God is love, and the law reflects God’s character; therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Obedience is never about slavishly following rules, but always about eagerly pleasing a loving God. Since God’s love for us has been poured out on us, Paul here calls us to allow this love to extend towards our neighbor. Why doesn’t Paul mention what Jesus calls the first commandment–to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength? Perhaps because he sees the two commandments as closely related. If a person truly loves neighbor as self, the person is simultaneously loving God. There can be no mystic or recluse who is fulfilling the first commandment of loving God while breaking the second commandment of loving neighbor.
The greatest moral force in the world is not the law but love. Love for God and for others empowers people to do what they cannot accomplish in the flesh-fulfill the law. Love is a theme found throughout Scripture; it is the theme of countless hymns and secular poetry; literature and music are permeated with its message. “Love makes the world go round,” we are told, and there is little doubt that all people hold the idea in high regard, respond to love’s attractive embrace, and in their noblest movements distinguish themselves by acts of love.
The first three words on Romans 13:11 tie the love of God to the Second Coming of the Son of God. What does the phrase “and do this” mean? It means to love one another as Jesus mentioned in Matthew 22:39. Not only must we grasp the reality that love is an obligation, but we must awaken to the reality of the nature of love. There is no doubt that love has its romantic moments and its sentimental aspects. That love has sexual connotations goes without saying, but the love of which Paul speaks is a choice to behave in a certain way, not necessarily because of romantic, sentimental, or sexual feelings, but simply because it is right.
Selecting other commandments from the Mosaic Law, Paul underlines his point and summarizes by reminding his readers of the Lord’s statement that the divine requirement is fulfilled in loving the neighbor. It is necessary to remember that God requires love to be shown first to Himself and then to the neighbor, but Paul’s emphasis at this juncture is on the interpersonal relationships which are to be a matter of prime concern to all believers.
Somewhere on the way from the seeming simplicity of the way life used to be to the overwhelming complexity of the way life is now, a lot of us decided it was all too much to take in. So we pulled the covers over our heads to avoid the really difficult issues of life that have been thrust right under our noses on the evening news. We have all kinds of ways of avoiding the hard truths that beg for our attention. We lose ourselves in the images that play out on our television screens or in the world of social media. We distract ourselves by overusing alcohol and overusing caffeine. We become workaholics, keeping busy every waking minute. Or we just go shopping. Somehow spending money on something, on anything, seems to make us feel like everything’s really just fine.
But the reality is that we’re sleepwalking. We use these and many other distractions to keep from having to face the painful truths of our world. Paul says, however, that we can’t live like that anymore if we choose to follow Christ. He says that the light of day has dawned, and we have to pull the covers off our heads and get up to face the sunrise. Believers are to awake out of sleep, not be complacent in this period of the Lord’s presence. They can only see signs of the Lord’s return if they are awake and alert.
We can no longer afford to linger in the various distractions that keep us stumbling in the dark. We cannot continue to blame those who are different from us simply because it’s easy. We cannot continue to ignore the suffering around us because it is too painful to watch. We cannot continue to indulge our selfishness just because it feels good to do so.
The two main questions related to loving our neighbor have to do with defining what love is and discovering who our neighbor is. The first is answered by the complete biblical statement—we are to love as we love ourselves. This means that minimally we are to have the same concern for the preservation, protection, and respect of our neighbors as we have for ourselves. A normal, healthy person loves himself enough to be concerned about his own safety, security, and station in life. Normal love for the neighbor has at least the same concerns. The second question was answered once and for all by the Lord in the parable of the Good Samaritan: my neighbor is any man in the sphere of my influence whose needs I am in a position to meet or whose sufferings I am in a position to alleviate. To love him is to take action and do something on the understanding that God in Christ loved me first and did something about me.
Salvation here is the third sense of that word in Scripture. Believers were saved in the past through justification, are continually saved through sanctification, and will ultimately be saved through glorification when Christ returns. At the moment of justification, the repentant believer is introduced to salvation that is far from complete—it is initial. At that same moment he also becomes an heir to salvation that is potential, but he must wait till he meets Christ face to face to experience salvation that in the fullest sense is actual.
If Christians were to live as citizens of the eternal age, their “walk” would have to be proper or consistent and that would mean no more involvement in much of contemporary life—the excesses of drunkenness, sexual immorality, partying, and general ill-disciplined capitulation to the base instincts of the sinful nature. Works of darkness are acts of sin people want hidden from sight. Works of light are acts of righteousness. Paul’s reference to armour indicates that spiritual warfare will characterize the wait for Jesus’ return.
Believers are not only to refrain from the sins of the flesh, but they must also not allow them to be a possibility. Love is to be the predominant characteristic of Christ while they await the return of Christ. Many Christians have “put off” the external evidence of selfish excess and indulgence but have failed to recognize that the unresolved conflicts and the intolerable frictions of their Christian relationships are simply the same fleshly attitudes dressed up in more acceptable garb. When recognized as such, they are to be “put off” with equal distaste.
The preventative action that needs to be taken is to “make no provision for the flesh”. We know we should avoid a certain place, but we go there anyway. We recognize a personal weakness for a particular activity, but we tempt ourselves anyway. How often do we fall into sin because we plan for it? Some people make things much harder for themselves by failing to take suitable steps to avoid problems. For instance, the believer who knows he has in the past been guilty of drunken behavior and excessive living is not helping himself if he continues to stock up his cocktail cabinet and regularly throws parties for his old cronies. By so doing, he is making provision for the flesh, and in all probability, he will eventually avail himself of that provision and return to “the works of darkness.”
(An audio version of this post can be found by clicking this link: Romans 13 verses 8-14 Love God and Love People)
Bibliography
- Jeremiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible: New King James Version (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013; p. 1563)
- Briscoe, D.S., & Ogilvie, L.J.: The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol. 29: Romans (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 1982; pp. 237-242)
- Stanley, C.F.: The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible: New King James Version (Nashville, TN: Nelson Bibles; 2005)
- MacArthur, J.F., Jr.: The MacArthur Study Bible: New American Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomaas Nelson Publishers; 2006)
- The Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm, “Sleepwalking.” Retrieved from https://thewakingdreamer.blogspot.com/2013/12/sleepwalking.html
- Mark Reasoner,” Commentary on Romans 13:8-14.” Retrieved from www.workingpreacher.org
