Living in Light of the Day - Rom. 13:11-14
This is famously the text that
led to St Augustine’s conversion. After
struggling helplessly for years with slavery to the lusts of the flesh, the
future bishop one day heard the voice of a child next-door saying over and over
again, “Pick it up, and read it.” He
took this as a commission from heaven to go to his Bible and read the first
passage his eyes rested upon. It was
Romans 13:13-14. He relates: “I snatched
it up, opened it, and in silence read the paragraph on which my eyes first
fell: ‘Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in
strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for
the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.’ I wanted to read no further, nor did I
need to. For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart
something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished
away.”[1] Augustine never looked back.
The story of Augustine’s conversion
is very relevant for our day because the times in which he lived where in some
ways much like our own. Christendom had
not yet been established and paganism was still the dominant worldview for
many. And sexual immorality was part of
the warp and woof of daily life for many.
Augustine, though he had a godly mother, had left the faith behind as a
young man and had devoted himself for many years to pagan ideas and the desires
of the flesh. But God rescued him from
it in an instant, as his heart was opened to the truth of this passage from
Paul.
Of course, as you read
Augustine’s Confessions, from which the quote above is taken, it is
clear that God had been working in Augustine for some time. Why then this text as that which catapulted
him from living in slavery to the flesh to living in unfettered devotion to
Christ? I think one reason is that it is
because these verses spoke directly to the choice that daily confronted
Augustine: you must either choose the flesh or Christ; you cannot have
both. And at the same time, it held out
for him the lifeline which rescued him from the bondage from which he could not
free himself: Jesus Christ. For he is
the only one who can truly deliver us from the chains of our slavery.
This is a text that we all need
to hear as well. For our times are
programming us to think that it is not only okay to give into the lusts of the
flesh, but that it is also wrong to be told that you should not give expression
to those fleshly impulses which the Bible forbids. We are told that it is oppressive for the
church to tell people that they cannot live in a certain way. So it is important for us to know exactly
what Christ expects of those who claim his name as well as the reasons given
for why we should abandon the path modern society is forging for what is now,
to borrow a phrase from Robert Frost, the road less taken.
It is especially appropriate to
consider this verse today (Nov. 29, 2020) because this Sunday marks the first
day of Advent, that season on the Christian calendar when we consider our
Lord’s comings into the world, both the first and the second. Why is it appropriate to spend our time in
this passage? It is fitting because our
Lord’s first coming inaugurated the Last Days.
And that reality explains why, though we live in what the apostle calls
the night (12), yet we are to live in light of the Day – the day of our Lord’s
return. It was our Lord’s first coming
that, so to speak, started the countdown to the Second Coming, that promises
the end of the night in which we currently live. And that is to affect the way we live. In particular, it means that we are to live
as hopeful people and as holy people. So
this text reminds us of both our Lord’s past coming to redeem his people and
his future coming to complete our salvation.
It reminds us of the hope in which we are to live, of the fact that our
hope is certain and near and bright.
In this text, we have the kind of
life we are called to live as Christians clearly laid out before us, contrasted
with the kind of life we are called to abandon.
The contrast could not be more stark: one is called light and the other
darkness. But that is not all the
apostle does here, for he also tells us why we are to live this way. In other words, we have the answers to two
questions here: how we are to live, and then why we are to live that way.
How we are to live
The basic idea
here is that we are to live at war with sin. If you are not at war with the sin in your
life and the sin all around you, then you are not living the kind of life to
which the gospel summons us. We see this
in the language used in verse 12: We are to “cast off the works of darkness and
put on the armor of light.” So I think
it is entirely appropriate to form our thoughts around this passage in
militaristic terms. The life of the
believer is not about being a nice neighbor primarily or being thought of as a
good person by your friends. The life of
the believer is one of unrelenting warfare against the pervasive wickedness all
around us and in us.
And this also
points us to the fact that this is a deadly serious business. You don’t put armor on to go for a leisurely
walk through the park. You put it on
because there are foes arrayed against you who want to destroy you. That is the thought. This is serious. If you are not living this way, you are only
endangering your soul. Think about how
the apostle put it to the Ephesians: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the
strength of his might. Put on the whole
armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the
devil. For we do not wrestle against
flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the
cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil
in the heavenly places. Therefore take
up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day,
and having done all, to stand firm” (Eph. 6:10-13). “That you may be able to stand.” That is the idea. If you don’t put on this armor, if you don’t
have this battle-ground mindset, you are inevitably going to fall.
At the same
time, we need to understand exactly what this means. It does not mean that we are to go around
literally trying to cut down everyone we meet.
It does not mean that we look at the lost as our enemies. The enemy is the devil, not our flesh and
blood neighbors. We are fighting evil,
not people. But what then does it mean?
First, it means
that we are to march in rank.
What do I mean by that? Well, I
am trying to unpack the meaning of the word “properly” in verse 13. “Let us walk properly as in the
daytime.” The word means “decently,
orderly.” In ancient armies, it mattered
that you kept in ranks. The victorious
army depended upon its soldiers being very disciplined, especially in the face of
the enemy. If you broke ranks and ran,
you endangered not only yourself, but also your fellow soldiers. You kept in pace with the others, and you
kept to your assigned place in the formation.
What does this
look like for the Christian? Well, Paul
spells it out for us: “not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality
and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy” (13). Think about the first pair. People would go to these parties and eat and
eat to gluttony and drink wine to excess.
The apostle says that we are not to do that. We are to live with self-control. I know that modern Western society is all
about dieting, so it isn’t cool to eat to excess. But what about drunkenness? The culture tells us that it’s acceptable as
long as you don’t harm anyone else. But
that is not what the Bible says. The
Bible tells us that your body is a temple of the Lord; it is not yours to do
with whatever you want. Drunkenness
isn’t cool; it’s sin (cf. Eph. 5:18-19).
It is a soul-destroying sin. If you
give yourself to it, you are breaking ranks, you are abandoning your post and
you are truly endangering not only yourself but those with whom you ought to be
fighting.
Drug abuse also
falls into this list. Drug abuse is
everywhere, because people are trying to grapple with the problems of life
without the Lord. When a Christian does
this, they are not only hurting themselves but also telling the world around
them that Christ is not sufficient. I’m
not saying of course that there are not times for drugs and medicines! But when we use drugs to give us the peace
that we are only to seek in Christ, we are undermining our souls and the cause
of the gospel among men. You cannot do
it and be a faithful follower of Jesus.
Then look at
the next pair: “not in sexual immorality and sensuality.” Look, the world will tell you that it’s
normal to act out on your sexual urges in any way you want, as long as it
doesn’t “hurt” anyone else. What God’s
word tells us, however, is that you cannot be immoral – which means having sex
in ways that God’s word forbids, and in particular having sex outside of
marriage – without harming yourself. God
has forbidden it, and you can be sure that you will harm yourself and others no
matter how innocuous it seems. Here is
how the apostle put it to the Ephesians: “For you may be sure of this, that
everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an
idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for
because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience”
(Eph. 5:5-6). The world will mock you
and call you prudish if you conform to God’s word on this. But better to suffer the scorn of the world
than the wrath of God.
In this regard
let me point out that we should not only avoid the overt sin itself, but
anything that would lead to that. Our
Lord tells us that it’s not just the act of adultery that is wrong; it is the
lustful eye and heart that is wrong as well (Mt. 5:27-28). Brethren, I have not warned against this the
way I ought. Be careful, friend, whether
you are a man or a woman, that you do not dabble in things that provide
occasions for your heart to be drawn to sexual lust. Movies or books or magazines or websites that
make provision for the flesh are to be cut off and fled from. Pornography is not an innocent pleasure – it
is a God-dishonoring, soul-shrinking, heart-numbing sin that objectives people
and cuts us off from fellowship with God.
If we don’t repent of it, we can’t say that we are truly following
Christ. Again, this is serious
business. Don’t dally with this sin. Run from it, as Joseph ran from this
temptation.
Then there is
the last pair: “not in quarreling and jealousy.” I think the danger here is to demote these
sins to something less serious. But you
cannot follow Christ and be given to these sins, any more than you can follow
Christ and be given to sexual immorality.
Listen to the way the apostle James puts it: “But if you have bitter
jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the
truth. This is not the wisdom that comes
down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition
exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice” (Jam. 3:14-16). We should not only beware of the lust of the
flesh and the lust of the eyes, but also of the pride of life (1 Jn.
2:16). These are the things we are not
to do.
But positively,
we are to wear the uniform of Christ into battle and to find our identity as
belonging to Christ. “But put on the
Lord Jesus Christ” (14). What does it
mean to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ”?
The word “put on” refers to putting on a garment. Paul sheds light on his meaning here in the
Galatian letter, where he writes, “For as many of you as were baptized into
Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). In
other words, just as a uniform identifies a soldier, baptism identifies us as a
follower of Jesus. However, clearly here
Paul is not necessarily referring to baptism as such, since he is writing to
Christians who have already been baptized, and this is a command that they are still
to do. Nevertheless, the idea is the
same: we are to find our identity in belonging to Christ, and to put him on in
faith and obedience, in love and loyalty, taking him as our example and relying
on him for strength (cf. Jn. 15:1-5).
I cannot think about what the apostle is
telling us to do here without thinking about the last words of Spurgeon in the
pulpit:
If you wear the harness of Christ, you will find Him so meek and
lowly of heart that you will find rest for your souls. He is the most
magnanimous of captains. There never was His like among the choicest of
princes. He is always to be found in the thickest part of the battle. When the
wind blows cold, He always takes the bleak side of the hill. The heaviest end
of the Cross lies ever on His shoulders. If He bids us carry a burden, He
carries it also. If there is anything gracious, generous, kind and tender, yea
lavish and super-abundant in love, you always find it in Him. His service is life, peace, joy. Oh that
you would enter on it at once! God help you to enlist under the banner of
JESUS CHRIST.
To put on
Christ doesn’t mean merely to identify as a Christian in name only, but to
truly give ourselves to him, as a soldier puts himself entirely at the disposal
of his superior officers. This is no
mere verbal commitment; this is a commitment of the heart and soul to Christ,
and to find in him our Lord and our Savior, and to look to him and to trust in
him and to obey him. It means that we
aren’t trying to scrape out an identity for ourselves but find our identity
completely in Christ. It means that we
rest in him alone for our righteousness before God. It means that we see in him the fullness of
God and find our completeness in him. It
means that we believe his words and obey his voice.
That is what we
are to do and how we are to do it. But
then the next question is this: why are we to live this way?
Why we are
to live this way
Note how the
apostle begins the passage: “Besides this you know the time, that the hour has
come for you to wake from sleep” (Rom. 13:11).
In other words, there are vast multitudes of people who are totally
oblivious to certain eternal realities.
They are like people who are asleep.
They are completely unaware of something. That something is the Day of the Lord. But the Christian, unfortunately, can also
fall asleep. We can become people who
start living as if this life is all there is to it. This is especially dangerous in our time,
because of the way modern society trains us to think. It trains us to think only in terms of the
material world, in terms of the here-and-now, in terms of bricks and mortar and
dollars and cents. The apostle is, as it
were, grabbing us by the shoulders and shaking us to wake us from our
sleep. It is “high time” to awake from
such sleep (cf. Rom. 13:11, KJV).
This is the
reason we are to live in the ways we described above. We are to live that way because we are “in
the daytime” (13). We do not belong to
the night when people sleep, but we belong to the day, and we are to “put on
the armor of light” (12). People who
belong to the day aren’t asleep; they aren’t unaware of these eternal
realities.
How does Paul
describe these things? First of all, he
describes it as “our salvation” (11).
Now that might seem strange to some because the apostle is ostensibly
writing to Christians. Aren’t they
already saved? Well, yes, in a real
sense they are. By grace believers “have
been saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8).
But there is also a sense in which we haven’t been saved yet. Why?
Because our salvation will not be complete until we are glorified with
Christ – which will happen when he returns at the Second Coming. Though it is true that there are certain
aspects of our salvation that are complete – like our justification – there are
other aspects that aren’t. Our
sanctification is ongoing and our glorification (which we will experience when
our purified souls are reunited with resurrected bodies) is completely in the
future. This is what Paul is referring
to here: “salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believe” (11).
So many people
are seeking salvation in the here and now.
But it will never come. The only
salvation we can hope for is the salvation that Jesus is bringing with him at
his return.
But more
importantly, he describes these eternal realities in terms of “the Day”
(12). This day is the coming age, which
is contrasted with the night, by which Paul clearly is referring to the present
age. It also is tied to the OT term,
“the Day of the Lord,” which was a reference to God coming to rescue his people
and to judge the nations. Here it is the
final, climatic Day when God will finally once for all put an end to all the
enemies of his people and give them eternal rest. It is the day of judgment (1 Cor. 3:13), the
last day (John 6:39, 40, 44), the day of wrath (Rom. 2:5), the day of the
Lord (1 Thess. 5:2), the day of God (2
Pet. 3:12), the day when the Son of man will be revealed (Luke 17:30), the day
of Christ (Phil. 1:6). It is in light of
this Day that we are to live.
Because of
what the Day is
It is preeminently
a day of judgment. And this does
not just have reference to the ungodly, but to God’s people as well. We will have to give an account for our
lives: “For we will all stand before judgment seat of God . . . . So then every
one of us will give an account of himself to God” (Rom. 14:10, 12). People do things at night because they don’t
think anyone will catch them. But our
Lord reminds us that there is coming a day when the secrets of our hearts will
be made manifest to all (Lk 8:10; cf. Rom. 2:16). “The eyes of the LORD are in every place,
beholding the evil and the good” (Prov. 15:3, KJV). We cannot think that we can live in
contradiction to God’s commandments and get away with it. As Paul would remind Timothy, “The sins of
some men are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others
appear later” (1 Tim. 5:24). In other
words, sooner or later your sins will catch up with you. Our sins will find us out!
Someone may ask
how this is consistent with the fact that at the Final Judgment, God’s people
enter into their eternal rest. I think it
is easy to miss what the apostle is getting at here. All stand before the Lord in Judgment (Mt.
25:31-46), both sheep and goats. But the
reality is that there are many who now think they are okay with the Lord but
who are speeding towards eternal judgment.
The Day of Judgment will reveal who truly belong to the Lord and who are
just fakers. When exhortations like this
are addressed to the church, it is to arouse us to the fact that we cannot hide
behind a profession of faith, that we will all appear before Almighty God who
is not fooled by religious pretense. You
can claim to be a Christian and live in the ungodliness the apostle mentions in
verse 13, but your claim will wither before God’s prefect judgment. Don’t shrug off warnings like this, especially
if you are living in these sins which God’s word forbids. If you claim to be of the day, don’t live
like you belong to the night. Otherwise,
the Day will expose your hopes as the flimsy spider’s webs that they are.
But it is not
only a day of judgment; it is also preeminently – for God’s people – a day
of reward. It is, after all, when
our salvation will be complete. It is
the day when we will enter into the joy of the Lord (Mt. 25:23). We therefore willingly deny ourselves now
temporary pleasures which will only lead to eternal rottenness for a life of
faith (however hard it may be) which will lead to ever increasing happiness and
joy and peace. Our treasure is in
heaven, where neither moth nor rust can corrupt nor thieves break in and steal
(Mt. 6:19-20). It is very easy to lose
sight of this because our culture trains us to think in terms only of this
life. It is especially at this point
that the Christian hope is very counter-cultural. Our hope awaits us, not in this life, but in
the next. It is not on earth but in
heaven, not in our present triumphs but in the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
It is, finally,
a day which is imminent. This is
a day which is “at hand” (12). It is in
light of this that we are to put off the works of darkness (13,ff).
But how is it
imminent, in light of the fact that 20 centuries have come and gone since
Christ? We can say that it is near, for
three reasons.
First, it is
imminent because Christ’s first coming inaugurated the “last days” in the sense
that there are no other great historical redemptive events between the first
and the second comings of our Lord to this earth. This is the reason we are in the last days
(cf. 2 Tim. 3:1,ff), not because our Lord’s return is going to happen next week
but because it is the next thing on God’s Redemptive Calendar. Second, it is imminent because each day
brings us closer to The Day (cf. Heb. 10:25).
I think, especially in light of eternity, our lives here will have
seemed so fleeting. And when ten
thousands of ages have marched by in the Eternal State, the Day will look like
it had always been right around the corner.
And third, it is imminent because this present life determines how we
will stand on the Last Day (Heb. 9:27). Again,
since our life is so short, in that sense the Day is near and getting nearer
each day. In light of this, we ought to
live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world (Tit. 2:12).
How will you
live? As we enter into Advent Season,
let us not live as if Christmas were the only reality. For our Lord’s incarnation points to our
Lord’s future return. For those of you
who have read C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series, you will
remember the oft-repeated refrain that the Lion is not tame – he’s good, but
not tame! When you are only willing to
consider Jesus in a manger but no more, you have tamed the Lion. But he is not a Lion to be tamed. He is coming again the second time to
complete the salvation and vindication of his people. We are to live in light of that reality, in
light of the Day. Put on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and do not make provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts!
Have you? Have you put on the Lord Jesus? Have you embraced him by faith, have you
received him as the Lord and Savior that he is?
May you do so today, for you will not find a better Captain, a better
Savior, than Jesus Christ!
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