Does law discipline or delight?

Paul writes, “The law was not intended for people who do what is right” (1 Tim 1:9). What? I’ve always thought that laws were for everyone and that no one was outside the law. To clarify this dilemma we’ll need to look a bit more carefully at the context. In vv. 8–10 we are told that there are three things that we know. We know that (1) the law is good as long as it is used legitimately. We also know that (2) the law was intended for the “lawless and disobedient” (twelve kinds are listed). But, according to this text we know that (3) “the law was not intended for people who do what is right.” Since those who have come to Christ by faith been set free from the penalty of sin, the purpose of the law for them has been fulfilled.
       While that is true, it should also be said that the law (as one way of describing a life pleasing to God) plays a certain role in the life of the believer. At one time I was able to devote a serious amount of time to the subject of Jesus’ relationship  to the law. A helpful insight for me was that the purpose of law is not to restrict the believer, but to protect us from anything that would be harmful in the long run. For example, God did not say, “Thou shall not steal” to prevent us from stealing, but to inform us that not stealing will spare us the misery that stealing brings into life. The point is that law does not take away, it gives. It is not restrictive but beneficial.

       There are so many Christians, it seems, that are not experiencing the quiet joy of sins forgiven. The way we lived prior to conversion did put us in debt. We pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” But the incarnate Christ came and paid that debt in full by his sacrifice on the cross. And the result is that we are free! The debt is gone! It is unfortunate that that so many continue to view themselves as though the payment wasn’t adequate and we have to help by being miserable, even hating ourselves for what we are by nature. But believers should not view themselves in terms of what they were before conversion, but of who they are now as forgiven sinners. When God forgives us he . . . how else can I put it . . . he forgives us. His incomparable act doesn’t need to be supplemented by any of our self-serving attempts to help him out. God doesn’t dig up the past to make us miserable, that’s the devious work of Satan. He is the one who wants us to feel guilty. It’s time to praise God that “Jesus paid it all; all to Him I owe, sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow” (Alvina Hall, 1865).