| Geneva Study Bible {6} Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. (6) There are none more unlearned, and more impudent in usurping the name of holiness, than foolish babblers, who reason fallaciously. People's New Testament 1:7 Desiring to be teachers of the law. To be teachers of law; there is no article. These aspire to a work for which they are totally unfitted. Who has not met the class of men described? Wesley's Notes 1:7 Understanding neither the very things they speak, nor the subject they speak of. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 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]. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 1:5-11 Whatever tends to weaken love to God, or love to the brethren, tends to defeat the end of the commandment. The design of the gospel is answered, when sinners, through repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ, are brought to exercise Christian love. And as believers were righteous persons in God's appointed way, the law was not against them. But unless we are made righteous by faith in Christ, really repenting and forsaking sin, we are yet under the curse of the law, even according to the gospel of the blessed God, and are unfit to share the holy happiness of heaven. |