Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, [namely] “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law..
Paul has just spoken about the obligations Christians owe to others, including legitimate civil obligations. He now identifies one obligation that can never finally be discharged: the obligation to love. We may satisfy a financial debt and no longer owe it, but the Christian can never say that he has loved enough and therefore owes no further love to another person.
When Paul says that the one who loves another has “fulfilled the law,” he does not mean that love replaces the commandments or makes them unnecessary. He immediately names commandments from the Decalogue: do not commit adultery, kill, steal, or covet. These commandments protect the good of other people. Genuine love therefore leads us to obey them because love does not deliberately harm the person whom God commands us to love.
Paul gathers these commandments into the words of Leviticus, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). Here, “as yourself” does not mean that a person must first feel good about himself or possess a strong sense of self-esteem before he can love others. Rather, it assumes the natural concern we ordinarily have for our own good—food, safety, relief from suffering, friendship—and makes that concern the measure of how we should treat our neighbor. Just as we seek what is good for ourselves and avoid what harms us, we are to seek the true good of others. Jesus likewise joined love of neighbor to love of God and taught that the whole law depends upon these two commandments (Matthew 22:36–40). Our “neighbor” is not limited to someone we know, like, or agree with. Jesus extends that love even to enemies (Matthew 5:44) and shows in the parable of the Good Samaritan that anyone in need may become our neighbor (Luke 10:25–37).
Christian love is therefore more than affection or good intentions. It is self-giving love that seeks the true good of another person. This is why love and obedience to God cannot be separated. Love does not weaken God’s commandments; it reveals what they are intended to accomplish: to protect what is truly good, to restrain what harms others, and to form us to live in right relationship with God and with our neighbor. As Paul concludes, “love is the fulfillment of the law” because a person who truly loves will not choose evil against his neighbor.
Yet Christians do not produce this kind of love by human determination alone. Paul has already taught that “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5). God promised that he would place his Spirit within his people and enable them to live according to his ways (Ezekiel 36:27). The fulfillment of the law therefore reaches deeper than outward conformity. God changes the heart so that we can increasingly desire and choose what is good.
Paul’s final sentence gives us a practical measure of love: “Love does no evil to the neighbor.” Love asks not merely, “What am I permitted to do?” but, “Am I seeking the true good of this person?” The commandments give that love concrete form, while the Holy Spirit gives us the grace to live it. In this way, love becomes not an escape from God’s law, but its fulfillment.
Lord, pour Your love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Teach us to seek the true good of every person we encounter and to show our love for You by faithfully loving our neighbor. Amen.
_________________________
Sources and References
- The New American Bible, Revised Edition. Washington, DC: Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 2011. Notes on Romans 13:8–10.
- Hahn, Scott, and Curtis Mitch. The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010. 277.
- Casciaro, Jose Maria, gen. ed. The Navarre Bible: New Testament, Expanded Edition. Dublin: Four Courts Press; New York: Scepter Publishers, 2008. 598–599.
- Brown, Raymond E., Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy, eds. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990. 864, para. 120.
- Aguilar Chiu, Jose Enrique, et al., eds. The Paulist Biblical Commentary. New York: Paulist Press, 2018. 1279–1280.
- Collins, John J., Gina Hens-Piazza, Barbara Reid, OP, and Donald Senior, CP, eds. The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century. 3rd fully rev. ed. London: T&T Clark, 2022. 1578.
Comments