The only debt in your life that should always be unpaid.

You hear about debt a lot. Usually you hear it from people who have either gotten out of it, or are trying to get out of it. You hear about it on a political level – whether it is a discussion about student debt, the average level of personal debt that citizens hold, or the ever-growing and astronomical number of our national debt. In church, you hear about debt, often, in terms of the debt of sin that we owe before the Lord. In all of these senses, the debt is a negative thing – something to flee from, get out of, have removed. But what is the debt in your life that can never be paid fully? Yes, there is a debt that is owed by Christ-followers that remains unpaid. In fact, the more we pay, the more we want to pay, and the more we realize we owe it. Paul talks about this debt in Romans 13:8-9

“Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Even Paul hints at the negative concept of debt there in that passage when he says “owe no one anything…” He establishes the concept of debt, one which everyone is familiar with – but then he goes on. “Owe no one anything, except…” What is the one thing that we are to always owe, to always be paying? It is this: to love one another. This is the unpaid debt that we owe. This is the debt that we can never satisfy. But, even in the dearth of repayment there is joy. I really appreciate the words of John Gill in his exposition on this passage.

“This is the only debt never to be wholly discharged; for though it should be always paying, yet ought always to be looked upon as owing. Saints ought to love one another as such; to this they are obliged by the new commandment of Christ, by the love of God, and Christ unto them, by the relations they stand in to one another, as the children of God... This debt should be always paying; saints should be continually serving one another in love, praying for each other, bearing one another's burdens, forbearing each other, and doing all good offices in things temporal and spiritual that lie in their power, and yet always owing; the obligation to it always remains.”

In that paragraph, he mentions that saints are “obliged by the new commandment of Christ…” What is that new commandment that Jesus gave? “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” (John 13:34) That is the beauty and joy of following Christ. He has told us that his commandments are not grievous – rather they are life-giving. To love one another in the way that Christ has loved is both humanly impossible (as far as completing it perfectly) but it is also a wonderfully freeing task. It is the debt, therefore, that we should feel privileged to pay down.

But we can’t really pay it down, can we? Consider your closest relationships. Have you loved your spouse or children sufficiently so that you can stop now and say, “That’s enough. They ought to know by now that I love them – I’ve shown enough love.” That, of course, is ridiculous. This is the kind of debt repayment that can’t really be measured in quantity, but in consistency. It’s not that we love one another until the love meter is full and then we’ve completed it. That would be a wholly legalistic view of obedience. Only one who hasn’t experienced the love of Christ would view the command to love with that kind of a penny-pinching mentality. No, rather, we are to give love freely – seeing it as we always owe and will never satisfy. The task, then, becomes not a task of completion, but of nature. It is in our new nature as redeemed children of God to love one another with this always-seeking-to-pay view of loving one another.

Paul speaks of this kind of love in a revolutionary sense. And with his words, he removes any room for a legalistic view of the commandment to love. He names four things that the ten commandments prohibits – murder, theft, adultery, covetousness – and he says that these and any other commandment are summed up in one statement: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The one who loves his neighbor fulfills the law. Yes, he doesn’t murder or steal or commit adultery or covet, but not because he just wants to keep the law – but because he loves.

This is true in our horizontal relationships – with our family and friends and peers. But it is also true in our vertical relationship to the Lord. Do we seek to obey him? Do we seek his will? Why? Just so we can check a box or cross it off the list? I hope not – no, we do these things because we have come to love Him supremely. We owe supremely to the Lord and secondly to one another to love. And this is the only debt in your life that will always be unpaid.

In Christ,
Pastor Aaron Frost
July 23, 2021