Romans 13:7

We are here taught a lesson of justice and charity.

I. Of justice (Rom 13:7): Render therefore to all their dues, especially to magistrates, for this refers to what goes before; and likewise to all with whom we have to do. To be just is to give to all their due, to give every body his own. What we have we have as stewards; others have an interest in it, and must have their dues. "Render to God his due in the first place, to yourselves, to you families, your relations, to the commonwealth, to the church, to the poor, to those that you have dealings with in buying, selling, exchanging, etc. Render to all their dues; and that readily and cheerfully, not tarrying till you are by law compelled to it." He specifies, 1. Due taxes: Tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom. Most of the countries where the gospel was first preached were subject at this time to the Roman yoke, and were made provinces of the empire. He wrote this to the Romans, who, as they were rich, so they were drained by taxes and impositions, to the just and honest payment of which they are here pressed by the apostle. Some distinguish between tribute and custom, understanding by the former constant standing taxes, and by the latter those which were occasionally required, both which are to be faithfully and conscientiously paid as they become legally due. Our Lord was born when his mother went to be taxed; and he enjoined the payment of tribute to Caesar. Many, who in other things seem to be just, yet make no conscience of this, but pass it off with a false ill-favoured maxim, that it is no sin to cheat the king, directly contrary to Paul's rule, Tribute to whom tribute is due. 2. Due respect: Fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour. This sums up the duty which we owe not only to magistrates, but to all superiors, parents, masters, all that are over us in the Lord, according to the fifth commandment: Honour thy father and mother. Compare Lev 19:3, You shall fear every man his mother and his father; not with a fear of amazement, but a loving, reverent, respectful, obediential fear. Where there is not this respect in the heart to our superiors, no other duty will be paid aright. 3. Due payment of debts (Rom 13:8): "Owe no man any thing; that is, do not continue in any one's debt, while you are able to pay it, further than by, at least, the tacit consent of the person to whom you are indebted. Give every one his own. Do not spend that upon yourselves, which you owe to others." The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again, Psa 37:21. Many that are very sensible of the trouble think little of the sin of being in debt.

II. Of charity: Owe no man any thing; opheilete - you do owe no man any thing; so some read it: "Whatever you owe to any relation, or to any with whom you have to do, it is eminently summer up and included in this debt of love. But to love one another, this is a debt that must be always in the paying, and yet always owing." Love is a debt. The law of God and the interest of mankind make it so. It is not a thing which we are left at liberty about, but it is enjoined us, as the principle and summary of all duty owing one to another; for love is the fulfilling of the law; not perfectly, but it is a good step towards it. It is inclusive of all the duties of the second table, which he specifies, Rom 13:9, and these suppose the love of God. See Jo1 4:20. If the love be sincere, it is accepted as the fulfilling of the law. Surely we serve a good master, that has summed up all our duty in one word, and that a short word and a sweet word - love, the beauty and harmony of the universe. Loving and being loved is all the pleasure, joy, and happiness, of an intelligent being. God is love (Jo1 4:16), and love is his image upon the soul: where it is, the soul is well moulded, and the heart fitted for every good work. Now, to prove that love is the fulfilling of the law, he gives us, 1. An induction of particular precepts, Rom 13:9. He specifies the last five of the ten commandments, which he observes to be all summed up in this royal law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself - with an as of quality, not of equality - "with the same sincerity that thou lovest thyself, though not in the same measure and degree." He that loves his neighbour as himself will be desirous of the welfare of his neighbour's body, goods, and good name, as of his own. On this is built that golden rule of doing as we would be done by. Were there no restraints of human laws in these things, no punishments incurred (which the malignity of human nature hath made necessary), the law of love would of itself be effectual to prevent all such wrongs and injuries, and to keep peace and good order among us. In the enumeration of these commandments, the apostle puts the seventh before the sixth, and mentions this first, Thou shalt not commit adultery; for though this commonly goes under the name of love (pity it is that so good a word should be so abused) yet it is really as great a violation of it as killing and stealing is, which shows that true brotherly love is love to the souls of our brethren in the first place. He that tempts others to sin, and defiles their minds and consciences, though he may pretend the most passionate love (Pro 7:15, Pro 7:18), does really hate them, just as the devil does, who wars against the soul. 2. A general rule concerning the nature of brotherly love: Love worketh no ill (Rom 13:10) - he that walks in love, that is actuated and governed by a principle of love, worketh no ill; he neither practises nor contrives any ill to his neighbour, to any one that he has any thing to do with: ouk ergazetai. The projecting of evil is in effect the performing of it. Hence devising iniquity is called working evil upon the bed, Mic 2:1. Love intends and designs no ill to any body, is utterly against the doing of that which may turn to the prejudice, offence, or grief of any. It worketh no ill; that is, it prohibits the working of any ill: more is implied than is expressed; it not only worketh no ill, but it worketh all the good that may be, deviseth liberal things. For it is a sin not only to devise evil against thy neighbour, but to withhold good from those to whom it is due; both are forbidden together, Pro 3:27-29. This proves that love is the fulfilling of the law, answers all the end of it; for what else is that but to restrain us from evil-doing, and to constrain us to well-doing? Love is a living active principle of obedience to the whole law. The whole law is written in the heart, if the law of love be there.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Rom 13:7. Render, therefore, to all — Magistrates, whether supreme or subordinate; their dues — What by law, or by the appointment of God, belongs to them, even though you may have opportunities of defrauding them of it, to your own immediate and temporal advantage. In this precept the apostle follows the Lord Jesus, who ordered the Jews to render to Cesar the things which were Cesar’s, though Cesar was neither of the Jewish nation, nor of their religion. Tribute — Taxes on your persons or estates; custom — For goods exported or imported. “By using the general expression, to whom tribute is due, the apostle leaves it to the laws and constitution of every state, and to the people in these states, to determine who are their lawful magistrates, and what the tributes and customs are which are due to their governors; but by no means allows individuals to determine these points, because that would open the door to rebellion.” — Macknight. Fear — Obedience; honour — Reverence: all these are due to the higher powers.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

Rom_13:8.—Augustine says that “love is a debt which is multiplied by paying.” Milton says, “By owing owes not, but still pays, at once indebted and discharged.” The debt of love can never be fully discharged.

Rom_13:9.—Love to God and love to man said by the Jews to be the great sum or heads of the law.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Rom_13:7-10

Christian citizenship and Christian brotherhood.—Compare the text with the life and precepts of Jesus. They are entire harmony. He was subject unto His parents. His precept as to Christian citizenship was, “Render unto Cæsar,” etc.

I. The need for this injunction to early Christians.—False charges levelled against them: one was disloyalty. Paul set forth the duties of Christian citizenship. There was the added injunction, Be good to neighbours, loving all men. It was necessary to publish the fact that Christians aimed, not at the overthrow of governments, but to show sincerest loyalty and brotherly kindness. In one sense appearances were against Christians. Their mysterious meetings lent colour to the charges of conspiracy—false and wicked charges; for the whole tenor of Christ’s doctrine, and Christian practice too, was: tolerate no violence; live at peace; do not retaliate; be magnanimous. Of course Christianity was opposed to the way of the world, and libellous charges gave excuse for persecution.

II. The text deals with Christian citizenship.—It asserts the principle of submission to civil authority. Four thoughts suggested:

1. It is impossible to secure successful action apart from organisation. Union is strength, and orderly unity is strength at its best. Confusion in council leads to internal anarchy and contempt from other powers.

2. The avowed object of all government to put down the wrong and enforce the right. Crime, the citizen’s enemy; and the government deals it deadly blows. This an unanswerable argument for Christian obedience to the state.

3. It is admitted that “by means of society not only is the race preserved, but civilisation is developed.” Therefore maintain government.

4. The only basis of commercial enterprise is a thoroughly substantial government. Political crises influence the trade of a country. When Philip II. of Spain pursued his suicidal policy in the Netherlands, merchants transferred their workshops to England.

III. Here also we have the principle of Christian brotherhood.—

1. We are to render to the individual his or her due. What men’s dues are is measured by the fact that Christianity has taught men to consider each man a brother.

2. The worldly usage is that the great are honoured at the expense of the more humble. This is anti-Christian.

3. The spirit of forbearance is exhibited in the text. A disgrace to professors of religion is the habit of fault-finding, the lack of a charitable spirit. If we want to be Christlike, we shall not repay people’s faults and forget their excellences. “When a leaf drops and dies, it goes down to mingle with the ground. When moss falls off, it disappears. Everything in nature, as it decays, hides itself.” And so it should be in human life.

4. God’s attitude that of forgetfulness of our faults. Love has sat on heaven’s throne rather than judgment. And so it comes to pass that “the base of this low altar-stair of suffering slopes through darkness up to the everlasting heavens, and far, far within their piercing deeps love is enthroned for ever.” Cannot man learn of his God? Even the dying Christ thought first of the pardon of His murderers: “Father, forgive them.” Let every man strive in his human degree to traverse the divine range of sympathy. It is not so much doctrine or creed that we want, as that Christlike spirit of love that will enable us to love God and also man—the spirit that will enable us to overcome every obstacle, and, like the Master, “bear one another’s burdens.”—Albert Lee.

Rom_13:7. Legal and moral dues.—It has been sometimes objected that preachers put too much of the gospel into their sermons, and do not speak sufficiently of the every-day duties of life. St. Paul binds himself to the gospel, and so must his followers. But we shall not understand the gospel aright if we do not bear in mind the fact that it is to teach men to be good citizens of earth as well as of heaven. Christianity leaves no part of the nature, and no portion of society untouched; it speaks to rulers and ruled, to kings and subjects, to parents and their children. The New Testament lays down general laws by which men are to be guided in the affairs of life. The best all-round man is the one who makes a sensible application of those laws in the management of his earthly affairs. We are to bring heaven down to earth, and thus make it more blessed.

I. Christianity teaches classification.—There is method observable in the material universe: lower and higher forms of life—vegetable life, animal life, and intellectual life. Creation culminates in man, and in the human animal there are differences—some excel in strength and others in wisdom. God has set men in societies where there are differences; He instituted the family, which is the germ and type of all true human societies. As there are differences in the family, so will there be differences in the clan, the tribe, the nation: the rich and the poor dwell together. Where the right spirit reigns all will work together so as to make the commonwealth strong, healthy, and happy: the king will be the true father of his subjects, and they will be his faithful children.

II. Christianity inculcates discrimination.—It differentiates between the powers. There are higher powers and lower powers, and those who have little or no power. It seems to point out that all have their dues. Tribute is the due of one power, custom of another, fear of a third, and honour of a fourth. Shall we go far wrong if we say that honour is due to all who have not rendered themselves vile, ignoble, and utterly dishonourable? Thus there is not only the material due, the money payment, but there are intellectual or moral dues, the payment of fear and honour. Enough has not been done when the taxes are paid. There is the emotional tribute. We are not only to uphold the throne and constitution, not only to obey our country’s laws, not only to respect the magistrates and judges of the land, but to give to all men their dues. Each man has his rights, which must be respected. Shall we render to all their dues if we rob God? The man who robs God would rob his fellow, providing a safe opportunity were presented. What is due from the creature to the Creator? Thankfulness at least is due. Cicero said that thankfulness is the mother of all virtues. Even the very heathen said that all evil is spoken in this one word—viz., “unthankfulness.” Gratitude is God’s due for His wisdom and power in creation, for His mercy in preservation, for His love and grace in redemption. Life is due to Him who gave His life. Love is due to Him who poured out an infinite wealth of love upon the world. Let us live our thanks. Let our lives be made fragrant and beautiful by the influence of grateful hearts.

III. Christianity proclaims responsibility.—Some one said, “It is a solemn thing to die,” which was met by the reply, “It is a solemn thing to live.” Surely a solemn thing to live, for none of us can live to ourselves. We are debtors, whether we like it or not, to our fellows. A self-contained, self-included life is impossible. The hermit in his cave, the naturalist in his hut, the monk in his cell, cannot completely shut themselves out from their fellows. And in the present complex state of society we may well be startled as we think of the responsibilities of life. How vast the debt we owe to our fellow-creatures! How much larger the debt we owe to God and to Jesus Christ! How much is due to Jesus Christ, who has done more to shape human destinies into divine forms, to bless the world, to beautify existence, than all the monarchs, statesmen, warriors, philosophers, and moralists of time! Our debt to Jesus Christ is so great that had we a thousand lives to give they would not be adequate to discharge the claim. And yet He asks no more than each is able to give. He asks thy love, thy life, thy all. Give thy life to Jesus, and He will so ennoble the offering that it will be no longer poor. Give thy love to Jesus, and He will increase it so that it will become like a live coal within thee from God’s altar, and thy nature will be all aglow with the celestial flame. If thus we love Jesus, we shall learn to love our fellows more, and we shall learn from Jesus to render to all their dues. How kind, gentle, and considerate He was to all men and women! He paid to the higher powers the tax which was required. He paid to the lower orders help and sympathy. He paid the tax of tears where tears were due; He paid the tax of sorrowful lamentations where woe was impending; He paid the tax of a sacrificed life upon the altar erected by human need and divine requirement. In the light of His large life we shall learn to take a complete view of the words, “Render to all their dues.” A holy life is due to infinite goodness, to human wretchedness, to God, to angels, and to men, to others and to ourselves. We should all strive so to live that others may take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus, as some did of the early believers. Helpful is the thought that Jesus is no hard taskmaster. He notices the right intention; He approves the pure motive and the earnest purpose. Let us go forward seeking to render to all their dues.

Rom_13:10. The last analysis.—The first golden stair is this: we ask, What is the origin of love? Christianity answers, Love is of God. Hatred, then, is not of God; it is of the devil. Selfishness, jealousy, envy, all that spoils the gentle and the perfect life in us—heedlessness of others, forgetfulness of the wishes and the hopes of. others, the egoism which ignores others, to say nothing of the sarcastic tongue which delights to inflict pain, or the vanity which will sacrifice a reputation for a stroke of wit, or the ambition which bustles all weaker folk aside that it may reach its own coveted goal—all this is not of God. The original impress of God upon this world was an impress of love There was a time when gentleness, tenderness, considerateness, stamped the whole creation. Wherever you find these qualities still, they are of God; something saved out of the wreck of man, fair stretches of green landscape not submerged beneath the flood of evil, or else recovered from it. God is love, and love is of God. “Every one that loveth is born of God.” It follows, then, that there is a second golden stair which we may climb. “Love is of God”—that is the first stair. The second is Love in morality. “Love,” says the apostle Paul, “is the fulfilling of the law.” Let us pause again, and ask, “What then is law?” Law is a series of instructions and restraints to make us like God. It begins at the very lowest level of things, and tells us not to steal, not to covet, not to lie, and not to murder. But these crimes and vices are not so much causes as effects. And you may take the commandments one by one, and apply this test to them, and you will see at once that they would not have been needed if only men had loved one another. Get love then, and you cannot help keeping the law. Get love, and you cannot help being moral. It may seem but a scanty equipment to produce perfection, and so the seven notes of music may seem to be a scanty equipment to produce the heaven-born melodies of a Handel or Beethoven. But see how they use them—of what infinite and glorious combinations are they capable! So it is with this supreme quality of love. It is capable of all but infinite combinations and interpretations; it utters the grand music of heroism and the soft lute music of courtesy; it is patriotism, altruism, martyrdom; it stoops to the smallest things of life and governs the greatest; it controls the temper and regulates the reason; it extirpates the worst qualities and refines the best. Go one step further. Love is of God; love is morality; now you find that love is religion also. “Every one that loveth is born of God.” How often do we find in the communion of other Churches men who surprise us by the spirituality and the saintliness of their lives! We hold such Churches, perhaps, to be in error; but where love reigns there is morality. And then take one more golden stair. Love is of God; love is morality; love is religion; lastly, love is life, love is immortality. “Every one that loveth is born of God”—born into a larger life. We sometimes permit ourselves to debate whether life is not more than love. There are times when we are impressed with the spaciousness of this life of ours, when we suddenly realise the joys of living, and are athirst to drink a full draught of life. We want to know everything, we want to understand everything; we would fain mix in the most crowded places of life, and feel the pulsations of the tide of humanity, and move amid its swiftest currents; and in such an hour we ask ourselves, What is love? Surely it is nothing more than a mere episode in the great drama, one of the many fruits of life—perhaps the choicest, but that is all. For when that passion of mere living possesses us it eclipses all other passions, and then we turn away from love because we see that it is a yoke, because we believe it to be a renunciation of the fulness of personal life, because it is the subjugation of our nature to the exigencies and the needs of another nature. The man and woman who do this usually live to learn that love, after all, is the one thing worth living for, and they often know what it is to sit amidst the ruins of life in a friendless old age, amidst gains and gauds that have lost their charm, and to long with inexpressible yearning for one drop of that cup which they once so contemptuously rejected. For the truth is that love is life; it is the only true and eternal life; it is the birth of a man’s soul into a higher state of being. There, then, as I have said, is the last analysis of Christianity, and I pray you to accept it. Like all profound things, it is really simple; it is in fact so simple that men doubt whether it can be true. Men cannot make themselves believe and understand that Christianity is merely love, that a great church is simply the temple of love, that what all this elaborate organisation of worship and preaching aims at is this—to teach men to love God, to love each other. And so I rejoice. I see a world that is not outcast, not wholly evil, and not forsaken, for love works in it still, and God is love, and love is everywhere. Like a great bell of hope, mellow, ceaseless, glorious in its music, the words of John ring across the world, “Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”—W. G. Dawson.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom_13:7-10

Custom.—There is some difficulty about the distinctive signification of φόρος (tribute) and τέλος (custom). By some the former is regarded as a tax upon land; by others, as upon property generally, whether movable or immovable. Those critics who give to φόρος the wider signification limit τέλος to a capitation tax; and those who confine φόρος to a tax upon land give τέλος a larger meaning, as signifying a tax upon merchandise as well as upon persons. Judging from the apostle’s use of the word, φόρος was the general term for all contributions, and was used in the same sense that the word “taxes” is largely used; and in its limited sense it applies to all burdens upon landed or personal property; while τέλος was the capitation tax which our Lord told Peter to pay for himself and his Lord.—Knight.

“Honour to whom honour.”—Christians are not to neglect the laws of social life, or overlook the fact that distinction of rank is highly necessary for the economy and safety of the world. This precept especially claims our thoughtful attention in an age when an increase of knowledge, prosperity, and political freedom has removed many of the material props upon which the influence of parents and masters and those placed over us formerly rested. We might, with advantage, take a useful hint from the Lacedæmonians, who laid such stress on the training of their youth to give honour to whom honour was due.—Neil.

Christian brotherhood.—Love will not permit us to injure, oppress, or offend our brother; it will not give us leave to neglect our betters or despise our inferiors. It will restrain every inordinate passion, and not suffer us to gratify our envy at the expense of our neighbour’s credit and reputation; but it will preserve us harmless and innocent.—Sherlock.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 13

Rom_13:9-10. Love to God fulfils the law.—An orphan boy of peculiar vivacity and uncommon talents, and who had been a favourite comic performer in the heathen sports, was sent by his relations to New Herrnhut, a settlement of the Moravian missionaries. His agreeable and engaging manners gained him the affection of one of the wealthiest Greenlanders, in whose family he was placed, who had no son, and whose presumptive heir he was. At the first catechetical meeting at which he was present, being asked whether he would wish to be acquainted with our Saviour and be converted, “Oh yes!” replied he gaily; “I shall soon be converted”; on which another, who had been lately baptised, gravely told him he knew little what conversion meant—that it was to yield the heart wholly to our Saviour, and to make a surrender of every evil inclination. This he found a hard saying, and would rather have thrown up his prospects among the brethren, and returned to his amusements among the heathen; till, after considerable mental conflict, he at last ceased contending with his Maker, and yielded a willing and cheerful obedience.

Rom_13:10. Doddridge’s child.—Doddridge buried a most interesting child at nine years of age. The dear little creature was a general favourite; and he tells us in his funeral sermon that when he one day asked her how it was that everybody loved her, “I know not,” she said, “unless it be that I love everybody.” Tell your children this. Also read to them, “The child Samuel grew on, and was in favour both with the Lord and also with men.”

Rom_13:10. Five people supported on a needle’s point.—There was a student once who asked Robertson of Irvine the old scholastic quibble, whether he could tell how many souls could be supported on the point of a needle. “Oh! dear me, yes,” said he; “that is easy enough. I can tell that.” “How so?” said the student. “Well,” said Robertson, “as I was walking home the other night along the seashore, I passed a house where a poor widow lives; her husband was drowned at sea last winter. She has five little children, and as I looked through the window I saw in the firelight two little golden heads in the bed yonder, and another little golden head in the cradle, and two other children sitting at the mother’s knee. She was working away with her needle, and it was flashing in the firelight, and was going as hard as it could go. So,” continued Robertson, “I know how many souls can be supported on the point of a needle—five: don’t you see?” And as I look through that window I seem to look upon the whole vision of domestic life, on mothers toiling and never calling it toil, on the vision of innumerable women all the world over who give themselves away, and are not so much as thanked for it, on the silent heroisms which redeem life, and which are its unuttered poetry, its saving salt, its divine attestation. And these heroisms, which are the birth of love, are everywhere.—Dawson.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Fourth Section.—Proper conduct toward the world in general. Legal fellowship with the world. Recognition of the rights of the world in the justice and also in the strength of love for our neighbor. Separation from the ungodliness of the ancient world (the darkness of heathenism). Universalism, and its sanctification through true separatism.

Rom_13:7-14

7Render therefore [omit therefore]15 to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.8Owe no man any thing, out [except] to love one another: for he that [who]loveth another hath fulfilled the law. 9For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness [omit Thou shalt not bear false witness],16 Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely,17 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.18 10Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling [love therefore is the fulfilment] of the11law. And that [this the rather because],19 knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake20 out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when webelieved. 12The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast offthe works of darkness, and21 let us put on the armour of light. 13Let us walk honestly [seemly],22 as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chamberingand wantonness, not in strife and envying: 14But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not [do not make]23 provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Preliminary Remark.—This section is connected by Rom_13:7 with the preceding. While the previous section defines the relation of Christians to the State to which they belong as citizens, the present section, on the other hand, regulates their relation to the world in general, in its friendly and hostile side, in fellowship and repulsion; and Rom_13:7 treats of their relation to authorities in the world in general. We have not merely to do with our own civil authorities and our own State, but also with foreign States and dignitaries. The traveller does not have to pay tribute to a foreign State, but he has to pay duty; in all cases we should exhibit becoming honor and respect toward every one. According to Tholuck, Rom_13:7 contains “a summary of the various duties toward all kinds of authorities; first of all, toward the subordinate tax-officers, then to judges and magistrates.”

[The view of Tholuck, which is that of Meyer, Philippi, Alford, and most, implies that Rom_13:7 belongs to the preceding section. At first sight this division seems correct; but, really, Rom_13:7 is both a hortatory summing up of what precedes, and a transition to the more general admonitions which follow. If οὖν be read (see Textual Note1), the former becomes more prominent; if omitted, the latter.—R.]

Rom_13:7. Render to all their dues [ἀπόδοτε πᾶσιν τὰς ὀφειλάς]. Πᾶσιν. According to Estius, Klee, and others, this refers to all men; according to Meyer [Philippi, and many others], it refers merely to magistrates, as if our respect were due to them alone! The antithesis is: Owe no man any thing.

Tribute to whom tribute is due [τῷ τὸνφόρον τὸν φόρον]. Tholuck, Meyer, and others, would supplement ἀπόδοτε by a ἀπαιτοῦντι. But the addition is already indicated in the τὰς ὀφειλάς, and ὀφείλετε follows immediately afterward. Fear and honor are asked from nobody, not even by magistrates, in the form of paying tribute and duty; and even with tribute and duty we should not wait until compelled to pay them. Grotius has supplied ὀφείλεται; Köllner, ὀφείλετε; against which Meyer observes, that it is philologically incorrect, because τῷ does not stand for ᾧ. But were ᾧ the reading, the idea of an organic distribution would easily arise; this was avoided by the Apostle’s placing τῷ contractively for τούτω̣. According to Grotius, simply the Art. prœpositivus is placed for the subjunctives, which is reversed in Rom_14:2-5.24

Custom [τὸ τέλος]. Grotius: Vectigalia pro mercibus dantur, tributa pro solo aut capite. We must, at all events, understand here, by custom, the Roman internal tax on goods. [As tribute was due to home authorities, while custom, duties, &c., are due to foreign authorities as well, there seems to be an extension of thought beyond the obligations referred to in Rom_13:1-6. Bengel is quite incorrect in making φόρος the genus, and τέλος the species.—R.]

[Fear, τὸν φόβον; honor, τὴν τιμήν. Those who confine the reference to magistrates, apply the former word to the proper sentiment and conduct toward the higher magistrates, especially judges, the latter to magistrates in general (Meyer, Philippi). De Wette, however, refers the former to judges, the latter to magistrates in general, especially the higher ones; while Alford refers “φόβος to those set over us and having power; τιμή, to those, but likewise to all on whom the State has conferred distinction.” If the wider view of the verse be accepted, then (with Hodge, Webster and Wilkinson, and others) the one means the reverence paid to superiors, the other, the courtesy due to equals.—R.]

Rom_13:8. Owe no man any thing [μηδενὶ μηδὲν ὀφείλετε. Dr. Lange renders: Bleibt Niemand und Nichts schuldig, which he considers an improvement of the old version: Niemand nichts.—R.] The four preceding categories are here generalized to the idea of the universal duty to our neighbor. Tholuck is doubly inexact when he says: “The Apostle proceeds from the duties of subjects to universal Christian duties.” [De Wette: “The Apostle proceeds at once from the vestibule of morality into her very domain.”—R.]

Except to love one another [εἰ μὴ τὸἀλλήλους ἀγαπᾷν. Philippi: “A Pauline argute dictum or acumen.”—R.] In relation to the definite discharges of duty, the Christian should strive to perfectly discharge, and to keep discharged, his duty in every direction; in relation to love, as the source of duties, he should, on the other hand, be conscious, and constantly be more so, of an infinite and permanent indebtedness. The duties are externally a finitum, but the duty of loving our neighbor remains an infinitum. And the more clear the Christian becomes on one, the more clear he becomes on the other. [Bengel: “Amare, debitum immortale. Si amabatis, nil debetis, nam amor implet legem. Amare, libertas est.” So most commentators from the times of Chrysostom. Augustine: “Semper debeo charitatem quœ sola etiam reddita retinet debitorem” (Ep. 62).—R.]

Ὀφείλετε is not indicative (Reiche, and others), but imperative,[25] by which the sentence, “except to love one another,” must be understood thus: except that which you cannot pay as a debt. Meyer emphasizes the subjective rendering: Consider yourselves as debtors of love. Even in the “Owe no man any thing” there is undoubtedly an appeal made to the consciousness and its method of action.

Hath fulfilled the law. Πεπλήρωκε. [Perfect of completed action (Meyer).—R.] It is by love that the fulfilment of the law is fundamentally decided; Rom_14:13. Reiche, and others: Id quod in lege summum est. Instead of this, we must place: Quod legis principium est. That no justification is here implied, is plain, first, from the fact that the Apostle regards this loving as possible only on the ground of justification; and second, from the fact that he lays down this loving, emphatically construed, as an ideal which has not been reached so long as we are still universal debtors in individual matters.

[Although Rom_13:9 shows that the Mosaic law is meant, yet it is to be doubted whether there is any “apologetic reference to the upholders of the law” (Alford). When De Wette says: “He who practises love, the higher duty, has, even before he does this, fulfilled the law, the lower,” he seems to ignore the true position of the law in the Christian dispensation. “The law, as a rule of gratitude, is completely fulfilled by love,” seems a better view. For the former part of the verse implies that we never attain to this, but still “owe” this love increasingly. Hence the reference here is to the completed ideal. “The expression implies more than a simple performance of the precepts of the law; true love does more than this: it adds a completeness to the performance. It reaches those lesser courtesies and sympathies which cannot be digested into a code and reduced to rule. To the bare framework of law, which is as the bones and sinews, it adds the flesh which fills it, and the life which actuates it” (Webster and Wilkinson).—R.]

Rom_13:9. For this, Thou shalt not, &c. [τὸγὰρ οὐ, κ.τ.λ.] It is self-evident that the Apostle does not take the negative commandments of the Decalogue in a merely literal sense. This is clear also from the prominence which he gives to the last: Thou shalt not covet (Luther: Covet nothing; an emphasizing of the object; Rom_7:7 is against this). It also follows, from the fact that this perfect negative conduct is not conceivable without a corresponding positive conduct. Tholuck: “In the enumeration of the commandments in Rom_13:9, that respecting adultery precedes the one respecting! murder. There is the same order in Codd. Alex. LXX., Exodus 6.; the same in Philo, and in the New Testament, Jam_2:11; Mar_10:19; Luk_18:20. Philo establishes it, by saying: adultery is the most heinous crime.” For further particulars, see Tholuck, p. 694.

Briefly comprehended. Ἀνακεφαλαιοῦν; see Eph_1:10. In the expression there is comprised the idea, that all which is explained from the principle (for example, the Ten Commandments from the law of love) is again summed up in the fulfilment of the principle. Therefore not merely συντόμως ἀπαρτίζεται (Chrysostom). [So Meyer, Tholuck, Philippi: recapitulated; De Wette, Alford: brought under one head. Dr. Lange includes both ideas. Briefly might be omitted from the E. V. with propriety.—R.]

Rom_13:10. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. [Philippi remarks that the Greeks usually write ἐργάζεσθαὶ τινά τι, while Paul here has: τῷπλησίον κακὸν οὐκ ἐργάζεται.—R.] The Apostle’s maxim, in the form of an oxymoron, substantiates what has already been said, since love appears as the great positive fulfilment of the law, because it worketh no ill to the neighbor. The perfection (defined, in the main, negatively) of the Decalogue becomes the measure of the perfection (defined, in the main, positively) of the gospel.

[Love therefore is the fulfilment of the law, πλήρωμα οὖν νόμου ἡ ἀγάπη. Fulfilment, rather than “fulfilling,” which would be the proper rendering of πλήρωσις. Meyer: “In the love to one’s neighbor, that takes place by means of which the law is fulfilled.” He further adds, that, in 1Co_13:4-7, Paul gives a commentary on love’s working no ill, &c. Comp. Gal_5:14, Lange’s Comm., pp. 135 ff.—R.]

Rom_13:11. And this, knowing the time [καὶτοῦτο εἰδότες τὸν καιρόν. Dr. Lange: “And knowing this, we know also the time,” &c. See below.—R.] According to Bengel, καὶ τοῦτο must be supplemented by ποιεῖτε; according to Estius, by agere debemus (Tholuck, ποιῶμεν). Meyer goes back to the precept in Rom_13:8 : μηδενὶ. Yet not only is that precept quite remote, but there is also here a change from the second person to the first. If we look at the actual connection, the Apostle cannot simply say: Let us do that—love our neighbor as ourselves. The more direct thought is: Let us discharge all our obligations, for we know that the end is nigh. But the Apostle does not say: “the end is nigh,” but, “the day of salvation is nigh.” Therefore it is advisable to accept an ellipsis: καὶ τοῦτο εἰδότες τὸν καιρὸν οἲδαμεν, or, εἰδότες ἐσμέν. Because we know that love, which fulfils the law, is present, we know the importance of the time, namely, that the time of perfect salvation is nigh. To what extent? Because, by love, the works of night must vanish—adultery, murder, theft, covetousness; therefore the day of the complete righteousness of life must dawn. If this combination be deemed doubtful, Meyer’s construction should then be preferred.

[Dr. Lange’s view is indeed doubtful. On the whole, it seems unnecessary to supply any thing, but rather (with Hodge, Meyer, Philippi, and many others) to take και as = et quidem, and indeed, the rather, and to refer τοῦτο to what precedes—i.e., to the injunction of Rom_13:8, as afterwards expanded. This is classical usage, though ταῦτα is more common in such cases than τοῦτο. The demonstrative pronoun is thus used “to mark the importance of the connection between two circumstances for the case in hand” (Hodge). Luther and Glöckler confuse the construction, by joining τοῦτο with εἰδότες. The participle is not = considering (Grotius, Hodge, and others), but is causal, since ye know.—The time. This is explained by the next clause, that it is high time.—R.]

To awake out of sleep [ἐξ ὕπνου ἐγερθῆναι. Dr. Lange paraphrases thus in his text: “to fully arise, or, that we should immediately have arisen.”—R.] How very metaphorical a meaning the Apostle gives to the word, as a designation of the sleep of sin, and of the darkness and bondage of the judgment of conscience by the blindness of sin, is plain from his subsequently describing just this excited, external watching, as works of darkness. According to Reiche, ὕπνος is an image of the Christian’s condition on earth; this is opposed by Meyer, p. 481. [This condition of sleep is that of Christians also, as the verse obviously implies, but only relatively so (Philippi, De Wette, and others).—R.]

For now is our salvation nearer [νῦνγὰρ ἐγγύτερον ἡμῶν ἡ σωτηρία]. With Luther, and most commentators, we refer the ἡμῶν to ἡ σωτηρία, and not, with Meyer, to ἐγγύτερον; because it would not be like Paul to say that salvation, absolutely considered, is already brought nearer to us believers. Σωτηρία is here the completion of the redemptive salvation of the messianic kingdom. Therefore Meyer says: “This kingdom begins by means of the second coming of Christ, which Paul regarded near (Usteri, Lehrbegriff, p. 355). It was by not recognizing this—although Paul brings so impressively into the calculation the short time from his conversion to the period of his writing—that men have been induced to accept very preposterous interpretations; for example, that salvation by death is meant (Photius, and others), or the destruction of Jerusalem, which was of good results for Christianity (according to the earlier commentators, and also Michaelis), or the inward σωτηρία, the spiritual salvation of Christianity (Moras, and others).”

According to Tholuck, we can only grant that Paul indulged the hope of the speedy coming of Christ—perhaps even to live to see it—but yet that he had no fixed period of time for it. According to Meyer’s rude view, we would have to imagine, with the Ebionites, a twofold σωτηρία; one of which, the spiritual salvation, has already happened; the other, the second coming of Christ, is near at hand, while between the two there is to be a gloomy period. But this is not the view of the Apostle. Rather, the first or principial σωτηρία, which is already the saving possession of Christians, is in the course of permanent and full development toward the final, peripherical salvation. There is a daily progress from σωτηρία to σωτηρία. And, particularly with Paul, a new era of the development of σωτηρία will come, after Christianity shall have spread from Rome throughout the whole West, which, according to the purpose of the Epistle, is near at hand; and, with this Christianization of the Roman world, the completed σωτηρία will be brought nearer. These great, vital, and dynamic views of the Apostle are very different from the modern assumptions of the Parousia imputed to him. Tholuck: “The period from the appearance of the regnum gloriœ, when compared with its glory, is described as a nocturnal period. Spiritual sleep will be shaken off when the regnum gratiœ comes to men (Col_1:12-13); and how much more will this be the fact when the regnum gloriœ approaches!”

[Stuart, Hodge, Webster and Wilkinson, and a large class of commentators, understand by σωτηρία, the consummation of salvation in eternity—deliverance from the present evil world. Dr. Hodge objects at some length to the reference to the second coming of Christ. On the other hand, most modern German commentators defend this reference. Olshausen, De Wette, Philippi, Meyer, and others, think no other view in the least degree tenable; and Dr. Lange, while careful to guard against extreme theories on this point, denies the reference to eternal blessedness, and admits that the Parousia is intended. This opinion gains ground among Anglo-Saxon exegetes. The main objection to it is thus met by Dean Alford: “Without denying the legitimacy of an individual application of this truth, and the importance of its consideration for all Christians of all ages, a fair exegesis of this passage can hardly fail to recognize the fact that the Apostle, here as well as elsewhere (1Th_4:17; 1Co_15:51), speaks of the coming of the Lord as rapidly approaching.” As to this being inconsistent with inspiration, he refers to Mar_13:32 : “Of that day and hour knoweth no man,” &c. “The fact that the nearness or distance of that day was unknown to the Apostles, in no way affects the prophetic announcements of God’s Spirit by them, concerning its preceding and accompanying circumstances. The ‘day and hour’ formed no part of their inspiration; the details of the event did. And this distinction has singularly and providentially turned out to the edification of all subsequent ages. While the prophetic declarations of the events of that time remain to instruct us, the eager expectation of the time, which they expressed in their day, has also remained, a token of the true frame of mind in which each succeeding age (and each succeeding age à fortiori) should contemplate the ever-approaching coming of the Lord. On the certainty of the event, our faith is grounded; by the uncertainty of the time, our hope is stimulated and our watchfulness aroused.” This ignorance of the time of the coming of Christ Dr. Hodge himself brings forward, yet not to account for the expectation so much as to deny it. It is difficult for an unlettered believer to read the New Testament and not find this expectation, while even the most learned commentators now find it.—R.]

Than when we believed. (Calvin, and others), Luther says incorrectly: Than when we believed it. [The aorist refers to the definite time, when we first believed. So 1Co_3:5; 1Co_15:2, &c.—R.]

Rom_13:12. The night is far spent, &c. [ἡ νὺξ προέκοψεν, κ.τ.λ.] According to Meyer, the night would be the time before the second coming of Christ; and the near day, on the other hand, the second coming itself. Certainly we do not read: “The night is gone, but the day is come.” But it does not follow from this that Paul supposed that the day would not break until the second coming. The day will break a hundred times, in ever greater potencies, between the first and the second coming of Christ. Consequently, a chronological antithesis is not here in question. The night is the spiritual condition of heathen Rome; the breaking day is the future of Christian Rome. Ἡ νὺξ προέκοψεν. [The sense of the passage in itself considered is perfectly plain; but the precise reference is determined by the view taken of Rom_13:11. Admitting such recurring daybreaks as Dr. Lange suggests, they are still only preludes to “that day” when there shall be “no night.”—R.]

Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness [ὰποθώμεθα οὖν τὰ ἒργα τοῦ σκότους. The verb should be rendered: put off, if the figure of clothing be admitted; put away, if Dr. Lange’s view be accepted.—R.] Meyer: “As one lays off his clothing. This view (against Fritzsche) corresponds to the correlative ἐνδυσώμεθα; comp. on Eph_4:22.” [So De Wette, Philippi, Harless, Hodge, Alford, Webster and Wilkinson, Jowett, and most.—R.] But the works of darkness are not the same as the clothing of night. There is a difference between nocturnal revels and nocturnal clothing. The moral side of the heathen, and especially the Roman, night-life, moves before the Apostle, and he makes it designate evil works in moral darkness in general. The Roman of that time, giving himself up to dissolute nocturnal feasts and works of debauchery, but, on the return of day, assuming the favorite Roman costume of arms—a very perceptible contrast to these Roman Christians—is presented to them by the Apostle as a picture of a moral and religious contrast.

And let us put on the armour of light [ἐνδυσώμεθα δὲ τἂ ὂπλα τοῦ φωτός. See Textual Note7]. Not instruments (Morus), clothes (Beza, and others), shining arms (Grotius), but the armor which the Roman wears by day, as a figure of the spiritual means of conflict, and of the conflicts which belong to the light; they are presented by it, and wielded in its element (see Eph_6:13). The light is the master from whom, for whom, and with whom, this armor Isaiah 26—Ἐνδύεσθαι. Tholuck: “The figure of most intimate union with Christ, as the garment with the body; Gal_3:27; Eph_4:24; Col_3:10. Also in the classics, see Wetstein.”

Rom_13:13. Let us walk seemly, as in the day [ὡς ἐν ἡμέρᾳ εὐσχημόνως περιπατήσωμεν]. As if that day had already come, when it will be a characteristic of public respectability to live a moral Christian life, and therefore to live decorously. Εὐσχημόνως [referring to the moral decorum of the conduct (Meyer).—R.], 1Th_4:12; 1Co_7:35; 1Co_14:40, because that day is already breaking.

Not in rioting, &c. [Webster and Wilkinson: “Three classes of sins are specified, to each of which two words are appropriated, viz., intemperance, impurity, discord: the first, public or social vice; the second, private and secret vice; the third, ecclesiastico-political vice, the vice infecting communities even Christian.” To this must be added Meyer’s remark, that the three members stand in the internal relation of cause and effect. Comp. Gal_5:19-21 (Lange’s Comm., p. 138), where five of the six words are found.—R.]—Κώμοις, carousals.27 Meyer translates, “with nocturnal riotings,” by regarding the following dative as the dative of manner. This will not apply well to περιπατεῖν. [Philippi takes the datives as local, which seems the simplest view. Fritzsche, dat. commodi.—R.]—Chambering, κοὶταις [congressibus venereis], feasts of debauchery, rendezvous, chambers and houses of debauchery, works of debauchery itself.—[Wantonness, ἀσελγεἰαις. On this word, see Tittmann, Syn., p. 151. The plural shows that the various manifestations of wantonness are referred to.—R.]—Envying, ζήλω̣, jealousy. The reverse side of nocturnal lusts and pleasures is nocturnal quarrels, especially matters of jealousy, and the forms still prevailing among the works of darkness in our day, especially in Italy and Spain.

Rom_13:14. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. Ἐνδύεσθαι, Gal_3:27; Eph_4:24; Col_3:10. [Hodge: “To be intimately united to Him, so that He, and not we, may appear.” So De Wette, Philippi, &c.—R.] Tholuck: “Christ was already put on at baptism, Gal_3:27; but this ἐνδύεσθαι, just as the being light, must also be continually renewed. Besides, we must take into consideration the aorist form: The putting on as a garment denotes the entrance of the most intimate communion.” Meyer: “Even in the classics, ἐνδύεσθαὶ τινα denotes assuming somebody’s manner of thought and action.”

And make not provision for the flesh, &c. [καἰ τῆς σαρκὸς πρόνοιαν μὴ ποιεῖσθε εἰς ἐπιθυμίας. Dr. Lange: Und die Pflege des Fleisches macht euch nicht zur pflege der Lüste; and of the care of the flesh do not make for yourselves a care of its lusts. The order of the Greek seems to favor this, but this implies a proper care of the flesh; so that this can only be a tenable view provided σάρξ does not have an ethical sense here. On this point, see below.—R.] Luther’s translation is doubly incorrect: Take care of the body, yet so that, &c. First, the sentence is not divided into a positive and negative precept; second, the question is concerning the σάρξ, and not concerning the σῶμα. The sentence contains the expression of the moral limitation of the external perception of a self-evident duty. The duty is πρόνοια τῆς σαρκός; the enjoined limitation is the μὴ εἰς ἐπιθ. According to Fritzsche, σάρξ can only be understood as care libidinosa, and therefore the whole sentence is a prohibition. Tholuck and Meyer, on the other hand, observe that the σάρξ, understood in this sense as sensual lust, should even be crucified; Gal_5:24. Meyer describes the σάρξ, as it is here understood, as the lower animal part of man, the fountain and seat of sensual and sinful desires, in antithesis to the πνεῦμα. His calling σάρξ the material of the σῶμα, is better. [Philippi: “σάρξ has here a purely physiological sense.”—R.] Tholuck cites Galen’s medical usus loquendi to prove that the πρόνοια must be understood as care sensu bono; but Eph_5:29 and 1Co_12:23 are of special application here. The distinction between what is vicious in the true care of the flesh, as is shown particularly in respectable clothing—to which the antithesis, “put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,” specially refers—is not merely expressed by the μὴ εἰς ἐπιθυμὶας: not so that the ἐπιθυμίαι arise from it; but also by the middle: ποιεῖσθε, make for yourselves, in which reference is made to the subjective self-deception, the πράξεις τοῦ σώματος in the gratification of sensuous necessities.

[The view given above is, in the main, that of De Wette, Philippi, and many others. It opposes Luther’s limitation of the negative to εἰς ἐπιθυμίας, but does not take the whole passage as prohibitory. Hodge, Stuart, Alford, and others, render (as in E. V.): Make no provision (whatever) for the flesh (the carnal nature, in the ethical sense) to fulfil its lusts (so as to fulfil them, and also, because such provision would fulfil them; the result and object blended in the thought). The objections to this view are, that πρόνοια is used generally in a good sense; that the prohibition is too mild, if flesh were used in the ethical sense, &c. But the ethical sense has been the prevalent one in the Epistle. The grammatical difficulty is very slight, since μή has suffered a slight trajection. Besides, the order seems to have been chosen to give prominence and emphasis to σαρκός; such emphasis is altogether unnecessary, unless it has its ethical force. Its prominent position brings it into obvious contrast with Ἰησοῦν χριστόν; this contrast of itself seems to determine the meaning. These latter considerations seem to have escaped the German commentators. Comp. Alford also, who claims that the order would have been different had Paul designed to convey the meaning defended by Meyer, &c.—R.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The debt of love denotes the duty of love for our neighbor, as, according to the law, it is a requirement of infinite force; and, according to the believer’s new principle of life, it is an infinitely impulsive power. The unity of this debt divides itself into the differently formed obligations of various duties to our neighbor.

2. Love is the fulfilment of the law: (1) So far as the whole law is only an outline of love to be filled up. (2) So far as it precludes every transgression of the law. (3) On the other hand, every commandment is realized as a vital principle in the new life. It is as love that God has given the law, as our call to our destination. It is as love that Christ has fulfilled the law for our reconciliation. It is as love that the law of the Spirit lives in our faith, and, by the fellowship of Christ, supplies the defects of our deeds, so that, in the imitation of Christ, that fellowship may ever be elevated higher and higher.

3. The new era of love, a dayspring of the new era of light, with which the completion of salvation approaches.

4. If we would define more specifically the relation of Paul, as well as of all the apostles, to the second coming of Christ, we must distinguish: (1) Between the religious measure [Zeitmass, measure of time] of God’s kingdom, and the chronological measure of the world; (2) Between the apostolical prospect of a future of glory which will be unfolded every day in new morning periods, and the meagreness of the Ebionitic idea, which has only a marvellous meteor of the Parousia, on the one hand, far behind it, and, on the other, far before it, while it finds itself placed in a troublous period and an ordinary course of the world. The present age in principle ceased at the death and resurrection of Christ, and the future age is already present in the heart of the Church and in the world’s great crisis of development, though everywhere still externally surrounded by the nocturnal shades of the old age. And because it has been long present in principle, and in power breaks forth every day more gloriously, our full salvation is brought continually nearer, particularly in all the great epochs of the extensive and intensive enlargement of God’s kingdom—all of which are presages of the Parousia, which is infinitely near to religious anticipation, and yet, chronologically, is indeterminably remote. All that must still precede that external Parousia, Paul indicates in Romans 11. and 2 Thessalonians 2, and John elaborately describes in figures in the Book of Revelation.

5. The very fact that wickedness seeks the veil of night, is a witness for God’s word; and as night is an image of spiritual darkness, and day is an image of spiritual and heavenly light, so are the works of night—sleep, on the one hand, and sinful nocturnal deeds on the other—images of different forms of spiritual corruption, the gross sins, which, indeed, are not only figures, but also phenomena, of spiritual corruptions. On the other hand, the putting on of the day, the armor of the day, have their spiritual meaning. The armor was a very striking figure to the Romans in particular.

6. The two great antitheses of nocturnal life: Lust and strife, pleasure and murder.

7. With the salvation of Christianity to the believer there has also broken for humanity the morning of morality, of good manners, and of true decorum.

8. The 13th verse is an imperishable reminder of Augustine’s conversion (see Conf. Rom_8:12; Rom_8:28).

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Rom_13:7. To every one his due! The Christian’s royal motto: 1. In reference to his relation to the civil authority; 2. In his intercourse with every man.

Heubner: The respect which we, as Christians, owe to the civil authorities, is more than the external fulfilment of duty.

Rom_13:8-10. Perseverance in love. It is: 1. In respect to our neighbor a debt, which never can be paid; 2. In respect to the law, it is its fulfilment (Rom_13:8-10).—The debt of love toward our neighbor. 1. It is a very great debt; a. because there are so many creditors; b. because their demands constitute a very important total; c. because it can never be completely cancelled. 2. But it is nevertheless a sweet debt; a. because it is not thoughtlessly paid; b. because it harmonizes with God’s commandment; c. because even the attempt to discharge it makes the heart very happy (Rom_13:8-10).—The debt of love is the only debt of the Christian toward his neighbor which is not only permissible, but even commanded (Rom_13:8).—The commandment of love toward our neighbor as the substance of all the commandments of the second table (Rom_13:9).—Why does love work no ill to the neighbor? 1. Because it proceeds from the root of God’s eternal love for men; 2. Because it will serve God in the neighbor (Rom_13:10).—Love the fulfilment of the law: 1. The truth of this apostolic sentiment; 2. The importance of it (Rom_13:10).

Starke: The heart is known by its behavior, just as the sun is by its beams (Rom_13:9).—Christ’s garden not only produces no injurious trees, but even no useless ones (Rom_13:10).—Hedinger: The eternal debt of love! Be not weary, brethren! He who loves, will be loved in return; though it be not by the thankless world, it will be by God (Rom_13:8).—Let no one excuse himself on the ground of ignorance; let no one say, “Who would know the many commandments and prohibitions?” The whole law is contained in the one word love; Mic_6:8 (Rom_13:9).

Spener: There is one debt which we all owe—to love one another; that is such a debt, that, if we should daily count it up, it would always remain just as great as it had been (Rom_13:8).—Though a thing may sometimes appear to be forbidden, if love requires it, it is not forbidden, but rather commanded; on the other hand, sometimes something may appear to be commanded, but if it is in conflict with love, it is not commanded (Rom_13:10).

Gerlach: The debt of love is never wholly payable; its fulfilment increases the demands made upon it, for it makes love warmer (Rom_13:8).

Lisco: The believer’s holy love fulfils its obligations even toward every body without exception (Rom_13:8-10).—The one requirement of love is divided into two chief commandments, in Mat_22:37-40.—Heubner: The magnitude of the commandment of love (Rom_13:8-10).—The harmonizing of the Divine should and the human would can only take place by love; by it, compulsion is transformed into freedom (Rom_13:9).—Every wicked thing is invariably an unkindness (Rom_13:10).

Besser: He who shows love to another in order to get clear of him, has not love (Rom_13:8).

Schweizer: Love, the fulfilment of the law, or, love performs what the law cannot obtain. The law does not deliver us: 1. Because it is a multiplicity of commandments and prohibitions, which perplex us; 2. Because it pronounces a curse on every one who transgresses a single point; 3. Because it is presented to us as an external power issuing its commands to us; 4. Because it takes refuge in threats and promises. Christian love is the contrary of all this.

Rom_13:8-10. The Pericope for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany.—Thym: The royal law of love toward our neighbor: 1. Its great necessity; 2. Its inward nature; 3. Its indescribable blessing.—Harless: Love is the fulfilment of the law. 1. The law, a. which makes love for us an indebtedness; b. and therefore proves it to be our debt. 2. Love, a. which knows no indebtedness except to love; b. and therefore does not come from the law, but from faith.—Heubner: The simplicity of Christian virtue: 1. It proceeds from one spirit of humility and love; 2. All its effects harmonize in one—the manifestation of love.

Rom_13:11-14. The decided breach of believing Christians with darkness: 1. Wherefore should we break off from it? a. because it is time to do it; b. because it is high time. 2. In what should this breach consist? a. in laying off the works of darkness; α. gross, sensual sins; β. subtle, inward sins; b. in putting on the armor of light; a. in walking honestly as in the day; β. in putting on the Lord Jesus Christ (or, α. civil righteousness; β. righteousness of faith).

Luther: Do not torture the body excessively by the intolerable holiness of watching, fasting, and freezing, as the hypocrites do (Rom_13:14).

Starke: I must show outwardly what I am inwardly. Those who are inwardly good, must also have a good form and color (Rom_13:13).—Quesnel: Time passes by, and eternity presses on (Rom_13:11).—Müller: There is many a thing and idea comprised in putting on Christ; our Christianity is not a stagnant existence, but a growth; it is no leap, but a walk (Rom_13:12).—The armor of light well becomes a Christian. We must either clothe ourselves with darkness or with light (Rom_13:12).

Spener: Let us put on the Lord Jesus Christ. But we put Him on once by the belief that we receive, as our possession, His righteousness and merit, which He has imparted to us, and that we shall appear in them alone before God’s throne. We afterward put Him on also by godly imitation, in walking as Christ has walked (Rom_13:14).

Lisco: The one care for the body, in bestowing upon it what is necessary, is natural; the other is sinful, when the lusts and desires of the body are provided for (Rom_13:14).

Heubner: Christian watchfulness (Rom_13:11-14). Christian knowledge of the time. The time of Christianity is a time of salvation (Rom_13:11).—There are many awakening voices: Public services—preachers—every stroke of the bell—the Bible (Rom_13:11).—The Christian is not a night-walker, a nocturnal rioter, but a walker by day (Rom_13:13).—Temperance, chastity, love—three great prime virtues (Rom_13:13).—Schweizer: Blissful joy at the Reformation as a rising light (Sermon on the Anniversary Day of the Reformation).

Rom_13:11-14. The Pericope for the First Sunday of Advent.—Heubner: The call of Christianity is a call to awake from spiritual sleep.—The appeal of Christian watchmen: 1. It is day; the sun is risen! 2. Awake, arise! 3. Be purified to new life! 4. Put on Christ!—Nagel: The awakening voice with which the Church appeals to us on its holydays, tells us: 1. What time it Isaiah 2. What it is high time to do.—Kapff: The advent message: 1. As a message of salvation and joy; 2. As a message for penitence and renewal.—Florey: The advent season is a holy morning-time of the heart and life.—Harless: The festal ornament well-pleasing to Christ: 1. A watchful eye, to see the night that covers the earth; 2. An enlightened eye, to behold the day which has come; 3. A willing heart, to do what the day requires.—Petri: What time is it for us? 1. To arise from sleep; 2. To put on the armor of light.—Rautenberg: What belongs to rising from sleep? 1. To open the eyes aright; 2. To put on the right garment; 3. To take up the right armor.—Thym: Paul’s vigorous advent preaching: 1. On the advent time; 2. On the advent duties; 3. On the advent blessing.

[Farindon, on Rom_13:14 : Look into Christ’s wardrobe, and you will find no torn or ragged apparel. Christ had the robe of righteousness, the garment of innocency, the spotless coat of temperance and chastity, and with these He went about doing good. Out of this wardrobe we must make up our wedding garment. We must be conformable to Christ. In the rule of our obedience, we must not wear a garment of our own fancying, an irregular, an unprescribed devotion; in the ends of it, we must glorify God on the earth; and in the parts of it, we must not have a parcel-garment. This garment must fit every part, and be universal.

[Leighton: He that truly loves his neighbor as himself, will be as loth to wrong him as to wrong himself, either in that honor and respect that is due to him, or in his life, or chastity, or goods, or good name, or to lodge so much as an unjust desire or thought, because that is the beginning and conception of real injury. In a word, the great disorder and crookedness of the corrupt heart of man consists in self-love; it is the very root of all sin both against God and man; for no man commits any offence, but it is in some way to profit or please himself. It was a high enormity of self-love that brought forth the very first sin of mankind. That was the bait which took, more than either the color or the taste of the apple—that it was desirable for knowledge.

[John Howe, on Rom_13:10 : Would it not make a happy world, if we all so loved our neighbor: 1. That we would no more hurt him than we would ourselves; 2. Would no more cheat him than we would ourselves; 3. No more oppress and crush him than we would ourselves.—What a spring of mischief and misery in the world would be shut up, dried up, if that proneness to hard, harsh, and frequently unjust thoughts, were, by the workings of such a spirit of love, erased out of the minds and hearts of men!

[Burkitt, on Rom_13:14 : This implies: 1. That the soul of man, since the fall, is in a naked state, destitute of those divine graces of the Holy Spirit which were its original clothing in the day of undefiled innocency; 2. That Jesus Christ is our spiritual clothing; a. in His righteousness, to pardon and justify us, He is our clothing, to cover the guilt of sin out of God’s sight; b. In His grace, to sanctify us, by which He cleanses us from our sins, pollution, and filthiness; c. that Jesus Christ, in order to our spiritual clothing, must be put on by faith: an unapplied Christ justifies none, saves none. It was not sufficient, under the law, that the blood of the sacrifice was shed, but it was also to be sprinkled, in order to the expiation of guilt.

[Doddridge, on Rom_13:14 : By putting on the Lord Jesus: 1. We make the gospel day yet brighter in the eyes of all around us; 2. We anticipate, while here in this world of comparative darkness, the lustre with which we hope, through Christ’s influence and grace, to shine forth in the celestial kingdom of our Father.

[John Wesley: The whole law under which we now are, is fulfilled by love. Faith, working or animated by love, is all that God now requires of man. He has substituted, not sincerity, but love, for angelic perfection.

Very excellent things are spoken of love—it is the essence, the spirit, the life of all virtue. It is not only the first and great command, but all the commands in one.

[Richard Watson, Sermon on the Armor of Light (Rom_13:12): I. What the armor of light is, with which the Apostle exhorts us to invest ourselves. II. Why it has the appellation of “armor of light:” (1) Because of its heavenly origin; (2) Because it is only found where Christianity exists and exerts its proper influence; (3) Because it corresponds to the character of our dispensation, which is a dispensation of light. III. The motives which should induce us, in compliance with the exhortation, to array ourselves with it: (1) From a consideration of the degraded state of man, who is not invested with this armor; (2) The moral elevation which this armor gives to every one who is invested with it; (3) We must either conquer or be conquered.

[Hodge, on Rom_13:14 : All Christian duty is included in putting on the Lord Jesus; in being like Him, having that similarity of temper and conduct which results from being intimately united to Him by the Holy Spirit.—J. F. H.]

Footnotes:

[15]Rom_13:7.—[Rec., א3. D3. F. L., insert οὖν (Philippi, De Wette); omitted in א1. A. B. D1., by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Meyer, Alford, Tregelles, and many others. Dr. Lange thinks the omission favors his view, that a new section should begin here; while Philippi and De Wette think this view of the connection led to the early omission.

[16]Rom_13:9.—[The Rec. inserts οὐ ψευδομαρτυρήσεις on insufficient authority (א., versions and fathers). It is omitted in A. B. D. F. L., many cursives, &c.; by Lachmann, and modern editors and commentators without exception. Even Dr. Hodge, who rarely deviates from the Rec., except under overwhelming authority, rejects it. The insertion is at once explained by the Decalogue itself.

[17]Rom_13:9.—[B. F. omit ἐν τῷ. It is found in א. A. D. L.; adopted by many editors, bracketted by Lachmann, Alford, Tregelles. It might easily have been omitted as unnecessary, hence to be retained.—Rec., with A. L.: ἐν τούτω̣τῷ λόγω; א. B. D. F., Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, and most: ἐν τῷ λόγω̣ τούτω̣.

[18]Rom_13:9.—[א. A. B. D. (Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, Tregelles): σεαυτόν, instead of έαυτόν (F., fathers, Rec., Meyer, Philippi, &c.). The latter is for the second person, however; and may have been changed, either as a grammatical correction, or from the repetition of the Σ, which precedes. On ἑαυτόν for the second person, see Winer, p. 142.

[19]Rom_13:11.—[Dr. Lange’s text reads: Und Solches wissend, wissen wir auch. See the Exeg. Notes on this interpretation, and that given above in brackets.

[20]Rom_13:11.—[The subject of the infinitive is omitted in the E. V. The Rec., א3. D. F. L., have ἡμᾶς; א1. A. B. C.: ὑμᾶς. The former is adopted by most editors; Alford, however, having discovered that B. gives the latter, has adopted it. Lachmann, Tischendorf, and most, place ῆδη before ἡμᾶς (so א. A. B. C. D.). Hence: it is already time that we should awake, is the correct rendering.

[21]Rom_13:12.—[The Rec. (with א3. C3. D2 3. F. L., and fathers) reads καί before ἐνδυσώμεθα. A. B. C1. D1., versions and fathers: ἐνδ. δέ. א1. omits the conjunction altogether. Lachmann, Tischendorf, De Wette, Alford, Wordsworth, Tregelles, accept δέ, since καί might be substituted on account of the failure to recognize the contrast. Philippi and Meyer accept καί, because δέ might have been inserted from the previous part of the verse, or to correspond with it. No change is required in the E. V., to express the slightly contrastive force of δέ.

[22]Rom_13:13.—[Amer. Bible Union, Noyes: becomingly; Five Ang. Clergymen: seemly. The latter is more in keeping with the style of the E. V. 1Co_14:40 : decently (and in order). Seemly is found in Chaucer in precisely the sense here intended by εὐσχημόνως.

[23]Rom_13:14.—[Dr. Lange’s view would be thus expressed: Do not make such provision for the flesh as to satisfy its lusts. Noyes: Think not about satisfying the lusts of the flesh. Alford: Take not (any) forethought for the flesh, to fulfil its lusts. See the Exeg. Notes.—R.]

[24][The mass of commentators supply ἀπαιτοῦντι (so Winer, p. 548), probably because they limit the reference in this verse to magistrates. But Dr. Lange’s view is preferable. “The sentence is elliptical for ὦ τὸν θ. ὀθείλετετούτω τὸν θ.” (Webster and Wilkinson). So E. V., substantially.—R.]

[25][This is required by the context with its frequent imperatives, and also by the subjective negatives. The indicative would require οὐδεζὶ οὐδέν. Of course, the meaning is very wide, including all possible obligations, and not to be limited to a caution against pecuniary indebtedness. Fritzsche, and others, take ὀθείλετε in a different sense in the second clause (a kind of paronomasia): “Owe no man any thing, but ye ought to love one another.” This is quite unnecessary, however.—R.]

[26][Dr. Hodge: “Those virtues and good deeds which men are not ashamed of, because they will bear to be seen.” Too one-sided a conception of the figure. Alford: “The arms belonging to a soldier of light.” The Christian’s clothing as a child of the day is: armor!—R.]

[27][Such as the feasts of Bacchus, and also “the common boisterous carousing of intemperate young men” (Hodge).—R.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom 13:7. Ὀφειλὰς), debts.—τῷ, an abbreviated mode of expression,[137] as in 2Co 8:15, note.—ΦὉΡΟΝ, ΤΈΛΟς) with respect to the thing itself; ΦΌΡΟς is the genus, ΤΈΛΟς the species.—ΦΌΒΟΝ, ΤΙΜῊΝ, fear, honour) with the mind, and words and gestures. φόβος, respect, a higher degree of honour.

[137] See Appendix. Concisa Locutio.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_13:7. Hortatory application of the actual state of the case contained in Rom_13:5-6 : perform therefore your duties to all (comp. on 1Co_7:3), etc.a brief summary (ἀπόδοτε … ὀφειλ.) and distributive indication of that which is to be rendered to all magisterial persons generally (πᾶσι), and to individuals in particular (tax officers, customs officers, judicial and other functionaries), both really (φόρος, τέλος) and personally (φόβος, τιμή).

πᾶσι] to be referred to magistrates, not to all men generally (Estius, Klee, Reiche, Glöckler, comp. also Ewald); this is manifestly, from the whole connectionand especially from the following specification, as also from the fact that the language only becomes general at Rom_13:8the only reference in conformity with the text.

τῷ τὸν φόρον] sc. ἀπαιτοῦντι, which flows logically from ἀπόδοτε πᾶσι τ. ὀφ. (Winer, p. 548 [E. T. 737]; Buttmann, p. 338), and is also suitable to τ. φόβον and τ. τιμήν; for, in fact, the discourse is concerning magistrates, whoand that not merely as respects the notions of that timedo certainly, in accordance with their respective positions of power and performances of service, demand fear and honour.

φόρος and τέλος are distinguished as taxes (on persons and property) and customs (on goods). See on Luk_20:22.

φόβος, τιμή, fear (not merely reverence), veneration. The higher and more powerful the magisterial personages, the more they laid claim, as a rule, to be feared; otherwise and lower in the scale, at least to be honoured with the respect attaching to their office.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom 13:7 . At this point Weiss begins a new paragraph, but W. and H. make Rom 13:7 the conclusion of the first part of this chapter. In view of the close connection between Rom 13:7-8 ( cf. ὀφειλάς , ὀφείλετε ) it is better not to make too decided a break at either place. All the words in Rom 13:7 , φόρος , τέλος , φόβος , τιμὴ , do indeed imply duties to superiors, and seem therefore to continue and to sum up the content of Rom 13:1-6 ; but Rom 13:8 , in which μηδενὶ μηδὲν ὀφείλετε seems expressly written as the negative counterpart to ἀπόδοτε πᾶσι τὰς ὀφειλάς in Rom 13:7 , introduces at the same time a wider subject that of the duties of all individuals toward each other. τῷ τὸν φόρον τὸν φόρον : this is quite intelligible, but nothing can make it grammatical: see Winer, p. 737. For the distinction of φόρος and τέλος see Trench, Syn [35] , p. 392. For φόβος and τιμή 1Pe 2:17 .

[35] synonym, synonymous.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_13:7

Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. Such being the will of God, and such the benevolent design of civil government, render to magistrates (and to all others) what properly belongs to them, whether pecuniary contribution, reverence, or honor. The word all seems, from the context, to have special reference to all in authority, though it is not necessary to confine it to such persons exclusively. The word (φόρος) tribute is applied properly to land and capitation tax; and (τέλος) to the imposts levied on merchandise. The words (φόβος) fear, and (τιμή) honor, are generally considered in this connection as differing only in degree; the former expressing the reverence to superiors, the latter the respect to equals.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Obedience, and that from the heart.

Reverence, (which as reason is) we must give to the Magistrate.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Render therefore to all their dues--From magistrates the apostle now comes to other officials, and from them to men related to us by whatever tie.

tribute--land tax.

custom--mercantile tax.

fear--reverence for superiors.

honour--the respect due to persons of distinction.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 7. Render therefore to all their dues] This is an extensive command. Be rigidly just; withhold neither from the king nor his ministers, nor his officers of justice and revenue, nor from even the lowest of the community, what the laws of God and your country require you to pay.

Tribute to whom tribute] φορον. This word probably means such taxes as were levied on persons and estates.

Custom to whom custom] τελος. This word probably means such duties as were laid upon goods, merchandise, c., on imports and exports what we commonly call custom. Kypke on this place has quoted some good authorities for the above distinction and signification. Both the words occur in the following quotation from Strabo: Αναγκη γαρ μειουσθαι τα τελη, φορων επιβαλλομενων· It is necessary to lessen the CUSTOMS, if TAXES be imposed. Strabo, lib. ii., page 307. See several other examples in Kypke.

Fear to whom fear] It is likely that the word φοβον, which we translate fear, signifies that reverence which produces obedience. Treat all official characters with respect, and be obedient to your superiors.

Honour to whom honour.] The word τιμην may here mean that outward respect which the principle reverence, from which it springs, will generally produce. Never behave rudely to any person; but behave respectfully to men in office: if you cannot even respect the man-for an important office may be filled by an unworthy person-respect the office, and the man on account of his office. If a man habituate himself to disrespect official characters, he will soon find himself disposed to pay little respect or obedience to the laws themselves.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

7. Render then to all what is due, etc. The Apostle seems here summarily to include the particulars in which the duties of subjects towards magistrates consist, — that they are to hold them in esteem and honor, that they are to obey their edicts, laws, and judgments, — that they are to pay tributes and customs. By the word fear, he means obedience; by customs and tributes, not only imposts and taxes, but also other revenues.

Now this passage confirms what I have already said, — that we ought to obey kings and governors, whoever they may be, not because we are constrained, but because it is a service acceptable to God; for he will have them not only to be feared, but also honored by a voluntary respect.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(7) Tribute.—Rather, taxes—i.e., taxes upon person or property as opposed to the customs levied upon goods. These were collected by different officers.

Fear . . . honour.—There would be one class of officers who could claim respect for their official position, though they had no special means of enforcing it. Another class would have the power of inflicting punishment. This last would necessarily be feared, looked upon with a certain awe and reverence, as well as honoured.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7. This and other considerations combine to assure us that the principles of the Gospel, so far from favouring tyranny, tend ultimately to make it impossible. A perfectly Christian nation under tyrannic authority is an inconceivable thing.

7. to all] To all persons in authority over you. The precept is, of course, of universal application, but plainly bears this special reference here: see the next words.

tribute—custom—fear—honour] Lit. the tribute, the custom, &c.; i.e. the tribute, &c. which is in question in each case.—“Tribute”—tax on person and property. “Custom:”—toll on merchandize. “Fear:”—such as is due to an authorized avenger of wrong. “Honour:”—such as is due to authorized power in general.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Render therefore to all their dues,.... To all princes, magistrates, and officers, that are placed over us, from the supreme governor to the lowest officer under him, should we render as a due debt, and not as a mere gift, whatever belongs to them, or is proper for them for the due discharge of their office, to encourage in it, and support the dignity of it, whether external or internal:

tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom. These two words include all sorts of levies, taxes, subsidies, &c. and the former may particularly design what is laid on men's persons and estates, as poll money, land tax, &c. and the latter, what arises from the exportation and importation of goods, to and from foreign parts:

fear to whom fear; not of punishment; for a good subject has no reason to fear the civil magistrate in this sense, only the man that does evil, the malefactor; as for the good neighbour, citizen, and subject, he loves the magistrate the more, the more diligent he is in putting the laws in execution against wicked men; but this is to be understood of a fear of offending, and especially of a reverence bore in the mind, and expressed by outward actions, and such as has going with it a cheerful obedience to all lawful commands:

honour to whom honour; there is an honour due to all men, according to their respective rank and station, and the relation they stand in to each other; so servants are to honour their masters, children their parents, wives their husbands, and subjects their princes; all inferior magistrates are to be honoured in their place, and more especially the king as supreme, in thought, word, and gesture; see Pe1 2:17.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

7 Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.

Ver. 7. Render therefore to all their dues] He saith not their unjust exactions. Melancthon makes mention of a cruel prince, that to get money from his subjects, would knock out their teeth, first one tooth and then another, unless they would bring him in such sums of money as he required. {a}

Fear to whom, &c.] i.e. Reverential observance, far beyond that which Quintus Fabius Maximus yielded to his son, when he became consul. (Liv. Decad. iii. lib. 4.)

{a} Primo unum dentem evellebat minitans.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Render therefore ... - This injunction is often repeated in the Bible; see the notes at Mat 22:21; see also Mat 17:25-27; 1Pe 2:13-17; Pro 24:21. It is one of the most lovely and obvious of the duties of religion. Christianity is not designed to break in upon the proper order of society, but rather to establish and confirm that order. It does not rudely assail existing institutions: but it comes to put them on a proper footing, to diffuse a mild and pure influence over all, and to secure “such” an influence in all the relations of life as shall tend best to promote the happiness of man and the welfare of the community.

Is due - To whom it properly belongs by the law of the land, and according to the ordinance of God. It is represented here as a matter of “debt,” as something which is “due” to the ruler; a fair “compensation” to him for the service which he renders us by devoting his time and talents to advance “our” interests, and the welfare of the community. As taxes are a “debt,” a matter of strict and just obligation, they should be paid as conscientiously and as cheerfully as any other just debts, however contracted.

Custom - τέλος telos. The word rendered “tribute” means, as has been remarked, the tax which is paid by a tributary prince or dependent people; also the tax imposed on land or real estate. The word here translated “custom” means properly the revenue which is collected on “merchandise,” either imported or exported.

Fear - See Rom 13:4. We should stand in awe of those who wear the sword, and who are appointed to execute the laws of the land. Since the execution of their office is suited to excite “fear,” we should render to them that reverence which is appropriate to the execution of their function. It means a solicitous anxiety lest we do anything to offend them.

Honour - The difference between this and “fear” is, that this rather denotes “reverence, veneration, respect” for their names, offices, rank, etc. The former is the “fear” which arises from the dread of punishment. Religion gives to people all their just titles, recognizes their rank and function, and seeks to promote due subordination in a community. It was no part of the work of our Saviour, or of his apostles, to quarrel with the mere “titles” of people, or to withhold from them the customary tribute of respect and homage; compare Act 24:3; Act 26:25; Luk 1:3; 1Pe 2:17. In this verse there is summed up the duty which is owed to magistrates. It consists in rendering to them proper honor contributing cheerfully and conscientiously to the necessary expenses of the government; and in yielding obedience to the laws. These are made a part of the duty which we owe to God, and should be considered as enjoined by our religion.

On the subject discussed in these seven verses, the following “principles” seem to be settled by the authority of the Bible, and are now understood,

That government is essential; and its necessity is recognised by God, and it is arranged by his providence. God has never been the patron of anarchy and disorder. Civil rulers are dependent on God. He has the entire control over them, and can set them up or put them down when he pleases.

(3)The authority of God is superior to that of civil rulers. They have no right to make enactments which interfere with “his” authority.

(4)It is not the business of civil rulers to regulate or control religion. That is a distinct department, with which they have no concern, except to protect it.

(5)The rights of all people are to be preserved. People are to be allowed to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience, and to be protected in those rights, provided they do not violate the peace and order of the community.

Civil rulers have no right to persecute Christians, or to attempt to secure conformity to their views by force. The conscience cannot be compelled; and in the affairs of religion man must be free.

In view of this subject we may remark,

(1) That the doctrines respecting the rights of civil rulers, and the line which is to be drawn between their powers and the rights of conscience, have been slow to be understood. The struggle has been long; and a thousand persecutions have shown the anxiety of the magistrate to rule the conscience, and to control religion. In pagan countries it has been conceded that the civil ruler had a right to control the “religion” of the people: church and state there have been one. The same thing was attempted under Christianity. The magistrate still claimed this right, and attempted to enforce it. Christianity resisted the claim, and asserted the independent and original rights of conscience. A conflict ensued, of course, and the magistrate resorted to persecutions, to “subdue” by force the claims of the new religion and the rights of conscience. Hence, the ten fiery and bloody persecutions of the primitive church. The blood of the early Christians flowed like water; thousands and tens of thousands went to the stake, until Christianity triumphed, and the right of religion to a free exercise was acknowledged throughout the empire.

(2) It is matter of devout thanksgiving that the subject is now settled, and the principle is now understood. In our own land (America) there exists the happy and bright illustration of the true principle on this great subject. The rights of conscience are regarded, and the laws peacefully obeyed. The civil ruler understands his province; and Christians yield a cheerful and cordial obedience to the laws. The church and state move on in their own spheres, united only in the purpose to make men happy and good; and divided only as they relate to different departments, and contemplate, the one, the rights of civil society, the other, the interests of eternity. Here, every man worships God according to his own views of duty; and at the same time, here is rendered the most cordial and peaceful obedience to the laws of the land. Thanks should be rendered without ceasing to the God of our fathers for the wondrous train of events by which this contest has been conducted to its issue; and for the clear and full understanding which we now have of the different departments pertaining to the church and the state.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

This verse concludes his discourse about the civil powers. When he saith:

Render to all their dues, he doth not mean all men, but all magistrates, whatever they be for quality, either good or bad; or whatever they be for degree, either supreme or subordinate. Render to them their dues; i.e. whatever of right belongs to them: see Mat 22:21. There are two things that more especially belong to rulers, and are due from those that are under them: the one is maintenance; the other is reverence. The first is expressed here by tribute and custom; if these two differ, then the former is a tax laid upon the substance, the latter upon the person. The second, by fear and honour; fear notes inward, and honour outward, reverence and respect.

Fear is the magistrate’s due by reason of his authority;

honour, by reason of his dignity.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

7. Their dues—It is the Christian’s duty to pay to all what is due to all. And as tribute, custom, fear, and honour are due to government, both by divine authority and for human good, it is matter of conscience that he render them all.

Custom—Usually the duty paid on exports and imports.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Render to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. Whatever, either by law or by the constituted order of society, may be due to any, in the way of deference and honour, as well as payments, Christians, as members of society, are bound to render.

HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR Ver. 7. Citizenship.

From the admirable spirit which Christianity infuses into society, the apostle next takes us to the spirit which should regulate the believer"s relations to the civil magistrate. It is most important that Christianity should leaven all these relations to the powers that be. "I could not," says Dr. Arnold, "name easily any branch of human conduct from which the influence of the gospel has been more completely shut out than this; any one on which worldly motives are avowed more boldly and more exclusively. In fact, many men seem to have vaguely confounded the gospel and the clergy in their notions about these matters; and because clergymen, like other men, have often interfered in them in the worst possible spirit, not setting an example of Christian conduct, but plunging into the lowest motives of passion or interest by which other men are actuated, there seems a sort of fear that the gospel itself will teach something mischievous to the public welfare or liberty. But, indeed, in all moral wisdom, in all duty, whether as private men or citizens, there is but one Master, even Christ, from whom we can draw nothing but what is pure and upright." It is most important, then, to see how the gospel handles the question of citizenship.

I CIVIL GOVERNMENT IS AN ORDINANCE OF GOD. (Ver. 1) We are tempted in thinking on civil society, to look upon it "either as a matter of mutual convenience between man and man, or else as an injustice and encroachment made by the rich and powerful on the rights and welfare of others." But in this we are mistaken. It has grown up as a Divine ordinance, and we are not in right relation to it until we recognize this. And this is true not merely of the Jewish commonwealth, where Divine ideas were more or less regarded and embodied, but also of the other nations of the world. They have organized themselves and performed a certain mission, and passed, it may be, from the stage, in fulfilment of a Divine purpose. For each of these nations, as it has been recently said, "he had an office; for each he had appointed a beginning and an end. One by one they rose in orderly succession, those stupendous kingdoms of the East. Babylonian and Persian, Egyptian and Greek, God had required their armies; he had laid his hand upon their captains; Assyria was his hammer, Cyrus was his shepherd, Egypt was his garden, Tyre was his jewel; everywhere he was felt; everywhere the Divine destiny directed and controlled; ... the shuttle of God passes in and out, weaving into its web a thousand threads of natural human life. All history is put to the uses of God"s holier manifestation; he works under the pressure laid upon him by the wants and necessities of social and political progress." Of course, this does not imply that we are calmly to accept of all a government chooses to inflict; but simply that, speaking generally, civil society and civil government are ordained of God to prevent us descending to beastly levels again.

II CIVIL GOVERNMENT IS ESTABLISHED AS A TERROR TO EVIL-DOERS. (Vers. 2, 3) This is the rough yet salutary morality it undertakes. If we will only consider what a state of society we should have if there were no public government to punish crimes, we can have no difficulty in recognizing in it s Divine institution. The arrangement about the manslayer in the olden time was to reinforce the rude justice of the early age before public justice had grown up into the recognized power which in civil government it has now assumed. We thus see that civil government is an institution which professes to favour morality, and, if it professed anything else, it would break down. It may not always succeed, but this is its profession. We are bound to give it a loyal trial, and to submit to it, so far as it does not dictate anything to its subjects contrary to the clear command of God. "The fact that an earthly government may be corrupt and tyrannical does not disprove the Divine origin of government; any more than the fact that parents may be unfaithful to their duties proves that the family is not divinely originated; or the fact that a particular Church may become corrupt proves that the Church is not Divine in its source. St. Paul, however, does not teach here that any degree of tyranny whatever is to be submitted to by a Christian. If the government attempt to force him to violate a Divine command for example, to desist from preaching the gospel, or to take part in pagan worship he must resist even unto death. (see Act_4:19 Act_5:29) Most of the apostles suffered martyrdom for this principle" (so Shedd, in loc. ).

III THE BELIEVER IS EXPECTED TO BE LOYAL TO THE EXISTING GOVERNMENT AS A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE. (Ver. 5) We have already seen where the duty of resistance to the civil magistrate comes in where he interferes with God"s province and assumes the lordship of the conscience. But when he keeps clear of this we are to yield him obedience as a matter of conscience, and not as a matter of fear. Treason is a business outside a believer"s functions altogether. His simple duty is submission; under protest, sometimes, it may be; but he should not incur the curse of taking the sword and perishing by it. "In respect to things pertaining only to this life," says Dr. Shedd, "and in cases in which the rights of conscience and religious convictions are not infringed upon, both Christ and his apostles taught that injustice, and even tyranny, should be submitted to, rather than that revolutionary resistance be made. And this, because merely earthly liberty, and the rights of property, are of secondary consideration. The same rule applies to the relation of the individual to the state, in this case, that applies to the relation between man and man. If a Christian is defrauded of his property by a fellow-believer, he ought to "take the wrong, and suffer himself to be defrauded," rather than "go to law one with another". (1Co_6:7) In like manner, in regard to merely worldly good, the Christian should forego his rights, and allow himself to be ill treated even by the government under which he lives, rather than organize a rebellion and bring on war with its untold evils.

IV TAXATION IS THE SUPPORT OF A DIVINE ORDINANCE. (Ver. 6) It may be hard to believe that ministers of state are at the same time ministers of God, and that heavy taxation for government extravagance is stipend to God"s officers; yet so it is. They are "servants of the people appointed of God," and so must get their tribute. Of course, it is open to the Christian citizen to criticize the government management, and seek that the ordinance of civil government do not become a tax such as no citizen will be able to bear. When the Church and the state are compared, the Church is out of sight the cheaper institution. Still, it does not become the Christian, any more than his Master, to be haggling about tribute; and there will usually be some way, though not perhaps through a fish"s mouth, of meeting the tax-gatherer"s demands.

V THE RECOGNITION OF STATE CLAIMS AND HONOURS BECOMES, IN FACT, RELIGIOUS. (Ver. 7) All are to get their due, whether direct taxes, or duties of excise, or fear and honour; for these arrangements of state are, as a rule, favourable to good morals, and deserve to be respected. Now, there are one or two objections to the principle of Christian citizenship as here laid down which, before concluding this homily, we may dispose of.

1. How about a state when it proceeds to persecution and injustice? Answer: The believer in such a case must protest against the injustice, and patiently bear it, while he respects the Divine principle embodied in the persecuting state. He avoids disloyalty, yet advocates reform.

2. Is the Church to be the tool of the state? Answer: By no means. They have distinct spheres. It is as false to put the Church against the state, as to confound the Church and the state. The Church recognizes the state as a moral institution for securing justice, and the state should recognize the Church as a Divine institution for securing love. The state enforces justice by penalties; the Church promotes love by persuasion. There need be, and should be, no confusion between them. R.M.E.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

To all - Magistrates. Tribute - Taxes on your persons or estates. Custom - For goods exported or imported. Fear - Obedience. honour - Reverence. All these are due to the supreme power.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

A twofold duty towards magistrates is here laid down by our apostle, namely, maintenance and reverence.

1. There is due unto them maintenance. Tribute and custom is payable to them for that purpose, and not without great reason and obligation: for he is the minister of God for our good, that is, an instrument under God to preserve our blessings to us, and farther, because such supplies are necessary to defray those vast expenses, which they are constrained to be at, for the security and welfare of their subjects. Taxes, tribute, and custom, are not so much gifts as due debts to princes, which by the command of God are to be justly and cheerfully paid unto them, and which cannot without sin and injustice be denied to them, or purloined from them. To cheat our prince, is as great a sin in the sight of God as to rob our father, though few think it so: Render tribute to whom tribute is due.

Again, 2. There is reverence as well as maintenance due to magistrates: Render fear to whom fear, and honour to whom honour, is due. Fear denotes inward reverence, and honour outward respect: fear is the magistrate’s due by reason of his authority, and honour by reason of his dignity.

Here note, That the apostle is thus particular and express in asserting the rights of princes and assigning the proper duties of subjects towards them, because the Jews held opinions which were destructive of all civil government; as, namely, that they being the only people of God, God alone was to be owned as their Lord and Governor, and none under him but such as should be immediately chosen by him; and, as a consequent of this, they refused to pay tribute to Caesar, looking upon that as a token of subjection to him.

Therefore the apostle here presses the Christians at Rome to show their freedom from, and opposition to, all such pernicious principles, and to give the world a convincing proof that Christianity makes the best men, the best magistrates, the best subjects, of any religion in the world.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Render to all [civil officials] their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor . [Kypke points out the distinction between tribute and custom. The former means direct taxes; poll, real and personal; custom refers to tolls, imports, indirect taxes on goods and merchandise, known to us in the familiar tariffs on imports and exports. In Paul's time they appear to have been principally on imported goods, and were levied at the gates of the city at the time of entry ( Mat_9:9 ). As the Christian paid his taxes, so he was to go on discharging his other duties, fearing those in authority as those whom God placed over him, and honoring all those in governmental position because the officers are part of God's ordained plan, and those who hold them have been placed there by his general providence. Some hundred years later Paul's words about taxes were being strictly obeyed, for Tertullian, representing that time, says that what the Romans lost by the Christians refusing to bestow gifts on the idolatrous temples, they gained by their conscientious payment of taxes (Apolog. 42, Vol. I., p. 494).]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

7. Render therefore to all their dues. To all rulers. Render them whatever they have a right to claim. Tribute. Direct taxes, whether upon persons or property. Custom. A toll on goods, similar to the modern tariff. It was usually collected at the gates of cities on all goods entering. See Matt. 9:9.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

7. ἀπόδοτε, pay as their due, οὐδὲ γὰρ χαρίζῃ τοῦτο ποιῶν· ὀφειλὴ γάρ ἐστι τὸ πρᾶγμα, Chrys.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7.] Before the accusatives supply αἰτοῦντι, as the correlative of ἀπόδοτε.

φόρος is tax, or tribute,—direct payment for state purposes: τέλος, custom, toll, vectigal.

φόβος, to those set over us and having power: τιμή, to those, but likewise to all on whom the state has conferred distinction.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7. St. Paul concludes this subject and leads on to the next by a general maxim which covers all the different points touched upon: ‘Pay each one his due.’

τῷ τὸν φόρον, sc. ἀπαιτοῦντι. φόρος is the tribute paid by a subject nation (Luk 20:22; Luk_1 Macc. 10:33), while τέλος represents the customs and dues which would in any case be paid for the support of the civil government (Mat 17:25; Mat_1 Macc. 10:31).

φόβος is the respectful awe which is felt for one who has power in his hands; τιμήν honour and reverence paid to a ruler: cf. 1Pe 2:17 τὸν Θεὸν φοβεῖσθε· τὸν βασιλέα τιμᾶτε.

A strange interpretation of this verse may be seen in the Gnostic book entitled Πίστις Σοφία, p. 294, ed. Schwartze.

The Church and the Civil Power

The motive which impelled St. Paul to write this section of the Epistle has (like so many other questions) been discussed at great length with the object of throwing light on the composition of the Roman Church. If the opinion which has been propounded already in reference to these chapters be correct, it will be obvious that here as elsewhere St. Paul is writing, primarily at any rate, with a view to the state of the Church as a whole, not to the particular circumstances of the Roman community: it being recognized at the same time that questions which agitated the whole Christian world would be likely to be reflected in what was already an important centre of Christianity. Whether this opinion be correct or not must depend partly, of course, on our estimate of the Epistle as a whole; but if it be assumed to be so, the character of this passage will amply support it. There is a complete absence of any reference to particular circumstances: the language is throughout general: there is a studied avoidance of any special terms; direct commands such as might arise from particular circumstances are not given: but general principles applicable to any period or place are laid down. As elsewhere in this Epistle, St. Paul, influenced by his past experiences, or by the questions which were being agitated around him, or by the fear of difficulties which he foresaw as likely to arise, lays down broad general principles, applying to the affairs of life the spirit of Christianity as he has elucidated it.

But what were the questions that were in the air when he wrote? There can be no doubt that primarily they would be those current in the Jewish nation concerning the lawfulness of paying taxes and otherwise recognizing the authority of a foreign ruler. When our Lord was asked, ‘Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or no?’ (Mat 22:18 f.; Luk 20:22 f.), a burning question was at once raised. Starting from the express command ‘thou mayest not put a foreigner over thee, which is not thy brother’ (Deu 17:15), and from the idea of a Divine theocracy, a large section of the Jews had refused to recognize or pay taxes to the Roman government. Judas the Gaulonite, who said that ‘the census was nothing else but downright slavery’ (Jos. Ant. XVIII. i. 1), or Theudas (ibid. XX. v. 1), or Eleazar, who is represented as saying that ‘we have long since made up our minds not to serve the Romans or any other man, but God alone’ (Bell. Jud. VII. viii. 6), may all serve as instances of a tendency which was very wide spread. Nor was this spirit confined to the Jews of Palestine; elsewhere, both in Rome and in Alexandria, riots had occurred. Nor again was it unlikely that Christianity would be affected by it. A good deal of the phraseology of the early Christians was derived from the Messianic prophecies of the O. T., and these were always liable to be taken in that purely material sense which our Lord had condemned. The fact that St. Luke records the question of the disciples, ‘Lord, dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ (Act 1:6) seems to imply that such ideas were current, and the incident at Thessalonica, where St. Paul himself, because he preached the ‘kingdom,’ was accused of preaching ‘another king, one Jesus,’ shows how liable even he was to misinterpretation. These instances are quite sufficient to explain how the question was a real one when St. Paul wrote, and why it had occupied his thoughts. It is not necessary to refer it either to Ebionite dualistic views (so Baur), which would involve an anachronism, or to exaggerated Gentile ideas of Christian liberty; we have no record that these were ever perverted in this direction.

Two considerations may have specially influenced St. Paul to discuss the subject in his Epistle to the Romans. The first was the known fact of the turbulence of the Roman Jews; a fact which would be brought before him by his intercourse with Priscilla and Aquila. This may illustrate just the degree of local reference in the Epistle to the Romans. We have emphasized more than once the fact that we cannot argue anything from such passages as this as to the state of the Roman community; but St. Paul would not write in the air, and the knowledge of the character of the Jewish population in Rome gained from political refugees would be just sufficient to suggest this topic. A second cause which would lead him to introduce it would be the fascination which he felt for the power and position of Rome, a fascination which has been already illustrated (Introduction, § 1).

It must be remembered that when this Epistle was written the Roman Empire had never appeared in the character of a persecutor. Persecution had up to this time always come from the Jews or from popular riots. To St. Paul the magistrates who represented the Roman power had always been associated with order and restraint. The persecution of Stephen had probably taken place in the absence of the Roman governor: it was at the hands of the Jewish king Herod that James the brother of John had perished: at Paphos, at Thessalonica, at Corinth, at Ephesus, St. Paul had found the Roman officials a restraining power and all his experience would support the statements that he makes: ‘The rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil:’ ‘He is a minister of God to thee for good:’ ‘He is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him that doeth evil.’ Nor can any rhetorical point be made as has been attempted from the fact that Nero was at this time the ruler of the Empire. It may be doubted how far the vices of a ruler like Nero seriously affected the well-being of the provincials, but at any rate when these words were written the world was enjoying the good government and bright hopes of Nero’s Quinquennium.

The true relations of Christianity to the civil power had been laid down by our Lord when He had said: ‘My kingdom is not of this world,’ and again: ‘Render unto Caesar the things that be Caesar’s and to God the things that be God’s.’ It is difficult to believe that St. Paul had not these words in his mind when he wrote ver. 7, especially as the coincidences with the moral teaching of our Lord are numerous in these chapters. At any rate, starting from this idea he works out the principles which must lie at the basis of Christian politics, that the State is divinely appointed, or permitted by God; that its end is beneficent; and that the spheres of Church and State are not identical.

It has been remarked that, when St. Paul wrote, his experience might have induced him to estimate too highly the merits of the Roman government. But although later the relation of the Church to the State changed, the principles of the Church did not. In 1Ti 2:1, 1Ti 2:2 the Apostle gives a very clear command to pray for those in authority: ‘I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men: for kings and all that are in high place; that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and gravity’; so also in Tit 3:1 ‘Put them in mind to be in subjection to rulers, to authorities.’ When these words were written, the writer had to some extent at any rate experienced the Roman power in a very different aspect. Still more important is the evidence of 1 Peter. It was certainly written at a time when persecution, and that of an official character, had begun, yet the commands of St. Paul are repeated and with even greater emphasis (1Pe 2:13-17).

The sub-Apostolic literature will illustrate this. Clement is writing to the Corinthians just after successive periods of persecution, yet he includes a prayer of the character which he would himself deliver, in the as yet unsystematized services of the day, on behalf of secular rulers. ‘Give concord and peace to us and to all that dwell on the earth … while we render obedience to Thine Almighty and most excellent Name, and to our rulers and governors upon the earth. Thou, Lord and Master, hast given them the power of sovereignty through Thine excellent and unspeakable might, that we, knowing the glory and honour which Thou hast given them, may submit ourselves unto them, in nothing resisting Thy will. Grant unto them therefore, O Lord, health, peace, concord, stability, that they may administer the government which Thou hast given them without failure. For Thou, O heavenly Master, King of the ages, givest to the sons of men glory and honour and power over all things that are upon the earth. Do Thou, Lord, direct their counsel according to that which is good and well-pleasing in Thy sight.’ Still more significant is the letter of Polycarp, which was written very shortly after he had met Ignatius on his road to martyrdom; in it he emphasizes the Christian custom by combining the command to pray for rulers with that to love our enemies. ‘Pray also for kings and powers and princes and for them that persecute and hate you and for the enemies of the cross, that your fruit may be manifest among all men that ye may be perfect in Him.’ (Clem. Rom. 60, 61; Polyc. ad Phil. xii.)

It is not necessary to give further instances of a custom which prevailed extensively or universally in the early Church. It became a commonplace of apologists (Just. Mart. Apol. i. 17; Athenagoras, Leg. xxxvii; Theophilus, i. 11; Tertullian, Apol. 30, 39, ad Scap. 2; Dion. Alex. ap Eus. H. E. VII. xi; Arnob. iv. 36) and is found in all liturgies (cf. Const. Ap. viii. 12).

One particular phase in the interpretation of this chapter demands a passing notice. In the hands of the Jacobean and Caroline divines it was held to support the doctrine of Passive Obedience. This doctrine has taken a variety of forms. Some held that a Monarchy as opposed to a Republic is the only scriptural form of government, others that a legitimate line alone has this divine right. A more modified type of this teaching may be represented by a sermon of Bishop Berkeley (Passive Obedience or the Christian Doctrine of not resisting the supreme power, proved and vindicated upon the principles of the law of nature in a discourse delivered at the College Chapel, 1712. Works, iii. p. 101). He takes as his text Rom 13:2 ‘Whosoever resisteth the Power, resisteth the ordinance of God.’ He begins ‘It is not my design to inquire into the particular nature of the government and constitution of these kingdoms.’ He then proceeds by assuming that ‘there is in every civil community, somewhere or other, placed a supreme power of making laws, and enforcing the observation of them.’ His main purpose is to prove that ‘Loyalty is a moral virtue, and thou shalt not resist the supreme power, a rule or law of nature, the least breach whereof hath the inherent stain of moral turpitude.’ And he places it on the same level as the commandments which St. Paul quotes in this same chapter.

Bishop Berkeley represents the doctrine of Passive Obedience as expounded in its most philosophical form. But he does not notice the main difficultySt. Paul gives no directions as to what ought to be done when there is a conflict of authority. In his day there could be no doubt that the rule of Caesar was supreme and had become legitimate: all that he had to condemn was an incorrect view of the ‘kingdom of heaven’ as a theocracy established on earth, whether it were held by Jewish zealots or by Christians. He does not discuss the question, ‘if there were two claimants for the Empire which should be supported?’ for it was not a practical difficulty when he wrote. So Bishop Berkeley, by his use of the expression ‘somewhere or other,’ equally evades the difficulty. Almost always when there is a rebellion or a civil war the question at issue is, Who is the rightful governor? which is the power ordained by God?

But there is a side of the doctrine of Passive Obedience which requires emphasis, and which was illustrated by the Christianity of the first three centuries. The early Christians were subject to a power which required them to do that which was forbidden by their religion. To that extent and within those limits they could not and did not obey it; but they never encouraged in any way resistance or rebellion. In all things indifferent the Christian conformed to existing law; he obeyed the law ‘not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience sake.’ He only disobeyed when it was necessary to do so for conscience sake. The point of importance is the detachment of the two spheres of activity. The Church and the State are looked upon as different bodies, each with a different work to perform. To designate this or that form of government as ‘Christian,’ and support it on these grounds, would have been quite alien to the whole spirit of those days. The Church must influence the world by its hold on the hearts and consciences of individuals, and in that way, and not by political power, will the Kingdom of God come.

LOVE THE FULFILMENT OF ALL LAW

13:8-10. There is one debt which the Christian must always be paying but never can discharge, that of love. All particular precepts are summed up in that of love, which makes injury to any man impossible.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

To all. Probably all magistrates, though some explain all men.

Tribute - custom [φορον - τελος] . Tribute on persons : custom on goods.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.