1Ti 1:7-8 | JFB | e4.org | 7. Sample of their "vain talk" ( ). Desiring —They are would-be teachers, not really so. the law —the Jewish law ( ). The Judaizers here meant seem to be distinct from those impugned in the Epistles to the Galatians and Romans, who made the works of the law necessary to justification in opposition to Gospel grace. The Judaizers here meant corrupted the law with "fables," which they pretended to found on it, subversive of morals as well as of truth. Their error was not in maintaining the obligation of the law, but in abusing it by fabulous and immoral interpretations of, and additions to, it. neither what they say, nor whereof —neither understanding their own assertions, nor the object itself about which they make them. They understand as little about the one as the other [ALFORD ].

‏ 1 Timothy 1:7-8

7. Sample of their "vain talk" (1Ti 1:6).

Desiring—They are would-be teachers, not really so.

the law—the Jewish law (Tit 1:14; 3:9). The Judaizers here meant seem to be distinct from those impugned in the Epistles to the Galatians and Romans, who made the works of the law necessary to justification in opposition to Gospel grace. The Judaizers here meant corrupted the law with "fables," which they pretended to found on it, subversive of morals as well as of truth. Their error was not in maintaining the obligation of the law, but in abusing it by fabulous and immoral interpretations of, and additions to, it.

neither what they say, nor whereof—neither understanding their own assertions, nor the object itself about which they make them. They understand as little about the one as the other [ALFORD].

8. But—"Now we know" (Ro 3:19; 7:14).

law is good—in full agreement with God's holiness and goodness.

if a man—primarily, a teacher; then, every Christian.

use it lawfully—in its lawful place in the Gospel economy, namely, not as a means of a "'righteous man" attaining higher perfection than could be attained by the Gospel alone (1Ti 4:8; Tit 1:14), which was the perverted use to which the false teachers put it, but as a means of awakening the sense of sin in the ungodly (1Ti 1:9, 10; compare Ro 7:7-12; Ga 3:21).