Romans 13:11-14 - Exposition

There is now interposed among the particular admonitions a call to watchfulness, with a view to holiness in all relations of life, on the ground that the day is at hand . There can be little, if any, doubt that the apostle had in view the second coming of Christ, which he with others supposed might be close at hand, Our Lord had said that of that day none knew but the Father, and that it would come unexpectedly. Further, in the same addresses to the disciples before his death in which these things were said, he seems to have disclosed a vista of the future, after the manner of the ancient prophets, in which more immediate and more distant fulfilments of the prophetic vision were not clearly distinguished; so that words which we now perceive to have pointed to the destruction of Jerusalem, which was typical of the final judgments, might easily have been understood as referring to the latter. Such are, "This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled". Hence it was natural that the apostolic Church should regard the second advent as probably imminent. We find in the apostolic Epistles several intimations of this expectation (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 , seq.; 2 Corinthians 5:2-5 ; Philippians 4:5 ; Hebrews 10:25 ; 1 Peter 4:7 ; 1 John 2:18 , 1 John 2:28 ; Revelation 22:20 ); and though it was not realized in the event, the authority of the apostles as inspired teachers is not thus disparaged, this being the very thing which Christ had said must remain unknown to all. Nor does their teaching, enforced by this expectation, lose its force to us; for, though "the Lord delayeth his coming," and may still delay it, yet to each of us at least this present world is fast passing away, and the Lord may be close at hand to call us out of it. The duty of watchfulness and preparedness remains unchanged. The Parousia or, as it is called in the pastoral Epistles, the Epiphany (in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 , ἐπιφανεία τῆς παρουσίας ) of Christ is here, as elsewhere, presented under the figure of the day appearing (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:13 ; Ephesians 5:14 ; l Thessalonians Ephesians 5:4 ; Hebrews 10:25 ; 2 Peter 1:19 ), the previous ages of the world being regarded as the time of night. The figure is found in the prophets with reference to that day—the coming day of the Lord (cf. e.g. Isaiah 9:2 ; Isaiah 60:1-3 ; Malachi 4:2 ), But though the day has not yet come, Christians are viewed as already in the radiance of its dawn, in which they can walk as children of the day, and be on the watch, and not be surprised asleep, or doing the deeds of darkness, when the full daylight bursts upon them. For in the first advent of Christ the day dawned, though, to those who loved darkness rather than light, but as a light that shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not ( John 1:5 , seq.; John 3:19 , seq.; cf. 2 Peter 1:19 ; 1 John 2:8 ; and also Luke 1:78 , seq.; Luke 2:32 ).