The 1599 Geneva Bible:
Owe nothing to any man, but to love one another: for he that loveth another, hath fulfilled the Law. ****For this, “Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet:” and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, even in this, ”Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” ****Love doeth not evil to his neighbor: therefore is love the fulfilling of the Law.
Table of Contents:
The 1599 Geneva Bible:
Owe nothing to any man, but to love one another: for he that loveth another, hath fulfilled the Law. ****For this, “Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet:” and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, even in this, ”Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” ****Love doeth not evil to his neighbor: therefore is love the fulfilling of the Law.
[Sancti Pauli epistola ad Romanos]
In the Apostle’s speech there is antanaclasis. First, to owe signifieth to be made a debtor or to remain bound. In the second place, it signifieth to hold oneself bound.
Reason. For he who loveth another hath fulfilled the law, or fulfilleth it. Therefore we ought to hold ourselves bound unto love, and by love to pay debts, because love is the fulfilling of the law. Not that it is necessary for righteousness to have fulfilled the law; or because we can fulfill the law: but because true faith knoweth that the righteousness of works is in the fulfilling of the law, and that therein consisteth the truth of the image of God and the perfect communion of Christ, and that both of his death and of the resurrection of Christ from the dead the fruit is sanctification unto the integrity of the image of God: and therefore true repentance is to delight in the whole law according unto the inward man, and to walk not according unto the flesh, but according unto the spirit, finally to reach forth unto the mark of the calling, which is the fulfilling of the law and perfect sanctification, and so, if not to fulfill the law, yet to desire to fulfill it, and to confess and deplore one’s defect. Hence also the Decalogue (which is expressly called the covenant which God offered unto the Israelites, and therefore showeth the way of obtaining it, that is, of peace and righteousness and the hope of obtaining) containeth not only the precept of faith (which is in the true confession, as the Catechism saith, question 99, or not in vain naming, as God speaketh, of Jehovah their God, and was to be declared by the sign which God gave between himself and the Israelites, that he might sanctify them), but also all the precepts, which he who doeth shall live in them, because there is no true conversion unto God, except in the love of righteousness or rectitude, which those precepts comprehend. Nor therefore is there sanctification, except that which maketh us to walk in those precepts; and this is the fruit of the righteousness of God given unto us in Christ, and the beginning of eternal life, and the way unto glorification, and the pledge thereof and of the covenant of God or of peace and friendship with him.
By the way, it must be noted here that the Christian religion doth not expect another law more perfect than that law, or those precepts, in which is life, which were indicated unto the Israelites. It sufficeth to have that charity which is the fulfilling of the law. To affect that is true conversion unto God. That law is the royal law, the perfect law, the law of liberty, the law which can save souls. James 2:8, 12; 1:25.