The day is at hand. Romans 13:11-14 V.11. There is a tendency to spiritual lethargy and sleep when we live in a society that is fundamentally dark and ungodly. It is possible for those of us who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ to look at events and the age we live in, through the eyes of the world system. The sense of urgency associated with the spread of the Gospel in the early Church is lost today. There is a spiritual sleep that settles upon us that we can become used to. The urgency that comes when we think that today may be the day the Lord returns for His own, should never leave us. The certainty of the return of Christ for His people provides the motivation to live godly lives knowing He could callus anytime.
The full realization of salvation will happen then. The salvation of believers in Christ who have experienced justification when we first trusted Christ and who are experiencing sanctification in our life of practical holiness, will then experience the consummation of our salvation when we see Jesus. We should be watchfully awake, ever vigilant to the opportunities around us to reach others with the Gospel of Christ. All we really have to do to be stirred in our souls to awake, is to look at the scenes in the world around us and we know the Coming of the Lord is nearer than when we believed.
V.12. I know people have been scoffing at the waiting saints since the Lord left, promising to return. The "day of visitation" when He was here seemed short and long ago to many people. But there have been similar "days of visitation" through the passing generations that have brought many souls into the kingdom of God. Those brief times of light, have been flashing in the in the darkness all over the world. However, "the day is at hand" when the light of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself will shine all over the world. We who know the Lord cannot be participants in the "works of darkness" but we must throw them off from us and away from us.
The first coming of Christ opened the door of the age to come. Therefore, our focus is to be on that and on our Lord Jesus Christ Himself rather than on signs of His return to finish what He initiated. We are living in end times and since our Lord ascended into heaven, it has been incumbent of Christians to live holy lives in dark times and dark places. This is an age of the darkness of evil and sin that is constantly increasing in opposition and sometimes temptation.
V.13. The believer in the Lord Jesus Christ can overcome the enemy, the flesh, with "the armor of light." When girded with the light of truth and righteousness, one is easily seen by those who love darkness. Christians have always been enjoined to put off the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light even though it may be a struggle to exchange righteousness for unrighteousness. Being freed from the bondage of the law does not give us license to live as we choose. We have a higher, more effective way of life. Love for God and others overcomes legal demands and the demands of our sinful flesh.
A morally righteous life needs the protection of light that contrasts with the evil that seduces and grows worse and worse. When people learn they cannot defeat the light, they will retreat to where they think their sin will not be exposed - hiding in darkness to continue to carry out their evil deeds. "The armor of righteousness" [2Cor.6:7] is available to us to overcome the world, and "the whole armor of God" [Eph.6:11] is available to protect us from the devil.
Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ will find when "we walk in the light as He is in the light," we have fellowship with the Father, with the Son, with the Holy Spirit and with the saints of God. What holy company! What a safeguard! What strength is imparted! We have a debt to God and people and that is to love them for Christ’s sake. Holy living is really based on the ethic of love. We will not change the world and society. Only God can do that. We can be, and are expected to be, both salt and light in this world. This can only be real by the grace of God at work in us.
V.14. The evils of the hidden works of darkness, the results of wicked living, the after effects of allowing the works of darkness, never should be practiced by those who await the rapidly approaching day of the Lord's return. We are to put out into the open, that which has happened inwardly. When we clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, that covers our human nature which has a tendency to sin. All the virtues of Christ: how He lived, how He spoke and acted and responded to people who came to Him, is the pattern for our lives. Of great interest is that Augustine of Hippo wrote in his “Confessions” [397-398], the he was converted to Christ by meditating on verses thirteen and fourteen of this chapter.
The "armor of light" protects us from the enemy of the flesh even as Joseph was protected by the light of God upon him when he was sold into Egypt as a slave. Even more than that holy armor, is the Light of power and authority of the whole universe who is available to us when we "put on the Lord Jesus Christ." Every aspect of His Person: Savior, Anointed One, Master - is available to us to claim. We must put on for ourselves, the Lord Jesus Christ, lest the "spirit of the age" and the pressures of living in a dark day appeal to our lusts. We are "in Christ". We must not give any thought or even forethought to indulge our fleshly desires. When we "put on the Lord Jesus Christ," we are putting on Christ-like characteristics of "meekness and lowliness of heart," of "grace and truth," and of love and light.