Love Debt

So we come to Romans thirteen eight through ten. It seems as though we have made an abrupt turn. However, I assure you we have not. Paul's discussion here about the love debt that we owe to our fellow man is very fitting and in keeping with his discussion about our debt of submission that we owe to the civil magistrate and the debt of obedience that the civil magistrate owes to God. So as you join me here, beginning at verse eight, let's read with a keen ear toward the connection between this passage and the passage that we've just spent several weeks on. Verse eight. Oh, no one anything except to love each other. For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandment are summed up in this word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. We see a pattern here in this paragraph that has been evident in Paul's writings before. I've pointed out to you before that Paul has a tendency to make a statement, explain the statement, and then reiterate the statement. And that's precisely what he does in this paragraph. He makes a statement. His statement is no one anything except to love each other. For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. There's his statement, and it could on its own. However, he goes forward and he explains what he means by the statement in the next portion. What do you mean by that, Paul, that all we owe, all we should owe to another is to love them, because that is fulfilling the law. Well, this explanation is well if you look at the law and the commandments, and specifically here the second table of the law. Remember the first table of the law, the first four commandments have to do with our vertical responsibility or our duty to God. The second table of the law, of the last six commandments have to do with our horizontal duty, or our duty to our fellow man. And so here he goes to the second table of the law and he says, look at the commandments of the second table of the law. You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet. Okay, he doesn't give us all of the six. Then he adds and any other commandment. The other two are summed up in this word. You shall love your neighbor as your That's the explanation. So we have the statement, and then we have the explanation. And then he goes on to reiterate. So I go back to what I said Originally, love doesn't wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law, that relationship between love and the law. Once again, and how often are we told erroneously in our culture, in our day, and in our age, that love and law have nothing to do with one another, That love and law are as far apart as the East is from the west, that love and law are not friends, but in fact they are foes. And yet here again Paul brings together love and law. This is difficult for us for a number of reasons. And the idea that he puts forth here is difficult for us for a number of reasons. The idea that we owe a love debt to all. It's difficult for us, first of all because the faulty definitions of love. We've talked about this before, but it bears repeating. We don't understand love appropriately if the only place we go for the definition is to our culture, because our culture defines love basically as an overwhelming, uncontrollable, sensual force, and the classic example of that definition is the Cupid myth. The Cupid myth is the story that explains our understanding of romantic love. Love happens when some cherub randomly shoots you with his arrow, and when that cherub randomly shoots you with his arrow, your affections are pointed toward whomever that cherub has determined beforehand that you would pour those affections out on. It is overwhelming, It is uncontrollable, and it is sensual, and it is a force, and you must follow it. You cannot deny it. This thing is bigger than both of us. We don't choose who we fall in love with. The heart wants what it wants. That is how we define love. That very definition cuts against the grain of this idea that we owe a love debt to all. How can I owe to all that which I can only experience toward those whom Cupid has sent me too? I mean, if love is this unc controllable force, how can it be a debt I owe If love is something that just sort of comes upon me whenever love decides to come upon me, how can I owe it all the time and to everyone. Those things don't compute, Those things don't go together. But please note that is not a contradiction within God or within the scriptures. That is a contradiction between a cultural definition and the biblical truth. And when that happens, the cultural definition must fall all day, every day, and twice on Sunday. We must hold to biblical truth. Not only do we have faulty definitions of love, but because of our faulty definition of love, we have faulty applications of love. If you have the wrong definition, then you're going to apply it wrong, which could be a lack of love to not be a loving person. I don't feel like loving you, Therefore, before, I'm not obligated to love you. If you can't say amen, you ought to say out. But that's how we act. I don't feel like loving you, Therefore I'm not obligated to love you. I don't know you. Therefore I'm not obligated to love you. And because I don't know you, the only way that I can have any obligation to love you is if Cupid showed up right now shot me with this arrow, and I had an overwhelming, uncontrollable urge to love you. To misapplication or selective love, selective love, I don't owe this love as a love debt to all, but I just owe this love selectively. You know, there's a phrase in the Christian vernacular. There are lots of phrases in the Christian vernacular, and we don't even have time to go through all of those, but there are phrases in the Christian vernacular, and there's one as it relates to love and the selective pointing of Christian love in certain directions, and that phrase is to have a heart for something. You know, I really have a heart for the poor, I really have a heart for China, I really have a heart for Africa, I really have a heart for whomever. What that means is that the cupid version of God has pointed me selectively towards this group. Therefore, my love is poured out on this group, not so much on other groups, because I don't have a heart for them. But I have a heart for these folks, or have a heart for this group that's the idea of the selected love that we point towards others. And again, there are those whom we love in a more significant way than others. I don't. I don't. I love you, but not like I love my wife, and God bless you. If that offends you, I'm not sorry, But that just again common sense. We do not love everyone in the same way into the same degree. I get that. But this idea of selective love is the idea that I'm focusing my love on a particular group at the expense of other groups. And it really is born out of the same idea of the Greco Roman myth of romantic love. Because I can't explain it other than God just gave me a heart for this, and I don't have a heart for that. Not a problem that you would emphasize your ministry toward one individual versus another, That's not a problem at all. But when you are pointing your love in this direction and not in that direction, and your excuse is God's called me to be selective over here and not over there, there's a problem. Because this passage would beg to differ with that approach. Then there's misguided love. This is a version of the selective love. But this is one that's misguided and the greatest example that I see of this. And I use this example because I experience it regularly. But you know, oftentimes I will address issues, and you know, I address issues cultural apologetic issues, especially issues dealing with biblical manhood, womanhood, and family. And because of that, I am often more keenly aware of the aggressive homosexual agenda in our culture than perhaps others could be. And I'll write about this in certain places. Listen, folks, I can write about any sin in the world, and I can write that publicly anywhere in the world, about any sin. You name the sin, and I can write about that sin. If I say something, however, about the sin of homosexuality, always I'm not overstating here, this is not hyperbole. Every time I make a statement about the sin of homosexuality, there is some Christian who feels obligated to come to the defense of homosexuals and say that it's just wrong to single them out. I can talk about adulters, I can talk about murderers, I can talk about job molesters, I can talk about I mean, you name the sin, I can talk about the sin of worry, and no Christian anywhere in the world will feel obligated, especially those who don't even know me, will feel obligated to come to me and say, why, of all the millions of sins in the world, are you pointing out the sin of worry, but you let me say something about homosexuality while you're picking on them. They just need us to love them. And if we would stop pointing out their sin, then what finish your sentence? If we would stop pointing out their sin, then what see? That's misguided love. So what is Paul speaking of here? About this love debt that we owe? First of all, it is a debt ode to every man. Love is a debt ode to every man. It cannot be withheld. You owe it, You're not allowed to withhold it. It's not yours to withhold. It is owed to every man. Listen to this from Everett Harrison and his commentary on this passage. Let no debt remain outstanding. This translation has the advantage of avoiding the danger of giving a wrong impression, such as might be conveyed by oh, no man anything. If incurring any indebtedness whatever is contrary to God's will, the Lord would not have said, do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. So Paul's not saying in this statement that borrowing is sinful. Amen, all of you who have a mortgage can take a deep breath now, Okay, Paul's not making a statement here about borrowing being sinful, But he is making a statement about the fact that we are in debt and that this is a debt that we must pay, We owe it, we cannot withhold it. You must give this love to your fellow man, because it is a debt that you owe to your fellow man. You cannot withhold it. It's not just believers. Paul is not just talking about believers here. How do we know this, because he's already addressed that obligation. If you go back with me in chapter twelve and twelve, verses three through eight, we have his statement about spiritual gifts, and he's talking about the way that we interact with one another as believers, so that is believers interacting with other believers. Then we come down in verses nine through thirteen, and in verses nine through thirteen he says, let love be genuine, and in that section he says in verse ten, love one another with brotherly affection. There he's still talking about believers and their relationship to one another, but in verse fourteen things change. In verse fourteen, he says, bless those who persecute you. Then down in verse sixteen, associate with the lowly in verse seventeen, do what is honorable in the sight of all. In verse that was verse sixteen, verse seventeen, verse eighteen, I'm sorry. Live peaceably with all. In verse twenty to the if your enemy is hungry, feed him verse twenty one, overcome evil with good. Clearly, in that paragraph Paul has gone from talking about the relationship that we have with other believers to talking about the relationships that we have with all men. Then he opens chapter thirteen with our civil responsibility, which again is not about our relationship and responsibility toward all toward disbelievers, but it's our civil culture responsibility. At the end of it, in verse seven, he says, give respect to whom respect is old, honor to whom honor is old. And then in verse eight, oh, no one anything. He's not going back now and talking just about believers. It doesn't fit the context. Paul is talking about the love debt that we owe to humanity because they're made in the image of God, not us believers. This is not unlike Christ, is it, Because basically we would be saying here that in order for someone to earn this particular love, that they would have to prove themselves worthy of that love by being a believer. That's not the statement Paul is making here. He's not talking about the way we interact with one another in the church. That's not what he's talking about. He's not talking about that love among those members of the body that cause us, for example, to have all things in common. That's not what he's talking about here. But listen to this statement from Romans chapter five, beginning in verse six. For while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare to die. But God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by death, the death of his son. Much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life? More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. While we were still sinners, while we were enemies of God, Christ laid down his life for us, and as followers of Christ. One of the ways that his death for us impacts our relationship with others is that we turn that same kind of love outwardly, even on fallen humanity. We love our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ uniquely, but not exclusively. We love people who are lost, made in the image of God because they are made in the image of God. How dare we, as fallen human beings who deserve the wrath of God, who experience the love of God that redeems us in spite of ourselves, turn around and look at other people who are in the very same condition that we were in before Christ redeemed us, and withhold our love from them because they haven't been given the gift that we were given. Yet, God help us, God help us, how dare I withhold my love Also, we have to understand that love is neither contrary to nor super superior to the law. Love is neither contrary to nor superior to the law. We see that in verse nine. Look again in verse nine. For the commandments you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandment are summed up in this word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. In chapter seven and verse twelve, Paul says, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. He dispels that myth that somehow the law is bad. The law is not bad, the law is not wrong, the law is not evil, The law is holy, the law is good. The statement for love is the essence of the commandment, not contrary to the commandment, not a contradiction of the commandment, definitely not superior to the commandment. But it's the essence of the commandment. In Deuteronomy chapter six and verse five, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. By the way, Deuteronomy chapter six is right after Deuteronomy Chapter five and Deuteronomy chapter five. We have guess what the ten commandments? Is Moses going to give us the ten commandments in Deuteronomy chapter five and then say, oh, by the way, those don't really mean anything, because love in Deuteronomy chapter six is completely contrary to what I just said in deuteronmy chapter five. No, it's the essence of what I said in Deuteronomy chapter five and Deuteronomy eleven thirteen, thirteen, three thirty six, Joshua twenty two to five, and in the New Testament. It's reiterated in Matthew twenty two thirty seven, Mark twelve thirty and Luke ten twenty seven. Again and again and again. The essence of the first four commandments is love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your might. That's the essence of those first four commandments. No other gods before me. Love God. Don't make a graven image and worship that graven image. Love God. Do not take my name in vain, Love God. Do not dishonor or defame my day. Love God. It's not contrary. How about the second Table of the Law in Leviticus nineteen eighteen. Yes, in Leviticus it's not just a New Testament statement. Leviticus is nineteen eighteen. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Does that sound familiar? It ought to, because we see it in Matthew nineteen nineteen twenty two, thirty nine, Mark twelve thirty one, Luke ten twenty seven, again, Romans thirteen nine, Galatians five fourteen, and James two eight, all quoting what Leviticus, which is what the law. Love is not contrary to the law, and no, it's not superior to the law, because it fulfills the law. Notice what he says in the last verse in verse ten, love does no wrong to a neighbor, and therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. Love doesn't come along and say, hey, the law. The law doesn't cut it. The law's no good, the law's bad, the law's not righteous. I'm love, I'm here forget about all that. No love comes and says, by the way, if you were wondering how you can do all that the answers me Edwards Again, this is an explicit confirmation of the thesis. We argued earlier that keeping the law is not a previous prerequisite of saving faith. But saving faith is a prerequisite for keeping the law. It's saving faith that enables you to keep the law. Saving faith doesn't make the law somehow irrelevant and no good. No, saving faith actually puts you in a position where you will keep the law. Listen Romans, chapter three, beginning at verse twenty seven. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded by what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God a god of the Jews only? Is he not a god of the gentiles? Also, yes of gentiles? Also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Here's the kicker. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? The answer, by no means may it never be? On the contrary, we uphold the law. We uphold the law. How pray tell, do you love your neighbor without keeping the law, or keep the law without loving your neighbor? Just think about the second Table of the Law, the fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother. No, I'm not gonna honor my father and my mother, but I am going to love them. Really. Number six. Do not murder No no, I am going to murder my neighbor, but I'm also gonna love him. Do not commit adultery no no, no, no no, that's the law. I am going to commit adultery against my neighbor, but I'm going to love him in the process. Do not steal, No no no, that's the law. I am going to steal from my neighbor, but I'm going to be loving as I steal from my neighbor. Do not bear false witness. Oh no, no, no no, that's the law. I'm beyond the law. I'm gonna lie to my neighbor and against my neighbor, but I'm going to do it in love. Do not covet what your neighbor has. Oh no, no, no no no. I'm going to covet what my neighbor has because I'm not under that lost stuff. But I'm going to love my neighbor as I covet what he has. Folks, that doesn't work. But guess what if I love my neighbor, I don't have to work. Not to covet what my neighbor has, because in the affirmative, I love him, and by virtue of that, I won't cover it. If I love my neighbor, I'm not going to bear false witness against my neighbor because I love my neighbor, and by virtue of my love for my neighbor, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to steal from my neighbor. Why I love my neighbor, and by virtue of my love for my neighbor, I wouldn't even conceive of doing that. I'm not going to commit adultery. Why Because I love my neighbor, and by virtue of that love, it's inconceivable that I would do that. I'm not going to murder my neighbor. Why Because I love my neighbor, and by virtue of my love, it would be absolutely inconceivable for me to do that. I'm not going to dishonor my mother and my father. Why because by the grace of God, I love my mother and my father, and by virtue of my love, it would be inconceivable for me to dishonor them. See it's not like you could put love over here as its own sort of nebulous force that has absolutely nothing to do with God's law. God's law that you can't keep merely paints a picture for you of what love does, and you can't do it because apart from Christ you don't know love. But being in Christ, you know nothing else. Listen to what Christ says and then his apostles after him. John thirteen thirty four. A new commandment I give to you that you love one another, just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. First John three twenty three, same author, writing again in his epistle about this commandment he received from the Lord. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of the Son Jesus Christ and love one another just as he commanded us Second John, verses five and six. We almost never talk about Second John or third John. Second John verses five and six. And now I ask you, dear lady, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. It's a summary statement. Jesus did not keep the whole law in his active obedience, die for our disobedience to the whole law in his passive obedience, so that we could then ignore the law as though it didn't exist. Jesus kept the whole law in his active obedience to his father, died for our sin of breaking the whole law in his passive obedience to the Father redeemed us and justified us, and made us righteous, and is sanctifying us, so that we are now, for the first time in our lives, actually free to keep the law, not by having a list of dos and don'ts that we keep by our side, but quite simply by loving our neighbor. You couldn't do that before because you are too in love with yourself. But in Christ we are finally free to love our neighbor as ourself. John Calvin Wrights Paul demonstrates by the effect that under the word love are contained those things which are taught us in all the commandments. For he who is endued with true love will never entertain the thought of injuring others. What else does the whole law forbid, but that we do no harm to our neighbor. That's who we are because of Christ. There is also this sense of the affirmative obligation, and that's what love gets us to. The affirmative obligation. See law keeps you looking at the negative prohibition. Don't murder your neighbor, don't steal from your neighbor, don't commit adultery, don't covet don't don't, don't, don't, don't, don't don't. And so the law keeps you looking at these sort of negative prohibitions and keeps you working to try not to do the thing that you've been told not to do. But when we come to Christ, what happens is we go from there to looking at our affirmative obligation toward our neighbor. Jesus brings this up in the Sermon on the Mountain, does he not? You've heard it said, don't murder your brother, and that's really good that you've never actually made your brother's heart stop beating. But guess what I say, don't even be angry with your brother. Don't hate your brother, because where does murder come from. Murder comes from your anger and from your hatred. So when you hate your brother and you're angry at your brother, and you spew venom from your mouth toward your brother. You are breaking the essence of the commandment because you are not keeping the affirmative obligation. It's easy not to kill your brother physically, but when you talk about the affirmative obligation, that's something altogether different. Listen to this. The larger Catechism this and teaches this magnificently. Question one thirty seven, which is the seventh Commandment? Answer? The seventh Commandment is du shalt not commit adultery? Question one thirty eight? What are the duties required in the seventh Commandment? See not we know what the negative injunction is. The negative injunction is that we shouldn't commit adultery. Yeah, but what does it look like to love your brother in light of the seventh commandment? Well, to not commit a no, no, no, that's the negative injunction. That's grammar school. Okay, don't commit adultery yet, get great, that's great. But Christ has given you a new heart. You are a new creature. Don't talk to me about the lowest common denominator and the least that you could possibly do in order to not be guilty under the Seventh Commandment. That's not who you are in Christ. Who you are in Christ is so much more than that. So what's the affirmative obligation for those who are in Christ who love their fellow man in light of the seventh Commandment? And here's the answer. The duties required in the Seventh Commandment are chastity and body, mind, affection, words and behavior, and the preservation of it in ourselves and others. Watchfulness over the eyes and all of the senses, temperance, keeping of chaste company, modesty in apparel, marriage by those that have not the gift of continency, conjugal love and cohabitation, diligent labor in our callings, shunning all occasions of uncleanness, and resisting temptations thereunto. I didn't end up in bed with my neighbor's wife, Good for you, But you're a Christian? Do you gawk at her inappropriately, speak to her suggestively, fantasize about her privately? See in essence, When we have been renewed and we have come to faith in Christ, we realize that this whole idea of the law of love and the way we normally think about it is somehow I don't have to think about the commandments anymore. No, I can think myself so superior to the commandments. Now, uh uh. When you grasp the law of love, it does not make you haughty about the commandments. It makes you realize how wicked you really are are and how much more sanctified you desperately need to be. And this is just one example. So in essence, think about it this way as well. Look at this compared not only to this sort of elementary idea of you know, I'm doing the bare minimum not to violate this commandment. Okay, good for you, we've already seen that, but look at it this way in light of compare it to the Greco Roman myth of romantic love. If all love your neighbor means is to have warm feelings toward your neighbor and a heart for them, Folks, you can do all this nasty stuff and still feel warm feelings towards your neighbor and have a heart for them. That completely ignores righteousness. If it's just about warm feelings, if it's just about doing the bare minimum. Because if you think about it, when you look at the ten Commandments that way, especially the second table of the law. Is it really hard not to kill people, not to commit adultery, not to steal. Did you realize how bold you have to be to be a thief? But when you look at the affirm obligation in light of the law of love and the debt of love that we owe, all of a sudden, you're not so haughty anymore. All of a sudden, you're back on your face before God, confessing your wickedness and begging for continued renewal and sanctification of your wicked heart so that your attitude towards your neighbor is genuinely loving. This is not minor or trite. Finally, because this law of love fulfills God's law, then we cannot love rightly and contradict God's law. In other words, let's go back to the misguided love. If loving your neighbor means just having warm, fuzzy feelings towards your neighbor, not being judgmental toward your neighbor, so on and so forth. Now, when my neighbor is in sin, then my love for them means that I don't judge them. That's where the misguided love comes in, Folks. Keeping the second table of the law must never be used as an excuse to violate the first table of the law. My neighbor's and sin. But I'm not going to call their sin a sin because I've been commanded to love them. If you love a person and they are offending a holy and righteous God who will judge sin, your love does not lead you to wink at that sin. Genuine love leads you to pleading with them to repent of that sin. And that's the problem with the misguided love. If we really love these folks, we wouldn't point out their sin. Holks. Nothing could be further from the truth. Don't we teach that to our children. I do this because because I love you. Amen, I do this because I love you, And they don't get it sometimes and they're just sitting there thinking, I wish you didn't love me so much. But eventually, by the grace of God, those of us in this room who were loved that way by our parents now look back on it and we say, what, Thank you Lord, thank you Mama, thank you Daddy for loving me enough to chastise me in my sin. And for those of us who were lost in egregious sins against an almighty God. For those of us who were living lives that deserved the wrath of God and eternity. And there are those of us in this room, all of us in this room, who at one moment or another God would have been well within his rights and well justified to make an example of you and to dislite you on the spot with an arrow of a lightning bolt from heaven. That said to everyone around you, that's what you get when you live like them, and somebody loved you enough to call you on it. And if you have since come to faith in Christ, you love them for that. You thank them for that. Every chance you get, you remind them of how grateful you are that while you were in your sin and couldn't see it, they spoke of it openly, even when you hated to hear it. Because God used that to bring you face to face with your only hope. You had to face him as your judge to appreciate him as your deliverer. The law of love not only does it require you to overlook people's sin, it doesn't allow you to do so, because that's not love. That's the furthest thing from it. If I love you, my desire for you is that you would come to know the love that changed my heart and hopes that, by God's grace, it might change yours. That's why it's inconceivable for us as believers to be anything but loving towards people who desperately need to know our God. Are you withholding that today from someone? If so, I urge you to repent. Are you withholding yourself, withholding your affections, withholding forgiveness from someone today? Is that really what Christ in you is producing? Or are you doing that in spite of the love that God has extended to you in Christ. The debt you owe to them, you cannot withhold it. You must pay it. You must