1Ti 1:6 | KingComments | STEP | . Paul gives a detailed explanation on the instruction that Timothy should give to ‘certain men’ ( ). If God instructs something it always has a purpose. The instruction here is to stop the wrong. The wrong holds up God’s blessing and if it is taken away the blessing can freely flow again. That also includes your personal life. This explanation shows Timothy why he had to directly silence those ‘certain men’ and without any hesitation. Then the way of love is made free again. Love is the great feature of God. “God is love” ( ). The love of God is poured out within our hearts ( ). False doctrines block the outflow of that love, while it should freely outflow to God, to the fellow believers and to the fellow men. A false doctrine always causes corruption, while the love of God always seeks the good for the other person. This love has three sources in the believer. Only if love comes from those sources the goal of the instruction will be achieved. The first source is “a pure heart”. Out of your heart flow the springs of life ( ). Your heart is supposed to be pure. When your heart is not pure, pure love cannot come out of it. If you desire for worldly pleasure, if you enjoy sin, if you are after your own honor, your heart is not pure. In a pure heart there is no place for sin. A pure heart is a heart that lives in fellowship with God. The ones with a pure heart shall see God ( ). The second source is important for the right effectiveness of love and that is “a good conscience”. A good conscience is not a conscience that is not aware of any evil, but more a conscience that functions well. It is a conscience that is trained to make known what is good and what is evil, according to how God judges that, so that you may live up to that. You do not get a bad conscience because of the fact that sin still is in you, but only when the flesh is active in you and you don’t want to judge it. Baptism has to do with a good conscience ( ). After all, you yourself have been baptized because you acknowledge the judgment of God about everything that doesn’t agree with Him, including yourself in your old nature. By being baptized you admit that you chose the side of the rejected Jesus. You want to follow Him. That is only possible from a good conscience that is connected to your baptism. Then it cannot be the case that you still want to have anything to do with sin ( ). In that case you would deny what you have confessed with your baptism and by doing so you would defile your conscience ( ). Besides, your conscience is in itself not a measure of good and evil. It should be formed by the Word of God. Just look at Paul. He was not accused in his conscience when he persecuted the church ( ). But what he did made him the foremost of all sinners ( ). The third source where love should freely flow from is “a sincere faith”. ‘Sincere’ means upright, without feigning. The point is that regarding your faith you should not pretend, that your faith is not an empty confession, but that you trust God in all things. . If your heart and conscience do not remain in the light of God and if your faith is only keeping up appearances you will deviate from the way of love. Here it is still limited to “some men” (cf. ). With those the sources, just mentioned, are not to be found. Love is missing and God’s work is not being done. Then the contrary will happen: you hear only “fruitless discussion”. This is how you should value all gibberish and empty talk. That’s quite different from being impressed by it. . And mind you that these folks will try to impress you. They come with nice reasoning and they emphatically appeal to the Bible. Their goal is not less than to be “the teachers of the Law”. That is what they are “wanting”. They act as if they know God’s law and declare themselves to be the only ones who are allowed to teach that. These false teachers consciously take that attitude and have a firm goal, to which all other things has to be brought into subjection. He who deviates from love because the condition of his heart, conscience and faith is not right anymore, becomes liberal or legalistic. The liberal Christian believes only what he can see or reason. In the days of the Lord Jesus the Sadducees were like that ( ; ). Liberal Christians lead their lives entirely according to their own view. Those who fall into legalism set all kinds of rules for themselves and especially for others that should guide life. In the days of the Lord Jesus the Pharisees were like that ( ). Legalistic people have set a standard of outward characteristics to measure the life of faith for everyone. By saying these things in this way we run the risk to leave ourselves out of range. We must be careful not to look at others only to see if they have either of these evil features in their faith lives. We all have something of both principles in ourselves, for we still have the flesh within ourselves. It would be well for us to consider that. These teachers must have felt very insulted when they heard how Paul described their qualifications as teachers. Just imagine if that happened to you: highly esteeming yourself and boasting about your qualities and then someone comes and wipes that out without any respect. He disqualifies them before Timothy to prevent that he would carefully listen to them even for just a minute. Don’t waste your precious time on people who “do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions”, and want to entertain you with the imaginations of their own mind. Such people who want to reintroduce the law do not know Who God really is. They are also ignorant about the real condition of man. They do not know the purpose of the law and even less the true character of Christendom. Those are people who support their self-assured notions with a lot of hot air and recommend them as truth. Their rich use of words only publicly exposes their ignorance to everyone who wants to be taught by the Spirit on the basis of the Word. Each use of the law as an addition to faith in order to be saved, is a false use of it. This form of misuse is to be found in the roman-catholic church. Through the reformation God brought liberation from that false doctrine. God has shown that only by faith a man can be justified. But due to the unfaithfulness of man the devil succeeded to introduce another error within the reformation, namely, to make the law a rule of life for the believer. They say it then very beautifully: to do the law out of gratitude. But in both cases people totally ignore the purpose of the law. It is a serious error to assume that some work of man has to be added to the faith in the Lord Jesus, in order to be saved. Just as serious is the error to assume that a child of God is called to keep the law. In both cases the purpose and the function of the law is being ignored. I would suggest you to read the letter to the Galatians once again. That letter is a unique explanation about the purpose of the law. The incompatibility of the law and faith and the gospel is shown crystal clear. It is clearly written in that letter that he who puts himself on the foundation of the works of the law puts himself under the curse ( ). That is a general valid rule that doesn’t allow any exception. It makes no difference whether you misuse the law as a supplement to be saved or as a supplement for your faith to express thereby your gratitude. In both cases you ignore that you cannot keep the law and that the inevitable result is the curse of the law. How the law should be used in the right way we will see in the next section. Now read 1 Timothy 1:5-7 again. Reflection: Is your heart pure, your conscience good and your faith sincere?

‏ 1 Timothy 1:6

The Goal of the Instruction

1Tim 1:5. Paul gives a detailed explanation on the instruction that Timothy should give to ‘certain men’ (1Tim 1:3). If God instructs something it always has a purpose. The instruction here is to stop the wrong. The wrong holds up God’s blessing and if it is taken away the blessing can freely flow again. That also includes your personal life. This explanation shows Timothy why he had to directly silence those ‘certain men’ and without any hesitation. Then the way of love is made free again.

Love is the great feature of God. “God is love” (1Jn 4:8 ; 16). The love of God is poured out within our hearts (Rom 5:5). False doctrines block the outflow of that love, while it should freely outflow to God, to the fellow believers and to the fellow men. A false doctrine always causes corruption, while the love of God always seeks the good for the other person. This love has three sources in the believer. Only if love comes from those sources the goal of the instruction will be achieved.

The first source is “a pure heart”. Out of your heart flow the springs of life (Pro 4:23). Your heart is supposed to be pure. When your heart is not pure, pure love cannot come out of it. If you desire for worldly pleasure, if you enjoy sin, if you are after your own honor, your heart is not pure. In a pure heart there is no place for sin. A pure heart is a heart that lives in fellowship with God. The ones with a pure heart shall see God (Mt 5:8).

The second source is important for the right effectiveness of love and that is “a good conscience”. A good conscience is not a conscience that is not aware of any evil, but more a conscience that functions well. It is a conscience that is trained to make known what is good and what is evil, according to how God judges that, so that you may live up to that. You do not get a bad conscience because of the fact that sin still is in you, but only when the flesh is active in you and you don’t want to judge it.

Baptism has to do with a good conscience (1Pet 3:21). After all, you yourself have been baptized because you acknowledge the judgment of God about everything that doesn’t agree with Him, including yourself in your old nature. By being baptized you admit that you chose the side of the rejected Jesus. You want to follow Him. That is only possible from a good conscience that is connected to your baptism. Then it cannot be the case that you still want to have anything to do with sin (Rom 6:2-3). In that case you would deny what you have confessed with your baptism and by doing so you would defile your conscience (Tit 1:15).

Besides, your conscience is in itself not a measure of good and evil. It should be formed by the Word of God. Just look at Paul. He was not accused in his conscience when he persecuted the church (Acts 23:1). But what he did made him the foremost of all sinners (1Tim 1:15).

The third source where love should freely flow from is “a sincere faith”. ‘Sincere’ means upright, without feigning. The point is that regarding your faith you should not pretend, that your faith is not an empty confession, but that you trust God in all things.

1Tim 1:6. If your heart and conscience do not remain in the light of God and if your faith is only keeping up appearances you will deviate from the way of love. Here it is still limited to “some men” (cf. 1Tim 1:3). With those the sources, just mentioned, are not to be found. Love is missing and God’s work is not being done. Then the contrary will happen: you hear only “fruitless discussion”. This is how you should value all gibberish and empty talk. That’s quite different from being impressed by it.

1Tim 1:7. And mind you that these folks will try to impress you. They come with nice reasoning and they emphatically appeal to the Bible. Their goal is not less than to be “the teachers of the Law”. That is what they are “wanting”. They act as if they know God’s law and declare themselves to be the only ones who are allowed to teach that. These false teachers consciously take that attitude and have a firm goal, to which all other things has to be brought into subjection.

He who deviates from love because the condition of his heart, conscience and faith is not right anymore, becomes liberal or legalistic. The liberal Christian believes only what he can see or reason. In the days of the Lord Jesus the Sadducees were like that (Mt 22:23; Acts 23:8). Liberal Christians lead their lives entirely according to their own view. Those who fall into legalism set all kinds of rules for themselves and especially for others that should guide life. In the days of the Lord Jesus the Pharisees were like that (Mt 23:4). Legalistic people have set a standard of outward characteristics to measure the life of faith for everyone.

By saying these things in this way we run the risk to leave ourselves out of range. We must be careful not to look at others only to see if they have either of these evil features in their faith lives. We all have something of both principles in ourselves, for we still have the flesh within ourselves. It would be well for us to consider that.

These teachers must have felt very insulted when they heard how Paul described their qualifications as teachers. Just imagine if that happened to you: highly esteeming yourself and boasting about your qualities and then someone comes and wipes that out without any respect. He disqualifies them before Timothy to prevent that he would carefully listen to them even for just a minute. Don’t waste your precious time on people who “do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions”, and want to entertain you with the imaginations of their own mind.

Such people who want to reintroduce the law do not know Who God really is. They are also ignorant about the real condition of man. They do not know the purpose of the law and even less the true character of Christendom. Those are people who support their self-assured notions with a lot of hot air and recommend them as truth. Their rich use of words only publicly exposes their ignorance to everyone who wants to be taught by the Spirit on the basis of the Word.

Each use of the law as an addition to faith in order to be saved, is a false use of it. This form of misuse is to be found in the roman-catholic church. Through the reformation God brought liberation from that false doctrine. God has shown that only by faith a man can be justified. But due to the unfaithfulness of man the devil succeeded to introduce another error within the reformation, namely, to make the law a rule of life for the believer. They say it then very beautifully: to do the law out of gratitude.

But in both cases people totally ignore the purpose of the law. It is a serious error to assume that some work of man has to be added to the faith in the Lord Jesus, in order to be saved. Just as serious is the error to assume that a child of God is called to keep the law. In both cases the purpose and the function of the law is being ignored.

I would suggest you to read the letter to the Galatians once again. That letter is a unique explanation about the purpose of the law. The incompatibility of the law and faith and the gospel is shown crystal clear. It is clearly written in that letter that he who puts himself on the foundation of the works of the law puts himself under the curse (Gal 3:10). That is a general valid rule that doesn’t allow any exception. It makes no difference whether you misuse the law as a supplement to be saved or as a supplement for your faith to express thereby your gratitude. In both cases you ignore that you cannot keep the law and that the inevitable result is the curse of the law.

How the law should be used in the right way we will see in the next section.

Now read 1 Timothy 1:5-7 again.

Reflection: Is your heart pure, your conscience good and your faith sincere?