Love as an Eternal, Undying Debt to All

Paul's teaching in Romans 13:8-10 shatters sentimental notions of love as mere emotion. Love is not something we indulge when we feel generous toward the worthy and attractive. Rather, it is a debitum—a binding duty, a hard and fast rule—owed to every person we encounter, without distinction of beauty, goodness, or social standing.

Maclaren emphasizes the radical character of this obligation: "He does not get his due from us unless he gets love." We owe love to the ugly and the good alike, to the thankful and the ungrateful. This is not poetic sentiment but apostolic command.

Most strikingly, Maclaren identifies love's peculiar character among all debts: it is never discharged. After paying in full on every other obligation, the debt of love remains perpetually owing. As Bengel observed, it is an undying debt. This explains why our patience so often fails us—we exhaust ourselves believing we have somehow "wiped off all claims" against us. Yet Paul's words, if truly heard, would lengthen our patience and keep us from closing our hearts and purses against even the ungrateful.

Furthermore, this love-debt comprehends all duties. It is the fulfilling of the law itself, for law enjoins but powerless to execute; love alone enables and inclines us to obey. The multiplicity of separate duties melts into one: love becomes "the white light which the prism of daily life" refracts into all virtues. Love is the mother tincture from which all fragrant draughts of righteousness flow.