| Geneva Study Bible {7} But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; (7) The taking away of an objection: he does not condemn the Law, but requires the right use and practice of it. People's New Testament 1:8 The law is good, if a man use it lawfully. Its object was not, however, to teach fables, and genealogies, and foolish fancies. The men he opposes asserted that the law was good, but made a wrong use of it. Wesley's Notes 1:8 We grant the whole Mosaic law is good, answers excellent purposes, if a man use it in a proper manner. Even the ceremonial is good, as it points to Christ; and the moral law is holy, just, and good, on its own nature; and of admirable use both to convince unbelievers, and to guide believers in all holiness. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 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). 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. | 
