Romans 13:8-14

The Law of Love

The Apostle Paul began this closing section of his magnificent epistle to the Romans with the command that you are to present our whole bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God which is our reasonable service to God.

It is reasonable and logical for you to live sacrificially unto Christ Jesus before the face of God very simply because "while you were still sinners, Christ died for you."  Your Lord and Savior was "delivered up because of your offenses" and through His blood gift atonement "you now have peace with God through your Lord Jesus Christ."

It is reasonable; it just makes sense that you would daily, sacrificially lay down your lives in a manner that is holy and acceptable to your Almighty and Glorious God.

Because you have been shown such great love, the Apostle very simply says, you ought to love others. 

Paul tells you that "the love of God has been poured out in your hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to you."  This love of God is no passive; apathetic love.  It is radically active!  It is the love that "God demonstrates to you, in that while you were still sinners, Christ (God's only Son) died for you."  It is the divine love that has laid hold of you.  It is the love that has sought you out while you were still dirty/filthy, engrossed in your ugly and putrefying sin to redeem you by His sovereign and merciful grace.  You who were the unlovely became the eternal objects of God's affection.  It is the love that turns enemies into friends; slaves into sons.  "The Spirit Himself now bears witness with your spirit that you are the children of God."  You who were once the objects of God's wrath; alienated from the love of God, have now become the beloved children of God.  And this is an unending, everlasting love.  Nothing can separate you from this love of God in Christ Jesus.  No matter what trials or tribulations that befall you in this life you are more than conquerors through Him who loved you, justified you, and will most certainly glorify you by taking you as His own possession that He might dwell with you forever and so that you would be His people and God Himself would be with you and be your God forevermore.

You have been truly graced by God in Christ Jesus.  You have been loved with an inexpressible and unconquerable love forevermore.  Therefore, Paul says, let us love one another.

In v. 8, the Apostle Paul makes a transition from your obligation to the governing authorities that God has placed over you by His common grace for your own protection and peace.  Your response to those authorities is to be faithful in paying your taxes and your dues and honor that rightfully belongs to Caesar.  Therefore, Paul NOW commands "owe no one anything . . . ."  You are to be faithful in our earthly commitments.  There is no place in God's Kingdom for those who do not rightfully respect and honor God's earthly authorities.  As covenant members of the Kingdom of Christ you are committed to this great and blessed country of yours and therefore you ought to respectfully pay your dues that rightfully belong to those God has placed over you.

But there is one due; one obligation that you could pay out daily and never exhaust your resources.  There is a duty that you all owe your neighbor (even your unbelieving neighbors) that is never paid in full.  That glorious responsibility that has been granted you who are in Christ is to love your neighbor, even as yourselves.

There is no denying that we love ourselves.  But the Law of Christ is not encouraging some sort of narcissistic self-love, but merely acknowledging that by nature we love ourselves and care for our own bodies.  But what is the use of this basic act of self-preservation if not to give yourselves wholly unto others, even as Christ freely gave Himself up for you?  Paul, in commanding husbands to sacrificially love their wives, tells you, "no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church."  Your love for self is never in the end selfish/self-centered!  That is the love of the man who remains in Adam; in the old creation.  Paul described the attributes of such self-centered love in chp. 1:  they are "filled with all unrighteousness . . . wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, [and] evil-mindnesses."  The result of self-centered love is always destructive first to oneself and then to one's neighbor. 

But Paul, following the teachings of Jesus, commands you to love your neighbors.  In so doing, Paul says that you "fulfill or fill full the law of God."  First, notice that the "law" here clearly refers to the Law that was given through Moses.  More specifically it refers to the moral Law of God as written in the Ten Commandments (cf. v. 9).

But what does Paul mean when he says that when you love one another you therefore fulfill the Ten Commandments? 

Jesus Himself expressed the same thought when He said, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. [quoting from Deut. 6:5]  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  [quoting from Lev. 19:18]  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets" (Matt. 22:36-40). 

Paul says that by loving your neighbor you fulfill or fill full the Ten Commandments of God.  Jesus said all the commandments of the Law and the Prophets "hang or literally suspend from" these two commandments.

Rather, Paul, following our Lord, is expressing ultimate goal or end the Law of God.  Paul says to the Romans:

Romans 10:4  For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

What does Paul mean by Christ being the “end of the law”?  Paul is using the word “end” the way we do in our first catechism question, “What is the chief end of man?”  What is the chief goal or purpose of man?  “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” 

In the same way, Paul says that the chief goal or purpose of the Law of God finds its consummation in Jesus Christ.  He is the “end” of the Law.  Therefore, if you want to see the ultimate summary or consummation of the Law of God look at Jesus Christ and what He has done for you by His grace.  You have been loved infinitely in the life-giving sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Now Jesus says to each of you:

John 13:34-35  "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  35 "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

The Law of God reaches its fulfillment or climax in the life of Jesus Christ.  And it is now out of His selfless sacrifice at the cross that He turns to you, the way He turned to Peter, and says, “Now go and love in this way.”  When you love one another out of the infinite living spring of Christ’s love for you then you are beginning to be conformed to the living out of the Law of Christ. 

Paul says to the Galatians:

Galatians 5:14  For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF."

Another way of expressing what is being said here is to say that even if you were to obey all of the Law to the nth degree, and yet if you have not loved, then all your obedience is futile.  Obeying the Law of God without Love is unfinished; incomplete – it is truncated obedience.  As Paul tells the Corinthians, "If you have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though you have all faith, so that you could remove mountains, but have not love, you are nothing.  Though you could bestow all your earthly goods to feed the poor and even give your body to be burned, but if you do not have love, it all profits you nothing."   

Paul is not reducing the Law to merely a feeling or some sentimental emotion, but rather he is providing the true essence of the Moral Law of God – to love one another as Christ’s has loved you -- which can only be fulfilled by those who are in Christ Jesus and walk in the life of the Spirit of God.  You who are now "in Christ" are finally able to begin to fulfill the true meaning of the Law of God because God's love has been shed abroad in your hearts through the sacrificial love offering of Christ Jesus.

Therefore, as those who are not conformed to this present evil world, but are being transformed by the renewing of your minds . . . you are to walk in a manner of sacrificial love for others that is patterned after the very example of your Lord Jesus Christ.  And in doing this you will not to bring any harm to your neighbor, but rather you will find yourself obeying the Law of Christ through loving your neighbor as Christ has loved you and given Himself up for you. 

Beginning now in v. 11, the Apostle Paul expresses the urgency of your loving one another.  Even more, Paul points all the way back to 12:1-2 of your presenting your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God.  You are to be diligent in your selfless service to Christ because as Christians you know the Day of the Lord is fast approaching. 

Notice the Apostle's contrasts:  being awake v. being asleep; day v. night; weapons of light v. works of darkness.  Here Paul is expressing the heart of his whole theology.  You have been raised from death to life; from night to day; from being asleep to being awake; from the original creation in Adam -- which led to death and condemnation -- to the re-creation in Christ, the second Adam, through the work of the Holy Spirit which leads to life and justification. 

Therefore, Paul commands you to "become what you already are in Christ" or even to "become what you will completely be in the coming of Christ."  Do you see this glorious truth?  You are to now live, in your present life here in this world, the very life that you will live eternally in Heaven before God.  You have been raised to a new age – a new heavenly life, where you are seated with Christ Jesus in Heaven.  Therefore, you don't live your life as the rest of the world lives.  This world is dead in sin.  Their life is one of death and condemnation because they remain in Adam.  But you have died and been buried with Christ and raised to a new life in the Spirit.  And how will the world know that you are belong to Christ?  By your love one to another – even as Christ has loved you. 

The world around you lives in the night; they are asleep.  They are dead men walking.  Their works are the works of darkness and evil, which is appropriate for this present evil age – the very works that you once walked in when you were dead in sin. 

But you no longer belong to the darkness.  Paul told the Colossians, "[The Father] has delivered you from the power of darkness and translated/transferred you into the Kingdom of the Son of His love (into the Kingdom of His marvelous Light)."  You are now citizens of the Kingdom of Light.  You belong to the day of the new creation and though you presently live as aliens in a world of darkness, it is because you have been raised to Heaven with Christ that you now live out your lives here on earth as those who are awake and not asleep; as those who are of the day and not of the night. 

One author expresses this wonderfully:

"The church by virtue of her Savior belongs to the eschatological day.  The new creation has dawned and we belong to it.  The church is like the birds.  When we sit and sip our coffee at five o'clock in the morning and it is still dark outside, the birds are singing away.  Why?  While it is still dark outside, the birds from their position in the tops of the trees already see the dawn.  They already see the light of the sun and feel its warm rays.  They are already in the light.  In the Savior, the church has been brought into the light.  Even while we continue in this dark world, we sing, for we already see the eschatological light, we feel its rays and know of a certainty that we belong to that light." (L. Semel).

The Day of our Lord is fast approaching.  Paul reminds you this morning that you are actually closer to that glorious Day this morning than when you first trusted in Christ.  Doesn’t this excite you?  Therefore, in makes since that you now cast off the filthy clothes of the works of darkness.  Those were your night clothes that you ran around-in in your rebellion before God.  Those works were "revelry or carousing about, drunkenness or excessive drinking, licentiousness, lewdness or sexual excesses, strife and envy or jealousy". 

So Paul wants you to now ask yourselves, "Since you now belong to the day, why would you want to now walk in your night clothes of darkness?  After all, these are the works of those who live in darkness; who hide themselves from the blazing light of God's holiness.  These are not the works of those who have been raised from death to life; these are not the works of the those who now live in the light." 

And how do you “make no provision for the flesh”?  What does Paul want you to do so that you no longer live according to the old man?  Put on the Lord Jesus Christ (v. 14)!

It is time to wake up and cast off your night clothes and put on your clothes for the new day that has now gloriously dawned in Christ.  You have been raised out of darkness into the light, now walk as if that were true, walk in the ways of the light, become what you already are in Christ!

Paul told the Ephesians that they should "put off" the works of darkness and "put on" the Lord Jesus Christ (cf. Eph. 4:22-24).  Paul tells you to "put on" Christ – like a new garment.  You can do this only because, as Paul tells the Colossians, you have already "put on" Christ (cf. Col. 3:10).  You have already been gloriously clothed in your morning garments with His perfect righteousness, which has been merited for you by Christ. 

Therefore, as you move closer each day to the Day of the Lord; the Day of Your Complete Salvation; you do so clothed in Christ.  You now walk with expectation of that Great Day of the Lord arming yourselves with the mentality that you are approaching that day clothed in the righteousness, obedience, death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus Christ.  Knowing this you no longer give yourselves to the filthy lusts of the old man, but you continually clothe and live out the life of Christ in your lives.  And in so doing you will be presenting your whole bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.

Therefore Paul tells us that it is time to get up:  the Day of the Lord has dawned and you belong to that new day.  It is time for you to cast off your night clothes of the works that belong to the darkness and put on your day clothes which are found only in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  It is now time to awaken and walk in a manner that is worthy of your high calling in Christ Jesus.  You not only look for a new and better day ahead, but as Christians you already see the morning light and you kindle afresh in your hearts daily the fact that you, even now, are already raised and live in that new day in Christ Jesus. 

Amen!  +SDG+