to them that are without law, as without law Literally, to the lawless, as a lawless man, i.e. to those who had received no external laws or statutes from God. St Paul's accommodation to the prejudices of Gentiles may be seen in Galatians 2:3; Galatians 2:12; Galatians 2:14.

being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ Cf. Galatians 6:2 A kind of apology is here made for the use of the term lawless. It was only intended in the sense just explained. Even a Gentile was under some kind of law (Romans 2:14-15), and no Christian could rightly be called lawless, for he was subject to that inward law written in the heart, of which Jeremiah had prophesied (Jeremiah 31:33), even the law of the Spirit of life (Romans 8:2), which, though it had set him free from a slavish bondage to ordinances (Colossians 2:20), had not set him free from the obligation to holiness, justice, and truth which is involved in the very idea of faith in Jesus Christ.

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