Romans 13:11-14 Commentary

Preachers might consider opening a message on this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson with an anecdote that’s similar to mine. As I write this, my wife and I have just returned from a two-week vacation in Hawaii. While both the scenery and people were lovely, we’re exhausted.

The current five-hour time difference between Hawaii and the US’s Eastern Standard Time zone has left my wife and me “jet-lagged.” At least in part because we flew back from Hawaii through the night, I’m not sure I even know what day it is right now, to say nothing of what time it is.

Yet here comes this week’s Epistolary Lesson’s Paul with Romans 13:11’s call to “understand [eidotes*] the time [kairon].” In doing so, he summons Jesus’ friends to be aware of not just the date, day of the week or time of day (or night). The apostle also invites us to understand what we might call God’s time.

We can’t fully understand this summons, however, unless we remember that it has a literary context that this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson omits. So preachers might remind readers that Paul has just invited his readers to do things like “offer” their “bodies as living sacrifices” (Romans 12:1), love sincerely (12:9), “submit … to the governing authorities” (13:1), and fulfill the law by loving our neighbors (13:9).

This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson at least suggests, however, that Rome’s Christians assumed those invitations were optional. They may have even assumed they could postpone offering their whole selves in those ways to God until after they’d first “lived a little.” After all, Paul calls them to especially love their neighbor realizing “what time it is” (NRSV).

So what time is it? It’s not just 11 a.m. or 6 p.m. on November 30, 2025. In verse 11 Paul announces, “The hour [hora] has already come for you to wake up [egerthenai] from your slumber [ex hypriou], because our salvation [soteria] is nearer [engyteron] now than when we first believed [episteusamen].”

So what time is it? The apostle insists it’s time for God’s dearly beloved people to stop snoozing or dozing off. But since even taking just a catnap seems to be beneficial, Paul likely has a different kind of napping in mind. Verse 9 at least suggests that our failure to love God above all and our neighbor as ourselves is the form of sleeping the apostle rejects. When Jesus’ friends fail to do things like be faithful in marriage, cherish life and be content with what God has given us (8), we’re spiritually snoring.

So what time is it? Paul insists it’s time to wake up from our spiritual snooze. After all, “our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed” (11b). While it may seem like it’s stating the obvious, preachers may choose to remind people of just what this soteria (“salvation”) consists. It’s not God’s gracious rescue of us from slavery to Satan, sin and death. After all, God has already graciously saved God’s adopted children.

The “salvation” to which Paul refers in 11b is God’s completion of our rescue. It’s the complete freedom God will someday soon give us and we will enjoy to love God above all and our neighbor as ourselves. This rescue will occur, says the apostle, at the return of Jesus Christ.

That’s a reason Paul can say this rescue is engyteron (“nearer”) than when we’d first episteusamen (“believed”). The primary emphasis of this nearness is chronological. The time of Jesus return to fully rescue us is obviously closer than when his followers first received his grace with our faith.

But might there also be a sense that it’s closer in the sense that as Jesus comes to us here and now by his Spirit, he helps us to live more and more fully into the freedom from slavery to Satan, sin and death he grants us? Our salvation may not just be nearer to us in terms of time. The apostle may also be implying that it’s nearer to us in terms of its growing impact on our love for God and our neighbor.

So what time is it? “The night [nyx],” says Paul in verse 12, “is nearly over [proekopsen]; the day [hemera] is nearly here [engiken].” The Message lyrically paraphrases this announcement as, “The night is about over, dawn is about to break.” Nyx (“night”) refers to the current time in which while God rules, Satan, sin and death still wreak immense havoc, at least in part through their willing slaves. Yet the dawn in which God’s rule is fully acknowledged – when Jesus Christ returns – is breaking.

Preachers might note and summon our hearers to remember witnessing a particularly colorful sunrise. Just before the sun rises, the sky sometimes lights up in glorious color. That color may even tinge lingering clouds.

Might Paul be saying something similar about the “sunrise” that is Jesus’ second coming? That while the sun has not yet risen, signs of dawn that are Christ and his Church at her most Christ-like are already beginning to light not just the eastern horizon, but also the whole world?

So what time is it? It’s time, says Paul in verse 12b, to “put aside [apothometha] the deeds of darkness [erga tou skotous] and put on [endysometha] the armor of light [hopla tou photos].” While the NIV translation makes this less clear, the Greek strongly suggests Paul is using clothing imagery – of unclothing and clothing, disrobing and robing. The apostle is summoning God’s dearly beloved people to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in taking off and throwing away the dirty clothing that is our sin, sins and sinfulness, and replacing it with Jesus Christ and his righteousness, as well as our own Christlikeness.

So what time is it? What does that “dirty clothing” smell and look like? Like what Paul calls “carousing [komois] and drunkenness [methais],” “sexual immorality [koitais] and debauchery [aselgeiais]” as well as “dissension [erdi] and jealousy [zelo]” (13). There are almost countless things preachers might say about this heap of dirty clothing. But we might note that perhaps more than anything, it keeps Jesus’ friends from being fully watchful for his return. This dirty clothing makes us spiritually sleepy by inhibiting our ability to love faithfully and unconditionally as Jesus loves.

But, of course, Paul also goes on to describe at least some of what that dirty and clean “clothing” looks like throughout Romans 12-14. That dirty clothing includes conforming to the pattern of this world (12:1) and thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought (12:3). The soiled clothing the apostle calls us to strip off also includes cursing those who persecute us (12:14), rebelling against the authorities (13:2), and judging people on disputable matters (14:1).

So what time is it? It’s time to put on the kind of “clean clothing” that helps keep us awake to and watchful for our soteria that is Jesus Christ’s return. In verse 14 Paul summons Jesus’ followers to “clothe [endysasthe]” ourselves “with the Lord Jesus Christ.” “Dress yourselves in Christ,” as The Message paraphrases this invitation.

So what time is it? It’s time to let the Spirit “dress” us in our adopted elder brother, Jesus Christ. Preachers may feel the Spirit prompting us to “unpack” that somewhat mysterious concept. It certainly includes what we call Christ’s imputed righteousness rather than our own.

Those who know what time it is realize that we naturally assume that we make our own garments that are our actions, words and thoughts clean. While we naturally assume we can dress ourselves in enough obedience to please God, Jesus’ friends know that only receiving Christ’s righteousness with our faith can, by God’s amazing grace, dress us well enough to enter God’s kingdom. There’s a kind of dress code for the new heaven and earth. Only those who’ve allowed God to “dress” us in Christ’s righteousness meet that code.

But the apostle’s call to clothe ourselves with Jesus Christ also hints, secondarily, at our cultivating Christlikeness. We beg the Holy Spirit to help us more fully love God above all and our neighbor as ourselves. God’s dearly beloved people plead with the Spirit to help us promote rather than take life and to be content with what we have rather than steal or covet what belongs to our neighbor.

We do that, Paul concludes our Epistolary Lesson, in part by refusing to “think about how to gratify [pronoian] the desires [epithymias] of the flesh [sarkos]” (14). Christians are sometimes accused of being too intellectual, of reducing following Jesus to merely thinking about who he is and what he’s done.

Here, however, Paul reminds Jesus’ friends that thinking does play a role in our grateful response to God’s amazing grace. He summons us to wake from our spiritual drowsiness by concentrating not on how we to please ourselves, but on how to honor God with our whole selves.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

In his delightful book, Gratitude, Cornelius Plantinga writes about Jesus’ friends who, “Reading and hearing Scripture in faith … believe that what lies ahead of us at the end is the full coming of the kingdom of God. The Hebrew Bible testifies that one day God will fill the earth with justice, harmony and delight.

“This is the blessed state of shalom, of universal flourishing, wholeness and joy – all according to God’s purpose and all under the arch of God’s blessing and love. Shalom is the Hebrew way of spelling the full coming of the kingdom of God.”

Plantinga then goes on  to describe part of what it may mean to “wake up from” our “slumber”: “Christians believe that God will one day make it happen, so they gather themselves and go to work in the same direction as they believe.”

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