Friday DIVE – June 27, 2025 – Romans 13:8-14

• How do you put on Jesus Christ? (v.14a) … Follow/Imitate Jesus.  WWJD?
• How does one make no provision for the flesh? (14b) … Don’t follow/act upon lust(s)

• NLT …  ¹⁴ Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires.

According to EWCommentary …

The Christian’s obligation to his neighbors.

1. (8-10) The obligation to love.

Owe no one anything except to love one another: On a personal level, the only “debt” we are to carry is the “debt” to love one another – this is a perpetual obligation we carry both before God and each other.

Some take this as a command to never borrow, but Jesus permitted borrowing in passages like Matthew 5:42.  That isn’t the sense of what Paul is saying here, though the Scriptures do remind us of the danger and obligations of borrowing (Proverbs 22:7).

“We may pay our taxes and give respect … and then relax because we have no further obligation.  But we can never say, ‘I have done all the loving I need to do’ because love is a permanent obligation, a debt that is impossible to pay off.  

You shall love your neighbor as yourself:   This is one of the two commands upon which all the Law and Prophets hang. (See Matthew 22:36-40.)  

Love your neighbor … Remember that your neighbour is anyone you meet and deal with (as in the story of the Good Samaritan) … so this is really a command to love the people you actually meet with and deal with every day.

Love is the fulfillment of the law … Love may include doing good religious things, but true love is really a function of obedience to God.

(11-14) The obligation to love God by walking right

The night is far spent, the day is at hand:  … Because we know the danger of the times and we anticipate the soon return of Jesus, we should be all the more energetic and committed to a right walk with God instead of a sleep-walk with God.

How important it is to awake out of sleep! It is possible to do many Christian things and yet essentially be asleep towards God.

Just a some people talk in their sleep and some walk in their sleep, it is possible for some Christians to do “religious” things while they are spiritually asleep.

Because one can do many religious things and still be asleep toward God, it is important for every Christian to make sure he/she is truly awake and active in living for God.

Cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light … The point is that living the Christian life is like getting dressed for work.  It involves taking off and putting on clothes.

Cast off the works of darkness … take off sinful actions and thoughts

put on the armour of light … put on Christ (Note v.14)

An interesting thought — We must cast off before we can put on. We can’t really put the robe of Christ on dirty clothes.  This reminds me of what Christ said about putting new wine in old wineskins.

There must be a taking away of the love of sin, there must be a renouncing of the practices and habits of sin, or else a man cannot be a Christian.

The works of darkness: These are characterized as revelry and drunkenness, licentiousness and lust, strife and envy. These are not appropriate for Christians who have come out of the night into God’s light.

the armor of light: … This is related to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. When we put on Christ, we put on all the armor of God and are equipped to both defend and attack.

What does it mean to put on Christ?  … more than putting on the character of Jesus Christ … it signifies letting Jesus Christ be the armour that we wear

make no provision for the flesh … implication: The flesh will be as active as we allow it to be.

walking properly, as in the day … the way to NOT making any provision for the flesh is resolve to walk properly (decently).  Jesus doesn’t walk for us anymore … now, He walks through us.  We partner with Him.

We can live the Christian life … but only as we are empowered by the Holy Spirit.  It all begins with a strong resolve to walk properly, by casting off bad works and putting on Christ.

APPLICATION … What does the passage mean  for us  today?  How can we apply what we’ve learnt? 

To Do List

1.  Love one another (v.8) … Consider, then act in .. interests of others

2.  Love your neighbour (v.11) … this in v.11 is linked to v.10 … Do unto others…

3.  Cast off the works of darkness (v.12b) …  Is there anything you do in the closet/dark?

4.  Put on the armour of light (v.12c) …   Keep doing good, right … armour of God

5.  Walk properly/decently (v.13) … by not doing things that follow …

• no revelry
• no drunkenness
• no lewdness
• no lust
• no strife
• no envy

6.  Put on Jesus Christ (v.14a) … Follow/Imitate Jesus. WWJD?

7.  Make no provision for the flesh (14b) … Don’t follow/act upon lust(s)

According to William Barclay …

THE DEBTS WHICH MUST BE PAID AND THE DEBT WHICH NEVER CAN BE PAID

Romans 13:8-10

Owe no man anything, except to love each other; for he who loves the other man has fulfilled the law.  The commandments, You must not commit adultery, You must not kill, You must not steal, You must not covet, and any other commandment there may be, are all summed up in this saying — You must love your neighbour as yourself.  Love does no harm to its neighbour.  Love is, therefore, the complete fulfilment of the law.

The previous passage dealt with what might be called a man’s public debts.  Romans 13:7 mentions two of these public debts.  There is what Paul calls tribute, and what he calls taxes.

• By tribute he means the tribute that must be paid by those who are members of a subject nation.  The standard contributions that the Roman government levied on its subject nations were three.
  1. There was a ground tax by which a man had to pay, either in cash or in kind, one-tenth of all the grain, and one fifth of the wine and fruit produced by his ground.
  2. There was income tax, which was one per cent of a man’s income.
  3. There was a poll tax, which had to be paid by everyone between the ages of fourteen and sixty five.
• By taxes Paul means the local taxes that had to be paid.  There were customs duties, import and export taxes, taxes for the use of main roads, for crossing bridges, for entry into markets and harbours, for the right to possess an animal, or to drive a cart or wagon.

Paul insists that the Christian must pay his tribute and his taxes to state and to local authority, however galling it may be.

Then he turns to private debts.  He says, “Owe no man anything.”  It seems a thing almost unnecessary to say; but there were some who even twisted the petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” into a reason for claiming absolution from all money obligations.  Paul had to remind his people that Christianity is not an excuse for refusing our obligations to our fellow men; it is a reason for fulfilling them to the utmost.

He goes on to speak of the one debt that a man must pay every day, and yet, at the same time, must go on owing every day, the debt to love each other.  Origen said: “The debt of love remains with us permanently and never leaves us; this is a debt which we both discharge every day and for ever owe.”  It is Paul’s claim that if a man honestly seeks to discharge this debt of love, he will automatically keep all the commandments.

• He will not commit adultery, for when two people allow their physical passions to sweep them away, the reason is, not that they love each other too much, but that they love each other too little; in real love there is at once respect and restraint which saves from sin.
• He will not kill, for love never seeks to destroy, but always to build up; it is always kind and will ever seek to destroy an enemy not by killing him, but by seeking to make him a friend.
• He will never steal, for love is always more concerned with giving than with getting.
• He will not covet, for covetousness (epithumia) is the uncontrolled desire for the forbidden thing, and love cleanses the heart, until that desire is gone.

There is a famous saying, “Love God — and do what you like.”  If love is the mainspring of a man’s heart, if his whole life is dominated by love for God and love for his fellow men, he needs no other law.

THE THREAT OF TIME

Romans 13:11-14

Further, there is this — realize what time it is, that it is now high time to be awakened from sleep; for now your salvation is nearer than when you believed.  The night is far gone; the day is near.  So, then, let us put away the works of darkness, and let us clothe ourselves with the weapons of light.  Let us walk in loveliness of life, as those who walk in the day, and let us not walk in revelry or drunkenness, in immorality and in shamelessness, in contention and in strife.  But put on the Lord Jesus Christ as a man puts on a garment, and stop living a life in which your first thought is to gratify the desires of Christless human nature.

Like so many great men, Paul was haunted by the shortness of time.  Andrew Marvell could always hear “time’s winged chariot hurrying near.”  Keats was haunted by fears that he might cease to be before his pen had gleaned his teeming brain.  Robert Louis Stevenson wrote:

“The morning drum-call on my eager ear Thrills unforgotten yet; the morning dew Lies yet undried along my fields of noon. But now I pause at whiles in what I do And count the bell, and tremble lest I hear (My work untrimmed) the sunset gun too soon.”  

But there was more in Paul’s thought than simply the shortness of time.  He expected the Second Coming of Christ.  The Early Church expected it at any moment, and therefore it had the urgency to be ready.  That expectancy has grown dim and faint; but one permanent fact remains — no man knows when God will rise and bid him go.  The time grows ever shorter, for we are every day one day nearer that time.  We, too, must have all things ready.

The last verses of this passage must be forever famous, for it was through them Augustine found conversion.  He tells the story in his Confessions.  He was walking in the garden.  His heart was in distress, because of his failure to live the good life.  He kept exclaiming miserably, “How long? How long? Tomorrow and tomorrow — why not now?  Why not this hour an end to my depravity?”  Suddenly he heard a voice saying, “Take and read; take and read.”  It sounded like a child’s voice; and he racked his mind to try to remember any child’s game in which these words occurred, but could think of none.  He hurried back to the seat where his friend Alypius was sitting, for he had left there a volume of Paul’s writings.  “I snatched it up and read silently the first passage my eyes fell upon:   `Let us not walk in revelry or drunkenness, in immorality and in shamelessness, in contention and in strife.  But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, as a man puts on a garment, and stop living a life in which your first thought is to gratify the desires of Christless human nature.’  I neither wished nor needed to read further. With the end of that sentence, as though the light of assurance had poured into my heart, all the shades of doubt were scattered.  I put my finger in the page and closed the book: I turned to Alypius with a calm countenance and told him.” (C. H. Dodd’s translation.)    Out of his word God had spoken to Augustine.  It was Coleridge who said that he believed the Bible to be inspired because, as he puts it, “It finds me.”  God’s word can always find the human heart.

It is interesting to look at the six sins which Paul selects as being, as it were, typical of the Christless life.

(i) There is revelry (komos).  This is an interesting word.  Originally komos was the band of friends who accompanied a victor home from the games, singing his praises and celebrating his triumph as they went.  Later it came to mean a noisy band of revellers who swept their way through the city streets at night, a band of roysterers, what, in Regency England, would have been called a rout.  It describes the kind of revelry which lowers a man’s self and is a nuisance to others.

(ii) There is drunkenness (methe).  To the Greeks drunkenness was a particularly disgraceful thing.  They were a wine-drinking people.  Even children drank wine.  Breakfast was called akratisma, and consisted of a slice of bread dipped in wine.  For all that, drunkenness was considered specially shameful, for the wine the Greek drank was much diluted, and was drunk because the water supply was inadequate and dangerous.  This was a vice which not only a Christian but any respectable heathen also would have condemned.

(iii) There was immorality (koite).  Koite literally means a bed and has in it the meaning of the desire for the forbidden bed.  This was the typical heathen sin.  The word brings to mind the man who sets no value on fidelity and who takes his pleasure when and where he will.

(iv) There is shamelessness (aselgeia).  Aselgeia is one of the ugliest words in the Greek language.  It does not describe only immorality; it describes the man who is lost to shame.  Most people seek to conceal their evil deeds, but the man in whose heart there is aselgeia is long past that.  He does not care who sees him;  he does not care how much of a public exhibition he makes of himself;  he does not care what people think of him.  Aselgeia is the quality of the man who dares publicly to do the things which are unbecoming for any man to do.

(v) There is contention (eris).  Eris is the spirit that is born of unbridled and unholy  competition.  It comes from the desire for place and power and prestige and the hatred of being surpassed.  It is essentially the sin which places self in the foreground and is the entire negation of Christian love.

(vi) There is envy (zelos).  Zelos need not be a bad word.  It can describe the noble emulation of a man who, when confronted with greatness of character, wishes to attain to it.  But it can also mean that envy which grudges a man his nobility and his preeminence.  It describes here the spirit which cannot be content with what it has and looks with jealous eye on every blessing given to someone else and denied to itself.

• • • Food for thought:  If jealousy is a selfish desire to have what someone else has, then envy is like a desire for someone to not have what you want to have.