23. Our relationship to the day: living in the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’
The precise point of continuity between verses 8–10 and 11–14 is not certain. And do this, the apostle begins, referring presumably to the commandments to love our neighbours and to refrain from harming them (8–10), and also perhaps referring to the instructions to submit to the state and pay our taxes. But why should we do this? Why should we obey? Paul’s purpose in this last paragraph of Romans 13 (11–14) seems to be to lay a foundation for Christian conduct based on our expectations about the future. He has already told us not to ‘conform to the pattern of this world’ (12:2). Now he urges us to remember what the time is, and then to live appropriately.
1. Understanding the time (13:11–12a)
One of the features of the technological society is that we are the slaves of time. We all carry phones and wear watches to keep careful track of the passing time. But it is more important to know God’s time, especially the kairos, the present time (11a), the existential moment of opportunity and decision. The Bible divides history into ‘this age’ and ‘the age to come’, and the New Testament authors are clear that the age to come or the kingdom of God was launched by Jesus. So at present the two ages overlap. We are waiting expectantly for the second coming of Christ or parousia, when the old age will finally disappear, the period of overlap will end, and the new age of God’s kingdom will be consummated. Paul makes three time references, which assume this background understanding.
First, the hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber (11b). The time for sleep has passed. It is now time to wake up and get up.
Second, this is because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed (11c). ‘Salvation’ is a comprehensive term (e.g. 1:16), embracing our past (justification), present (sanctification) and future (glorification). In this verse it is clear that our future and final salvation is in mind (8:24), what Paul has earlier described in terms of the freedom of glory, our final adoption as God’s children and the redemption of our bodies (8:21–23). This inheritance is nearer now. Every day brings it closer.
Third, the night (the old age of darkness) is well advanced (literally), so that it is nearly over; the day (when Christ returns) is almost here, on the threshold (12a). Many readers conclude that Paul was mistaken, since the night drags on, and still the day, although it dawned at Christ’s coming, has not yet experienced the fullness of sunrise at his return. But this is an unnecessary conclusion. First, it is unlikely that Paul pronounced the end to be imminent, because Jesus had said he did not know the time, because the apostles echoed this, and because they knew that worldwide evangelization, the restoration of Israel (11:12ff.) and the apostasy must all precede the final denouement. Second, what the apostles did know was that the kingdom of God came with Jesus, that the decisive salvation events which established it (his death, resurrection, exaltation and gift of the Spirit) had already taken place, and that God had nothing on his calendar before the parousia. It would be the next and the culminating event. So they were, and we are, living in ‘the last days’. It is in this sense that Christ is coming ‘soon’ (16:20). We must be watchful and alert, because we do not know the time.
Here, then, are the apostle’s three time references. The time is already here for us to wake up (11a); now our salvation is nearer than it was (11b); and the night has nearly given place to the day (12a). It is the familiar tension between the ‘now already’ of Christ’s first coming and the ‘not yet’ of his second.
2. Understanding what is appropriate to the time (13:12b–14)
The So in the middle of verse 12 marks the transition from Paul’s statements about the time to his corresponding calls to action. It is not enough to understand the time; we have to behave accordingly. Paul issues three appeals. The first two are couched in the first person plural, so that he includes himself (So let us . . . Let us . . . ), while the third changes to the second person plural and is his direct summons to his readers (Rather, clothe yourselves). All three are double sentences, the negative and positive aspects of the appeal forming a radical contrast.
The first continues the metaphor of night and day, darkness and light. It concerns our clothing, and what (in the light of the time) it is appropriate for us to wear. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armour of light (12b). The picture is that, because of the hour, we must not only wake up and get up, but get dressed as well. We must take off our night clothes, the deeds of darkness, and put on instead, as suitable daytime equipment for the soldiers of Christ, the armour of light. For ‘the Christian’s life is not a sleep, but a battle’.
From appropriate clothing Paul proceeds to appropriate behaviour. Positively, let us behave decently or ‘appropriately’, as in the daytime, that is, as if the day had already dawned, and turn from the kinds of things people do under cover of darkness: not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy (13). Lack of self-control in the areas of drink, sex and social relationships is opposed to decent Christian behaviour.
Paul’s third and concluding contrast might be said to concern our preoccupation, what it is which absorbs our attention as Christian people. The alternative set before us is either the Lord Jesus Christ or our fallen self-centred nature: clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh (14). In Galatians Paul has written that those who are in Christ by justification and baptism ‘have clothed’ themselves with Christ. In Romans this clothing ourselves with Christ is something we still have to do, or to keep doing. Is the clothing regarded as decorative? If so, perhaps the thought is that we are to wear the characteristics of his teaching and example, and put on ‘compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience’. The context, however, suggests protection rather than decoration. In any case, it is not Christlikeness only that we are to put on, but Christ himself, laying hold of him, and ‘living under him as Lord’.
In contrast to the beautiful and protective clothing which is Christ, Paul refers to our ugly, self-centred nature (sarx). It has not been eradicated; it is still there. It also still has powerful desires. Our instruction is not only not to gratify its desires, but not to think about how to do so, rather to be ruthless in rejecting them and putting them to death (8:13).
Romans 13 began with important teaching about how we can be good citizens (1–7) and good neighbours (8–10); it ends with why we should be. There is no greater incentive to the doing of these duties than a lively expectation of the Lord’s return. We will be rightly related to the state (which is God’s minister) and to the law (which is fulfilled in loving our neighbour) only when we are rightly related to the day of Christ’s coming. Although both the state and the law are divine institutions, they are provisional structures, seen as temporary in the light of the last day when they will cease. That day is steadily approaching. Our calling is to live in the light of it, to behave in the continuing night as if the day had dawned, to enjoy the ‘now already’ of the inaugurated kingdom in the certain knowledge that what is still ‘not yet’, namely the consummated kingdom, will soon arrive.