“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

Faith and love are intimately connected in the Christian’s life. To have faith in God is to love God; to love God is to have faith in God. How could one have faith in God and not also love God and what God loves? There’s really no argument about the deep and abiding correlation between the two. However, in this intimate connection a confusion occurs between the two, making them synonyms, one able to replace the other. If this is so then one can love God first prior to faith, making faith a product of love. While this seems a rather logical and benign claim, it ignores human history with God and what all of scripture tells us.

The truth of it is this: we don’t inherently love God, at least not the God who self-discloses as God. We do love the god we make up in our heads and hearts, the one we wallpaper on to God. But do we, apart from faith, really love God for the sake of God? No. We don’t. God in God’s own self is too full of awe, God’s love for us is beyond comprehension, God’s actions and mission collide with and contradict much of what we consider reasonable. Jesus, God’s own son, God of very God, the Word of God incarnate, was rejected by his own people because of these characteristics of divine love flowing in and through him to the people. We like to think we’d be different; I promise you, we wouldn’t be.

However, there’s good news here, and Romans highlights it for us: love is born from faith; to love is faith manifesting itself. And, according to Romans, faith is a gift that is given to us by God in the hearing (however one “hears”) the proclamation of Christ crucified and raised so that we may be justified and made righteous by faith and sealed by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is this basis that Paul works from in the last 1/3 of the letter when he shifts to exhortations of right and good Christian praxis in the world.[ii] It is faith established first that affords Paul the space and foundation to exhort the Romans to love with their whole mind, heart, strength, and soul. It is faith, for Paul, that informs and causes loving deeds that are truly about the beloved and not about the one who does the deeds; it is this faith inspiring love that fulfills the law.

Romans 13:8-14

Halfway through Chapter 13, Paul exhorts the Roman Christians,

Owe nothing to no one, except to love one another. For the one who loves has made full the other law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not kill,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love works not evil for the neighbor; therefore, love is the fullness of the law (vv8-10).

Paul has already anchored the Roman Christians in their justification with God by their faith in Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit apart from any work, thus fulfilling the entire first tablet of the Big Ten. Now, he turns to the second tablet, the ethical portion, the commands concerning neighbor. First, the Roman Christians were to avoid being in debt to anyone: temporally and spiritually. They were to pay off what was owed to anyone and avoid participating in the obligations of patronage where one’s existence was dependent on another’s wealth and power, potentially bringing the Roman Christian into conflict with their new community of the body of Christ.[iii] According to Paul, the only thing that the Roman Christian should have as debt is the debt of love and corresponding loving deeds toward and for the neighbor.[iv]

For the Roman Christians, to have faith and, consequently, declare that God is trustworthy and truthful means that those whom God loves the Christian loves, too. One cannot declare God truthful and trustworthy, receive divine grace and mercy, and then deprive those things to the objects of God’s love, the neighbor, “your” neighbor. This is so because faith in God produces love of God, to love God means to love that which and those whom God loves; therefore, if the logic is logicing, then to love God is to love the neighbor and to love the neighbor is to love God.[v] This is why Paul can exhort the Roman Christian to be in debt to others in love, because love born of faith is always looking to serve the beloved. This is also why Paul can boldly declare that love both does not do evil and—all by itself—is the fulfilling of the law, it is how the law is made full (not just once but everyday).[vi]

Why?

Because who, in their right mind, would do anything (intentionally) to harm the one whom they loved? Would one betray one they loved? Would one take the life breath of the one they loved? Would one deprive the one they loved of material goods necessary to live? Would one reduce the one they loved to their possessions? Would one do anything directly or indirectly evil to the one whom they loved? While accidents happen in the life of the Christian and these accidents can impact the ones the Christian loves, what is being addressed here is the intention and impact of the Christian’s actions toward the neighbor, toward the other who is also the apple of God’s eye. Therefore, love cannot intentionally do evil to the neighbor, and, more than the absence of doing evil it proactively provides for the well-being of the neighbor.[vii] (Because there is evil in not acting when and where one can.)

This is why Paul then beseeches the Roman Christians to wake up and lay aside works of darkness and put on the armor of the light. He writes,

Also this, having considered the season, that [it is] already the hour for you to wake up out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we [first] believed. The night is almost gone, but the day has come near. Therefore, let us throw off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of the light. Let us walk decently as in days, not in wasteful celebration and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy. Rather, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the coveting of the flesh (vv11-14).

Both knowing and being made aware of the impact of their actions toward the neighbor should (and must!) awaken the Roman Christian into the light of exposure and cause them to change their ways, to repent, to turn, and to press more into their faith[viii] that justifies, eager to be molded into those who are like and represent Christ in word and deed, to the glory of God. Paul is eager for Christians to WAKE UP,[ix] act (at all times[x]) as if they are in the light[xi] seen by all,[xii] and to see how important it is, in their present moment, to act according to the reign of God and resist the impulses of the kingdom of humanity privileging status and power at the expense of the livelihood of the neighbor.[xiii] For when the neighbor is thought of and considered, is prioritized, when their needs are met (in whatever form those needs manifest) then surely God is and will be praised and everything comes full circle: loving deeds born of faith return and nourish the very faith from which they come as the one who believes witnesses and participates in the mission of God going forward to bless the people of the earth, the continued fulfillment of the promise given to Israel through Abraham and Sarah. For Paul, the love born from faith curtails selfish desires[xiv] that thrust the Christian further into indebtedness and/to darkness and prioritizes another’s life, love, and liberation.[xv] It is through faith manifesting as loving deeds for the well-being of the neighbor to the glory of God that the Christian’s allegiance to God and God’s reign is displayed, an allegiance that cannot be shared with the kingdom of humanity.[xvi]

Conclusion

When Paul exhorts the Roman Christians toward love, it is not an exhortation to be nice or kind. It is not about offering a smile or being polite, as great as those things are for human well-being. It is not even an exhortation to the absence of doing harm (even though that is clearly pictured). What Paul is exhorting the Roman Christians toward is a love that actively seeks and brings to fruition the well-being of the neighbor, a love born of faith that brings the very good to those who have not the very good. And by the “very good” I don’t strictly mean the proclamation of Christ (although this is a very good thing). I mean to reach back further to a time when God created everything and called it very good (Gen 1), I mean to bring (in deed) the goodness of the mission of God that results in the robust provision for the neighbor. Thus, to love, according to Paul, is not easy. It’s hard; this is why he speaks of putting on the armor of the light.[xvii] To love the way God loves will square us off and bring us face to face with the anger and resentment of the kingdom of humanity that thrives off death, indifference, and captivity, the kingdom that hates the light preferring the darkness instead (Jn 1). We need the armor of the light as we participate in the divine mission of God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation in the world for the well-being of the neighbor to the glory of God.[xviii] We need faith by which love and all else is added to us.

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[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Sarah Heaner Lancaster, Romans, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 224. “From the concern about one’s obligations to external authorities, Paul moves to a discussion about obligations within the community of followers.”

[iii] Lancaster, Romans, 224. “To tell the followers of Rome not to owe anything may have partly meant to make sure they paid what was due (financially and socially), but it may also have discouraged participation in patronage that would saddle them with obligations outside the community of followers.”

[iv] Lancaster, Romans, 224. “Instead of taking on obligations outside the community, the one obligation to which they should commit themselves is to love one another (13:8).”

[v] Lancaster, Romans, 225. “It may also be said that one of the ways we honor God is by treating well the ones that God has created, so the two commandments that Jesus named are not unrelated, and Paul understood that.”

[vi] Lancaster, Romans, 224. “We are under obligation to others, and we do need to obey the law, but the obligation and obedience are both carried out by loving one another. This is what God’s authority requires of us and how we are subject to it.”

[vii] Lancaster, Romans, 226. “Many have seen, then, that the kind of love that fulfills the law is not simply a sentimental emotion, nor is it even simply not doing harm; a proper understanding of this commandment calls us to active caring toward those around us.”

[viii] LW 25:480 “Therefore the works of darkness are the works of those who are asleep in the spirit, in the bad sense, that is, those who are snoring away in the desires of the world—not only those works which are popularly thought to be evil but also those which are considered good, and yet are evil because of the inner evil, for men do them without the watchfulness of faith.”

[ix] Lancaster, Romans, 227. Acts of darkness, things done at night, “For people in Rome, excessive behavior at evening feasts was common practice, and excessive behavior often leads to quarrels and strife. Such behavior was common in the order of the empire as it is in other times, and places, but this order is passing away.”

[x] Lancaster, Romans, 228. “Knowing the time, then, does not mean having in mind a date of a future occurrence but rather becoming aware of how our history is relativized by the eternal God. In every. Moment, we must be mindful of the Day.”

[xi] Lancaster, Romans, 227. “The passing of the old order means that we no longer have the cover of darkness and secrecy, so we should live at all times with the honor and integrity that can bear the scrutiny of day.”

[xii] Lancaster, Romans, 227. “Even in the twilight, they must live as if they day were fully light.”

[xiii] Lancaster, Romans, 226. “Paul is telling the followers of Jesus in Rome that the time in which they are living is a critical time, so they should be alert.”

[xiv] LW 25:111fn11 “But it does more good to the one loved, because this is the nature of love, that it favors in a good way and does good, even if it suffers evil and is hated.”

[xv] Lancaster, Romans, 228. “Paul’s point is not about hurtful self-denial. Rather, they say it is about excess and letting the desires rules us so that our aim in life is to gratify them. The desires of the former way of life—and they include mor than physical desires (for instance, desiring honor)—should not rule us. This Lord overturns the expectations and gratifications of the old order.”

[xvi] Lancaster, Romans, 229. “The constancy of this demand requires us to ask in every moment where our allegiance lies, and whether or not we are displaying our allegiance to Jesus Christ in our thoughts and actions.”

[xvii] Lancaster, Romans, 227. “The idea that what one needs to wear for the coming day is weaponry suggests that the dawning of a new day with a new order will bring struggle.”

[xviii] LW 25:112fn14 “He creates a remarkable antithesis whereby the places ‘light’ and ‘darkness,’ ‘works’ and ‘armor’ in juxtaposition. And this is surely true, because the life of the new law is a battle and a war, and therefore we need armor.”