The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum ...The people miscalled Antinomians ?

Mr. Potts,

I suppose I should actually thank you for pressing this issue, i.e., answering Gadsby's erroneous statements. You want an exegesis of 1Tim 1:9 since both you and he and all Antinomians love to use it as evidence for your position. But in fact, it goes to show exactly what I have been saying all along. You are confusing the Scriptural teaching concerning "justification" with "sanctification". It is YOU who cannot rightly divide the Word of Truth and fail to see the distinction between Law and Gospel as the vast majority of the Church has for centuries.

'The idea that Paul here teaches that "the justified Christian" has "nothing to do with the law" is burdened by the following objections:

• It is totally foreign to the context in which the apostle (barring the salutation which pertains to the entire letter) as yet has said nothing about justified Christians.
• Here in verse 9 he is speaking entirely in general about "a (notice a, not the) righteous person; and he is saying that for such a righteous person law is not laid down.
• A word is often explained by its antonyms. Here "a righteous person" stand over against persons who are "lawless, insubordinate, impious, sinful, unholy, profane, murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers," etc., all of which terms have to do with sins in the moral-spiritual realm, sins of attitude and conduct, sins against the moral law of the Ten Commandments. Hence, it certainly seems very probably that we are here in the moral, not in the forensic realm.

Paul is addressing the false teachers in Ephesus who were more focused upon finding their ancestral heritage than being found sinners before God; being convicted of their sin by the law. This can be clearly seen from verse 7 and also 1Tim 6:2:, 20; 2Tim 3:2 and Titus 1:10; 3:5. These men had not been humbled by the law but were puffed up, haughty boastful, proud, arrogant, etc. Thus Paul contrasts himself with them in his self-appellation in verse 15. These men also are like those whom Jesus rebuked when He said,


Thus, this passage deals with sinners who need to be convicted under the law, repent and believe on Christ unto justification. It has nothing to do with a Christian's relationship to the law for sanctification.


In His Grace,