’Owe no man anything, but to love one another:  for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. 9.  For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 10.  Love worketh no ill to his neighbour:  therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. 11.  And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep:  for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. 12.  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, 13.  Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying:  14.  But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.’—­ROMANS xiii. 8-14.

The two paragraphs of this passage are but slightly connected.  The first inculcates the obligation of universal love; and the second begins by suggesting, as a motive for the discharge of that duty, the near approach of ‘the day.’  The light of that dawn draws Paul’s eyes and leads him to wider exhortations on Christian purity as befitting the children of light.

I. Verses 8-10 set forth the obligation of a love which embraces all men, and comprehends all duties to them.  The Apostle has just been laying down the general exhortation, ‘Pay every man his due’ and applying it especially to the Christian’s relation to civic rulers.  He repeats it in a negative form, and bases on it the obligation of loving every man.  That love is further represented as the sum and substance of the law.  Thus Paul brings together two thoughts which are often dealt with as mutually exclusive,—­namely, love and law.  He does not talk sentimentalisms about the beauty of charity and the like, but lays it down, as a ‘hard and fast rule,’ that we are bound to love every man with whom we come in contact; or, as the Greek has it, ‘the other.’

That is the first plain truth taught here.  Love is not an emotion which we may indulge or not, as we please.  It is not to select its objects according to our estimate of their lovableness or goodness.  But we are bound to love, and that all round, without distinction of beautiful or ugly, good or bad.  ‘A hard saying; who can hear it?’ Every man is our creditor for that debt.  He does not get his due from us unless he gets love.  Note, further, that the debt of love is never discharged.  After all payments it still remains owing.  There is no paying in full of all demands, and, as Bengel says, it is an undying debt.  We are apt to weary of expending love, especially on unworthy recipients, and to think that we have wiped off all claims, and it may often be true that our obligations to others compel us to cease helping one; but if we laid Paul’s words to heart, our patience would be longer-breathed, and we should not be so soon ready to shut hearts and purses against even unthankful suitors.