Introduction

It has been said that you are not supposed to be your neighbor's slave but you should be his servant. That is not a bad way of putting it though the notion of slavery is not totally absent in Christian service. This is because serving as a Christian is much more than something voluntary as in "can I offer my services" or "I would like to serve, so what can I do." Of course, Christian service is willing service, but the Christian is not his own, he has been bought with the price of the blood of Christ; the Christian is a slave and he is one gladly, willingly, and lovingly. He is under orders; his life in total is not governed by himself but by someone else. Thus, he serves by both law and love.

This kind of service is presented in Romans 13:8-10 in one key word: debt or obligation. But notice that it is an obligation of love. So let's look at this obligation in two ways: 1) its depth and 2) its basis.

1A. The depth of this obligation

We get a sense of the depth of the obligation of love by the comparison that is made between it and financial debt (v. 8a). But in money terms we are not to owe people, we are to pay our debts off in faithful discharge of agreements that pertain to them. This does not forbid all indebtedness whatsoever. Jesus, for example, commended borrowing in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:42). Of course, we should not have unnecessary debt. And the ideal is to pay in full. When we incur a debt we should immediately begin the task of paying it off. So various debts come and go. They can be discharged; that is the goal. You are to work faithfully toward that goal so that the debt gets smaller and smaller until it is finally paid off.

Love is a debt. It is something we owe. It is an obligation, a duty. It is a debt that we owe as fully and realistically as any monetary debt. But it is a debt that will always remain as an outstanding debt. It will never diminish in size; this debt will not become smaller and smaller until it is finally paid off. It is the one debt we are to acknowledge that we have and that we can never pay off. We must own up to it without any denial. And we must make payments regularly and faithfully. Every time we make a payment, the debt grows larger. It grows faster than we can pay on it. But this is not to discourage us. It is simply to point out the depth of our obligation.

Before we leave this part of the passage, we should inquire as to whom this applies. Again, we have the "one another" phrase that indicates the mutuality of love in the Christian family (v. 8a). Furthermore, the terms, "fellowman" (v. 8b) and "the neighbor" (vs. 9, 10) are also used. "Fellowman" is literally, "the other." It is very general in the direction that love will go: away from self to the other. "Neighbor" refers to others who live around you; they are near ones, so we can speak of those who live in your neighborhood and we can speak of neighboring nations (like Canada and Mexico).

This obligation centers therefore first on the church, we have an obligation of love to one another that we can never pay off but that we are to be working at, even "serving at." But then it extends beyond the household of faith to all men (including the enemy and all that afflict us with the biting pain of being wronged). Again, as we travel the good road, we are to make our path by heaping up love, compounding love, and piling it on. We have a "whole heap" of obligation. The love obligation has a remarkable depth as an ever-abiding debt we owe to one another and to all men everywhere.

It strikes me that once we grasp the depth of this obligation then we naturally want to know how this can be so? What is the basis for such a sweeping demand?

2A. The basis of this obligation (8b-10)

The basis of the love obligation is the law. This might surprise us. Perhaps we would have cited God's love (for others and us) as the basis. But would we immediately and unhesitatingly jump up and say, "O yes, without question, clearly so, the basis of love is the law?" Further, I think the language here is so strong that Paul almost equates love with the law; it is as if the one is simply the other side of the coin of the other. When people say the one replaces the other it is like saying this coin has been exchanged for that one. But as we shall see the text is talking about two sides of the same coin.

Paul gives the basis for our obligation to love in three steps in Romans 13:8b-10. 1) We have this debt because love fulfills the law. 2) We have this debt because love, (that is, love your neighbor as yourself), summarizes the law. 3) We have this profound debt because love works no harm to the neighbor and is therefore a fulfillment of the law.

1B. We have this debt because love fulfills the law (v. 8b).

The one who loves discharges his obligation to the law. Thus you have this profound debt as an obligation to the law. The logic that is implicit here can be made explicit:

You have this profound love debt

Paying on this profound love debt fulfills the law

So the reason for the debt is your obligation to the law.

Because love is a fulfillment of the law, that is why the debt is so large, so deep, and so profound (not because love is mysterious but because the law is so rich and full).

Therefore, we can appreciate Romans 13:8 if we consider the austerity, dignity, spirituality, and perfection of the law proclaimed by Paul in the book of Romans (very words of God, 2:17-18, 23, 28-29, 3:1-2, 31; holy, righteous, good, and spiritual, 7:12, 14).

That the law is "fulfilled" by love tells us that loving acts bring the law to fruition. The one who loves performs the duties of the law. Here the obligation to the law is realized. We have a profound love debt because love goes about doing the law.

2B. We have this debt because love, (that is, love your neighbor as yourself), summarizes the law (v. 9).

How many commandments are being referred to in verse 9? There are two ways to answer this question. Explaining each answer will help us unpack this verse.

1) First, Paul cites only four of the last six commandments. Some versions (i.e. KJV) have five cited, the variant is "do not bear false witness." This variant is not well attested and is "due to assimilation to the OT text" (Moo, 810). Assimilation means that the copiers made an error in judgment of making Romans 13:9 conform to the Greek OT for this part of the series. They thought that the 9^th commandment was missing in Romans given the citation of the 8^th and the 10^th. The best attested readings have only four cited and we should leave it at that given that Paul tells us he is being selective (if there is any other commandment).

2) Second, Paul refers to all Ten Commandments. This is supported by the following considerations.

a) It is supported by the fact that the Ten Commandments are a unique unit. To even refer to one locks us into the Ten.

b) That the Ten are in view is suggested by the language Paul uses, "if (there are) any other commandment (s) [in this series] then they are all summed up in this word, love your neighbor as yourself." The logic here necessitates that we supply, "There are other commandments attached to this series, of this sort, the other six of the Ten Commandments." From this we draw the conclusion, "Therefore, these four commandments and all the others attached to them, the rest of the Ten, are summed up in this word, love your neighbor as yourself."

c) It is supported by the fact that a person cannot love the neighbor without love for God. Since we cannot truly love others if we are void of love for God, then we must conclude that implicit in Paul's call to love your neighbor as yourself is the call to love God with your mind and soul. Thus, implicit in the reference to the last six duties of love is reference to the first four duties of love. Love duties are a unit. Jesus said that all the commandments hang on these two: love for the neighbor and love for God (Matt. 22: 34-40). So just as Paul's reference to "any other" includes all Ten as a part for the whole likewise the duty of love for the neighbor is part for the whole of love that includes loving God and the neighbor.

d) Because loving your neighbor is a love duty to God then all the commandments regarding love for God are implied in it. Love your neighbor is a command of God and fulfilling it is ultimately a matter of love for God. The cited commands are part of a larger whole of love for God. That larger whole must be the Ten Commandments (the other six besides these four).

So you love God when you love your neighbor as yourself. All the commandments of the Decalogue are implicitly summed up in loving the other as yourself. Again, this is the case because when you love others as yourself you are loving God in obedience to His command of love for others.

Therefore, Paul directs our thinking to all Ten Commandments with special accent on the duties that we have to the neighbor. He returns to the theme of love and this time ties it to the law summarized in the unique Ten Words and he does so with an accent on the duties we have to our neighbor (to one another, "love one another"). In one way of looking at this material, Paul takes us back to the collage and says all the things contained therein are to be passed through the grid of the Ten Commandments.

What about the fact that the Christian is no longer under the Mosaic system (1 Cor.9:20, "To those under the law I became like one under the law-though I myself am not under the law")? Paul tells us that the Ten Commandments are binding on the Christian here in Romans 13:8-10 so we must conclude that the Ten abide in relevance in a new wineskin form that at the least means they are lifted from or dislodged from the Mosaic system (1 Cor. 9:21). In other words, they no longer apply as they did within the Mosaic structure, within the time of promise, or within the time of the old wineskin. Thus, the 5^th commandment has a new form as exemplified in Ephesians 6 where land in Exodus 20:12 and Deuteronomy 5:16 is universalized to "earth" (Eph. 6:3). This is similar to the fact that the promise of the land to Abraham is fulfilled in the giving of the world to the people of God, the new Israel (Rom. 4:13, 16, "all Abraham's offspring").

On the fulfillment side, the positive side, the Ten Commandments apply in the NT in their true spirit and intent as given to us by the Lord Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. In the Sermon, Jesus gave us a pattern to follow. The way He unpacks the specific commandments He selected for discussion shows us how to approach the ones He does not unpack as fully.

Love sums up the Ten; especially those oriented to the other. Consider the uniqueness, holiness, and perfection of the Ten Words written with the finger of God and you have to see how profound your debt is. It is profound because the Ten Commandments define it.

3B. We have this debt because love works no harm to the neighbor and is therefore a fulfillment of the law.

Working no ill fulfills the law in its negative stance. Since love works no ill to the neighbor it fulfills the law; thus love is grounded and based in the law; that is what makes it so profound a debt, so real a debt, such a holy, righteous, and spiritual debt.

In v. 8, fulfillment of the law was a premise that supported the fact of the debt. Here fulfillment of the law is a conclusion (love works no ill so it is fulfillment). The connection is a completed circle that returns back in thought to v. 8 to the conclusion there of the profound debt:

No ill

So, fulfillment

So in turn, because of fulfillment, we have a profound love debt

Again, Paul grounds love in the law. This is done in a repetitive and spiraling way. The point is made with strength; this is a point Paul is serious about making. It is thus important that we see the duty of love in all its fullness against the backdrop of the law and its perfection.

What shall we make of the fact that all of Paul's attention is on the "do nots" of the commandments? The four are "do nots" and then he says, "love does no wrong to the neighbor." It seems passive.

But one thing Jesus shows us in the Sermon on the Mount is that the negative commandments apply in a positive way with a fullness and depth. The language of fulfillment here in Paul directs us to the fulfillment brought by Christ and the pattern of approach to the law that our Lord gave us. So, even though Paul's citations are cast in negative language, we know that we are to immediately think of the true spirit and intent of the commandments. And we know that that true spirit and intent includes many positives duties (do not commitment murder means promote the life, even the emotional health, of your neighbor by working to curb his anger toward you, Matt. 5:21-26).

Conclusion

Thus the love debt (v. 8a), the debt of love to the other (v. 8b), the debt of loving the neighbor as yourself (v. 9), the debt of working no ill, harm, or evil to the neighbor is a real debt of immense proportions. It is that because it fulfills (vs. 8b, 10b) and summarizes (v. 9) the law of God that is contained in the Ten Commandments with an accent on the neighbor. This shows us that the law is designed not to harm but bring benefit. This shows that the Ten laws summarize and thus define loving others as yourself. This shows that love debt is law debt, love obligation is law obligation.

This text connects back to 12:9-21 regarding the cluster of duties we have on the good road of Christian activity where we hate evil and cling to the good. Along the path we are to heap up love. Paul returns to that love but now he relates it to the law. In 12:9-21, Paul gave a number of specific injunctions; these are exhortations, imperatives, precepts, obligations, and laws for Christian living. Coming at the subject again, he wants us to see that love has an integral connection to the law of God, particularly expressed in the Ten Commandments.

A fundamental place is thus given to the law for those who are justified by faith alone in Christ alone by grace alone as this is developed in the book of Romans (3:28; 4:4-5).  That is, justification is not based on anything we do; it is not grounded in any "good" act we may perform.  It is by believing in the heart and confessing with the mouth that Jesus is the risen Lord that one is saved (Rom. 10:9-10).  But this confession involves a commitment to the risen Christ as your Lord and King (He is acknowledged as risen Lord) and therefore it is a commitment to obedience to Him as your King.  It is a commitment to obedience (this is the obedience of faith, the obedience of saving faith (Rom. 1:5; 16:26).

Therefore, commitment to the law in its new covenant, new wineskin form is part and parcel of the pledge and commitment made in baptism.  In the confession of baptism, you commit yourself to live under the authority of the triune God and thus by the commandments (Matt. 28:19-20); you pledge good behavior arising from a good conscience (1 Pet. 3:16, 21).  This is what we should ponder carefully as we come to baptism; this is what we should ponder carefully when we observe a baptism; this is what we should ponder when we recall our own baptism.  A Christian is a disciple of the triune God; he lives under the yoke of Christ's commandments clinging to Him as his heavenly high priest.  That is why he can serve by law and love and face this love debt squarely as it is grounded in the perfection of the law.