NOTES for Rom 13:8-14

We are used to taking disorders in human relationships as a given, and if we are upset by them, it is often simply because they throw us off balance. But for the apostle, our quarreling and dark feelings toward a neighbor who has done something a little better than we have are things of the same order as feasting, drunkenness, and sensuality. This is exactly because both drunkenness and quarrels are the result of self-will, the result of our concerns for ourselves, both bodily and emotional, subordinating our striving for the good.

It is not for nothing that Paul, a little earlier, repeats Christ's words about the greatest commandment, which embraces all the others: to love your neighbor as yourself. After all, quarrels and envy, that is, sins against our neighbor, have their source in our lack of love both for our neighbor (and this is more or less obvious) and for ourselves (and this is no less important). This second part of the commandment is often not fully understood by us. Love is acceptance, and its foundation is self-acceptance, an adequate understanding of our abilities and their limits. To accept ourselves, it is very important to understand that we are not superhumans and never will be, that our abilities are not unlimited, and that we often take on too much and from exhaustion begin hurting our neighbors. Many quarrels can be avoided simply by acknowledging our tiredness and realizing that a constructive conversation should be put off until later. And our flesh often experiences many needs that require satisfaction. But for food not to turn into gluttony, it is important to understand ourselves and our needs well; it is important to understand that simple food is in fact enough for us. This is what Paul is talking about: "make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires."

And if we love ourselves as we are, accepting and recognizing our sins without turning repentance into self-torment, it will become much easier to love our neighbor. Because others are exactly the same as we are, just as imperfect. And God gives us only one means to cope with our human limitation: love.

This approach to life and relationships can seem maximalist and therefore not very realistic, but only at first glance. In fact, the apostle's words are deeper than they appear at first, and therefore they are entirely realistic, provided, of course, that one looks at love not as emotions, dividing everyone around by the principle "like - dislike," "appealing - unappealing," but as relationships that do not depend on emotions or sympathies. In that case it becomes clear that relationships are precisely what condition everything else, everything included in the concept of the inner Torah. Indeed, the inner Torah is above all the aspirations, desires, and intentions that determine a person's spiritual life. These can either correspond to God's commandments, experienced by the person as an inner spiritual and moral imperative, or fail to correspond to them.

It is customary to think that physically we are what we eat, and psychically we are what we think and feel. Spiritually, however, we are what we desire and what we strive for. Jesus Himself says this briefly and simply: where your treasure is, there your heart is also. But desires, aspirations, and the intentions connected with them can exist in our heart in different ways.

They can be something self-sufficient, governing us and determining our attitude toward those around us and toward the world in general, while submitting to no one and nothing, including ourselves. Or they can be part of relationships and work to support and build them. In the first case, one can speak of love only in a certain sense and only up to a certain point, because often it is precisely our desires that destroy our relationships with other people when they become self-sufficient.

At times relationships can collapse because of the most ordinary and not very deep negative emotions, which take our will captive and force us to desire, or more precisely in this case not to desire, what in fact is important and dear to us but does not look that way when emotions gain the upper hand over us. In the second case, however, when relationships themselves are experienced by a person as true value, no emotions or desires in themselves become self-valued for him anymore. And then he can be at peace about keeping the commandments: with such an attitude toward one's neighbor, it is hard for a person to think of violating them, at least those that define his relationships with that very neighbor.

If you love, you no longer need to train yourself in polite words and polite smiles; you no longer need to restrain negative emotions toward another person: they simply are not there, and words and smiles arise on the tongue and on the face by themselves. Then following the inner Torah becomes completely natural and organic for a person. All the more if we are speaking of the love that unites the inhabitants of the Kingdom: here there is the fullness presupposed by the ideal of the living Torah, toward which in Gospel times every Christian strove as the goal of spiritual life, as that which would make him like Christ.

Speaking about the relationships that bind those living in the Kingdom, Paul returns to the Savior's words spoken at the Last Supper. The apostle is convinced that fullness is contained precisely in it. In fact, all the commandments are given, in the end, so that the one following them can make the right choice between good and evil; love presupposes that this choice has already been made. Therefore it is precisely the one who loves his neighbor who shows the fullness of the fulfillment of the Law. Here the apostle, as we can see, returns again to the theme of the "living Torah" which a person seeking the Kingdom must become. For Paul, the "living Torah" is possible only in the Kingdom, because for him the Torah is an entirely objective reality. In Paul's time the generally accepted idea was that the Torah existed in God's design even before the creation of the world, and in history it was only revealed to God's people, who had also been conceived before the creation of the world.

Such a view is not very far from the truth if we accept, and the Bible proceeds from just this premise, that the Torah describes the objectively existing dynamics of the relationship between God and man and its laws. In that case it must exist at least as long as man himself exists, and perhaps longer, if we accept that this dynamic was known to God in all its details even before He created man, a quite well-founded admission. In that case the Torah cannot be reduced to commandments or laws alone; it is, first of all, relationship, whether a person's relationship to God or his relationship to his neighbor.

But the fullness of relationships both with God and with one's neighbor is necessary and possible precisely in the Kingdom. The love of which Jesus speaks, the love that the world does not know but with which the Kingdom is permeated, constitutes the flesh, the spiritual substance of such relationships; and the Torah, that inner Torah about which so many argued in Paul's time, forms their structure. Only in the Torah does that spiritual substance of which the Kingdom consists find its form, and the Torah, in turn, only in the Kingdom finds the spiritual substance that allows it to be embodied. And this happens in a person and through a person, because in the Kingdom everyone becomes a "living Torah," just as the Savior Himself became one for those seeking the Kingdom. Apparently it is precisely this experience of the life of the Kingdom that Paul has in mind when he says that the day is already dawning and salvation is near. Abstaining from excesses here no longer looks even like an ascetic effort, but simply like a natural state. Natural to the extent that life in the Kingdom can be natural.

The texts for the first Sunday of Advent call us first of all to watchfulness. Not only because we cannot determine the moment when a child will be born. But also because our expectation of seeing Jesus now must be like what parents feel when they have already been waiting eight months for the birth of a child. There is no patience left at all: when at last will we be able to see, to know who this is, what He is like? Life is about to change at any minute, and there are too many of those minutes.

The changes in our life that Jesus gives us are immeasurably greater. He will come to us as a newborn infant, who cannot speak and who will not get anywhere unless we carry Him. In the time left to us before His birth, we must accustom ourselves to the thought that, like any little child, Jesus means cares, constant anxieties, and watchfulness at any time of day or night.

Is He well with us? Is He warm? Will we teach Him to smile? And will we unlearn how to wage war when He appears in our life?

The apostle's words about the daylight, in which it is better not to behave disgracefully, sometimes make people smile: reading them, one might think that under cover of night one may do what one would not do in the light of day. Meanwhile, Paul speaks of the day in a special, specifically Yahwistic sense. The Day of Yahweh, or, as it is usually called in Russian translations, the Day of the Lord, is a special time in the life of the people of God. It is a time when God directly and immediately intervenes in the people's life.

Times of natural disaster or war, for example, were called the Day of Yahweh. But such intervention was also connected with the idea of God's judgment. Judgment, however, was understood differently at different times. The earliest and simplest idea of it viewed war or natural disaster as punishment for a sin committed by the people.

But even before the Babylonian exile this idea gave way to another: judgment came to be seen as a kind of weighing of a person and his deeds on certain spiritual scales, much as neighboring peoples imagined divine judgment. Among those peoples, however, this judgment was usually postmortem, and the soul of a person appearing for judgment was weighed on the scales. Among the Jews, God weighed human deeds while the person was still alive, determining whether the person was worthy to be left alive or by his deeds had already deserved death.

The Savior speaks of judgment in a completely different way: according to Him, judgment consists in this, that light has come into the world. He clearly means the light of the Kingdom He brought into the world, and now it depends on the person himself whether he accepts this light or runs away because he understands that his life is incompatible with it.

Paul understands the Day of Yahweh in the same way: it is the day when light enters the world. And if before one could still delay making a choice, postpone repentance and conversion, now there is no time left: the decision must be made immediately, and once made, it must be carried out resolutely and unswervingly. Indeed, the issue is salvation, the Kingdom, what determines a person's fate in eternity. Hesitation is out of place here.

These words of Apostle Paul are the base of Christians’ conceptions about which means of the spiritual life need to be applied and how to behave towards it. The revealed religion distinguishes itself in practice from idolization first of all by the fact that its means do not become the purpose. In answer to the question to know what is necessary to do to inherit eternal life, the apostle says twice "put on " (endyo means to wear something on oneself or to be completely indulge in something): let us put on the armour of light and Lord Jesus-Christ.

Don’t "bring the flesh to the necessary aspect" (by vegetarian diet or by other means), but put on the amour of light. The material nature of man requires a known care, it is necessary to support its strengths and it is also necessary to tame it, so that it does not become the main, but: do not transform the care of the flesh into lusts.

Unlike the Stoics and the Epicureans, the apostle asserts that a good life and a wise care (pronoia, wisdom, caution, concern) of the flesh do not bring us automatically to the goal. Strictly speaking, this text does not welcome neither uncontrol of the carnal part of man, nor the mortification of the flesh as the main sense of life.

However, nowadays, as in the time of the apostle, the first danger is considerably more current, that the second. What does the call of the apostle really signifies in practice "put on the Lord Jesus-Christ"? Paul speaks about it in a context of talking of law, rules and Christians’ character. Its principal conclusion consists of the fact that "Love is the fulfilling of the Law ".

That’s exactly what the apostle implies, when talking about the necessity to put on the Christ. God commanded His followers to love one another, as He loved us. The fulfillment of this command will be the fulfillment of law; and we can also call it "put on" the Lord Jesus Christ.

"For now salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed." From the moment of our conversion to Christ, we look at the world with different eyes. For each of us something changes in life. And, receiving Communion, we become closer to Christ: we receive Him and the path of salvation that He offers us. And each of us "will be upheld, for God is able to make him stand."

We fall and rise on our path after Christ. A fall in the eyes of this world is prepared for us as the path of salvation. We ourselves will see the depth of our fall in repentance - but He will raise us up by His mercy, raise us on the day of the resurrection of the dead into eternal life.

Today's reading from the Letter to the Romans is one of the most important passages of Scripture, if among them there can be any more or less important than others. It should lie at the foundation of Christian ideas about which means of spiritual life should be used and how they should be regarded. In practice, divinely revealed religion differs from idolatry first of all in that its means do not become its goal. To the question of what must be done to inherit eternal life, the apostle twice says "put on" (ενδύω, endyo, means to put something on oneself or to give oneself wholly to something): put on the armor of light and put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Not "bring the flesh into the proper condition" through a vegetarian diet or other means, but put on the armor of light. A person's material nature requires a certain care; its powers must be sustained, and it must also be restrained so that it does not become the main thing. But: do not turn care for the flesh into lusts. Unlike the Stoics and Epicureans, the apostle asserts that a good life and wise care (πρόνοια, pronoia, wisdom, prudence, care) for the flesh do not automatically lead us to the goal. Strictly speaking, this text approves neither a lack of control over the fleshly side of the person nor mortification of the flesh as the chief meaning of life. In our time, however, as in the apostle's time, the first danger is more pressing than the second.

The second and no less important point in today's passage is this: receive the one who is weak in faith, without disputes over opinions. The apostle affirms that we should not argue about the means of spiritual life (specifically, the issue is fasting). We give account for them before God, not before one another. Incidentally, one cannot help noticing that throughout our history, as also at the present time, fulfilling these words is an impossible task for many of us. On the other hand, the apostle extends this freedom to the realm of the means of spiritual life, but by no means to the content of the faith, as some sometimes try to present it.

Finally, it is useful to hear the word in the original: in the first verse of chapter 14 the apostle says, "the one who is weak in faith..." Άσθενής τή πίστει, astenis ti pistei, asthenic in faith. And there arises before the eyes, as in a mirror, a gaunt asthenic figure with a bloodless face and limp, hanging hands. In Russian we call this a pale infirmity. That is how we believe. And that is why we concentrate on ourselves, on our own spiritual infirmity, and on the outward manifestations of piety. This is overcome, as is known, only by the Blood of Jesus Christ.