jews, such sexual activity was deemed to be a particularly egregious form of sexual immorality. It violated the principle of demarcation that pervaded the traditional ethos, Jew and Gentile, clean and unclean, male and female. Jews were expected to act like Jews, men were expected to act like men, and so forth." (2002: 33)

Of the phrase the wholesome teaching, Hanson writes, "Notice that the behaviour which is condemned is opposed to teaching. Sin is thought of as transgressing a fixed law rather than as a broken relationship with a personal God. The author is very fond of that word teaching; he seems to indicate by it a fixed body of doctrine. Paul also uses it, in Rom. 12:7 and 15:4, for example. In the first of these places it probably means instruction for converts preparing for baptism. In the second passage it means information about Christ to be gleaned from study of the Old Testament. Here for the first time the word denotes a body of Christian doctrine." (1966: 25)

Dibelius and Conzelmann note: "'To be sound' and 'sound' (ugiainein, ugihs), as terms which characterize the content of Christian preaching, do not occur anywhere else in the NT. In the Pastorals they are frequently used: 'sound teaching' (ugiainousa didaskalia, 1 Tim 1:10; 2 Tim 4:3; Tit 1:9; 2:1), 'sound words' (ugiainontes logoi, 1 Tim 6:3; 2 Tim 1:13), 'to be sound in faith' (ugiainein [en] th pistei, Tit 1:13; 2:2), 'sound preaching' (logos ugihs, Tit 2:8). But cf. also Justin, Dial. 3.3: '(to be ruled by reason . . .) in order to recognize that the others are in error and that, in their undertakings, they do nothing sound or pleasing to God.' . . . the Pastorals designate with 'sound teaching' (ugiainousa didaskalia) or 'sound words' (ugiainontes logoi) the loftiest and holiest things they know: the true faith, the true message about faith. According to the Pauline use of language one could (e.g. in 1 Tim 6:3) substitute a phrase containing the term 'gospel' (euaggelion). We must assume that it is highly unlikely that in his older age Paul would have designated his gospel with other formulas—unless he ad to formulate new expressions to meet new situations. But the basic terms of the Pastorals are not applied to an actual situation." (1972: 24)

Donald Guthrie notes, "Except here and vi. 15 nowhere in the Bible is makarios (blessed) applied to God, but the usage is frequent in Philo. It describes God not as the object of blessing, but as experiencing within Himself the perfection of bliss. Such a thought accords well with the splendour which He radiates through the gospel." (1957: 62)

It is only possible that the expression "the law is good" responds to Marcion's rejection of the law if one has decided, on other grounds, that Marcion is in view in these epistles.