Romans 13:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

But God requires you also to share in His love, and He hates the one who does not share love with Him. Human love is full of envy and malice, but the love of God is free from every passion.

Therefore God seeks companions in love. Love together with Me, He says, and then I too will love you more. These are the words of One Who loves without limit.

If you love those whom I love, then I see that you love Me zealously. God greatly desires our salvation and proved this from the very beginning.

Listen to what He said when He created man: "Let Us make man according to the image" of God (Gen 1:26). And again: "Let Us make him a helper. It is not good for him to be alone" (Gen 2:18).

Then, when the first man fell into transgression, notice how gently God reproved him. He did not say: Unclean and utterly lawless man, after receiving so many benefits from Me, did you still believe the devil?

Did you abandon your Benefactor and obey the demon? What does He say? "Who told you that you were naked, unless you ate from the tree from which alone I commanded you not to eat?" (Gen 3:11).

A father would speak so to a son whom he had ordered not to touch a sword, and who wounded himself by disobeying: Why are you wounded? Because you did not listen to me.

Do you notice that these are the words more of a friend than of a Master? They are the words of a friend who has suffered offense, yet despite everything has not ceased to love.

Let us also imitate God. When we reprove others, let us preserve the same gentleness.

With the same condescension God also reproves the woman. More correctly, the words addressed to the woman were not a reproach, but counsel, instruction, and warning for the future.

Therefore God says nothing of the kind to the serpent, since he was the inventor of evil and could not lay the blame on another.

For this reason God punished him severely. He did not even stop there, but subjected the very earth to a curse together with him.

If He also drove man out of paradise and condemned him to labor, for this especially one must worship Him and marvel at Him.

Since a life spent in pleasures leads man to negligence, God cuts off gladness for him. By sorrows, as by a wall, He restrains negligence, so that we may return to His love.

And how did He act with Cain? Was it not with the same gentleness? Again offended by him, He does not answer offense with offense, but exhorts and says, "Why has your countenance fallen?" (Gen 4:6).

Although Cain's deed deserved no excuse, as his younger brother proves, God nevertheless does not reproach him. He says, "Have you not sinned? Be still. Do not add to it.

"His turning is toward you," that is, your brother's, "and you shall rule over him" (Gen 4:7).

If you fear, God says, that because of this sacrifice I shall forever deprive you of the rights of the firstborn, take courage. I place full authority over your brother in your hands.

Only be corrected and love your brother, who has wronged you in nothing. I care for you both. More than anything else, it gladdens Me that you should not be at enmity with one another.

Thus God, like a child-loving mother, uses every means and measure so that no man may be torn away from another.

To understand what I have said more clearly from an example, consider Rebecca, how she was troubled and resorted to various means when the elder son was hostile toward the younger.

Although she loved Jacob, she did not turn away from Esau. Therefore she said, "Lest I be bereaved of you both in one day" (Gen 27:45).

Moved by the same impulse, God also said to Cain, "Have you not sinned? Be still. His turning is toward you." He wished to prevent murder and strove to establish peace between the brothers.

Even when Cain killed his brother, God did not deprive him of His providential care. Again He addresses the fratricide with gentleness and says, "Where is Abel your brother?" (Gen 4:9).

He does this so that even in this way He might compel him to confess the crime. But Cain, as before, and even with greater and coarser shamelessness, remains obstinate.

Even after this God does not abandon him. In the words of an insulted and disregarded friend, He says to him, "The voice of your brother's blood cries to Me" (Gen 4:10).

Together with the murderer He again strikes the earth with a curse. He pours His wrath upon it and says: cursed is the earth, "which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood" (Gen 4:11).

In this case He imitates those who weep for the dead. David acted so when he learned that Saul had fallen.

He cursed the mountains that had received Saul's blood and cried: "Mountains of Gilboa, let neither dew nor rain come upon you, for there the shield of the mighty was cast away" (2 Sam 1:21).

So God too, as though chanting a funeral hymn over Abel, says: "The voice of your brother's blood cries to Me.

"And now you are cursed from the earth, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand."

By these words God wished to calm Cain's boiling anger and awaken in him love, at least for the dead man.

You have extinguished his life, the Lord says. Why do you not extinguish enmity? But what else does the Lord do?

He loves both Abel and Cain, because He created them both. How then shall He act now? Leave the murderer without punishment? But he may become even worse from this.

Punish him? But God is more child-loving than any father. Therefore see how He both punishes Cain and reveals love in the punishment itself.

Or rather, He does not punish, but only corrects. He did not hand him over to death, but bound him with trembling.

This was so that he might be able to blot out his guilt, and through such a path return to the bosom of God's love and be reconciled to Abel, though Abel was dead.

God did not wish Cain to depart from this world in enmity against his dead brother.

Those who love act in this way. When they cannot awaken love for themselves by benefactions, they resort to stricter measures and threats.

They are moved to this not by the prompting of their own will, but by love, so that even by this means they may draw to themselves those who despise them.

Of course, such love arises in others under the influence of compulsion. Yet they are consoled even by this because of the strength of their love.

Thus punishment too is a consequence of love. Those who are not offended by being hated do not wish to punish either.

Paul confirms this very thing in the Epistle to the Corinthians, saying, "Who is he who makes me glad, but the one who is made sorrowful by me?" (2 Cor 2:2).

Thus whenever punishment is intensified, love is also proved. So too the Egyptian woman, because of strong love, cruelly punished Joseph.

But she punished from an evil impulse, because her love was shameless. God punishes with a good purpose, because His love is worthy of the One Who loves.

So that you may understand the power of His love, God does not refuse to use coarser expressions, to ascribe human passions to Himself, and to call Himself jealous.

"For I am a jealous God" (Ex 20:5), He says. Therefore let us love Him as He desires. He considers this a great thing.

Even if we turn away from Him, He does not cease to call us. Even if we do not wish to turn, He punishes because He loves, not in order to subject us to punishment.

Listen to what He says in Ezekiel to the city loved by Him that despised Him: "I will gather against you all your lovers, and I will deliver you into their hands.

"They will stone you with stones and cut you in pieces, and My jealousy will be taken away from you. I will rest and be troubled no more" (Ezek 16:37-42).

Could a passionately loving friend, despised by his beloved and yet still burning with love for her, say more than this?

God does everything to incline us to love Him. For this He did not spare even His Son.

But we are unbending and hard-hearted. Let us at last become gentle and love God as we ought to love Him, so that we may enjoy virtue with full delight.

If a man who has a beloved wife feels none of his daily griefs, imagine what delight will be enjoyed by one who loves with divine and pure love.

In this, precisely in this, lies the Kingdom of Heaven. In this are the enjoyment of good things, pleasure, gladness, joy, blessedness.

Rather, whatever I may say about this, nothing will be able to portray it. Experience alone can make it known.

Therefore the prophet said, "Delight in the Lord" (Ps 36:4). And in another place, "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps 33:9).

Therefore let us obey and enjoy His love. Then even here we shall behold the Kingdom.

We shall live an angelic life, and while dwelling on earth, we shall possess no less than those who dwell in heaven.

After our departure from here, we shall stand more radiant than all before the Throne of Christ and enjoy ineffable glory.

May it be granted to all of us to share in this glory by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with Whom to the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory, dominion, and honor, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

But those who act by day, and especially all who wish to be seemly, strive to dress themselves, and to do so according to their calling and rank.

The Apostle also commands all Christians to be clothed spiritually. The garment of their calling and rank must be that purity and holiness which appeared in the life of the Lord and Savior.

He was foreign to all sinful lusts, although He satisfied the necessary demands of the body insofar as need required. He ate and drank, and was clothed in garments.

Thus, according to the example of Christ, His followers, while satisfying their essential needs, must not seek to please their passions or various sinful inclinations.

Concluding his interpretation of this passage, Bishop Theophan says: "We Christians are sons of light and of the day. We have received the light of faith and the grace of the Spirit.

It is not fitting for us to be carried away by such disgraceful deeds, or to take any part in them. These are pagan customs, and they are completely unsuitable for us.

The Apostle wrote the same thing to the Thessalonians, and set forth the same motive. We are not in the darkness of night, but in the light of day. Those who get drunk are drunk at night, but we must be sober and watchful (1 Thess 5:5).

This is the chief subject of the present section. In it the Apostle requires Christians, while remaining good citizens, nevertheless to abstain from evil customs that had gained citizenship in pagan societies.

The holy Apostle Peter notes that Christians then conducted themselves in this way. 'The time past of life is sufficient for you to have done the will of the Gentiles, walking in uncleanness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and greed.

In this they marvel that you do not run with them into the same flood of debauchery' (1 Pet 4:3-4)."

Saint John Chrysostom dwells more on the Apostle's thought about the full armor of Christians. He says: "The day calls us into the ranks of soldiers and to battle. But do not be afraid when you hear of ranks and weapons.

It is heavy and unbearable to put on material armor. But to put on spiritual armor is desirable and should be the object of our prayers, for this armor is the armor of light.

The one clothed in this armor is as adorned as a bridegroom coming out of the bridal chamber. For he is both bridegroom and warrior."

Mentioning the vices, the Apostle said, "Let us cast off the works of darkness." But when he began to speak of virtue, he did not call it simple works, but armor.

By this he shows that virtue places the one who possesses it in complete safety and full splendor. Nor did he stop even there.

Rising higher, instead of a garment he gives us what is incomparably greater: the Master Himself, the King Himself. Whoever is clothed in Him contains every virtue within himself.

When he says, "Put on," he commands us to surround ourselves with Him on every side. He expresses the same in other places: "If Christ is in you" (Rom 8:10).

And again: "May Christ dwell in our inner man" (Eph 3:16). And in the Epistle to the Galatians the Apostle says: "Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts" (Gal 5:24).

O you who have put on Christ, remove all this evil from yourself. In cares for the body, have in view only that it be healthy. Give attention to the body only as much as is needed for health.

Do not extend yourself beyond this. On the contrary, employ all your concern in care for spiritual things.

But if these words are taken abstractly, they express the general features of love. Chrysostom says: 'Do you see that love has both forms of perfection? It is abstinence from evil, for it is said that love does no evil. It is also the doing of good, for it is said that love is the fulfillment of the law. Love not only gives us a concise teaching about what must be done, but also makes the fulfillment of moral laws easier. It not only takes care that we know our duties, which the law also does, but greatly helps us fulfill them. It accomplishes in us not merely some single part of the commandments, but the whole of virtue in all its fullness. In it is the Kingdom of Heaven for us. In it is the enjoyment of good things. In it is every consolation. In it is gladness, joy, and blessedness. Whatever I may say about this good, nothing will depict it fully. It is known only by experience.'