02.25. VI. The Law of the Yielded Life (8-14).
VI. The Law of the Yielded Life (Rom 13:8-14).
1. Owe no man anything, but to love one another (Rom 13:8). The law of Sinai provided against debt: Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning (Lev 19:13). And elsewhere the Word warns against debt: The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender (Pro 22:7). But there is one debt that can never be fully cancelled; namely, the debt of love. We must go on loving, and as we do so we are in principle fulfilling the law: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law, so far as that other is concerned. The law against adultery, killing, stealing, lying, coveting, and every other sin against men, is all summed up in one word, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law (Rom 13:9-10; compare Mat 22:39; Luk 10:29-37).
2. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep (Rom 13:11). The great New Testament incentive to holiness is now brought forth. And that ought rather to read And this. That is, and let us do this—live without debt except to love—for this great reason added to all the others; namely, that now is our salvation nearer than when we (first) believed (see R. V.). Our Lord’s return is the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1Pe 1:5). The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof—i. e., make no provision for the gratification of selfish desires. All this will be accomplished if we really put on the Lord Jesus Christ. So we say of friends, says Chrysostom:
‘Such an one has put on such an one’ when we mean to describe great love and unceasing intercourse. Our Lord Himself often used the truth of His return to stimulate His disciples to watchfulness and holiness, and so also did the writers of the New Testament epistles. It is to this blessed hope that Paul directs his readers in the closing paragraph of Rom 13:1-14. On this paragraph Dean Alford says:
Without denying the legitimacy of an individual application of this truth, and the importance of its consideration for all Christians of all ages, a fair exposition of this passage can hardly fail to recognize the fact that the apostle here as well as elsewhere (1Th 4:17; 1Co 15:51), speaks of the coming of the Lord as rapidly approaching. Prof. Stuart and others are shocked at the idea, as being inconsistent with the inspiration of his writings. How this car; be, I am at a loss to imagine. ‘OF THAT DAY AND HOUR KNOWETH NO MAN, NO NOT THE ANGELS IN HEAVEN, NOR EVEN THE SON, BUT THE FATHER’ (Mark 13:32). And to reason, as Stuart does, that because St. Paul corrects in 2Th 2:1-17 the mistake of imagining it to be immediately at hand (or even actually come, see note there), therefore he did not himself expect it soon, is surely quite beside the purpose. The fact that the nearness or distance of that day was unknown to the apostles, in no way affects the prophetic announcements of God’s Spirit by them, concerning its preceding any accompanying circumstances. The ‘day and hour’ formed no part of their inspiration; the details of the event did. And this distinction has singularly and providentially turned out to the edification of all subsequent ages. While the prophetic declaration of the events of that time remain to instruct us, the eager expectation of the time, which they expressed in their day, has also remained, a token of the true frame of mind in which each succeeding age (and each succeeding age more strongly than the last) should contemplate the ever-approaching coming of the Lord. On the certainty of the event our faith is grounded: by the uncertainty of the time our hope is stimulated, and our watchfulness aroused (The New Testament for English Readers).
Hallelujah! Maranatha! Amen! Even so, come, Lord Jesus!