Romans 13:8-14--Fulfilling the Law Through Love

Romans 13:8-14
English Standard Version

Fulfilling the Law Through Love
8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

​11 Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. 12 The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

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Right on the heels of talking about "relationship" with those in authority over us, Paul finishes by talking about what our attitude should be in all of our relationships--including those who we feel to be our equals or beneath us, for even those in authority have rules for how they should treat those over whom they have authority.

First, Paul said that we should never be indebted to anyone in any material way.  One of the big issues with what we think of as slavery in that time was causes by people not being financially responsible and needing to give up (or sell) the freedom of themselves and their families into slavery until someone could come along and redeem them--paying off the debt that the redeemer had not incurred himself and buying the family at whatever price was set on them--sometimes the family was even split up this way if the slave owner did not want to sell all of them or the redeemer only wanted some of the slaves.  If we never remain in debt to anyone, then we will never be enslaved to them.  There is a biblical principle here that being in debt to someone equates to being enslaved to them, even if you imagine yourself to be free.

Paul says the only debts we should have should be those of how much we love each other (and if we truly love each other, we will not feel indebted to one another).  Paul then says that if we love each other perfectly, we will obey the last six commandments of the Ten Commandments perfectly because those six commandments could be summed up in "You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself."  The first four commandments could be summed up with the command "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength."  Jesus cited these verses as the greatest commandments and said they summed up all of the Law (not just the Ten Commandments).  So, if we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, we will never wrong our neighbor and we will never violate these commandments, but they will be obeyed because of our "being" and not because of our "doing."  It will be because of the change that God has made in us and not our attempt to change ourselves from the outside-in through legalism like the Pharisees.

Paul then says that the time for both judgment and salvation is nearer than ever.  There is no time to sit around and be idle.  If we truly love our neighbors, then we must be sharing the gospel with them so that they can experience this salvation that we know.  How much must we hate them to know of salvation and not share it with them?  A huge part of our sharing the gospel with them is the testimony we give by how we live our lives.

Does our "walk" match our "talk"?  We are no longer to be identified with the flesh so as to say "the gospel had no power to change me."  If someone claims to be saved and is still identifiable by their sin--maybe even commuting worse sins because they believe they have their "fire insurance"--I think I'm on solid ground biblically to say that person is not really saved since a tree will bear fruit that is consistent with its root and "by their fruits you will know them."  We are not to be known for "orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy." (See Galatians 5:13-26 for where Paul is making this same point to another church and gives a more extensive list of ways in which a person is identified with the flesh).  Paul's final word here is to no longer make any provision for the flesh.  All of you now belongs to God.  You are a living sacrifice and the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Nothing about you belongs to your flesh any more if you have been redeemed and belong to Jesus.