Clothed In Christ
CLOTHED IN CHRIST
ROMANS 13:11-14
Paul gets practical: are we ready for the return of Christ?
Verse 11. No difficulty should be felt in the apostle’s expectation of Christ’s coming. How could it be otherwise? We know nothing of the future, and the New Testament gives no clue to the date of history’s consummation, except that it follows an age of mounting sin and accelerating apostasy. What of today? For the first time, faced by the accumulating heritage of human sin and folly, scientists have become frequent prophets of doom.
13:12. The “works of darkness” are deeds which shun the light of day, and so are not Christian (John 3:20f.). The Christian’s life is not a sleep but a battle. For “the armor of light” see the full development of the image in Ephesians 6.
13:13. Note the vices which Paul chooses to stress. Reveling is the improper noise of the drunken and the selfish, the creation of disturbance common enough in the overcrowded environment of today’s urban civilization, as it was in Paul’s similarly city-ridden world. Christians should conduct themselves with dignity, quietness and thought for the tranquility of others. Drunkenness is foolish and disgusting in anyone. Christians should avoid excessive consumption of alcohol, if they are to follow with any care Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 8. Alcoholism claims from five to ten per cent of social drinkers, causes untold crime and countless accidents. Christians may argue for “moderate drinking” on no grounds of sincerity. The third vice was immorality, familiar to our present society. Purity was scorned then and it is scorned again. The fourth word is “shamelessness,” the flouting of virtue. “Quarreling” is the opposite of love. It is based on self-assertion. “Jealousy” is similarly love’s negation, because it thrives on self-esteem.
13:14. This is the famous verse of Augustine’s conversion. He tells of it in his Confessions. The metaphor is that of clothing oneself in the moral disposition and character of Christ, not taking the armor of the earlier figure but rather garments which are our most visible feature.