What does Romans 13:9 mean?
Paul has written in the previous verse that the person who loves another has fulfilled the law. Now he begins to explain what he meant by that statement.As an example of the entire law, Paul lists four of the Ten Commandments, those forbidding adultery, murder, stealing, and coveting. Paul then adds the statement "and any other command." This is the equivalent of the modern "etcetera," or "etc." He has in mind all the commands included in the law, especially those about human relationships.
All those commands can be summed up in the word "love" from the command in Leviticus 19:18, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." As Paul will show in the following verse, you cannot love someone and murder them or cheat on them or steal from them or covet their belongings. In this way, if we will obey the command to love our neighbors, we will fulfill all the other commands by default.
Romans 13:8–14 describes the Christian obligation to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. To do this is to fulfill the law of Moses, because love itself never hurts anyone. The time has come for believers to cast off any works of darkness, including drunkenness, immorality, and jealousy. Instead, we should live as people who walk in the light, taking on the spiritual armor of light and Christ Himself.
Romans 13 tackles three big areas that living-sacrifice Christians must address. First, since God puts every human authority in place to serve His purposes, Christians must submit to them; this idea comes with a particular context. Second, we must love our neighbors as ourselves. Third, we are called to live as people of the light and throw off works of darkness like drunkenness, sexual immorality, and jealousy. We are to take on the armor of light against the darkness and, in fact, take on Christ Himself instead of serving our own desires.
