“Where Romans Lands” Summer Intensive with N.T. Wright was organized by Admirato.org.
Romans 13:8-14
8 Don’t owe anything to anyone, except the debt of mutual love. If you love your neighbor, you see, you have fulfilled the law. 9 Commandments like “don’t commit adultery, don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t covet”—and any other commandment—are summed up in this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to its neighbor; so love is the fulfillment of the law.
11 This is all the more important because you know what time it is. The hour has come for you to wake up from sleep. Our salvation, you see, is nearer now than it was when first we came to faith. 12 The night is nearly over, the day is almost here. So let’s put off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. 13 Let’s behave appropriately, as in the daytime: not in wild parties and drunkenness, not in orgies and shameless immorality, not in bad temper and jealousy. 14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, and don’t make any allowance for the flesh and its lusts.
Love, the law and the coming day
We should avoid assuming we know all that this means because it sounds so familiar. There are so many connections to other passages and hidden depths.
The key is learning how to navigate being “now and not yet people.” There is a danger that we shrink Christian ethics down to a set of rules to keep. “Christian ethics” isn’t even the best phrase. It is about learning to live between the times – between the fulfillment of Torah in Jesus and the coming fully realized Kingdom of Jesus – the new heaven and new earth! All Christian living is eschatological!
Paul is not simply theorizing about how a Christian community should live out their faith.
“Don’t owe anyone anything except love.” It’s much easier to get into debt than it is to get out of debt! Christian community should have a reputation for being honest and reliable, paying bills on time, erring on the side of generosity rather than stinginess. We want the world to see us and say to themselves: “They may have odd beliefs, but they are good people.”
This also means that anytime we meet someone, we already in debt to them. We owe them love!
The love of God should overflow from our lives into our church family where we practice loving others and then bubble over to all of our neighbors, friends, and co-workers!
“We are not justified by the law but by Jesus Christ” from earlier in Romans 3:20 was a reminder that the Kingdom is for all – not just the Jewish people. Throughout the letter, Paul is emphasizing the true family of Abraham are those who follow Jesus. “If you love your neighbor, you have fulfilled Torah” continues in that line of thinking.
Romans 8:3 – The Torah was working on the corrupt human – helping them become good neighbors.
Mount Sinai was not a list rules for the people of Israel to try to live up to in order to be redeemed. They were already redeemed and rescued out of slavery! The law was about how to live as redeemed people!
In the New Kingdom, the love of Jesus followers for each other and for their neighbors means they are fulfilling the Torah! Paul is trying to make sure the Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus all realize that they are all in the same family and not better than the others because of their relationship with the Torah.
Paul is laying the groundwork for his argument in Romans 14-15. In those two chapters, the Torah is hiding underneath even though it is never mentioned.
Why does Paul only mention these commandments “don’t commit adultery, don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t covet” and not the ones on worhsipping God? He has been writing about true worship from the beginning of the letter!
The Sabbath is not mentioned either. Why not? Because Jesus broke the religious leaders’ rules on the Sabbath? No! Because He is the source of true Sabbath and rest!
A sunrise is coming, and we are to be part of that sunrise! We are daytime people in a nighttime world! Now that Jesus is reigning over the Kingdom of God, He can come back at any time! (Paul did not think Jesus was coming back within a generation. That is a misreading of 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17).
“Our salvation” means we are rescued from death! We will be resurrected too! (This does not mean our soul will go up to heaven and all things will come to an end as Western Christianity seems to indicate).
Rather than “works of darkness” which are the ways of this present evil age, we need to put on the “armor of light” – a shorthand for Ephesians 6. (The one offensive weapon is the word of God. The other parts of the armor are defensive). Our world’s default is towards the works of darkness. The world presses us down to a semi-human state.
The works of darkness are listed in Romans 13 and in Colossians 3 and in many other sections of Paul’s letters. These aren’t exhaustive lists of all acts of evil. In this letter, Paul focuses on experiences with corporate immorality which are a parody of genuine celebration and violent anger and jealousy.
All the followers of Jesus are clothed with the righteousness of Jesus when they enter into His Kingdom. At the same time, every day, we need to recommit to “putting on the Messiah” in order to avoid giving in to the temptations of the world.
Romans 13:14 uses the word translated as “allowance” which means “thinking ahead.” We should renew our minds and not entertain any darkness in our thoughts.
