Without the Law

We learn some interesting things about Paul’s use of the law from his use of the word anoma. In 1 Cor. 9:21, he uses it four times — “To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.” Here he is referring to his relationship to Torah, and to what the NPP folks are calling “boundary markers.” But the word anoma almost always carries connotations of moral failing also. “And he was numbered with the transgressors” (Mk. 15:28). The same point is made on a different occasion in Luke 22:37. It is used in a phrase in 1 John 3:4 in a way that means transgress the law. “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law,” and again in the second half of that same verse. Sin is transgression of the law. This means that these categories are not as watertight as some might think.