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Our Relationship to the Law
Romans 13:8-10
Paul is talking about the Law and love, and he plays off the word in the Greek that is translated as “
Give to everyone what you owe them: Pay your taxes and government fees to those who collect them, and give respect and honor to those who are in authority.—Romans 13:7 (NLT)
Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.—Romans 13:7 (ESV)
Paul is showing us a transition from the respect and honor owed to government authorities to the greatest demand of love owed by Christians to
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.—Romans 13:8 (ESV)
The one debt owed to and by everyone, the one debt we can never fully pay, is “
to accept someone for who they are and sacrificially work for their good
Because of Christ’s love for us, witnessed on the cross, Paul wants us to understand that we will never be able to
36“Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” 37Jesus replied, “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”—Matthew 22:36-40 (NLT)
All the law can be summed up by loving
For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”—Romans 13:9 (ESV)
The LORD: Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.—Leviticus 19:18 (NLT)
Moses: 4Listen, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. 5And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.—Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (NLT)
These two parts make up the Great Commandment that Jesus put together as the whole basis and fulfillment of the
Moses: 6And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. 7Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. 8Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. 9Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.—Deuteronomy 6:6-9 (NLT)
Love doesn’t just happen – we have to
The point isn’t that love is legalistic, but that love is the true reason behind the Law – the Law is not how we earn God’s love but how God teaches us to
[People] will not commit adultery, for, when two people allow their physical passions to sweep them away, the reason is not that they love each other too much but that they love each other too little. In real love, there is at the same time respect and restraint, which saves from sin. Christians will not kill, for love never seeks to destroy, but always to build up; it is always kind and will always seek to destroy enemies not by killing them, but by seeking to make friends of them. Christians will never steal, for love is always more concerned with giving than with getting. They will not covet, for covetousness (epithumia) is the uncontrolled desire for what is forbidden, and love cleanses the heart, until that desire is gone.—William Barclay
The Law is not all encompassing, because just as there are always ways to break a law that then lead folks to come up with new laws, which folks soon figure out new ways to break them, so
It’s why we need Jesus not only to forgive our sins but also to give us his Spirit, Who comes to live in us and begin to transform our
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.—Galatians 5:22-23 (ESV)
The first “fruit” or result of having the Holy Spirit living in us is “
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8Love never ends.…—1 Corinthians 13:1-8 (ESV)
We can’t truly love on our own, for just as the Jews tried so hard, they continually failed and ended up becoming
17For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.—2 Corinthians 3:17-18 (NLT)
Becoming more like Jesus simply means becoming more and more
The “freedom” Paul was talking about is always
Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.—Romans 13:10 (ESV)
Love is living the way we were
Jesus: 34So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. 35Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.—John 13:34-35 (NLT)
Love God, and do what you like.—St. Augustine
When the love of God is
Next Week: Romans 13:11-14: Our Relationship to the Day