Romans 13:9
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, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
The prohibitions against adultery and killing and stealing and false witness and coveting, with every other commandment besides, are briefly gathered into loving the neighbor as the self, because the one who loves another has fulfilled the law since love works no harm to a neighbor. The first four commandments are summed in loving God with all the heart, while the last six are included in loving the neighbor as the self, and the two together express one principle of love forming a divine whole. One great command cannot be kept while the other is broken, and not one precept can be broken without violating love, for the law is not separate great and small parts to be ignored with impunity; love to God is shown by obedience to all the commandments, giving God His rightful place on the throne of the heart puts the neighbor in the right place, and only supreme love to God makes impartial love to the neighbor as self possible. The law is a law of love expressing divine goodness, cleared of human exactions and brought with the accumulated love of eternity, laying no arbitrary requirement. Obedience to its principles involves the happiness of mankind and the stability and foundation and framework of human society, for it is given as a hedge and a shield so that whoever accepts its principles is preserved from evil. Fidelity to God involves fidelity to people, so the law guards the rights and individuality of every person by restraining the superior from oppression and the subordinate from disobedience.
The law is comprehended and fulfilled only as God is loved with heart and mind and soul and strength and the neighbor is loved as self, a love that is purity and long-suffering kindness which few really believe. The manifestation of this love brings glory to God in the highest and peace and goodwill to people on earth, and God is glorified when this great end of the law is attained. This love is the living principle of brotherhood imparted to human hearts by the Holy Spirit from age to age. It secures well-being both for this world and for the world to come, and to the obedient it is the pledge of eternal life because it expresses principles that endure forever. Coldness and lack of sympathy violate this love and come not from God but from the wicked one.
The passage belongs to an intelligent presentation of temperance and health reform calling for the intellect to be educated and the moral sense and sensibility to be awakened to take hold of right living, with each person individually accountable to God for appetite and practice and conduct. Articles of diet are not made a test of faith, yet biblical temperance is to be followed as guidance, rejecting indulgence that wars against health, and the purity and self-control it enjoins are equally essential in deacons and in elders. Loving obedience does no harm to the sick and therefore refuses to give flesh meat and tea and coffee that made them sick and will keep them sick, refuses to indulge perverted appetite or to make provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts, and stands firmly on the platform of health reform as a watchful sentinel to help patients present their bodies as a living sacrifice. This obedience is urgent because the time is known that it is high time to awake out of sleep, for salvation is nearer than when belief began and the night is far spent and the day is at hand, so the works of darkness must be cast off and the armor of light put on, with honest daytime conduct maintained without rioting and drunkenness, sexual immorality and wantonness, strife and envying, by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ.