What are Your Debts and Who are You Wearing? -Rom. 13:8-14

On windy roads here in the Blue Ridge area, one often sees conspicuous guardrails that help drivers stay on the pavement. These keep cars from falling into ditches or off cliffs. One might refer to guardrails as a grace that keep drivers and passengers safe as they journey from place to place. What if I told you that God’s Word offers spiritual guardrails that act in very much the same way? Like guardrails that we see on the roadways, Godly principles help keep believers from veering off into danger so that they might complete the journey that God has laid out for them. These guardrails are offered as a grace to God’s people so that they might live the lives to which they have been called. It is especially important, both for our personal edification and our evangelistic usefulness, not to transgress beyond their domain. In Romans 13:8-14, Paul draws attention to two guardrails that many might take for granted. However, after drawing attention to them and  learning more about them, my prayer is that we would embrace the freedom and blessing that comes by living safely between them.

ETHICAL GUARDRAIL-13:8-10

After his remarks concerning the relationship believers have with the state, Paul returns the focus of his presentation to those within the family of God. In so doing, Paul provides two underlining principles that act as fundamental guidelines keeping believers in check both with others and with themselves. The first of these is “love fulfills the law.” The initial encouragement offered to this end is given in verse 8—“Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another,…”. This passage suggests that any debts incurred should be repaid promptly—that is all debts save one. There is one debt that is ongoing, the debt to “love one another.” Citing Origen Sanday and Headlam write “Let your only debt that is unpaid be that of love—a debt which you should always be attempting to discharge in full, but will never succeed in discharging” (Sanday and Headlam, Romans, 373).

Like a loan with a large outstanding balance and an unusually high interest rate, the love that God desires from us and His interest in seeing it grow in our lives renders its payment a lifelong pursuit never to be paid off or forgotten.

When believers continue to pay their debt of love to one another, they fulfill the heart of the law—“for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law” (13:8b). Why is this? Because “All the various commands of the law are simply expressions of love. Love is the heart and souls of the commands…” (Schreiner, Romans, 692). In other words, by loving, a believer puts the law into practice and in so doing fulfills God’s commands.

Elsewhere Paul reiterates the supremacy of love by saying “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13).

By perpetually paying the debt of love, Paul suggests that one will successfully fulfill the standards of God—standards that were originally given to promote righteousness, order, and blessing within the community of God’s. But how?

To explain how this takes place, Paul references four of the ten commandments that concern interpersonal relationships—“For this, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’…” These elements of the decalogue, unlike laws relating to circumcision, the sabbath, and food, represent timeless moral norms that God intended to be adopted irrespective of dispensation or ethnicity. That said Paul adds the following: "and if there is any other commandment” (13:9a). This inclusion means that Paul believed love to be compatible with other moral norms that he didn’t choose to mention by name.

All of God’s moral norms and timeless commands are “summed up in this saying, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (13:9b). This reference indicates that love is not only the center of Paul’s Christian ethic; it is the foundation of the ethic that Jesus Himself espouses.

Matthew 22:34-40-“But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And He said to him, ‘”You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.’”

By recalling this episode in Romans 13, Paul argues that love is the fulfillment of the law insofar as the law is concerned to ensure that no harm is done to a neighbor (see 13:10). He is not saying that love leads believers to observe all the demands of the Mosaic law (Morris, Romans, 502). Instead, he affirms that by loving one another the intended principle of the law is satisfied.

That Paul fixes concerns of love to the law of God is important for “if love is cut free from any commandments, it easily dissolves into sentimentality, and virtually any course of action can be defended as ‘loving’” (Schreiner, Romans, 694). Though one doesn’t typically connect love to the law, godly love is witnessed when it complies with the laws that God provides. For example “making love” with someone other than your wife (committing adultery) is not really an expression of love at all and might be more appropriately referred to as “making sin.” One might say “but I love her” or “but I love him” but they are deceiving themselves and mistaking lust for something for…love.  

Quite simply, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law” (13:10). What Paul teaches in 13:8-10 is that love exercised in the context of the church is a guardrail that keeps people within the law of God (that is in principle) and from falling into the ditch of transgressions. One cannot go wrong by loving others—that is loving others in a way that corresponds to the law of God. 

ESCHATOLOGICAL GUARDRAIL-13:11-14

The other guardrail that Paul provides the church as he wraps up chapter 13 involves looking ahead—an eschatological guardrail. Ultimately the guiding principle may be distilled as follows—"Living well requires forward thinking.” To this end Paul says “Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than we believed” (13:11). Elsewhere, Paul’s comments suggest that today, right now, need not be wasted.

2 Corinthians 6:2-“for He says, ‘At the acceptable time I listened to you,
And on the day of salvation I helped you.’ Behold, now is “the acceptable time,” behold, now is ‘the day of salvation” (see also 1 Cor. 7:29-31).

In 2 Corinthians 6 and Romans 13 “salvation” is understood as both a present and future reality. This present and future element of salvation indicate that people ought to wake up now in light of what is coming soon. Paul argues that people ought to take advantage of the opportunity for salvation at present and live in that reality because of what is about to take place. The “sleep” referred to here is the moral drowsiness that characterizes those who belong to the night—i.e. those who are lulled into lethargy and are conformed to the present age of evil. God’s people must not be caught drowsy. Because,…

“The night is almost gone,…” (13:12a). In other words, the evil age is nearly over. Paul holds nothing back when he describes the current world as a place that exists in perpetual twilight. Elsewhere Paul even says that Jesus died to save us from this darkness--“who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (13:12a). Because of Jesus’ work, believers can rest in knowing that—“the night is almost gone and the day is near” (13:12b).  This “day” anticipates the day of the Lord—the same day that the New Testament makes much of as it envisions a glorious future.

Acts 2:20-“The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood,
Before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come.”

1 Thess. 5:2-“For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.”

2 Peter 3:10-“ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.”

Paul refers to this glorious day as both “near” and “nearer to us than we believed.” If this was true 2000 years ago, it is even more so today!

Given that salvation is available now and will be completed soon, Paul says, “Therefore, let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light” (13:12b). What is one of the first things people do after they wake up? They get dressed! The same must be true of God’s people once that have awoken from their sinful slumber. However, not just any kind of clothes will do for God’s people—they are to adorn “armor of light.” The imagery is a military one, perhaps that of a soldier putting aside nightwear to put on his armor (Morris, Romans, 504).  Being dressed for success—battle ready and prepared—is a theme that Paul revisits in greater detail in Ephesians. 

Ephesians 6:10-18-“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.  Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”

In Ephesians 4 and Romans 13:8-14, one's readiness for what is going on now and for what is coming in the end is betrayed by what he/she is wearing. Once awake and properly dressed, it is incumbent upon God’s people to live accordingly—“Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy” (13:13). Notice that the behavior that should characterize God’s people is indicative of the “day.” Those activities that are discouraged—“carousing and drunkenness…sexual promiscuity and sensuality, etc.” typically take place both literally and figuratively under the cover of night. In contrast to such behaviors, the church is to “walk in the light as He is in the light” (1 John 1:7).

Rather than endorse behaviors of wickedness, believers are to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (13:14). 

To clothe oneself with Christ means that one renounces the wicked works of darkness and clothe oneself with the light.

Who are you wearing? Is often a question asked of celebrities on a red carpet. Answers typically include Versace, Dior, Zach Posen, Prada, and any number of gifted designers. Stars get dressed in their best to bolster their profile and place their wealth/style on display. However, when a believer puts on the armor of light and walks onto the world’s stage “who are you wearing?” becomes an entirely different inquiry. If ever they are asked, believers can proudly claim Jesus Christ and reveal the hope that they have in Him both for today and for tomorrow.

In putting on Christ, believers must “make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts” (13:14). To behave in this way while clothed in armor designed by Christ would be comparable to mowing the lawn in a designer gown—it doesn’t do the dress justice and just looks really weird! Those clad in God’s armor are expected to abstain from sinful behaviors and not to give an inch, compromise, or loosen standards in a way that is unbecoming of a soldier in the Lord’s army. The battle is nearly won and we must be ready. Act accordingly, especially now that we look the part!

So What?

The road that is laid out for us is found between two guardrails that are designed to keep us on the straight and narrow. The ethical guardrail involves loving others, thereby satisfying the principles given to us in the law. The eschatological guardrail is our expectation of future salvation from this dark world that encourages righteous living. When we love others and anticipate what is coming we are living the lives that God has laid out for us to live.

Two questions need to be asked of each of us in light of what has been shared. First, what are your debts? Love is something that will always be required of us and betrays the fact that we are disciples of God. Choose this day to satisfy God’s law by showing love to a brother or sister in Christ in some tangible/practical way. Second, who are you wearing? If you are still in your Pjs you might still be asleep in the night of your sin, giving into behaviors that happen behind closed doors and under the cover of darkness. Choose this day to put on the armor of light/put on Christ. Those who have already done so, commit yourselves to keep your righteous garments unstained by sin.