Understanding Love
In the previous chapter. Paul defined authentic love as seeking the good of others while despising evil. After addressing how we should relate to the government, Paul revisits the subject of love so that we can think about it in the right way. He wants us to better understand why love is so important and what motivates our actions of love. Paul connects what it means to be a good citizen to the government while also being a good neighbor to those around us. Both are only possible through God’s grace changing us. Therefore, Paul tells us to love our neighbors to fulfill the law of God and government.
This passage provides 3 applications for what authentic love does:
- Reframes a new perspective on how we treat other people.
- Removes the primary objection that love doesn’t fulfill the law of God.
- Reduces the concept of authentic love to one phrase: “Love does no wrong to a neighbor.”
Reframes (Romans 13:8a)
Living by the love of God involves seeing things differently. Once we experience the renewal of our minds, there’s a shift from trying to get more out of people to give more. Paul is expanding on the idea from verse 7; mainly that we pay our debts and fulfill our obligations to the government as citizens. However, the one obligation that we will never pay off is love. It’s by grace and it comes from God. We are filled by the love of God and it has to get out. God is in us and we see Him in others. Paul informs us of this new perspective: people made in the image of God await His love through you.
Removes (Romans 13:8b-9)
Paul gives us another reason why loving people is important: it fulfills the law. For some of his readers at the time (and to all Christians eventually), this claim has significant implications. Because the law of God was seen as sacred, it seemed like Paul was rewriting the law to have it centered on love instead of God’s holiness. What is Paul saying about love and how does it fulfill the law? According to Paul, love seeks the good for others. When looking at God’s law and the character of God himself, we see this in God’s love for us. Since we are made in the image of God, we need to align our lives and actions in a way that is consistent with the law and what it’s intending. Paul mentions four commandments from the Old Testament that deal with our relationships with people to further his argument.
Reduces (Romans 13:10)
Paul condenses his definition of authentic love into this one phrase: “love does no wrong to a neighbor.” A neighbor is simply anyone who we interact within our lives. We can do wrong in 2 ways: action or inaction. To put it another way, Dallas Willard describes doing wrong as either assault or withdrawal. In order to not harm our neighbors, we have to fulfill the law of God by treating everyone with dignity and respect. Paul wants us to view God’s law as guidelines on how to do good for those around us. By doing so, we fulfill the law by loving our neighbor as ourselves and we reflect God’s love for us in our relationships both inside and outside the church.
