READ: Rom. 13:8–14: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. … Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. … Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. … Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.
We have obligations from God toward our neighbor. This concerns love for the neighbor whom God places on our path. That love must take shape through the keeping of God’s commandments. For love is the fulfillment of the law.
To love also means that you give of yourself, even if the other does not do so. In this way Paul continues with the second table of the law. After the fifth commandment (vv.1–7), he points to all the other commandments of the second table of the law: everything is connected with love toward the neighbor.
Paul urges this all the more because, as believers, we have no time to lose. Christ may return at any moment: salvation is nearer than before. Therefore we must not walk in darkness, in the realm of the prince of darkness, the devil, but in the kingdom of Christ, the Light of the world.
Also in our time it appears that the world walks more and more in darkness, characterized by following one’s own lusts in self-indulgence and licentiousness, and by the degeneration of mutual quarrels, disorder, and acts of violence. This increases day by day. But if you have come to know Christ, are you not entirely different?
In Eph. 5 Paul also writes: And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. … For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light.. Therefore He says: ‘Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.’
In contrast to advancing ungodliness Paul sets: put on the armor of light—faith with the obedience of hope, and love (v.12; cf. 1 Thess. 5:1–8). And: put on the Lord Christ—become one with Him (v.14). And do not arouse sinful desires within yourself.
Do you understand the meaning of the mentioned weapons?
Singing: Ps. 37:15, 16