Romans 13

Romans — Steve Gregg

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Romans 13

RomansSteve Gregg

In this discussion, Steve Gregg analyzes the teachings of Romans 13 and their significance for Christians in relation to governing authorities, debts, and spiritual warfare. He emphasizes that governments have limited authority and are appointed by God to ensure justice in society. He also urges Christians to love one another and live with vigilance and sobriety. Lastly, he offers guidance on how to live peaceably with people who hold different beliefs regarding matters of conscience.

Transcript

Chapter 13 of Romans continues to be practical instruction about Christian living and very practical about real-life situations. This real-life situation that is at the beginning of chapter 13 deals with the government and the Christian's attitude and response and relationship to the government. Now, he's talked about our relationship with our brethren and fellow members of the body of Christ in chapter 12.

And at the end of chapter 12, he's talked about our relationship with our enemies. But there's a very distinctive relationship that all human beings have, and that is with their rulers. And like it or not, we all live in political systems, political entities called countries or nations, each having some kind of a political body of leadership with varying degrees of authority.

In biblical times, of course, kings ruled most lands. And in the case of the Roman Empire, there were kings of individual lands who were subject to a larger ruler, Caesar. At this particular time, Caesar was Nero.

When Paul was writing, Nero was the Caesar and the highest political authority to which all Romans answered, including those who were Christians. Now, you may have heard some things about Caesar, Nero. He was not a good man, like he murdered his own mother and his own son.

That's not really the behavior of good men. He was a debauched guy. He had little boys that he had sex with.

Now, we don't have any politicians who are openly doing those things, and we think we have it bad with our politicians. This was a wicked man, and he couldn't be voted out. And he was a tyrant.

He was such a tyrant that he actually set the whole city of Rome on fire and then blamed the Christians for doing it so he could torture and kill them with impunity. So this is the guy who is the ruler at the time Paul is writing. So what's the Christian attitude toward government officials like this, or in general? Well, let's see.

Romans 13.1. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God. Those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.

For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister, servant to you for good.

But if you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. For he is God's servant, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore, you must be subject, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience' sake.

For because of this, you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render, therefore, to all their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, and honor to whom honor. There is a similar section to this in 1 Peter 2. It's shorter.

1 Peter is an epistle which echoes many things from Paul's epistles. We know that Peter was familiar with Paul's epistles, because in 2 Peter 3 he recommends Paul's epistles. He talks about how Paul in all his epistles says the same things that Peter says.

That's how he's talking at the end of 2 Peter 3. So Peter was an admirer of Paul and of his epistles, and we can see that in Peter's own epistles, because most of what's in 1 Peter is also in Ephesians. And some things that are not in Ephesians are found in other of Paul's epistles and repeated by Peter. There's not much in Peter's epistles that doesn't at least correspond closely with things that Paul said, and sometimes in the same order, telling husbands and wives how to behave, children and so forth, servants.

I mean, the instructions Peter gives are very close to those, identical really, to those that Paul gives in certain places. And in 1 Peter 2, he apparently is influenced by this passage in Romans 13, because 1 Peter 2.13, Peter says, therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme or to governors as those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. Now both Paul and Peter tell us that there is a divine ordination of political rulers, and both of them are writing when the highest political ruler was a very wicked man, in fact, probably a man that the book of Revelation referred to as a beast, as the embodiment of Satan.

And yet, in some sense, the rulers are agents of God. Now realize that there's a sense which Judas was an agent of God, unknowingly. He wasn't seeking to serve God, but God exploited him to serve his purposes.

Joseph's brothers weren't thinking of serving God when they sold Joseph into service, but God used them. They were servants of God unwittingly. So also many rulers apparently are servants of God unwittingly.

God works through rulers. God raises up rulers and brings down rulers, the Bible says in Daniel. In Proverbs 21.1, it says the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water.

He directs it wherever he wants to. God does. The heart of the king.

God directs rulers. God replaces rulers. God raises and brings them down.

God is not uninvolved in the political system. And because God is involved and God is sovereign, there is a certain respect for the authority of rulers that is due. However, this can be overdone because there are nuances to what Paul says here.

In verse 1 of chapter 13, he says, let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there's no authority except from God. And the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Now he says later on, they're appointed to punish wickedness.

In Peter, he says they're appointed to praise good deeds and punish evil deeds. In other words, God has appointed political rulers with a particular assignment to uphold righteousness, to uphold justice. When people wrong other people, government should punish them.

When people are doing good, government should reward them and praise them and commend them. In other words, ideal behavior of government officials is to practice and enforce justice in the society. In verse 4, he says the government official near the end of the verse says, he's God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.

Well, in the previous chapter, which Paul didn't know was a previous chapter because the chapters weren't divided yet, Paul had told Christians, don't avenge yourself, leave that to God. And now we're told the government official is God's servant to avenge. In other words, if somebody does wrong to you, you don't avenge them.

But if the police come and arrest them and the government puts them in jail, that's good. That's God avenging. The police are God's agents serving the purposes of justice.

Now, one of the problems of course that always comes up when people read this is, yeah, that's kind of idealistic though, isn't it? I mean, how often do governments really limit their behavior to praising good behavior and punishing bad behavior? Don't they somewhat overreach a great deal? For example, telling people how to raise their kids, making them, send them to, you know, government schools, telling people what health care they must have and things like that. What does that have to do with criminal justice? God has ordained the government to avenge criminal behavior and punish the evil doers. That's what they serve God to do.

That's what they're appointed for. Now, the fact that governments do more than they're appointed to raises questions. What if they go beyond their appointment? Well, think about this.

Authority, he says there is no authority except from God in verse 1. What that means is except for the authority that God has given, they don't have any. I have some authority over my own home. When my children were young and in my home, I had authority over my children.

I could tell them when to go to bed. I could tell them when to brush their teeth. I could tell them what they had to eat for dinner.

I had authority over my children. I was their father. Now, the neighbor kids, I had no authority over them.

Why? God who gave me authority over my children limited my sphere. My children were within my sphere. My neighbor's children not.

And what that means is if I told my children what to do, that was God's command to them because God ordained me as an authority over them. And therefore, to disobey me is to disobey God. On the other hand, if I told my neighbor's kids what to do on their own property in their own home, they didn't have to obey me.

They're not in my sphere. They're outside my sphere. I'm just another guy.

I have no particular authority. There is no authority except what God gives. Now, what authority has God ordained to the sphere of government? To punish criminal behavior and to encourage good behavior.

That's what God ordained the government to do. When the government does that, they're acting as God's faithful servant, doing what they're appointed to do. And to resist such authority is to resist God himself.

But what if the government goes beyond and does what God did not appoint them to do? Well, they have no authority. There's no authority except what God gives. And God didn't give them authority to that.

God authorized the government to do certain things, but not everything. No one has absolute authority except Jesus, who said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Jesus has absolute authority.

Everyone else who has any authority only has as much as God has given them. Remember, Jesus said to Pilate, you would have no authority over me if it wasn't given to you from above. There is a God-ordained authority that God has given to rulers.

That doesn't mean that everything they do lies within the sphere of their authority. And outside the sphere of their authority, a ruler is just another guy. If a ruler tells me to do something that he has no authority to tell me to do, he's just another human being telling me what he thinks I ought to do.

I don't have to listen to him. He doesn't have authority to do that. If the police come to my door and say, we're coming in to search your house, I'll say, do you have a warrant? If they say no, well, then they have no authority to come in.

If they get a warrant, they do. That's the law. So if I say, if they come with a warrant, then I have to let them in.

They're authorized. That's legal. If they don't have a warrant, I say, sorry, you're just another person trying to get into my house right now.

You're not an authority. You're not authorized. You see, a government authority doesn't have innate authority just to do whatever he wants to do.

He doesn't have the right under God to simply annex realms of control for himself that don't lie within the area of criminal justice. And therefore, for the government to tell you how you have to educate your children or how you have to do your health care or any of those things that aren't related to punishing evil doers, government really has no authority to do that. When I was educating my children at home, the law in Oregon where I lived required that you register with the state and tell them what you're teaching your kids and follow a certain plan of what every kid is supposed to learn in first grade, second grade, third grade, and so forth.

And we just kind of ignored that. That's not within the realm of government. God didn't authorize the government to tell me how to raise my kids or what to teach them.

That's between me and God. God gave me authority over my kids. He didn't give the government authority over my kids.

Unless they're committing criminal acts, then they fall within the sphere of the government's authority. Other than that, the government's just another intruder into my business. And that's what Paul says.

Apart from the authority that God gives, there is no authority. You go to the government authorities, they have authority to do what God authorized them to do, not anything more. If they are active in their sphere of authority, you cannot resist them without at the same time resisting God, because he authorized them to do that.

But when they're outside their sphere of authority, they are just another person on the street. They might wear a uniform. They might go to an office that says President of the United States on the door, but they're just a human being.

Now, of course, in our country, things are really strange, because we don't really have rulers. Our constitution is set up in such a way that we are the rulers. The elected officials are the servants of the public.

They are public servants, they're called. This is a government by the people, for the people, and of the people, and anyone who holds office is put there by our decision to serve our interests. That's just the way the government was set up here.

Now, in Paul's day, it wasn't that way. You were born into a place, and you just had the rulers that were there, and you didn't have an awful lot to say about it. You just had to recognize that God put them there, and has given them the right to punish criminals, so you accept that.

In our country, it's a little bit different, because the authority is given to the people. That's the way the constitution has set things up. That's the way the charter of this nation is.

Therefore, there's even less real authority that the elected officials have, except the authority that the people have given them. That would really mean the authority that the constitution gives them. I don't want to get into political talk, but since we talk about authorities and submission stuff, we live in a country, most of us, where these issues are raised.

Are we supposed to do everything the government says? Well, our civil servants, our politicians who are elected to office, they are given some authority by us, and by the constitution. But one thing is made very clear in the constitution, it's specifically stated, any powers that are not given to the president and the politicians here in this document are not theirs. So that the political authorities don't have any authority, except what the constitution says.

That's the way the governing power has declared it. Our president, our congressman, they are under that authority. They're not kings.

We're not under them, although they have a realm where they can make decisions about some laws and so forth, and decide which laws should be prosecuted if they really have to do with evil and good. But the point I'm making is the application of Romans 13 has been very confusing to people, because some say, you're just supposed to obey the government. Well, wait a minute.

Why? Because God authorized them. Well, to do what? What he hasn't authorized them to do, they aren't authorized to do. Only what God authorized, they have the right to do.

And so Paul says, there's no authority except what God gives. And that's always limited to a particular sphere. And Paul is not silent about what that sphere is, nor is Peter.

They both say that the government is God's appointed minister to avenge evil deeds, that is, criminal deeds, and obviously to protect the public, to create a secure society for innocent people, to praise and encourage good behavior. And all governments do that somewhat. Every government has laws, and some of those laws protect people, and all governments do, in some measure, protect the citizens.

In that sense, they are, in fact, doing what God told them to do. And as citizens, we should recognize this is God's gift to society, that there's somebody out there who can take down the crooks. Unfortunately, sometimes the crooks are the ones in government, and then it's, of course, a turning of things on their head.

And therefore, although Paul and the Christians recognize that Nero was God's appointed minister to do good, they recognize that sometimes he did bad, and they wouldn't do. They would never say Caesar is Lord, no matter how much Nero told them to say it, because that's a bad thing. God doesn't authorize the government to make you do bad things, but to enforce good behavior and punish bad behavior.

So sometimes the government gets on its head. Sometimes the ones who are practicing bad behavior, instead of being punished by the government, they become the government. That's just how history has worked out sometimes.

Now, the important thing to note at the end of verse 1, he says, the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Sometimes people take that to mean, therefore, whatever they say, it's God. You obey God by doing whatever the government says.

No. If they are appointed by God, that's not saying they have absolute authority. It means they don't.

God above them appointed them. They have one above them who has made the appointment of them. They may feel they've risen through the ranks through hereditary dynasties or through elections or whatever, but they don't exist except as subservient to God's purposes.

He appointed them. That means they're below him. That's Paul's argument.

The authorities don't have any authority except what God gives them. They are subject to him. He's the one who appointed them and a person's always subject to the one who appointed him.

So the government is subject to God. We are subject to the government within the realm of authority that God has given it, but the governments themselves have to answer to God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority, and this would be the rightful exercise of authority by politicians in verse 2, resist the ordinance of God.

Those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. Now, this judgment could be, of course, the criminal penalties that the courts will bring upon them if they break the laws of the government, or it could be God's judgment. He actually suggests both things are a factor.

In verse 5, he says, therefore, you must be subject not only because of wrath, but also for conscience sake. In other words, not only because the government will be angry and put you in jail, but because your conscience before God recognizes there's an obligation here that you should do. Your submission to the government is partly due to the fact that you know if you don't obey, there's criminal penalties that could come upon you, but also because you know God has an interest in the proper exercise of justice by these authorities, and if they're doing it and you're resisting it, then your conscience should bother you.

Even if you don't get thrown in jail, even if you get away with it, so to speak, and you don't get caught, your conscience should bother you because you resisted God's appointed minister and his laws. He says, for rulers are not a terror to good works. Well, sometimes they are.

Obviously, Paul's talking about the ideal situation. Genuine rulers who are doing what God ordained them to do will not terrorize good people. Now, in a society where good people do have to be terrorized, are terrorized, and have to hide, where the church has to be underground for fear of being arrested for Christians, those aren't good rulers.

Those are not the rulers Paul has in mind. These rulers are not doing what God ordained them to do, and as such, they're not really in authority. They may have seized a human position of recognized authority, but God doesn't recognize their authority if they're not operating within the sphere that he gave them.

Outside the sphere, they have no authority. He says, for rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you'll have praise from the same.

Yeah, in the ideal case of a real authority that God has ordained and is taking their role conscientiously. For he is God's servant to you for good. It's good for us that there are policemen.

Why? Because there are criminals, and if there were criminals and no policemen, then the whole society is simply the survival of the fittest. The guy who wants to rob my house may succeed if he's bigger than me. If I'm bigger than him, I might be able to stop him.

Whoever's the fastest on the draw, the best with the gun, you know, whoever has the element of surprise is going to win, and that's all bets are off. In any unforeseen criminal attack, who's going to have the advantage? And if the crooks are two or three of them and there's only one of me, then there's no hope or very little. If it's just every man against every man and no one above them to maintain justice, then the most aggressive, the most strong, and often the most wicked will be the ones who take advantage of the good, and the Christians are the good.

And so God has ordained authorities to punish criminals. They're a servant to you. They're public servants.

They're the servants of God to you for good, but if you do evil, then you should be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. That is to say, God has allowed the government to actually have weapons so that it's not just a matter of the toughest guy wins between the law enforcement official and the crook. Ideally, the law enforcement people are armed well, and the crooks preferably not so well.

In any case, God has put a weapon in the hand of the authorities because sometimes he's up against a violent criminal, and it's not for nothing, for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore, you must be subject not only because of wrath, but also for conscience's sake. And what's clear, all this command to be subject, and to obey, and to fear, and to do right, and submit, all of this is presupposing what he said at first.

We're talking about legitimate authority here. We're talking about governments acting within their God-ordained sphere. You must submit.

If you don't, you may have trouble with the law, probably will. Even if you don't, your conscience should bother you before God because God will not think you innocent for being a violator of the government's rightful laws and authority. For because of this, you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers or servants attending continually to this very thing.

In other words, they're in the full-time ministry, serving God, keeping you safe. While they attend to this continually, that means they can't hold another job. They're full-time in this ministry.

And just as you support missionaries and others who are in full-time ministry with your gifts and so forth, so you support those who are in this full-time ministry with your tax money. That's how their pay comes to them through the tax system. So you're benefiting from them.

Traffic patterns are survivable because there are police on the road. If the announcement got out there's no more police, we're not going to patrol the highways anymore. You would never be safe on the roads.

It's hardly safe now as it is, but that's because many people feel, I probably won't see a policeman, so I may be able to get away doing this reckless driving. But if they knew there would be no accounting, there'd be a lot more reckless driving, a lot more wrecks. You're safer because there's authorities out there.

They're serving you. They're ministering to your needs, your physical, social, political freedoms and security and so forth. So that being so, of course, you should make sure that they get their pay so they don't have to quit their job and do something else.

They're doing this all the time. Render therefore to all their due. Now this word render is the same word that Jesus used when he said, render to Caesar.

What is Caesar's and to God, what is God's. And it's not just a word for pay or give, it means to return. Return to Caesar what is his.

It suggests that you have something of his that you need to give back to him. And when Jesus said this, remember they said, should we pay tribute to Caesar? Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar? Jesus said, well show me a coin. And they gave him a coin.

He said, well whose face is this on the coin? They said, Caesar's. Well give it back to him then. It's his face.

It must be his. Give it back to him. Give back to Caesar what's his.

This face looks like his. Give it to him. But give God what has his face on it.

Man is made in God's image. The image of Caesar was on the coin, but the image of God is on you. Make sure God gets you.

Caesar can have the coin back. Give it to him. Don't covet his money.

If it's his, give it back to him. But make sure you don't deprive God of what is his, which is you. You belong to him.

His face is inscribed on you. You're made in his image. So Paul borrows, I'm sure from Jesus deliberately, this word render, because it's not the most, you know, predictable word for pay your taxes.

It's more like give back to Caesar what's his. And no doubt intending to parrot what Jesus said on this very subject. He said, render or give back, therefore, to all their due.

Taxes to whom taxes are due. Customs to whom customs. Fear to whom fear.

Honor to whom honor. There is honor owed to those who do their ministries well. A policeman who really doesn't take bribes, who isn't corrupt.

He avoids corruption. He really does arrest bad people. A judge who sentences bad people justly, who lets innocent people free, vindicates them, does justice.

I'm not sure if I'm describing anyone who's really in existence, but, you know, a judge who would do that hypothetically, a policeman who would do those things. That person is in the ministry. They may not know it.

They may not know God, but God has ordained them. He's appointed them. They're serving God.

And you should make sure that you honor them, give them the honor that's due for doing a job well done, for doing what they should do instead of some of the bad things they could do. After all, they do carry guns and most people don't. If they're not shooting people who are innocent, well, that's, they're showing some restraint, at least, you know, they are trying to do the right thing.

And honor that if they're honorable. We should honor honorable rulers and governors and law enforcement officers. And also, of course, church officers.

Remember Paul said in 1 Timothy 5, he says, honor, or he said the elders who rule well should be esteemed worthy of double honor. People who are in leadership should not be resisted as if you resent them being in leadership. There's value.

There's safety and security that God intends by putting leadership into a society, secular and Christian. Sheep are secure if there's a shepherd, a good shepherd. And they're considerably less secure if there's no shepherd.

It's just all the sheep and no shepherds going on. The sheep are definitely much more in peril. Leadership, whether in the Christian community or in the secular community, is something that God provides because he cares for the safety and well-being of the sheep and support of those ministers.

And honor to them is called for. So, this is Paul's attitude about the government. Now, Paul had not yet had this experience when he wrote this, but he did shortly after this.

Once, when he went into Jerusalem, the Jews, seeing him in the temple, decided to cause a riot and try to pull him to pieces. His life was definitely in peril. Now, Paul had written, don't avenge yourself.

Give place to wrath. Let God do that. And so, of course, Paul didn't fight back.

But who did? The Roman officials heard there was a commotion. They came down to keep the peace. They rescued Paul from them.

They are God's minister, an avenger of wrath on those who do evil. We don't avenge ourselves. God does.

But he sometimes does it through the government officials. Paul was brought to safety by the political and police system. Later, when he was in danger of being released to his would-be murderers, he appealed to Caesar for protection.

And he had legal protection. He could go to Rome under government escort and stand under Caesar's protection until he could stand trial before Caesar. This kept the Jews who were trying to assault him and kill him.

It took him from them. He was protected by government authority. So, on occasion, Paul himself experienced the ministry of the Roman government for his protection.

And even once, I believe, even the good graces of Nero helped him. As I understand it, Paul on his first trial before Nero was acquitted. The Jews had arrested him, but Nero released him.

We don't have direct references except in 2 Timothy where Paul says, in my first trial, meaning before Nero, I was released, he says. God stood with me. I was delivered from the lion's mouth, he said.

But then he went back later on. He was arrested again when Nero was persecuted in the church and Nero had him killed. So, the same ruler at different times may be the minister of God or the beast, the minister of Satan.

Because governments can serve God or they can be so corrupted that they serve Satan. But when they are serving God, they deserve our respect and our submission. That's what Paul is saying.

Verse 8, owe no one anything except to love one another, for he 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 bear false witness, you shall not covet. And if there is any other commandment, all are summed up in this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Now, he starts by saying, owe no one anything except to love.

Now, lots of Christians will quote this to, as it were, render it sinful to go into debt. If you buy something on credit, if you buy something that you're making payments on, you are in debt and you owe someone something. And the Bible strictly forbids, do not owe anyone anything.

And so, if the Bible commands that you don't owe, it would seemingly be a sin to go into debt. However, there must be more nuance to this than that because there are other biblical considerations. After all, Jesus said in Luke chapter 6 that you should lend to people.

And you cannot lend to someone without them going into debt, right? I mean, that's what debt is. In Luke chapter 6 verse 35, Jesus said, but love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return. And your reward will be great, and you will be the sons of the highest.

Now, Jesus said, lend, hoping for nothing in return. You might say, well, that's just a gift then. That's not lending.

There's no debt there. Not true. He could have said, give.

There is a difference. And he does use that word, give. For example, two verses later in verse 38, give and it will be given to you.

Giving and lending are two different things. Why didn't he just say, give, if he's saying to expect nothing in return? Simply because of this. There are people who fall temporarily on hard times and need a hand, but they don't want to be beggars.

They just need a leg up. They just need some help at the moment. They can pay you back, and they intend to.

And to give them a gift, in some cases, might take away their dignity. They're not supporting themselves. Just getting a loan for a little bit and paying it back may help them and doesn't make them a beggar in their own sight.

Lending to someone is different than giving. However, to the lender, to the Christian lender, it should be almost the same thing. The borrower intends to pay it back.

Now, if you're a Christian borrower, you should always pay it back. If you're a Christian lender, you should be prepared for it maybe not to be paid back. That is, if they can't pay you back as they intend to do, you can forgive the debt requiring nothing in return.

But that doesn't mean there's something wrong with lending and being repaid. Because the person who borrows may be very much in the position to repay and may want to repay. And it's part of the dignity of supporting himself and his family and so forth that he takes care of his responsibilities.

There's nothing wrong with that. I don't borrow money if I don't have to, and I fortunately don't have to. But if I had to borrow money, I would certainly pay it back or intend to.

I would do anything I could to pay it back. I wouldn't be spending money on myself until I paid back the debt because I'm conscientious. I'm a Christian.

If I say I'm going to pay it back, I want to keep my word. I'm a faithful person. That's what I want to be.

My inconvenience is not so great a concern as my compromise of my integrity. So, if it's inconvenient to pay back, I'll do it because I'm a Christian. But if I can't, it'd be nice if the person who lent me the money loves me more than they love their money.

And we'll say, well, listen, I'm going to let you go on this one. I'm not going to require you to pay back. Okay, that's great.

Never had to do that yet, thankfully. I trust I never will. It would hurt my conscience to not pay back something that I borrowed.

But lending is another story. When on the lending side, lending to a Christian, I will only lend if I don't mind not getting paid back. Because I have to consider that the person who's borrowing, who's fallen on hard times, might not come out of their hard times very quickly.

They might never come out of it. Or if they do, they may be so burdened with debts that they'd be digging themselves out for the rest of their lives. I don't mind releasing it.

I don't mind giving it up. In other words, as the lender, I have to be prepared that the debt is not repaid. As the borrower, I am not prepared that that debt will not be repaid.

I'm the borrower. I'm determined I will repay. I'm not going to wrong this person who lent me money on good faith that I would pay him back.

He can forgive me if he wants, but I'm not going to do it to him. I'm not going to make him do that. So when it comes to debt and lending and so forth, a Christian lender should release in his own heart his claim on repayment, though there's nothing wrong with him allowing repayment.

If the guy comes in a position he can pay back the debt, let him do it. He can preserve his dignity. He can keep his responsibility.

He doesn't have to feel like he reneged on his responsibility and so forth. So I mean, there's much to be said for letting him pay you back if he wants to and can. It's just that you need to be generous enough to say, I realize you're not really in a position to pay me back, so I'm not going to be worrying about that.

But note, lending is a good thing. If lending is a good thing, then being in debt can't itself be entirely bad. Because if it's a sin to be in debt, then I make you a sinner by lending to you.

So there's no sin in debt, but the Bible is very clear that debt, while it is not sin, is not desirable. In Proverbs it says, the borrower is the servant of the lender. That is a slave.

If you owe someone money, you're their slave. That's not desirable. Every Christian should avoid that if they can, but it's not a sin.

Something can be morally neutral but still undesirable from the point of view of practical life. You don't want to be somebody's slave. Don't borrow if you don't want to be a slave.

It's a very wise council. Of course, Dave Ramsey is very famous for this council these days. He's helping a lot of people out of financial trouble because we live in a debt-based society.

I mean, the whole government's in debt, trillions of dollars. This is a society that just takes debt as a way of life. If the government does it, citizens do it.

We all have credit cards now. When my parents were young, they didn't have credit cards. Maybe a few stores were issuing credit cards.

They didn't have MasterCard and Visa where you could buy everything on credit and pay it back later or not. I mean, this is a society which has lost all of its economic sense. Someone like Dave Ramsey, who's telling people, get out of debt, stay out of debt, live out of debt, he's doing a great service for people because debt is a bondage.

People get over their head in debt. Lenders usually are not Christians who will just say, oh, you can't pay back? Okay, I forgive you. Certainly the banks won't do that, generally speaking.

And so to avoid debt is a good thing. But that's not even what Paul is saying here. When he says, owe no one anything except to love one another, this is following his statement, give back to everyone what's due to them.

Give back honor to them if they deserve honor. Taxes if they deserve that. Tribute or whatever.

Whatever you owe them, pay them. And it's basically saying don't leave any debt unpaid. When he says don't owe anyone something, he's not saying don't go into debt.

He's saying don't let your debt go unpaid. Do you know if you buy something on credit, let's say you buy a car. I've never bought a car on credit and I hope I never have to do that.

I always buy older cars that I can buy with cash or nothing at all. But if you buy a car, let's say you're paying for five, six years on it. Is that what it is usually? What do you owe? What do you owe on that car? You owe a payment every month.

Well, do you owe $20,000? Not yet. You owe $400 or $300. Whatever the payment is this month, you owe that.

Next month you'll owe some more. And a month after that you'll owe some more. If you default on one of those, the car can be repossessed and you won't owe anything on it at all.

But the point here is sometimes you do have to buy on credit. You buy your electricity on credit. You don't pay the light company in advance for the power you use.

You use it, then they bill you. You're going into debt, but you owe the payment every month. Same is true on a mortgage on a house.

Some people say, well, I don't think I should have a mortgage on a house because that puts me in debt hundreds of thousands of dollars. Well, usually you make a big enough down payment that what's owed on it shouldn't be more than what the house is worth if you had to liquidate it. Obviously, reversals in the economy sometimes put houses underwater upside down.

But the truth is usually buying a house doesn't endanger you that way. And what you owe on it is a payment every month. Don't leave that unpaid.

When he says don't owe anyone, I think he means don't accumulate unpaid responsibilities. You owe taxes, pay them. You owe honor, pay it, give it.

You owe the electric company, well, pay it. Don't go into debt. That is to say, don't accumulate debt that you're not paying.

Pay up all your debts, whatever they may be, except for one. There's one debt you can never consider yourself paid up on, and that's your debt to love one another. Loving is an obligation that will never be paid off.

It's your lifetime obligation. And so Paul is not really trying to give advice here specifically about economic freedom, financial freedom. This isn't his financial freedom university or whatever.

This is his way of saying whatever people have the right to expect from you, give them. You owe it to them, give it to them. But don't ever feel that you can pay off your continuing debt to God, which is to love your brothers.

I say to God because it's not really clear that we owe it to our brother to love them. What did they ever do to deserve that? I mean, some people we are in debt to, but I mean, we owe to people who've never done anything for us. We're not in debt to them.

We're in debt to God. God's the one who says, I own you. I bought you.

You love that person. So my debt is to God. I remember there's a guy who was very angry at something I did, which was quite wrong to him.

I'd wronged him and I had repented, but he was still angry. And he remained angry for many years. And he was a Christian.

I finally wrote to him. I said, because we didn't see each other, we're in separate states. But I says, you know, you have to forgive me, not because you owe it to me, because you don't.

I have no claim on your forgiveness. I wronged you. I asked for forgiveness, but I can't demand it.

If you forgive me, that's mercy. I can't claim mercy. It's not earned, not owed.

I do not deserve forgiveness. You don't owe me forgiveness, but you owe it to God to forgive me. That's where your debt is.

And he and I later were reconciled. But the point is, you can't say you owe it to me. I repented.

So you owe it to me to love me, to forgive me. I'm not so sure that's true, but you do owe it to God. If you're God's servant, you have to do what he said and his great command is to love and to forgive.

So you have a debt to do that. That's a continuing debt. You can pay off all your other debts and owe no one anything, but you'll still owe that to love your neighbor.

And he says, because he who loves has fulfilled the law. Remember Paul in chapter eight, verse four, said that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. What is this fulfillment of the righteous requirements of the law that happens as we walk in the spirit? Love.

Love is the fulfillment of the law. The fruit of the spirit is love. You walk in the spirit, you'll love, you'll fulfill the law.

Well, how is that so? Well, because the commandments, you should not commit adultery, you should not murder, you should not steal, you should not bear false witness, all that stuff. You should not covet. If there's any other commandment, it's all summed up in the saying, you should love your neighbor yourself.

How so? Well, it should be quite obvious. It takes only a moment of reflection. If you love someone, you won't kill them.

You won't commit adultery with their wife. You won't steal. You won't covet.

You won't bear false witness. You won't do that against anyone you love. So it's not a matter of remembering a lot of rules.

It's just one thing, just love all the time. Love all people. Love them unconditionally.

If you do, you'll fulfill the rules without thinking about the rules. You will not be put under a set of rules because the things you will be doing are themselves within the boundaries of the rules. Paul put it this way in Galatians.

Remember, Galatians and Romans are similar epistles. And he put it this way in Galatians 5, verse 22 says, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such, there is no law.

There's no law against being loving. There's no law against being gentle, faithful, good. There's certainly no law of God against that.

So if you're walking in the spirit, what will be the fruit of it? The fruit of the spirit will be these things that are well within the law. There's no law that forbids these things. So you will fulfill the righteous requirements of the law, not because you're thinking about the law, but because you're walking in the spirit, you are loving.

Love is the fulfillment of the law. Once you've done that, you're not breaking any laws. Jesus said, if you love God and you love your neighbor, all the law hangs on these two things.

I remember seeing a commercial, I'm sure you have too. In fact, you may even have some of these in your closet of these hangers that have a whole bunch of other hangers attached to them. It looks like you've got 10 hangers in your closet, but you want to take your stuff with you, just grab one of them, all the rest come with them because they're all hanging to each other.

I'm sure some of you have those. I never had those, but I remember the first time I saw that on TV, I thought, that's like what Jesus said. You just remember to love and all the law hangs on that.

You don't have a lot of rules to remember. They're all attached to that one. And so if you're carrying that burden of love, you're carrying the burden of all the other hangers, you know, burden as well.

So, and you're loving it. You know, when you keep laws, you don't always love it, obviously. But if you're loving, you're loving it.

And you're loving obedience. You're loving keeping the law. And you fulfill the law quite happily if you love.

But that's, of course, a fruit of the Spirit, as Paul has said elsewhere. You walk in the Spirit, you fulfill the righteous requirements of the law because you love, and that fulfills it. Now the last few verses here, verses 11 through 14.

And do this knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.

Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in licentiousness and lewdness, not in strife and envy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. There's one problem in this passage. It may be greater or lesser depending on how troubled you may be by it.

But Paul said in verse 12, the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Now if the day means the second coming of Christ, which it seems like it is, because in the previous verse he said our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. He seems like he's talking about the end of the world.

It sounds like the second coming of Christ. And of course the time of Christ's presence is daytime. Jesus said, as long as I'm in the world, I'm the light of the world.

The time of his absence is night time. That's why we have this reflective light of Christ that we reflect the world like the moon. The moon gives light at night and Jesus said, you are the light of the world to his disciples.

But while I'm here, I'm the light of the world. When Jesus is here, it's daytime. When Jesus is gone, it's nighttime, but there's still light because like the moon, we are still God's light.

The moon reflects the light of the sun to the earth and therefore the earth is not without any light, but moonlight is not as good as sunlight. It's dark at night. It's light and daytime when the sun arises.

And when Jesus came, Zechariah said, this is the day spring, the daybreak from on high has come to us. Jesus' presence in the world was daytime. And when his time was growing near an end, he said, we must work while it is day.

The night is coming when no one can work. So Jesus' presence was daytime. His absence is nighttime.

His return is daytime again. It's the dawning of a new day when Jesus comes back. That's the imagery.

Okay. So he says the night is far spent. The day is at hand.

It sounds like Paul is saying Jesus is coming soon and the nighttime has already been mostly used up. Well, this is like less than 25 years after the ascension of Christ. The night was not far spent.

We know that it's been night for a good 2000 years almost since then. The day was not close at hand. Now one might say, well, close is a relative term.

And he does say, in fact, in the previous verse, it's nearer than when we first believe. Well, that's a safe statement. Everything in the future is nearer than when we first believed.

In fact, everything in the future is nearer than it was five minutes ago. It's true. Christ coming is nearer than when we first believed.

In my case, you know, like 50 years nearer. In your case, less nearer, but still nearer. But that would be, that makes sense because if the day is close at hand, and by that, I mean closer than when we first became Christians.

Well, sure, of course, everything in the future is closer now than it was then. But the part about the night is far spent makes it sound like, you know, it's not just nearer. This time of Christ's absence is almost over.

The night is used up almost, and the day is near. And therefore, we have to wonder, did Paul make a mistake in his timing? This would be unthinkable for some people who believe that Paul wrote almost like a prophet of God. Now, many Christians don't make the distinction between the authority of the Old Testament and the New Testament and the way that God speaks in those two places.

The Old Testament was written by prophets. They received direct revelation and an oracle of God, and they spoke the word of God in the first person, I the Lord. This is what I say, thus says the Lord.

That's the Old Testament writers. The New Testament prophets didn't talk that way, New Testament writers didn't talk that way because they weren't prophets. They were apostles.

An apostle has authority like a prophet does, but for a different reason. A prophet's authority is based on the fact that he's receiving divine revelation. He's speaking the very words of God, preferably without any flaws or else he might be a false prophet.

An apostle, on the other hand, does not claim that he's receiving divine revelation for every word he speaks. He's not speaking as God in the first person. He's talking about God from what he knows.

But he's an apostle because he is authorized by God to speak on God's behalf. Now, I can authorize someone to make, I can hire a lawyer to do transactions on my behalf. That doesn't mean that everything he does is dictated word for word by me.

I kind of trust him to do a good job and hope he's competent. And when Jesus picked his apostles, he picked men that he knew they would be competent and he could authorize them to be his spokesmen. It doesn't mean they'd never make a mistake.

They did because Paul had to rebuke Peter and both of them were apostles. But Paul said Peter was clearly to be blamed. So Peter could make mistakes.

Paul could make mistakes too. I mean, sure, he's God's man, but it doesn't mean that he could never have any mistake he made. Now, did he mistake doctrine? No.

He received his doctrine by direct revelation from Christ. He said so. He was not guessing about doctrinal things.

How about his moral instructions? Was he mistaken about that? No. He just repeated what Jesus said for the most part. I mean, Paul was a true and accurate spokesman for God, but he did not claim that he was writing under some supernatural influence.

Prophets did. Apostles never claimed that about themselves. He just said, I'm an apostle of Christ.

I was appointed by Christ to speak, and he is. Could he make a mistake? I think not on anything very significant, but he could conceivably have some misconceptions about how near future events were because Jesus himself said that even Jesus didn't know that. If Jesus didn't know it, Paul wouldn't know it either.

So how would he make a statement on it? Only guessing, presumably, because he wouldn't know what Jesus didn't know. He didn't know how soon the second coming was. He may have had an intuition that he thought it might be soon, and he often speaks about it as if it is soon.

But then he also, in chapter 15, speaks about his visit to Rome as if he thinks it's soon too. In chapter 15, he says, I'm going by Jerusalem to drop off a gift. I'm going to come by and see you on my way to Spain.

Certainly, Paul thought that was going to be a rather quick trip. I'm just passing through Jerusalem, then I'm coming to you, he says. Well, he ended up getting arrested in Jerusalem, staying in prison for two years in Caesarea before he ever went to Rome.

That wasn't planned. God may show someone what's going to happen without telling them how long it's going to happen, and therefore I would not even have a problem, as some people would, if Paul thought the second coming was near and was saying it was near, but he was off in his calculations, just like he was off in his calculations about when he'd get to Rome. Now, lots of people don't like that, and there are people who are full preterists who believe that Paul, every word he said about this has to be trusted so that Paul was right.

He's not talking about the second coming of Christ. They say he's talking about the 70 AD, and every time Paul talks about the nearness of the second coming, which I think is talking about a yet future second coming, the full preterist says, no, he was saying it was near and it had to be 70 AD, but he could be wrong. I'm not saying he was.

Maybe we could find ways in which he isn't wrong. Maybe the day he's talking about isn't the second coming. It sounds like it is.

Maybe he's got some other day in mind. Maybe he is talking about 70 AD. Maybe he's talking about something else.

It's not obvious, necessarily, but it sounds like he's talking about the second coming of Christ. Of course, we can say things like, you know, this is relatively so, relatively near, compared to when we believed it's closer. You know, I mean, those are true statements.

They're just a little difficulty with reference to him saying the night is far spent. So, I am really of a mind that I would personally have no problem if Paul suggested he thought it was really soon. Many Christians have thought it was really soon, and we don't even know if Jesus knew how far off it was, because when he was asking, I don't know.

The angels don't know. Only my father knows. Well, if only the father knows, and the angels and Jesus don't know, I don't think Paul would know either.

Maybe if someone doesn't know, they shouldn't say it, but I don't think it did any harm. After all, the night could, in some ways, refer to our lifetime. Our lifetimes are far spent.

The day that we'll die and see Jesus could be close at hand. That'd be, you know, you couldn't prove that false, but it seems unnatural to me. I'm not saying he couldn't say that and mean that.

Maybe he did. This is an area where his meaning could be disputed, and the accuracy of the statement would be called into question if he seems to be talking about the second coming. So, to me, I don't sweat it.

I figure that Paul, you know, I can go with everything he said, even if he made a mistake about how soon it's going to happen. He believed it was going to happen. There's a night that we're living in.

There's a day coming. That's true. How near it may be, that, you know, we know, you know, it wasn't very soon in Paul's day, and if he thought it was, to me, that doesn't disqualify him from being a good spokesman for Christ.

For some people, that's, you know, he can't make a mistake. He's Paul, but I think Paul was a human being, too, and when he wrote letters, he didn't suddenly come under supernatural trance-like state. He's writing, he's actually dictating a letter to another guy who's writing it down.

He's, Paul, speaking off the top of his head, could make a statement that's not technically correct if he's, if it's a harmless one. I don't think, I don't think his letter would be preserved for us if he'd made a serious mistake about something that's not harmless, but anyway, that's all I can say about him here on that statement. Maybe he's not talking about the second coming of Christ, or maybe he is, and there's some way that he isn't wrong, or maybe he is talking about the second coming of Christ, and he is wrong about how distant it is, and that doesn't matter that he's wrong about it.

You can work with different possibilities here. I'm not committed to one or the other, but it's not the most important thing. The main thing he says is we live in a night that will end.

The day is coming. Jesus will return, and though we live at night, we can't live like people who are living at night, because people who live at night, they party at night, basically. That's what he says over in 1 Thessalonians also, 1 Thessalonians 5, and he says the same thing here about drunkenness at night and so forth.

In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul said in verse 5 and following, you are all sons of light and sons of the day. Now, it's not daytime yet, but we're children of that coming day. We belong to that day, not to this night.

We are not of the night, nor of the darkness. We're in it, but not of it. This world is dark, and we live in this darkness, but we are not of this darkness.

We're of the light. We're of another day, a dawning that's yet to come. Therefore, let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober.

For those who sleep, sleep at night. Those who get drunk, get drunk at night, but let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as the helmet, the hope of salvation. Notice several parallels here with Romans 13.

He talks about the armor. In Romans 13, put on the armor of light. 1 Thessalonians, says put on the breastplate and the helmet.

That's the armor, isn't it? Some of it. He says, it is night, and people at night sleep and get drunk, but we must not, because we don't belong to the night. We're of another order.

We belong to an order that has not broken into history yet, but it will, and when it does, it'll vindicate our present behavior as consistent with it. We don't sleep. We don't get drunk, and so he says there in verse 11, knowing that it's high time to awake out of sleep, and then also he mentions drunkenness further on down there in verse 13.

Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in licentiousness and lewdness. So in both places, 1 Thessalonians 5 and Romans 13 talks about we belong to the day. It's a night season.

It's passing. The day is coming, but we are already citizens of that new order. We are part of that day that's coming, and as such, we should behave consistently with daytime, not nighttime.

What do people do at night? They sleep. They get drunk. They party.

Well, that's not what we do because it's not night for us. We've got the light on inside us, and we're part of the day, so we don't act like people act in the dark because we're not in the dark. We're enlightened.

We know the truth. We belong to the light of the world, and we are the light of the world, so Paul is saying there's a way to act properly, and we should not act improperly, What does sleep mean then? Is it wrong to go to sleep? Of course not. He's speaking figuratively, and probably even drunkenness is figurative, although we shouldn't physically get drunk either.

Probably these are simply referring to being dull and being self-indulgent. Drunkenness is taking something that's legitimate and indulging yourself beyond what's the proper limit, and therefore drunkenness is a token of any behavior that would be self-indulgent in nature. Sleep would be clueless.

When you're asleep, you don't know what's going on around you. You're dull. You're spiritually out of touch if you're spiritually asleep, so we need to be vigilant.

Peter said that in 1 Peter 5, be vigilant. What's vigilant mean? Stay awake. A vigil is where you're on watch, and you stay awake.

We need to be vigilant and sober. Notice not sleeping, not drunk. That's what Peter said in 1 Peter 5. Let me give you that verse number because we have these two same things.

Peter assumes we're on a vigil, which means you're a night watchman. It's night time, and yet though it is night time, 1 Peter 5, 8, be sober. That's not drunk, and vigilant.

That's not sleeping, so what people do at night is get drunk and sleep. Spiritually speaking, we must not do that. We have to remain sober, alert, keep our wits about us, and not live in self-indulgence.

Why? He says in verse 8, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, so there's a danger. We live at night, and the lion is prowling around in the night. We can stay awake and self-disciplined and be safe from that danger.

That's like Paul saying, put on the armor, put on the armor of light, or put on the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of faith and love. It's night time. There are dangers.

Make sure you've got your armor on. Why? There's a devil out there wanting to kill you, wanting to devour you. You see how Paul in this place in Romans and in 1 Thessalonians 5 and in Peter, Peter does the same thing, influenced by Paul, clearly, they speak of our time in this world is living in a dark time.

It's a dark time, but we have already received light, and therefore we behave differently than people who are in the dark. One thing is we know there's dangers out there, and we're armed against it. Secondly, we don't behave irresponsibly, improperly, drunkenly, self-indulgently, and we do not remain insensitive or unaware of what's going on.

We have to be alert rather than drowsy or sleeping. And so those are the exhortations that Paul gives here, and he says at the end, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the armor, Jesus.

You see, Jesus is wearing the armor. Putting on the armor means putting on him because we're his body. If his body is armed, we're it.

We're putting on the armor by putting him on. That's like putting on the new man. It's the same idea.

The new man is Christ. The old man's Adam. So we're putting on the new man, Christ.

Now what does that mean? That means that we consciously identify ourselves in Christ as part of his body as opposed to part of the fallen body of Adam, and therefore, of course, it suggests the behavior we do is that which is appropriate for someone who's a member of Christ rather than a member of the fallen human race. He says make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. The idea here is that you are not intending to fulfill the flesh lust, so you don't make provision to do so.

You don't plan on sinning. We do unfortunately sometimes fall, but we don't plan on it. We don't make provision for it.

We're not aiming that direction at all, but we're planning to avoid those things so that we can live according to the light in a dark world and be in Philippians. He says that too about the world. He says among whom you shine as lights in the world.

He says in Philippians chapter 2, I believe it is. So this is what Paul ends this chapter with. Now in chapter 14 and 15, there are instructions about matters of conscience and how to live peaceably with somebody who's got a more tender conscience than you have.

That's what chapter 14 and the beginning of 15 are about, and we'll take that in our next Romans class, but once we've done that, we're really just picking up the scraps in the later part of chapter 15 and 16. Greetings, a few exhortations here or there, my travel plans, what I'll be doing, what I've been doing, those kind of things. So the teaching of Romans pretty much goes up through the beginning of chapter 15, and all that remains therefore is 14 and that little portion of 15, which is all about relationships among people whose consciences are not identical in their sensitivities and how to remain peaceable and not judge and so forth in those cases.

So that's going to be pretty much the remainder of the teaching of the book, and then there's like I say scraps, personal notes, greetings and such at the end. All right, so we'll stop there.