Commentary - Romans 13:8-10

Bird's-eye view

In this tightly-argued passage, the Apostle Paul brings his instruction on civic duties to a glorious crescendo. Having just told the Roman Christians to render to all their dues, taxes, revenue, respect, honor, he now pivots to the one debt that can never be fully discharged: the debt of love. This is not an abstract, sentimental love, but a robust, practical love that is defined by the very law of God. Paul's central point is revolutionary and frequently misunderstood: love and law are not antagonists. Far from it. Love is the very point of the law, the summary of the law, and the fulfillment of the law. He demonstrates this by citing the second table of the Decalogue, showing how all the prohibitions against harming our neighbor (adultery, murder, theft, coveting) are naturally kept when we are actively loving him. This passage serves as a potent corrective to two perennial errors: the legalist who thinks he can keep the law without a heart of love, and the antinomian who thinks he can love his neighbor while disregarding the specific commandments of God that show what love actually looks like.

Paul is establishing a profound principle for all Christian ethics. The Christian life is a life of perpetual, joyful indebtedness to others in love. This is not a financial debt, which should be paid and settled, but a relational obligation that we are to carry with us always. Every interaction with another human being is an opportunity to pay down on this delightful debt. And the currency we use is defined by God's unchanging moral law. To love your neighbor is not to have warm feelings toward him, but to refuse to commit adultery with his wife, to refuse to murder him, to refuse to steal his property, and to refuse to covet what is his. In short, love does no harm, and in doing no harm, it fulfills the very purpose for which the law was given.

Outline

Context In Romans

This passage comes at the beginning of the great practical section of Romans, which starts in chapter 12. After eleven chapters of deep, doctrinal theology concerning sin, justification, sanctification, and God's sovereign plan for Israel, Paul turns to the "therefore." Because of all these mercies of God, we are to present our bodies as living sacrifices (Rom 12:1-2). What follows is a cascade of practical exhortations about life in the church and in the world. Romans 13:1-7 deals specifically with the Christian's relationship to the civil magistrate. Our passage, verses 8-10, flows directly from that discussion. Having just said, "Render to all what is owed to them," Paul now clarifies that while financial and civil obligations should be settled, there is one obligation that is ongoing. The duty to love is the ultimate duty that governs all others, whether in relation to the state, the church, or one's immediate neighbor. This section on love as the fulfillment of the law then serves as a foundation for the following exhortations about living in the light of Christ's return (Rom 13:11-14) and dealing with disputable matters within the church (Rom 14:1-15:13).

Key Issues

The Unpayable Debt

A popular mistake among Christians is to set love and law in opposition to one another, as though we have to choose between them. Are we going to be people of the law, with all its sharp edges and defined lines, or are we going to be people of love, with all its warmth and relational fuzziness? But Paul, like our Lord before him, refuses to let us make that choice. When Jesus was asked for the greatest commandment, He gave two: love God and love your neighbor. And then He added, "On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matt 22:40). The law hangs from the peg of love. It is not opposed to it.

Paul picks up that same theme here. He begins by talking about debt. Financial debts are to be paid off. You borrow a hundred dollars, you pay back a hundred dollars, and the obligation is concluded. But the debt of love is different. It is a debt we are to be constantly paying, but one we can never fully discharge in this life. Every day we wake up, we owe love to everyone we encounter: our spouse, our children, our coworkers, the checkout clerk, the man who cuts us off in traffic. This is not a burdensome obligation, like a mortgage you can't afford. It is the very air that Christians are meant to breathe. It is a delightful, perpetual obligation to seek the good of others, and in this way, we fulfill the very thing the law was always aiming at.

Verse by Verse Commentary

8 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.

Paul begins with a crisp command that flows right out of the previous verse. "Render to all what is owed them... Owe nothing to anyone." This is a call for fiscal responsibility. Christians should pay their bills and not live in a state of unresolved financial obligation. But he immediately introduces a glorious exception. There is one debt that remains, one obligation that is never fully paid off, and that is the debt to love one another. This is a permanent, standing obligation. You never get to a point where you can say, "Well, I've loved my wife enough for this decade. I'm all paid up." No, this debt is renewed every morning. And the payoff is astounding: for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. Love is not a way around the law; it is the straight path to the center of the law's intention. To love another person is to accomplish what the law required. The law gives the blueprint; love is the construction of the building.

9 For this, “YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”

Lest we think "love" is a vague, sentimental feeling, Paul immediately defines it with the hard edges of the Ten Commandments. He lists several commandments from the second table of the law, the ones that govern our relationships with other people. Notice the prohibitions: don't commit adultery, don't murder, don't steal, don't covet. How does love fulfill these? It's quite simple. If you genuinely love your neighbor, you will not want to sleep with his wife. If you love him, you will not want to take his life. If you love him, you will not want to take his property. If you love him, you will not sit around scheming and desiring what is his. Love provides the internal motivation that makes keeping the external commands a matter of course. Paul then sweeps up all the other commandments with an "if there is any other," and says they are all summed up in the great command from Leviticus 19:18, to love your neighbor as yourself. The Greek word for "summed up" means to bring together under one head. Love is the heading under which all the other commandments find their place and their meaning.

10 Love does not work evil against a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the Law.

Paul now brings his argument to a tidy and powerful conclusion. He gives us both the negative and positive dimensions of love. Negatively, love does not work evil against a neighbor. At its most basic level, love is a restraining force. It prevents us from harming others. The commandments Paul just listed were largely negative prohibitions against doing evil. Love is the guardrail that keeps us from driving off the cliff into sins against our neighbor. But this negative statement implies a positive one. If love doesn't work evil, then it must work for our neighbor's good. And because the whole point of the law's commands regarding our neighbor was to prevent evil and promote good, love is therefore the fulfillment of the Law. The word "fulfillment" here is pleroma, which means the fullness or completion. Love brings the law to its intended goal. A heart transformed by the grace of God, a heart that now loves what God loves, is the only engine capable of truly obeying God's law from the inside out.

Application

This passage must recalibrate how we think about our Christian duty. First, it demolishes any false dichotomy between love and law. If you hear someone say, "I'm not about rules and religion, I'm just about loving people," you should be suspicious. Why? Because as soon as you ask what "loving people" means, you will find that you need rules. Does loving people mean it's okay to steal from them? Does it mean it's okay to lie to them? Of course not. The law of God provides the inspired, infallible definition of what love looks like in shoe leather. Love is not a feeling that floats free from God's revealed will; it is defined and directed by that will.

Second, this passage calls us to see our daily interactions as opportunities to pay the delightful debt of love. When your child disobeys, you owe it to him to discipline him in love, not in anger. When your spouse is irritating, you owe it to her to respond with patience, not with a sharp tongue. When a brother in the church has a need, you owe it to him to help meet that need. This is not legalism. Legalism is trying to obey the law in the flesh to earn God's favor. The Christian, who already has God's favor in Christ, is freed to obey the law from a heart of love and gratitude. We don't obey the law in order to be saved; we obey the law because we are saved, and because we love the One who saved us, and therefore we want to love those He has made in His image.

Finally, we must recognize that we cannot do this on our own. Our natural hearts are factories of selfishness, not fountains of love. We need the gospel. We need to be reminded that Christ fulfilled the law for us, perfectly loving God and His neighbor on our behalf. And through His Spirit, He is now at work in us, transforming us so that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us as we walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Rom 8:4). The call to love is a call to depend entirely on the grace of God in Christ.