5. Love And Duty (13:8–10)
5. Love And Duty (13:8–10)
Pay all their dues; let your only outstanding debt be the debt of love, for that debt can never be discharged in full. The quotation of Leviticus 19:18, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’, as a summary of God’s requirements, places Paul right within the tradition of Jesus, who set these words as the second great commandment alongside ‘You shall love the LORD your God …’ (Deut. 6:5), ‘the great and first commandment’, adding ‘On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets’ (Matt. 22:37–40; cf. Mark 12:28–34). Paul mentions the second here and not the first, because the immediate question concerns a Christian’s duty to his neighbour—the subject-matter of the commandments in the second table of the Decalogue. These commandments forbid the harming of a neighbour in any way; since love never harms another, love fulfils the law.
8. He who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the law. ‘His neighbour’ is literally ‘the other’. It is just possible to translate ‘he who loves has fulfilled the other law’—i.e. the ‘second’ commandment of Mark 12:31 or else ‘the law of Christ’ (cf. Gal. 6:2) over and above the law of the state to which obedience has been enjoined in verses 1–7. But the translation in the text is far preferable.
9. ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet.’ The seventh, sixth, eighth and tenth commandments of the Decalogue (Exod. 20:13–17; Deut. 5:17–21), selected apparently in random order. Cf. Mark 10:19.
‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ The ‘second’ great commandment, as Jesus called it (Matt. 22:39; Mark 12:31); in James 2:8 it is designated ‘the royal law’ (‘the sovereign law laid down in scripture’, NEB). Cf. Galatians 5:14, ‘For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” ’
10. Love is the fulfilling of the law. ‘Fulfilling’ renders plērōma, a word with a wide range of meaning (translated ‘full inclusion’ in 11:12, ‘full number’ in 11:25, ‘fulness’ in 15:29). Cf. Augustine, quoted in comment on 6:15 (pp. 145f.).