Law
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νόμος is Paul's most complex theological term — and also Jesus' most carefully handled one. Matt 5:17 ('I have not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them') is the hinge: the choice is between abolish and fulfill, not between abolish and preserve unchanged.
Reader summary
Full entry for νόμος (G3551) · Open the biblical lexicon
νόμος is Paul's most complex theological term — and also Jesus' most carefully handled one. Matt 5:17 ('I have not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them') is the hinge: the choice is between abolish and fulfill, not between abolish and preserve unchanged.
The BSB source-word alignment has 194 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include Law (105), [the] Law (47), of the law (7), a law (5), of [the] law (5).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 5:17. Its strongest book concentrations include Romans (74), Galatians (32), Acts (17), John (15).
This entry includes 9 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
νόμος is Paul's most complex theological term — and also Jesus' most carefully handled one. Matt 5:17 ('I have not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them') is the hinge: the choice is between abolish and fulfill, not between abolish and preserve unchanged. Rom 7:12 is Paul's baseline affirmation: 'the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.'
Whatever Paul says about νόμος and justification or νόμος and the flesh, he never abandons this. The problem he identifies in Galatians and Romans is not with νόμος itself but with using νόμος as a means of standing before God ('seeking to establish their own righteousness,' Rom 10:3). The νόμος was never designed to justify — its role was to define sin (Rom 3:20: 'through the law comes knowledge of sin'), to reveal the need for a Savior (Gal 3:24: 'the law was our guardian until Christ came'), and to structure covenant life for a people already in covenant.
When Paul says 'Christ is the end (τέλος) of the law' (Rom 10:4), the word τέλος means both termination and goal — the debate is which sense is primary, but most likely both are: Christ terminates the law's role as the basis of standing before God and simultaneously fulfills the direction (תּוֹרָה's root meaning) it was always pointing.
νόμος is indexed locally at about 193 NT occurrences, with especially heavy use in Paul and Romans. Matthew uses it in the Sermon on the Mount and the 'law and prophets' formula. John uses it both for the Mosaic law and for the OT generally. Hebrews uses it in the context of the Levitical priesthood's supersession.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
The programmatic NT statement on νόμος. Jesus makes the choice binary: abolish (καταλύω) or fulfill (πληρόω). He rejects the first and claims the second. The scope ('the Law or the Prophets') is the full OT canon in its two-part form. The fulfillment claim is what the rest of Matthew's Gospel demonstrates — Jesus as the one in whom every strand of Torah and prophecy arrives at its intended completion.
So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.
Paul's bedrock affirmation, placed after his most anguished description of νόμος's powerlessness against sin (vv.7-11). The law is not the problem — the problem is sin exploiting the law. This verse is Paul's guard against misreading everything he says about νόμος and justification as a critique of תּוֹרָה itself. Any interpretation of Paul on the law that ends with the law being bad has misread him.
So the law became our guardian to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
παιδαγωγός (guardian/tutor/pedagogue) was the household slave who escorted children to school — a temporary, preparatory role. Paul's point is not that the guardian was bad but that the child's relationship to him changes when adulthood arrives. The νόμος was designed for a particular epoch in redemptive history; Christ's coming is the coming of age that changes the relationship.
Therefore no one will be justified in His sight by works of the law. For the law merely brings awareness of sin.
The diagnostic function of νόμος: it reveals sin, it does not cure it. This is not a failure of design — it is the design. The law shows the height of the standard and therefore the depth of the gap. Its purpose is to drive the sinner to the only place where the gap can be bridged: the righteousness of God through faith (vv.21-22).
For Christ is the end of the law, to bring righteousness to everyone who believes.
τέλος (end/goal/termination) is the interpretive crux. As termination: the law's role as the basis of righteousness-standing before God is over in Christ. As goal: Christ is what the entire Torah was pointing toward — the direction (תּוֹרָה's root meaning) arrives at its destination. Both senses are likely present: Christ ends and fulfills simultaneously.
For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My laws in their minds and inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.
Hebrews cites Jer 31:33 LXX to show the new covenant's relationship to νόμος: not abolition but internalization. The plural νόμους (laws) is striking — the same content as the Sinai covenant's νόμος, now inscribed by the Spirit rather than on tablets. The new covenant does not replace the law; it finally fulfills the prophetic hope that the people would love it from the inside.
But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom, and continues to do so—not being a forgetful hearer, but an effective doer—he will be blessed in what he does.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Greek word. Encompasses both the Mosaic law and any binding principle or force impelling moral action
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 197 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a law, the Mosaic Law
Read versea law, the Mosaic Law
Read versea law, the Mosaic Law
Read versea law, the Mosaic Law
Read versea law, the Mosaic Law
Read versea law, the Mosaic Law
Read versea law, the Mosaic Law
Read versea law, the Mosaic Law
Read versea law, the Mosaic Law
Read versea law, the Mosaic Law
Read versea law, the Mosaic Law
Read versea law, the Mosaic Law
Read versea law, the Mosaic Law
Read versea law, the Mosaic Law
Read versea law, the Mosaic Law
Read versea law, the Mosaic Law
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 5 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 5 selected witnesses from 193 lexical occurrence verses.
Reliance on possession of the law without obedience results in greater accountability. 1 Timothy 1:8-11
Paul clarifies that faith does not nullify the law but fulfills its intended role. Matthew 7:12
Highlights both God’s revealed standard and the internal principle of conflict. Romans 2:17-29
Affirms continuity and fulfillment of covenant revelation. Romans 3:27-31
Understanding the law’s proper function prevents both legalism and antinomianism and preserves its role as a mirror that exposes sin. Romans 7:14-25
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Rom 7:12 and Gal 3:24 held together prevent the two opposite errors in preaching on νόμος. Rom 7:12 prevents antinomianism: the law is holy; it tells the truth about God and about sin; dismissing it as obsolete is not NT Christianity. Gal 3:24 prevents legalism: the law was a guardian, not a savior; the relationship to the guardian changes when Christ comes.
The pastoral point is that neither keeping the law nor dismissing it is the NT answer — the answer is Christ as τέλος, the one in whom the law's direction finally arrives, and in whom the believer is 'not under law but under grace' (Rom 6:14) while simultaneously 'fulfilling the law' through love (Rom 13:8-10).
Rom.7.12
The anarthrous νόμος (without the definite article) in Paul often signals a different sense than the articular ὁ νόμος. Rom 2:12-14 exploits this: those 'without law' (ἀνόμως, adverb) and those who 'sin without law' (ἐν νόμῳ) are using νόμος anarthrously — law in its general quality as moral standard. When Paul wants the specific Mosaic code he often uses ὁ νόμος (the law).
Abbott-Smith notes this distinction explicitly. The 'law of Christ' (νόμος τοῦ Χριστοῦ, Gal 6:2) and the 'law of faith' (νόμος πίστεως, Rom 3:27) use νόμος in a fifth sense — a principle or governing framework, not the Mosaic code.
The OT foundation: תּוֹרָה given at Sinai (Exod 20) as the covenant's shape → Deut 33:4 (תּוֹרָה as Israel's possession) → Ps 119 (love and meditation) → Jer 31:33 (new covenant internalization) → NT: LXX renders תּוֹרָה as νόμος throughout → Matt 5:17 (fulfillment, not abolition) → Rom 3:20 (diagnostic function) → Rom 7:12 (holy and good) → Gal 3:24 (guardian until Christ) → Rom 10:4 (Christ the τέλος) → Heb 8:10 (written on hearts) → Rom 13:10 ('love is the fulfilling of the law'). The arc is not law → no law but law → law fulfilled, law internalized, law loved from the inside.
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