Romans: The Story of God Bible Commentary

images/img-37-1.jpg LISTEN to the Story

⁸Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. ⁹The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

¹¹And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. ¹²The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. ¹³Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. ¹⁴Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.

Listening to the texts in the story: Exodus 20:13 – 15, 17; Leviticus 19:18; Deuteronomy 5:17 – 19, 21.

In Romans 13:8 – 14 we find a crucial exhortation that combines ethics and eschatology, daily living in light of the end of days. In this way, Paul ends the section begun at 12:1 – 2 by stressing that their moral imperative to love others is to be understood in light of their impending salvation.¹ Paul promotes a love ethic for the Roman believers, but it is not an ordinary love. This is a love that is expressed within a particular apocalyptic story, where God’s love has already found them (5:5, 8) and they yearn to be taken into the bosom of divine love once and for all (8:39). This harks back to a common theme in the biblical story, namely, that godliness is the best way to prepare for the coming of God. That was the burden of the song from Moses to John the Baptist. It is all the more important when Christians find themselves living in the dark interval just before the dawn, where the love that they have for one another is a lamp that keeps them ready and alert in the meantime.

The section obviously breaks down into two discernable parts: (1) the love command (vv. 8 – 10); and (2) the call to live uprightly as believers wait for the consummation of their salvation (vv. 11 – 14). While many commentators separate the love command of vv. 8 – 10 from the future hope of vv. 11 – 14, Paul clearly connects the two together. Paul begins v. 11 with “And do this,” with “this” relating back to the prior love command.² Love of neighbor is to be undertaken in the context of waiting for “salvation” (v. 11). Believers should avoid the immoral excesses of pagan living (v. 13) and instead clothe themselves with Christ as they prepare for the return of Christ (v. 14).

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another” (v. 8a). Paul uses the idea of Christian obligation to pay taxes in v. 7 to spring into a metaphor about Christian indebtedness to love one another in v. 8. Paul has used the verb “I am indebted” (opheilō) earlier as a metaphor to describe his obligation to bring the gospel to the whole world (1:14) and to indicate how Christians are obligated to live by the Spirit and not to gratify the flesh (8:12). This suggests that Paul sees Christians as caught up in a three-way obligation toward mission, Spirit, and love. Believers are bonded together in a mission to proclaim Christ, to keep in step with the Spirit, and to live out love for each other.

Paul then provides the rationale for love as mutual obligation, “for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law” (v. 8b). Paul is filling out what he urged earlier when he said that “love must be sincere” (12:9) and the Roman believers should be “devoted to each other in love” (12:10). Later he will say that if they do not respect each other’s convictions on disputable matters like food, they are “no longer acting in love” (14:15). Love is at the epicenter of Pauline ethics because of its foundations in the Torah and because of Jesus’ teaching about love. Paul from the outset of his ministry urged new believers to practice love toward one another as to family members (see 1 Thess 4:9 – 10; 5:13). Paul’s moving encomium about love to the Corinthians praises love as the highest of Christian virtues (1 Cor 13:1 – 13). Paul also strenuously argued that the Galatians should regard love as the fulfillment of the Torah (Gal 5:14). When Christians act in love, they “fulfill the righteous requirements of the law” as enabled by the Spirit (Rom 8:4).

Paul explains that the way the Roman believers are to discharge their debt of love is by doing the back half of the Decalogue: “The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself ’ ” (v. 9). Here Paul follows the Septuagint’s list of the Ten Commandments from Deuteronomy 5:17 – 21 (rather than Exod 20:13 – 17). This list provides concrete examples of what love for others should look like in practice. Keck puts it well: “Mutual love is not the alternative to obligatory law-fulfillment but its mode; mutual love is the way that requisite obedience to the law is actualized.”³

In the law and gospel debate, Romans 13:10 causes a bit of a headache. Hasn’t Paul already said that believers are “not under law, but under grace” (Rom 6:14), and wasn’t the whole point of Galatians that believers do not — and perhaps should not — try to keep the Torah? So how can Paul expect Christians to keep the Ten Commandments, or at least four of them?

In response to this one could say: (1) Paul is just inconsistent. He likes to impose the Torah on Gentiles when it suits him. To that I retort, well, yes, any individual figure can have argumentative inconsistencies — my students frequently point out mine to me — but I find it hard to buy into any view that Paul would so brazenly contradict himself on a major theological theme on what is a major point of this letter. (2) One could break up the law into civil, ceremonial, and moral components and say that the civil and ceremonial aspects of the law were fulfilled by Christ, but we still have to keep the moral law as summarized by the Decalogue. An attractive option, popular in some circles, but it suffers from a few fatal problems. For a start, Jewish authors did not divide up the law into these three components. For them Torah was Torah and comprised an indivisible unity. Then there is the problem that the Decalogue includes a ceremonial commandment with keeping the Sabbath (e.g., Exod 20:9 – 10; Deut 5:15), and there is moral law found outside of the Decalogue that we also have to keep (e.g., Lev 19:18).

The solution I think, largely following Brian Rosner, is that the Torah no longer functions as a definitive moral code for Christians since it has been replaced by the example of Christ, the teaching of Christ, and life in the Spirit. Instead, the Torah operates now as prophecy (see Rom 3:21) and as wisdom for Christian living like counseling us against seeking revenge (see 12:19). The Torah remains hermeneutically valid as a gauge for discerning God’s will and provides a helpful starting point for ethical practice. Without actual commands, love is merely empty sentimentality without content or conviction.⁴ So the Torah is part and parcel of Paul’s ethics, not as a binding obligation to which believers are woodenly committed, but more as an advisor rather than an authority. The key premise is that the Torah commands love and love fulfills the purposes of the Torah. As Rosner says, “If in Romans 8 Christ fulfils the law for us, in Romans 13 and Galatians 5 Christ fulfils the law through us.”⁵

Paul rounds off his thought by repeating v. 8b that love is the fulfillment of the Torah: “Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law” (v. 10). Paul alludes to Leviticus 19:18 when he refers to love doing no wrong to a neighbor (see Gal 5:14; Jas 2:18), and perhaps he has in mind Jesus’ particular teaching about love of neighbor as a summary of the Torah (see Matt 5:43; 19:19; 22:39). Neither Jesus nor Paul was the first to say such a thing, but it certainly became a distinctive Christian belief.

Paul makes a short, almost excursive, comment in vv. 11 – 12a on the radiant eschatological hope that casts its light on believers as they strive to love each other before he returns to more ethical admonition in vv. 12b – 14. Paul adds: “And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here” (vv. 11 – 12b). Paul elsewhere entertained the possibility that he might pass away prior to Christ’s parousia (see 2 Cor 5:1 – 10; Phil 1:20 – 24), so his belief about the proximity of Christ’s return was not imminent, but more like an intense notion of nearness.

The metaphor of watchfulness through the night was common in Jesus’ teachings (Matt 24:42 – 44; Mark 13:33 – 37; 26:45; Luke 12:35 – 36; 21:36) and in Paul’s own exhortations (Eph 5:8 – 16; 1 Thess 5:1 – 11). The opening phrase “And do this” is elliptical with no actual verb for “do” present, but it is strongly implied (see NIV, NASB, CEB, NET), rather than merely an additional point like “Besides this,” as other translations suggest (see NRSV, RSV, ESV, NJB). Paul wants the Roman believers to “do” loving things for each other, “knowing” the reality about the shortness of the “present time.” If it is true that the new age had dawned, that new life was bursting through the frost of a world in winter, then, he insists, it’s time to wake up.

The reason for our arousal from slumber is that “our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.” This salvation, of course, refers to the events that Paul narrates in his eschatological teachings about the end in 1 Corinthians 15:20 – 58; Philippians 3:20 – 21; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 4:1 – 5:10. Salvation will transpire on this “day,” which is the “day of the Lord,” the moment when Christ returns (see 1 Cor 1:8; 5:5; 2 Cor 1:14; Phil 1:6, 10; 2:16; 1 Thess 5:2; 2 Thess 2:2; etc.). The end of the story includes a final judgment, a glorious resurrection, and heaven married to earth. For us, the “night” of the old age is nearly over and the “day” of the new creation comes closer and closer.⁶

Paul then draws the inference: “So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light” (v. 12b). The imagery here is reminiscent of 1 Thessalonians 5:4 – 6 about not living like those in darkness; the weapons metaphor is drawn from 2 Corinthians 6:7, 10:3 – 4, and Ephesians 6:11 – 17. Paul calls on believers to discard anything that is inappropriate for them and to dress themselves with the apparel of a soldier waiting to be inspected by a returning king. Wright says that Paul “seems to be drawing attention to the sovereignty of Jesus, not simply over the believer (who is bound to obey the one whose servant he or she is), but perhaps more particularly over the forces of evil that are ranged against the gospel and those who embrace it.”⁷

The imagery of shedding something and dressing in readiness is then put in relation to negative and positive behaviors. First, on the negative side: “Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy” (v. 13).⁸ You only have to read accounts of Greco-Roman symposia (i.e., drinking parties) or various religious festivals (e.g., Dionysius) to know what Paul was getting at. Greco-Roman revelry could make a frat house toga party look like a convent in comparison.⁹ Paul is censuring a type of rapacious party culture that featured wild excess, drinking bouts, sexual immoralities of every kind, and violent quarreling; or as I like to call it, Las Vegas during spring break with Caligula as MC. Since they still belong to the old unredeemed age, in both their natural appetites and social context, they must remain on guard lest they find themselves enticed to embrace the darkness.¹⁰

Second, and more positively, Paul says: “Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh” (v. 14). Paul is rehearsing the basic commands in Romans 6:12 – 13 and 8:12 – 13 about putting to death the desires of the flesh. Here he uses the image of clothing oneself with Jesus as if he were a garment (see Col 3:12). Those who put on Christ in baptism (Gal 3:27) have robed themselves with the full array of the armor of light, which is none other than Christ himself (Rom 13:12). Ultimately, to put on Christ is also to be empowered by Christ.

The metaphor clearly represents putting on the full cohort of values, virtues, and vision of God’s people summed up in Jesus Christ. Moo comments that this means that “we are consciously to embrace Christ in such a way that his character is manifested in all that we do and say.”¹¹ Furthermore, Paul wants fleshly desires to be interdicted at the cognitive root. Do not give them forethought or the prospect for provision lest one darkly reasons one’s way toward them. As a wise pastor once told me, it is always easier to sin the second time, so don’t think about how to do it the first time!

For the Roman believers, Romans 12:1 – 13:14 prescribed a set of behaviors based around themes of love and doing good. In the dog-eat-dog world of Rome, where the believers lived in perpetual fear of the princeps as much as poverty, practicing family love was their best hope of enduring through it together. Where survival was a struggle, they were not to be self-concerned, but self-sacrificial. In other words, Paul’s gospel in its full theological vision and ethical sweep will enable these Gentile believers to be consecrated to God in holiness, peace, and love even in the darkness of a pagan city.

Paul’s blend of ethics and eschatology forces us to think of innovative ways in which we can live out our sense of mutual obligation to each other in light of the impending return of Jesus to consummate God’s purposes on earth. The three main practical consequences that emerge are our debt of love, fleeing to God, and putting on the armor of light.

Although the command to love others was not unique to Jesus, it was certainly distinctive of his teaching. Whereas the Pharisees taught love of Torah, Jesus taught a Torah of love (see Mark 12:28 – 34; John 13:31 – 35).¹² Jesus’ teaching on love is summed up famously in the “new command” recorded in John’s gospel: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34 – 35). What is shocking and sobering here is that Jesus says “By this,” by acting in love, everyone will know that we are disciples of Jesus. The world not only knows that we are disciples by our love, but whether we are disciples by our love.

Think about that for a moment. Francis Schaeffer comments on this verse that Jesus “gives the world the right to judge whether you and I are born-again Christians on the basis of our observable love towards all Christians.” He adds, “That is pretty frightening.”¹³ Loving behavior toward others determines if we have the right to call ourselves followers of Jesus. The love command of Jesus that Paul rehearses is easily the greatest commandment because it sorts out the sheep from the goats, the followers from the fans, and the contenders from the pretenders.

Romans 13:8 – 10 raises a stack of issues about law and ethics. Irrespective of how we parse the continuing role of the law in the Christian life, we should all be agreed that love is the norm by which our behavior is measured. A consistent feature of the New Testament witness is that love is a responsive obligation; it is received and given on to others. Jesus said, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). Or in Peter’s words, “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart” (1 Pet 1:22). It’s like you’ve been given a ticket to every seat at a major league baseball game and you cannot help but share it with everyone you come into contact with. Discipleship means receiving God’s love and reflecting it to others.

When Romans 13:8 – 10 is taken seriously, it challenges our assumptions about love.¹⁴ We are forced away from culturally dominant notions of sentiment and infatuation into the realm of mutuality, commitment, and community. In Romans, we see that love is a virtue (5:5; 12:9), a duty (12:10), and a debt (13:10). The idea of love as a debt is certainly open for deep reflection. For me personally, I hate getting into debt. I just realized the other day that if I had less children, I could pay my mortgage off quicker! Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids, children are a gift from God . . . and tax deductible. But even kids can’t help me that much because in recent years I’ve got a tax debt rather than a tax return on my annual submission to the Australian Taxation Office. Also, I love Christmas in December, but I hate the credit card bill in January. As a responsible husband and father I try to manage our finances with propriety and avoid unneeded debt.

However, when it comes to love, Paul tells us to let the debt remain outstanding. In other words, imagine that love is a credit card with no borrowing limit, and your job is to try to max it out. Make yourself indebted and obligated to love others. Make your love higher than the interest rates on an American Express card. The best way to avoid moral bankruptcy is to rack up love-based debts. Think of yourself as possessing Jesus’ own credit card, Messiah Card, an interest free credit card of love. Imagine some mottos or advertising slogans for a card like this (guess which cards I’m parodying!):

There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else there is
Messiah card.

As Origen memorably said: “The debt of charity, however, should be with us always and never cease. We must pay this daily and always owe it.”¹⁵

As a child, one of my favorite stories was Watership Down. It is about a warren of rabbits in England and their struggle for survival. A young runt rabbit named Fiver is a prophet who receives a vision about the imminent destruction of the warren. Sadly the only other rabbits who believe Fiver are his brother Hazel and a small group of friends. Sensing the danger, the group flees and makes their way through various struggles to Watership Down to establish a new warren.

Paul’s words to “wake up” remind me of Fiver’s warning to the warren. When everyone is “sleeping,” unaware of what is approaching, Paul tells us his audience to wake up. Paul writes with the urgency of someone waking people in a burning building, telling them that its time to flee down a ladder that is about to be put up against their window. In a world of moral darkness, Paul tells his audience to wake up, get up, and run to safety. Like Fiver, we hear the sounds of what is coming, salvation for some and judgment for others, and we get ourselves ready for it (see 1 Thess 5:8; Phil 1:28).

We need to tell ourselves and our congregations to wake up, get up, and get ready to flee to Messiahship Down. In my experience you can tell a lot about a person by learning not just what they are willing to fight for, but what they are eager to flee from! I tell my seminary students, especially my male students, that the undoing of many a minister is gold, glory, and girls. Or else everyone has to be wary of the addictiveness of feelings of power and influence over others and how it can contort our character. One should not just avoid these things like avoiding dog poo on the sidewalk; you should flee from them like a great white shark chasing after you in your swimming pool.

There is nothing wrong with running from something that has the power to destroy you, destroy your relationship with God, destroy your relationship with your spouse and children, and destroy your ministry. If we are to fight the good fight of the faith, that will involve doing some tactical retreats when necessary. If we are to be clothed with Christ, we have to run for our lives from stuff like pornography and gossip. That is why Paul talks about “fleeing” so often: flee from sexual immorality (1 Cor 6:18), flee from idolatry (1 Cor 6:10), flee from love of money (1 Tim 6:10 – 11), and flee from the desires of youth (2 Tim 2:22). This is why Paul told Timothy: “But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness” (1 Tim 6:11).

In addition to our indebtedness in showing loving behavior and fleeing from godlessness, believers are to be clothed with Christ, which means we put on the armor of light. This armor is tantamount to the list of virtues that the New Testament authors give us in several places. For instance, Paul told the Colossians to “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Col 3:12). There is a reason for morally arming ourselves with these attitudes and actions; that is because Christian virtues, just like armor, serve to protect us from harm. I confess that I have never worn ancient Israelite armor such as a leather jacket with copper plates sown on, or the fully metal body armor of a Middle Ages knight, but I have worn modern combat armor with a kevlar vest and kevlar helmet. Let me tell you something, they are heavy and hot, and they can be hard to move. However, without that sort of protection, you are vulnerable to shrapnel and being shot, or a soft target. Kevlar body armor, for all its clunkiness and girth, is absolutely necessary; otherwise a soldier is vulnerable to being wounded or killed.

Similarly, without clothing yourself with the armor of light, you are a soft target for temptation, the devil, and the world to prey on you. Yes, I know that even the best of saints has a chink in his or her armor; we are all human after all. However, if we are fully armored up with Christian virtue, it will be much harder for us to be taken down by anything that would seek to separate us from Christ. Such armor not only shields us but also those around us.

6. Cf. on Paul’s expectation of the end, Murray, Romans, 167 – 68; Cranfield, Romans, 2:682 – 84; Schreiner, Romans, 698.

8. These words had a profound effect on Augustine, who heard a child singing, “Take up and read,” when he stumbled on a copy of Romans. He opened to Romans 13:13 – 14 and had his melancholic state healed and wrote in his Confessions (8.29): “No further would I read, nor did I need; for instantly, as the sentence ended — by a light, as it were, of security infused into my heart — all the gloom of doubt vanished away.”

12. Scot McKnight, Kingdom Conspiracy: Returning to the Radical Mission of the Local Church (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2014), 51, 159 – 78.

13. Francis Schaeffer, The Mark of the Christian (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006), 22.