Romans 13:11-12

“ And this, knowing the season, that now it is high time for you to awake out of sleep; for now is salvation nearer to us than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the instruments of light. ”

The somewhat abrupt transition from Romans 13:10 to Romans 13:11 has been differently understood. What is the principal verb on which the participle εἰδότες, knowing, rests? Meyer thinks that we must go back on ὀφείλετε (Romans 13:8), “Owe no man anything.” But there is no special relation to be observed between the duty of justice, Romans 13:8, and the following passage. Lange has recourse to a strong ellipsis; he derives from the participle knowing the understood verb we know (comp. Romans 12:6), which leads to this meaning: “and knowing this (that love is the fulfilling of the law), we know also the importance of the present moment (the nearness of final salvation).” The logical connection between these two ideas would thus be this: When once love is present, perfect salvation cannot be far off. This meaning is ingenious, but very far-fetched, and this construction is not sufficiently justified by Romans 12:6. Hofmann, feeling the impossibility of these explanations, has recourse to the following expedient: he gives τοῦτο, that, an abverbial meaning: in that way, or in that respect. The clause would therefore signify: “Knowing the time thus far, that the hour is come for you to awake” that is to say, the true meaning of the present moment is the obligation to awake. This strange construction is its own condemnation.

After the exposition which we have given of the plan of this whole moral part, we are not embarrassed by this transition. In the words: And this, Paul sums up all the foregoing precepts, all the duties of love and justice, enumerated chaps. 12 and 13, with the view of passing to the fourth and last section of this part: “And all that [we fulfil], knowing”...The idea of fulfilling did not need to be specially expressed, because the foregoing precepts along with the idea of duties included that of their execution.

Faithfulness in the realization of such a life rests on the knowledge which Christians have of the present situation of the world and of its significance: “The hour is solemn; time is short; we shall soon be no longer able to labor on the work of our sanctification; there is not an instant to lose.” In the following proposition: “It is high time for you to awake out of sleep,” the apostle compares the Christian's position to that of a man who has begun to awake from the sleep in which he was plunged, and who, by an energetic act, requires to overcome the last remnant of sleepiness. Sleep is the state of forgetfulness of God and of estrangement from Him, and the cannal security of the man of the world in this state. Awaking is the act by which man reaches the lively conviction of his responsibility, gives himself to the impulse of prayer drawing him to God, and enters into communication with Him to obtain through Christ the pardon of his sins and divine help. As to awakening, his readers had already experienced it; but the most awakened in the church has still need of awakening; and hence the apostle reminds his readers that the meaning of the present situation is the duty of awakening thoroughly. The word ἤδη, already (now), is well explained by Philippi: at length, “high time.”

The reading ὑμᾶς, you, is to be preferred to the reading ἡμᾶς, us. The latter evidently arises from the following verb, which is in the first person plural.

The need of a complete awakening arises from the rapidity with which the day is approaching to which we are moving on. Paul understands by this day the decisive moment of Christ's coming again, which he proceeds to compare (Romans 13:12) to the rising of the sun in nature. He here calls it salvation, because this will be the hour of complete redemption for believers; comp. Romans 5:10; Romans 8:23-25; Romans 10:10.

The march of events to this goal, or of this goal to us, is so rapid, says the apostle, that the interval which separates us from it has already sensibly diminished since he and his readers were brought to the faith. To understand this saying, which is somewhat surprising when we think of the eighteen centuries which have followed the time when it was written, it must be remembered, 1st. That the Lord had promised His return at the time when all the nations of the earth had heard His Gospel; and 2d. That the apostle, looking back on his own career, and seeing in a sense the whole known world evangelized by his efforts (Col 1:6), might well say without exaggeration that the history of the kingdom of God had made a step in advance during the course of his ministry. Of course this saying supposes that the apostle had no idea of the ages which should yet elapse before the advent of Christ. The revelation of the Lord had taught him that He would return, but not when He would return. And when it was sought to fix this time, the apostle himself opposed the attempt (1 Thessalonians 5:1-2; 2Th 2:1 et seq.). He expresses himself sometimes as a possible witness of it (1Th 4:17; 1 Corinthians 15:52); sometimes as if he were not to have part in it; 1 Corinthians 6:14 (ἡμᾶς, us, the undoubted reading); 2 Timothy 4:18. And is it not thus we ought to live constantly, waiting without ceasing? Is not this attitude the most favorable to progress in sanctification? Did not Jesus claim this of His own when He said, Luke 12:36: “Be ye like unto men that wait for their lord when he-will return from the wedding, that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately”? And if it is not He who comes to us in the Parousia, is it not we who shall go to Him in death? Is not death for the individual what the Parousia is for the church as a whole, meeting with the Lord?

The interval between the time when the readers had come to the faith and that of this solemn meeting, individual or collective, was therefore sensibly shortened since the day of their conversion.

Vv. 12. On the one hand the night advanced, on the other the day drew near. The former of these figures signifies that the time granted to the present world to continue its life without God had moved on, was shortened; the latter, that the appearing of the kingdom of Christ had approached. Hence a double inference: As the night is dissipated, there should be an end of the works of the night; and as the day begins to shine, awaking should be completed, and there should be effected what may be called the toilet worthy of full day.

The works of darkness: all that dare not be done by day, and which is reserved for night (Romans 13:13). The term ὅπλα may be translated in two ways: the instruments or arms of light. The parallel, 1 Thessalonians 5:4-11, speaks in favor of the second sense. In that case the reference would be to the breastplate, the helmet, the sandals of the Roman soldiery, arms which may be regarded as garments fitted on in the morning to replace the dress of night. But the delineation as a whole does not seem to apply to a day of battle; rather it appears that the day in question is one of peaceful labor. And for this reason we think it more natural to apply the expression ὁπλα here to the garments of the laborious workman who, from early morning, holds himself in readiness for the hour when his master waits to give him his task. These figures are applied in Romans 13:13-14: the works of night, in Romans 13:13; the instruments of light, in Romans 13:14.