Lawlessness
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G458 names lawlessness, resistance to God\'s revealed will and moral order. In its New Testament settings, the word is used with the range and pressure described by its local passages rather than by a bare gloss alone.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἀνομία (G458) · Open the biblical lexicon
G458 names lawlessness, resistance to God\'s revealed will and moral order. In its New Testament settings, the word is used with the range and pressure described by its local passages rather than by a bare gloss alone.
The BSB source-word alignment has 15 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include lawlessness (4), wickedness (4), of lawlessness (3), lawless acts (2), of wickedness (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 7:23. Its strongest book concentrations include Matthew (4), Romans (3), 1 John (2), 2 Thessalonians (2).
G458 names lawlessness, resistance to God\'s revealed will and moral order. In its New Testament settings, the word is used with the range and pressure described by its local passages rather than by a bare gloss alone. It appears in warnings about false discipleship, increasing wickedness, enslaving habits, eschatological rebellion, and Christ\'s redeeming purpose.
This companion therefore treats the word as a Scripture-governed guide, not as a shortcut around exegesis. It helps teachers speak about holiness without treating lawlessness as freedom or legalism as the cure. It should help readers ask better questions of the passage: who is speaking or acting, what covenant or gospel reality is in view, and how the surrounding context limits or strengthens the claim.
The word is not merely civil crime and should not be used as a label for ordinary disagreement.
G458 describes moral and spiritual rebellion against God\'s will, often exposing false profession, bondage, and opposition.
Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’
Jesus rejects workers of lawlessness despite impressive religious claims.
Because of the multiplication of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.
Increasing lawlessness makes love grow cold, showing moral disorder damages love.
I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to escalating wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.
Paul contrasts slavery to lawlessness with slavery to righteousness.
For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but the one who now restrains it will continue until he is taken out of the way.
The mystery of lawlessness is already at work within an eschatological conflict.
He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.
Christ gave Himself to redeem His people from every lawless deed.
Everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness as well. Indeed, sin is lawlessness.
John defines sin as lawlessness, giving moral shape to sin.
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.
Greek word. lawlessness
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
15 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
lawlessness, iniquity
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Read verselawlessness, iniquity
Read verselawlessness, iniquity
Read verselawlessness, iniquity
Read verselawlessness, iniquity
Read verselawlessness, iniquity
Read verselawlessness, iniquity
Read verselawlessness, iniquity
Read verselawlessness, iniquity
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 6 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.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 15 lexical occurrence verses.
ἀνομία is built from this root:
Identifies rebellion against God’s will as the root issue. 1 John 3:4-10
This definition frames sin as active rebellion, not mere imperfection. Matthew 7:21–23
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Teach G458 as rebellion that pretends to be freedom. A faithful teacher should begin with the nearest passage, observe who acts, what is being named, what problem or promise is in view, and what response the text calls for, then move carefully to related passages. It helps expose religious activity without obedience and show that Christ redeems people from lawless deeds into zeal for good.
The entry should help readers read Scripture more carefully, not replace the work of tracing the sentence, paragraph, book, and covenant setting. This keeps the word useful for shepherds, teachers, leaders, groups, families, and disciples without letting the word carry claims that belong to the whole passage or canon.
Matt.7.23
The noun names lawlessness or defiance of law. In context the issue is God\'s will.
Covenant rebellion and prophetic charges against injustice provide moral background.
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Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain