Romans 13:11-14 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.… St. Paul is here the watchman of the Church. Standing between night and day, he proclaims "the time," and announces the end of darkness and the approach of light. His appeal regards the Church as being in a midway state between perfect night and perfect day. The words "pilgrims" of "the dawn" borrowed from St. Peter help us to understand Paul. Let us trace the effect of this keynote in the interpretation of the passage. The dawn proclaims the end of night; it is only the mingling of darkness and light; but it is the sure promise of a day that must reach its perfection, and upon which the shadows of evening shall never fall. I. KNOWING THE TIME. 1. The word carries us back to our Lord's proclamation of the hour when the night of death that had rested on mankind had ended, and the light cf eternal life began (John 5:25). Doubtless the darkness that preceded Christ's advent was not perfect night. In the deepest midnight of heathenism some rays of truth and virtue struggled with the darkness, and over one favoured land the moon and the stars shone brightly. The earlier revelation was "a light shining in a dark place until the day should dawn." But Christ was Himself the dawn and the morning star of His own coming day. And this day — the new era — is the time Christians know. 2. Knowing the time means experimental acquaintance with its privileges and responsibilities. This knowledge is attained (Ephesians 5:14) when the Great Awakener pours the light of conviction into the chambers where sinners sleep the sleep of death, and gives them the light of life. (1) They sleep no more. They have been plunged into the waters of spiritual baptism which has awakened and invigorated them to the utmost, and there is an expectation in the morning air that keeps every thought alert, and inspires activity — viz., of Him who shall come in the broadening day. (2) The guilty wakefulness of the night is also past. The morning reveals the hidden things of night and makes them hateful. They have "cast off the works of darkness," detesting the habiliments of night in which they slept and sinned. 3. So far we have caught the appeal as expressing complete severance between night and day. The light is divided from the darkness absolutely. In the New Testament two states, and only two, are distinguished:there are "children of night" and "children of the day." But the peculiarity of this passage is that it gives prominence to a certain interval of transition, which reality requires and the Scripture never denies. The Christian state is at the best, in many respects, no better than the dawn. II. THE NIGHT IS ONLY "FAR SPENT" AND THE DAY ONLY "AT HAND." 1. It might be supposed from the watchman's cry that the whole band were slumbering, or at least only half awake. But the language is only general to find out the individual. There is from age to age a faithful succession of watchers and holy ones, and when the Bridegroom shall approach all will be wakeful enough; but till then the pilgrim company shall never lack those who move "like men that dream." And it is the duty of all who know the time to echo the apostle's cry. And here is the everlasting argument, "It is high time... walk honestly as in the day." 2. There is danger inseparable from the dawn. And when the apostle says, "Put on the armour of light," he suggests the whole mystery of evil that wars against the pilgrims of the dawn. The powers of darkness are awakened into more malignant activity by the morning light. Never did they so furiously rage as they did around Him who ended their reign. But He did not banish them, and so they haunt the travellers. They cannot retard the day, but they make its progress a perpetual contest, so unlike the progress of the natural day in which dawn glows into morning, and morning melts into midday, etc. Here the victory is the result of a desperate and unremitting warfare. That victory will be the perfect light of holiness; the "armour that insures the victory is light." 3. It is characteristic of this midway state that the salvation,of the Christian company is regarded as incomplete. The perfect day will bring a full salvation, but that is only "nearer than when we believed." The Church is only in the dawn of the day of redemption. That day will be perfect when Christ shall come "without sin unto salvation." III. THE DAWN IS THE PROMISE OF THE COMING DAY. 1. Knowing the time. The Church is appealed to as exercising a firm faith in the gradual consummation of the dawn into day. The words remind these early travellers of the great secret that the Lord is at hand, bringing with Him all that their hope can conceive. But His coming will be to His Church the regular and peaceful consummation of a day already begun. To the ungodly a catastrophe, to slumbering Christians a sore amazement, it will be to those who "wait for His appearing" what day is to the traveller who waits for the morning. 2. But knowing the time does not signify any precise knowledge of its future limits. We are shut up to faith, which must in all things rule until the vision of Christ shall begin the reign of sight. "All things continue as they were" is the cry of unbelief. "Lo here is the promise of His coming, or lo there" is the cry of impatient credulity. But simple faith waits on in hope that makes no calculation. Our Lord may brighten any hour — from cock-crowing to the third hour and the sixth — into perfect day. 3. This being the common prospect it is not wonderful that the Christian state is that of joyful hope. Nothing is more beautiful and more symbolical of eager expectation than the dawn. True the individual Christian has cares, conflicts, fears to moderate his joy. But he is to look over all these lower glooms to the brighter horizon into which these things merge. He must lose his particular sorrow in the general joy. He is one of the company that shall receive the Lord. 4. But the apostle reserves for the last his solemn exhortation to prepare. "The day is at hand," and the pilgrims are bidden to anticipate it in the holy decorum of their lives, and to be clothed with the only garment worthy of the day, Christ Himself. (W. B. Pope, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. |
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