“Love is the fulfilling of the law”, Paul asserts in the passage that we are offered by the lectionary for consideration this coming Sunday (Rom 13:8–14). “Christ is the end of the law”, he has boldly asserted in an early part of the letter (Rom 10:4). How do these two seemingly contradictory statements stand alongside each other? What is the status of the law—the Torah, the foundation of Jewish life and faith—for Christians?
In making his statement about Christ and the Law (10:4), Paul has used an important Greek word: telos. This is regularly translated as “Christ is the end of the Law”; but we might well ask, what is the sense of the word “end” in this verse? On the one hand, this word might does infer a meaning of “the end as and abolition”, doing away with the Law. Apart from the fact that this directly contradicts what Jesus said about his intention not to abolish any single part of the Law (Matt 5:17–18), it is a most an unsatisfactory supercessionist reading, which completely does away with all the Old Testament.
On the other hand, there is the sense (which I prefer) that this means “the end as in bringing to the height of fulfilment”. In which case, Christ is bringing the Law to its logical and natural end, or goal: the complete expression of the Law through love. In other places where the word telos is used, it has this sense of bringing to fulfilment or bringing to perfection.
Indeed, this latter sense accords with the use of the term in other Pauline texts, where it is used to refer to those with spiritual maturity. He encourages the Corinthians, “in your thinking, be adult (teleioi)” (1 Cor 14:20). He confesses to the Philippians, “not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal (teteleiōmenoi)” (Phil 3:12) and exhorts “those of us then who are mature [to] be of the same mind” (Phil 3:15).
In later letter claiming Paul as author, the term signifies those “mature in Christ (teleioi en Christō)” (Col 1:28; see also Eph 4:13). It is perhaps similar to the meaning in Hebrews, which makes the claim that Jesus is the means of offering a perfect sacrifice (Heb 2:10; 5:9) through which “by a single offering he has perfected (teteleiōken)for all time those who are sanctified” (Heb 10:14).
Of course, the idea of being perfect is integral to the appreciation of God that is expressed at various places in Hebrew Scripture. “This God—his way is perfect”, the psalmist sings (Ps 18:30; echoed also at Deut 32:4; 2 Sam 22:31; Job 37:16), and in another psalm, “the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul” (Ps 19:7).
So the temple that Solomon built was to be perfect (1 Ki 6:22), the sacrifice of wellbeing to be offered there, “to be acceptable it must be perfect, there shall be no blemish in it” (Lev 22:21), and no person with a blemish is able to serve as a priest (Lev 21:16–24).
Perhaps this is the sense of telos, perfection, complete fulfillment, that sits underneath the use of this word by Paul at Rom 10:4? That would mean that he is proposing that Christ brings the Law to a state of perfection in which it is filled to overflowing with God’s goodness.
Certainly, this would explain why Paul is able to affirm that “the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’” (Gal 5:14). Law and love are here seen in close interrelationship with one another, not in opposition to one another. Love is the essence of the Law, bringing fulfillment what the Law set forth.
And that would also explain the words we have in this coming Sunday’s reading from Rom 13, that “the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” and so “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom 13:8, 10).
The key words used in Rom 13:8–10 are equally strong with regard to the ongoing validity and relevance of the Law, for Paul. He uses two words derived from the verb plēroō, meaning “to fill up”, and thus, “to fulfill”. In 13:8, he says that “love has fulfilled the law”, using the perfect form of the verb, peplērōken. The perfect has the sense of an action completed in the past which has consequences which continue on into the present time. So the fulfilling of the Law in the past by deeds of love has ongoing consequences—that Law, those acts of love, impinge on the present time.
Then, in 13:10, Paul reiterates that “love is the fulfilling of the law”, using a noun formed from this verb, plērōma. That conveys the idea that the Law has been filled right up to overflowing, fully and completely, by acts of love. The Law remains relevant and potent, because of those fulfilling acts of love.
Alongside these two words, Paul uses another word to make a similarly strong statement. Quoting for of the Ten Commandments, he affirms that these laws are “summed up” in another set of words, taken from Hebrew Scripture itself: “love your neighbour as yourself” (13:9, quoting Lev 19:18). The verb translated “summed up” is anakephalaioutai, a compound word combining the idea of “the head” (kephalē) and “brought up to” (the preposition ana).
This word contains the sense, then, that everything is gathered together and taken up into the head; obedience to each and every one of the commandments of the Law is gathered together and taken up into the head, that is, in the act of loving the neighbour.
Paul could not be clearer, and could not be stating things more strongly: the Law is filled to overflowing in love. The Law continues to have power. It is not abandoned as irrelevant or outdated.
Paul’s attitude to the Law, however, is quite complex. He trained as a Pharisee, and he notes at he was “far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors” (Gal 1:14), and so he has a “delight in the law of God in my inmost self” (Rom 7:22). He affirms that he upholds the Law (Rom 3:31), alluding to various commands in The Ten Words which he insists are worth obeying (2:17–22), and affirming that, in its essential character, “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good” (7:12).
Yet his calling to be “apostle to the Gentiles” (Rom 11:23; Gal 2:8) led to his experience of eating at table with Jews and Gentiles together, in breach of kosher food laws (Gal 2:11–13)—an issue that is clearly in view decades later, as Luke writes his account of the early years of the Jesus movement, siding with Paul in the view that God has set aside the requirement for separate foods and separate tables (Acts 10:1–11:18; 15:19–20, 28–29).
This, in turn, leads Paul to his missionary goal of bridging the gap between Jews and Gentiles in practical ways (Rom 15:25–27), undergirded by the message that he preaches, affirming that salvation is offered “to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom 1:16; see also 2:10; 10:12; Gal 3:28; and the post-Pauline development in Eph 2:11–22). He is driven by the scriptural claim that “God shows no partiality” (Rom 2:11; Deut 16:19–20; 2 Chron 19:7; Sir 35:15–16).
So his letter to the Romans is a long and complex argument in which he explains how he understands that the good news is that “the righteous-justice of God [is] through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (3:22), that there is “justification and life for all” (5:18). The argument builds and develops, demonstrating how God has chosen to make righteous-justice available to all human beings, through Abraham as through Jesus, by means of the indwelling Spirit.
So this leads Paul to write in negative terms about the Law. Although he maintains that having faith in Jesus does not “overthrow the law”, and he insists that “we uphold the law” (3:31), he goes on to note that “the law brings wrath” (4:14), for where “the law came in … the trespass multiplied” (5:20). “If it had not been for the law”, he asserts, “I would not have known sin” (7:7), and so “I am a slave to the law of sin” (7:25), and in Jesus, “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do” (8:3).
Accordingly, “Israel, who did strive for the righteousness that is based on the law, did not succeed in fulfilling that law” (9:31). Or, as he portrays things in writing to the Galatians, “a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Gal 2:16), “through the law I died to the law” (2:19), “if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing” (2:21), “no one is justified before God by the law” (3:11), and even, “if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law” (5:18).
However, to the proposition that he poses, “Is the law then opposed to the promises of God?”, Paul immediately replies, “Certainly not!” (3:21), and then argues that “the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith” (3:24). This looks like Paul is ready to contend that the Law is superseded, and should be put aside. But not so fast; “I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law” (5:3). He is not prepared to let it go entirely. The Law still stands for Jews—but not for Gentiles.
Indeed, in the most complex midrashic section of his letter to the Romans, Paul plunges into a complex reading of scriptural texts in order to sanction the claim that God’s sovereign mercy offers a universal righteous-justice, both to Jews and to Gentiles alike (Rom 9:1–11:32).
This section of the letter contains the greatest concentration of scripture citations and allusions of the whole of this letter to the Romans—and, indeed, of all of the seven authentic letters of Paul. In the argument that is advanced by a Paul, whilst he signals the limits and inadequacies of the Law, he holds fast with the view that the Law is not rendered obsolete, but rather is brought to fulfilment (10:4; see the discussion above).
Paul,asks pointed questions: “does this mean that “the word of God had failed”? (9:6) and “has God rejected his people?” (11:1). “By no means!” is once again the Pauline riposte. “Through the stumbling [of Israel] salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous” (11:11), yet “as regards election they are beloved, for the sake of their ancestors; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (11:28–29).
The complex midrashic argumentation of these three chapters comes to a climax in a string of joyously prayerful affirmations concerning God’s “riches and wisdom and knowledge”, leading to the attribution of glory to God forever (11:33–36). This is the ultimate response to the singular grace of God’s gift of righteous-justice to all human beings. And that gracious gift fulfils, or brings to culmination, the Law that Israel was given.
An Informed Faith 