1 Timothy 1:8

οἴδαμεν δὲ κ.τ.λ. But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully. For οἴδαμεν δέ cp. Romans 2:2; Romans 3:19; Romans 8:28 and οἴδαμεν ὅτι πάντες γνῶσιν ἔχομεν (1 Corinthians 8:1) ‘we grant that &c.’: the phrase introduces a concession. St Paul hastens on to explain that a true νομοδιδάσκαλος is a valuable minister of godliness; it is only the irrelevances and trivialities of these would-be teachers of the law that he deprecates. The law (sc. the Mosaic law) is good, if it be used for the purposes for which law (not only the law of Moses, but law in general) is intended, viz. to restrain evil-doing; but not, if it be used as a peg on which to hang unverifiable speculation, or as a system of casuistry by which either asceticism, on the one hand, or licence, on the other, may be defended. He does not here take into account the function of law in developing a consciousness of sin which he elsewhere expounds (e.g. Romans 5:20); the primary subject of law, in his thought, is not the righteous man, but the sinner, as he proceeds to explain.

καλὸς ὁ νόμος. The adj. καλός (also used of law at Romans 7:16) is used with unusual frequency in the Pastorals, occurring 24 times, as against 16 occurrences in the other letters of St Paul. It expresses the ‘beauty of holiness’ in a fashion which no single English word can reproduce. To a Greek the union between ‘goodness’ and ‘beauty’ was almost inseparable in thought, and the best translation for καλός is, often, simply ‘good.’ But it has a shade of meaning which ἀγαθός has not, inasmuch as it directs attention to the outward and visible beauty of that which is ‘good,’ whilst ἀγαθός does not suggest anything beyond the intrinsic quality. See on ch. 1 Timothy 2:10 below.

νομίμως. The paronomasia or word-play is quite in St Paul’s manner; law is good, if it be used lawfully, i.e. suitably to the purposes which law is intended to serve. The adverb νομίμως only occurs elsewhere in the Greek Bible at 2 Timothy 2:5; 4Ma 6:18.