Original Meaning

THIS SHORT PARAGRAPH concludes the survey of Christian lifestyle issues that Paul began in 12:1–2. It brings us back full circle to our starting point, for again the apostle issues a general demand that believers take on a totally new way of life in light of the climax of history that has come in the work of Christ. In 12:1–2, he called on us to renounce the ways of “this world,” judged and passing away in Christ, and to “be transformed” in all our thinking and conduct. Now he demands that we “clothe [ourselves] with the Lord Jesus Christ” (13:14) in light of the “day” that is almost here.

Eschatology, an understanding of the times in which we live, should govern our conduct. We need to recognize both what God is doing and what he plans to do and then live accordingly. The verses of the paragraph fall neatly into these two basic categories: Understanding the times (13:11–12a, the “indicative”) leads to right living (13:12b–14, the “imperative”).

Paul signals the summarizing nature of these verses with the transitional phrase “And do this” (“do” in the NIV, while not explicit in the Greek, is a legitimate addition). “This” (touto) refers to the command to love in 13:8–10,1 but it probably includes all Paul has taught in 12:1–13:10.2 We should be motivated all the more to do all these things—think of ourselves in the right way, exercise our gifts for the good of the body, display sincere love, obey the government, love others—as we “understand the present time.”

The Greek word for “time” is kairos, which connotes “appointed hour,” as when we say, “It is time to play the game.” So, Paul suggests, believers need to remember what time it is: “Salvation is nearer now then when we first believed.” As he often does, Paul uses “salvation” (soteria) language to refer to the final accomplishment of God’s plan in history (see his use of “save” [sozo] in 5:9–10 and comments there). That final day, the day of Christ’s return and the glorification of the believer, is getting closer all the time.

Thus, we need to “wake up from [our] slumber.” Why? Because “the night is nearly over; the day is almost here” (v. 12a). Paul skillfully blends two important strands of tradition using the imagery of day and night. The day/night contrast was popular in general moral teaching in the ancient world as a way of distinguishing good behavior from evil behavior. The night is the time when people indulge their passions and when thieves and other scoundrels do their work. But the Old Testament and Judaism also referred to the time when God would intervene to save and to judge as the “Day of the Lord” (see Bridging Contexts for further discussion). Paul reminds us that the Day of the Lord is near, which should motivate us to put away the kinds of behavior associated with the night of this present evil age (see 12:2).

Paul makes explicit these behavioral consequences in 13:12b–14. As is commonly done in the New Testament, the transition from one form of conduct to another is put in terms of “putting off” one set of clothes and “putting on” another (see also, e.g., Eph. 4:22, 25; Col. 3:8, 12; cf. Eph. 6:11, 14; 1 Thess. 5:8; James 1:21; 1 Peter 2:1). As we “put aside [off] the deeds of darkness,” we are to “put on the armor of light.” Why “armor” or “weapons” (hopla)? Because, as Calvin suggests, “we are to carry on a warfare for the Lord.”3

Verse 13 carries on the contrast between the behavior typical of the daytime/the Day of the Lord and that characteristic of the nightime/this present evil age. The Day of the Lord may not have come yet, but it is so close that we should live as if it were here. We should “walk [peripateo; NIV, behave] decently,” which suggests behavior that is careful, decorous, and restrained (see 1 Cor. 7:35; 12:23, 24; 14:40; 1 Thess. 4:12). We are to avoid, in contrast, those actions typical of the nighttime: unrestrained sexual conduct and drinking to excess (i.e., what we today call partying). Interestingly, Paul concludes his list with some unexpected items: “dissension and jealousy.” He probably adds these because he is thinking ahead to the next subject he will address: the divisions in the Roman community (ch. 14).

Paul concludes with a final contrast. Picking up the imagery of 13:12b, Paul commands: “Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 14). He is probably building on his earlier presentation of Christ as a corporate figure, the “new self” to whom believers have been joined by faith (5:12–21; 6:6). What has happened in principle must take place in reality: We who are in Christ must envelop ourselves with him in such a way that he directs all our thinking and conduct.

A few interpreters (and many preachers!) argue that this command is a once-for-all one: We must reach a point of crisis in which we determine to “put on” Christ for good. But this interpretation rests on a faulty understanding of the Greek aorist tense used here. The tense does not (in itself) denote “once-for-all” action but rather states simply and without adornment that the action is to take place. In light of what the New Testament says about the believer’s continuing battle with sin, we must regularly make the decision to “put on” Christ.

As the negative counterpart to putting on Christ, we are also not to consider how we might “gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” In typical NIV fashion, “sinful nature” translates sarx (flesh, see comments on 8:1–13), the word Paul uses to encapsulate the human condition apart from Christ. In commanding us not to “think about” (pronoian, i.e., foresight, concern) gratifying the flesh, Paul is urging us not to allow our human impulses to dominate our behavior.

Bridging Contexts

ETHICS AND ESCHATOLOGY. Paul’s ethical appeal in this paragraph grows out of eschatology. We are to live a certain way because we recognize the period of time in which we live. God superintends the course of human history, and we can live rightly only by knowing what phase of history we are now in. As noted above, Paul beautifully captures the relationship of eschatology and ethics by using the same imagery for both. Building on widespread traditions of his time, Paul uses “day,” “daytime,” and “light” imagery to denote both. Only by appreciating these traditions will we be able to understand what he is communicating in here.

The contrast between light and darkness is a natural way to express the contrast between good and evil, moral and immoral behavior. For whatever psychological and/or cultural reasons, human beings have always associated darkness with danger and evil. Bad things happen in the dark, and so human beings have sought to drive back the darkness by felling forests, closing doors and curtains after nightfall, and increasing the intensity and spread of light. The literature of almost all people—including Jews, Greeks, and Romans—freely uses darkness to characterize evil actions. As an inevitable counterpart, good deeds are related to the light. Examples are far too numerous to list, but typical is Testament of Levi 19:1: “Choose for yourselves either darkness or light, either the law of the Lord or the works of Belial.”

But this moral strand in the imagery of light and darkness mixes quickly and sometimes seamlessly with an eschatological strand derived from the Old Testament and Jewish use of the term day. The “Day of the Lord” is a standard phrase to denote the time when God will intervene to save his people and to judge their enemies. Note, for instance, Obadiah 15–17:

The day of the LORD is near for all nations.

As you have done, it will be done to you;

your deeds will return upon your own head.

Just as you drank on my holy hill,

so all the nations will drink continually;

they will drink and drink

and be as if they had never been.

But on Mount Zion will be deliverance;

it will be holy,

and the house of Jacob

will possess its inheritance.

So common was the imagery that the phrase could be abbreviated and the sense still clearly communicated, as in Jeremiah 30:8–9:

“In that day,” declares the LORD Almighty,

“I will break the yoke off their necks

and will tear off their bonds;

no longer will foreigners enslave them.

Instead, they will serve the LORD their God

and David their king,

whom I will raise up for them.”

Jewish writers continued the imagery, and we find it frequently in the New Testament as well. Here, however, the Christology of the early church affects the wording of the phrase. So, in addition to the “day of the Lord,” we also find a variety of other expressions, such as “the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:8), “the day of Christ” (Phil. 1:10; 2:16), and so on.

As a natural progression, especially important for the imagery of Romans 13:8–10, the idea of the Day of the Lord was associated with light and, by contrast, the evil time in which the people lived with night and darkness. See, for instance, Amos 5:18: “Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD! Why do you long for the day of the LORD? That day will be darkness, not light.” “Darkness” and “light” by themselves were used to contrast this age with the age to come (see 1 Enoch 58:2–6):

The righteous ones shall be in the light of the sun and the elect ones in the light of eternal life which has no end…. The sun has shined upon the earth and the darkness is over. There shall be a light that has no end…. For already darkness has been destroyed, light shall be permanent before the Lord of the Spirits, and the light of uprightness shall stand firm forever and ever before the Lord of the Spirits.4

We must read Romans 13:12a in light of this tradition. According to Paul, this present evil age is ending soon and the time of God’s final victory is at hand. But the immediate sequel—“So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light”—reveals that the eschatological language is tied up with ethical nuances as well. “Dark” deeds are typical of this age (“the night”), while in the “day” of the Lord only deeds of light will be tolerated. Recognizing that dawn is upon us and that the Lord Jesus may return at any time to finalize his victory, we need to live even now as if that day has come.

Indeed, as Paul’s teaching makes clear, that final age of sinlessness and salvation, while not yet here in full force, has already been introduced into history through the work of Christ and the presence of the Spirit. Paul is more explicit about this typical New Testament “inaugurated eschatology” in a closely related passage (1 Thess. 5:1–10):

Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him.

The “day of the Lord” is still on its way (1 Thess. 5:2), but believers even now are “sons of the light and sons of the day” (v. 5); we “belong to the day” (v. 8). What Paul hints at in Romans 13, then, he makes explicit here: We display the “deeds of light” not only because the day of the Lord is coming, but also because we already participate, by faith, in that day.

Contemporary Significance

BEING AND LIVING. One of the most important points of application for the contemporary Christian is left unsaid in the paragraphs above, although it is presumed throughout: A great gap can exist between who we are and how we live. Paul has theologized about this fundamental tension in Romans 6, where he argues that our new relationship to Christ rescues us from slavery to sin. Being in Christ means that we now have the power to do what God tells us to do, to live Christianly from morning to night, day in and day out. But even in Romans 6 Paul tells us that this new power is not a magical potion that automatically makes us holy. We have to respond to God’s offer of grace and allow his power in Christ to capture every part of our being at every moment of time. Holiness is both a gift and an accomplishment. God gives it, but we have to accept it and give it pride of place in our affections and intentions.

In 13:11–14 also Paul presumes that God is working in us. He writes to people who have believed and who are already saved (v. 11). But he can still tell us that we need to “clothe [ourselves] with the Lord Jesus Christ.” In one sense, of course, we are already clothed with Christ (Gal. 3:27). By faith we belong to him. He is “in [us]” (Rom. 8:10), and we are “in [him]” (6:11). But Paul wants us to make Christ the focal point of everything we do. He should be like a suit of clothes that we wear all the time. His dominating presence should guide us to do things pleasing to God and restrain us from activity inconsistent with the Lord whom we represent.

Paul is especially concerned in this passage with activity typical of the night: immoral sexual practices, excessive drinking, coarse joking—the kind of partying that most of us are all too familiar with. At the risk of sounding like a Puritan (curiously, an expression of disapprobation even among Christians), I suggest that the contemporary church needs a “wake-up call” about these activities.

When I first came to the Lord, in the 1970s, what we might call the fundamentalist strand in evangelicalism was much stronger than it is today. Often indistinguishable in their theology from evangelicals, fundamentalists typically put much greater stress on separation from the world. Drinking, smoking, and dancing, of course, were frowned on; forms of dress and hairstyles that might resemble too closely the latest craze among the worldly minded were banned; and mingling with those who did not share the same moral emphases was discouraged. Many of the students I taught in seminary in the late 1970s and 1980s had been reared in the bosom of fundamentalism, but, as suggested by the fact they were at a broadly evangelical school like Trinity, they had turned their backs on this heritage. What often happened was that their new sense of freedom led to excess in the other direction.

In those years, I frequently found myself, as someone who found Christ only late in my college years, in the position C. S. Lewis described so poignantly: a converted pagan in the midst of lapsed puritans. I rejoiced that these students had turned away from what I thought was an overly negative and overly strict understanding of what it meant to be a Christian in the world. But I deplored what I thought was their failure to see that some of the things they did in reaction against their strict upbringing might open themselves to activities that were questionable in light of biblical standards of behavior.

As I look at my college-age children, talk to their friends, and visit the Christian colleges that a couple of them attend, I find that this general attitude is widespread. Why, I am not sure. But perhaps it is because the people influencing them in their faith—their parents, teachers, and administrators—in a continuing reaction against fundamentalism, put too much stress on our freedom in Christ and too little on our responsibilities in Christ. Young Christian people think nothing of watching movies that contain explicit sex and raunchy humor.

Do we have freedom in Christ to do so? Maybe, although Paul warns that “it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret” (Eph. 5:12). But I find that exposure to the values propagated in such movies almost inevitably leads those who watch them to become tolerant of some of those same values. Premarital sex is rampant among Christian young people—depending, of course, on what we mean by “sex.” But even when they don’t “go all the way,” all too many young believers get involved in heavy petting before marriage. Paul warns about “unwholesome talk” and “coarse joking” (Eph. 4:29; 5:4), yet many Christian young people listen to and pass on the off-color humor that seems to pervade the Comedy Channel.

All these activities, it seems to me, fall under the heading of the “debauchery” that Paul in this passage claims to be incompatible with our status as children of the light. I have encouraged my own children (as I must regularly encourage myself) to ask not “Can I do this?” (i.e., are Christians allowed to do this?), but “Should I do this?”(i.e., does this activity glorify God and honor the Lord whom I represent?).