sin before God in omitting the act.

3. Another obligation is love, when a Christian voluntarily makes
himself a servant of all men. Paul says (1 Cor 9, 19), "For though I
was free from all men, I brought myself under bondage to all." This is
not a requirement of human laws; no one who fails in this duty is
censured or punished for neglect of legal obligations. The world is
not aware of the commandment to love; of the obligation to submit to
and serve a fellow-man. This fact is very apparent. Let one have
wealth, and so long as he refrains from disgracing his neighbor's
wife, from appropriating his neighbor's goods, sullying his honor or
injuring his person, he is, in the eyes of the law, righteous. No law
punishes him for avarice and penuriousness; for refusing to lend, to
give, to aid, and to help his wronged neighbor secure justice. Laws
made for restraint of the outward man are directed only toward evil
works, which they prohibit and punish. Good works are left to
voluntary performance. Civil law does not extort them by threats and
punishment, but commends and rewards them, as does the Law of Moses.

4. Paul would teach Christians to so conduct themselves toward men and
civil authority as to give no occasion for complaint or censure
because of unfulfilled indebtedness to temporal law. He would not have
them fail to satisfy the claims of legal obligation, but rather to go
beyond its requirements, making themselves debtors voluntarily and
serving those who have no claims on them. Relative to this topic, Paul
says (Rom 1, 14), "I am debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians."
Love's obligation enables a man to do more than is actually required
of him. Hence the Christian always willingly renders to the state and
to the individual all service exacted by temporal regulations,
permitting no claims upon himself in this respect.

5. Paul's injunction, then, might be expressed: Owe all men, that you
may owe none; owe everything, that you may owe nothing. This sounds
paradoxical. But one indebtedness is that of love, an obligation to
God. The other is indebtedness to temporal law, an obligation in the
eyes of the world. He who makes himself a servant, who takes upon
himself love's obligation to all men, goes so far that no one dares
complain of omission; indeed, he goes farther than any could desire.
Thus he is made free. He lives under obligation to no one from the
very fact that he puts himself under obligation to all. Thi