The night is far spent, and the day is near; let us cast away therefore the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
Paul pictures the whole present world as a long night that is nearly over. Dawn is close. So the question is not what we know about the future, but what we are wearing while we wait.
"Night" here is not a mood. It is a name for the whole present age. One writer takes the word back to the Romans who first read it, and says nothing has changed since.
Let us understand the force of the expression, "the night"… Put simply: at Rome, when Paul wrote, there was an assembly of justified saints. They were called to live a holy life here by the Holy Spirit. They were to wait for the day when they would reign with Christ. The present time was called the night. And it is night still, whatever people say about progress. The glories of Rome at her height surrounded the Roman believers. They stood at the very centre of the world, but they had nothing in common with it. Its works were the works of darkness, and they were called on to put on the armour of light.
Yet the believer is not in the dark. Something has risen inside him that the world cannot see.
For the earth the Sun of righteousness has not yet risen. The believer has Christ the true light for himself, yet he knows that for the earth it is night still. Yet daylight has dawned and the morning star has risen in his heart. So he does not sleep as others do; or, if he should, he judges it as sin, for he is in the secret of the Lord.
The coming "day" is Christ's reign in glory, when He undoes what the night has done.
But the day is at hand. It is the day when He will return in glory to reign over the earth. Then all evil will be under His feet and Satan's power subdued. In that day, "the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (Isaiah 35:10).
That day settles accounts, which is exactly why it shapes behaviour now rather than merely comforting us.
We see that the day is for the decision and reward of righteous conduct. Those who look for that day are to walk suitably to it now, so the ground of righteousness is maintained in the exhortation, quite in keeping with the day that is set before us.
The image is clothing, and the first move is to strip.
We ourselves are not "of the night," but "of the day." Yet we live in the world in its time of night. All around us are men of the world who are "of the night," and whose delight is in "the works of darkness." But these circumstances are most certainly not to govern us… Do we therefore want anything to do with "the works of darkness"? Let us rather cast them off like a filthy garment, and put on the protective armour of light.
Light seems a strange thing to wear as armour. It defends by exposing.
Who is unaware of what a defence light is in itself in the middle of darkness? The evil deeds of men are done in the darkness. Light reproves them. How blessed to walk in the joy of what shows us for what we are! Its presence in us rebukes evil and breaks the power of temptation.
The armour has definite content: the very things Paul has urged in this chapter.
Secondly, the Apostle says, "Let us put on the armour of light". All that marks the coming day — the day when Christ reigns — the submission and obedience to the Lord (verses 1-7), the righteousness that owes no man anything (verse 8), the love that works no evil to his neighbour (verse 10), are to be put on by the believer as protective armour against the darkness.
The clothing language could suggest a costume. One writer guards against that reading.
Only we must always remember one thing. The "putting on," whether of verse 12 or 14, is not the taking up of something wholly outside ourselves. It is putting on something from within, much as a bird puts on its feathers.
Some would expect this to mean pulling back from ordinary work. The opposite is true.
"Are we to be fanatics, neglecting work and duties?" No, the very opposite. There is an honest walk, as in the daytime. That means a walk enlightened in its morals and proof against the evil of the present age, protected by the armour of light… nothing confounds the enemy and his whole system like the walk of Christians clothed in the armour of light in the middle of the darkness.
- Night — the whole present age is one long night. Progress and civilisation do not change its name.
- Dawn — the day is His reign in glory. Then He puts all evil under His feet, and sorrow and sighing flee away.
- Strip — throw off the works of darkness like a filthy garment. Do not manage them or excuse them.
- Clothe — the armour is light itself: obedience, righteousness and love, worn now. Light exposes evil and breaks the power of temptation.
- Shine — this is not withdrawal from work and duty. It is an honest daytime walk, and nothing confounds the enemy more.
As in the day, let us walk becomingly; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and lasciviousness, not in strife and emulation.
The night is nearly over and the day is close. So Paul tells believers to live now by the daylight they belong to, not by the darkness around them. He then names six things that belong to the night. The last pair is the one most likely to catch a careful Christian off guard.
"Walk properly" (older versions read "honestly" or "becomingly") means living by the standard of a time that has not yet come. F. B. Hole ties the command to the day about to break in:
The call to wake up rests on the coming day. That day will mean our full and final deliverance from the present age. We are still in the night, but we belong to that day. So we are to walk fittingly, as people already in that day. We do not take the ways and customs of the night-age as our standard. We live by the ways and principles of the day-age, before the day comes.
So the believer lives in two times at once:
The Apostle says, "Let us walk properly as in the daytime." In spirit we are in the day, yet in fact we are still in the night. The world in darkness may give itself up to orgies and drunkenness, sexual immorality and sensuality, quarreling and jealousy. The Christian is to have no part in such things.
Daylight behaviour is behaviour other people can see. L. M. Grant draws out what that means for honesty:
Verse 13 reminds us that this light means honest transparency of life and walk — no deceit, nothing covered up. Covering up is a fault we pick up all too easily and dare to practise all too skilfully. But that is the very essence of darkness, and so are the vices this verse goes straight on to warn against — wild partying and drunkenness, sexual sin and shameless indulgence, quarrelling and jealousy.
A culture learns to excuse the first two pairs: orgies and drunkenness, sexual immorality and sensuality. Arthur Pridham gives them no cover:
Drunkenness and wild parties usually harm the person indulging in them more than they harm anyone else. So ordinary moral teachers judge them lightly. Wild parties, under slightly changed names, are among the accepted social customs of a society that is Christian in name only. Fashion, not the love and fear of God, decides how far this indulgence may go, whether personal or social… But the Spirit is always at war with these things. Such things belong to the night. So the children of the day should no longer love them or chase after them. They should keep well away from them.
The verse does not stop at coarse sin. It ends with quarrelling and jealousy. A believer can stay clear of the first four and still fall to the last two:
This should search us deeply. We may keep clear of the coarser evils of darkness — its drunkenness and sexual sin — and still fall into quarrelling and jealousy. How often we have let ourselves be drawn into quarrels and given way to jealousy! Does not the Apostle James warn us that bitter jealousy and quarrelling in our hearts is the root cause of every scene of disorder among the people of God?
So who is this warning list for? C. E. Stuart answers:
Let him walk properly, as in the daytime; not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy… Who is all this written to? To pagans? To people who are not converted? No. To believers in Rome, loved by God. Believers, Christians, need such warnings. May none of us forget that.
What keeps this walk going? Watching for the Lord's return. Lose that expectation, and the old habits return:
While the steward watches, he is alert and sober. When he says in his heart, "My Lord delays His coming," he starts to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk. How like Paul's teaching… In both cases, watching for the Lord is the motive to be faithful. Not watching leads to a careless walk, to indulging lust, and to a worldly heart.
That walk also does something to the enemy:
There is nothing which so confounds the enemy and his whole system as the walk of Christians clothed in the armour of light in the middle of the darkness.
- Clock. The believer lives by the coming day, not by the customs of the night he still walks in.
- Daylight. Walking properly means hiding nothing. Covering things up is the very nature of darkness.
- Six. The world excuses the first four: orgies, drunkenness, immorality, sensuality. Believers excuse the last two: quarrelling and jealousy. Those last two ruin people who are clear of the rest.
- Addressed. Paul wrote this list to believers loved by God, not to outsiders. Christians need the warning.
- Watching. Expecting the Lord keeps a believer sober. The thought "my Lord delays" opens the door to every item on the list.
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not take forethought for the flesh to [fulfil its] lusts.
Paul ends his call with two commands: put on Christ, and give the flesh nothing to feed on. Writers spend most of their attention on the first — what it means to wear a Person as clothing.
The picture behind the words is a garment. One writer notes what clothing usually stands for in Scripture:
This "putting on" is, of course, clothing… and clothing often stands for practical righteousness — always, I believe, for something worked out, as a garment is, thread by thread.
But this garment is not pulled over an unchanged person:
Only we must always remember one thing. The "putting on" in verse 12 and in verse 14 is not taking up something wholly outside ourselves. It is putting on something from within, rather as a bird puts on its feathers.
Scripture speaks of putting on Christ in more than one sense. The setting here decides which one Paul means:
"But put on the Lord Jesus Christ." The context here clearly decides the meaning for us. There is another line of thought altogether in Galatians 3:27: "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." So baptism is the putting on of Christ as an outward profession — publicly taking His Name. But here in Romans 13:14 it is no opening ceremony. It is the putting on of Christ in the practical daily conduct of life… If the Lord Jesus is not seen to be the regulating power of the life, all apparent goodness and morality very soon sink to the level of mere self-righteousness. They are not the armour of light at all.
Dropping sin is only half the call. Stopping there leaves the soul exposed:
Nor has he only to purify his way. He is called to put on the Lord Jesus Christ (verse 14). To stop sinful practice and nothing more is to set our souls up as targets for Satan. His temptations do not end until we rest with God. To hide himself in Christ is the only safety of the saint. The flesh will find provision for its lusts wherever the soul is not fully fed on the satisfying portion of the bread of life.
The second half of the verse is not a call to fight the flesh but to stop supplying it:
Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ is the positive practical power for good. On the negative side we are told to "make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." How important this is! It is not warfare or contending against the flesh. That would soil me just as effectively as indulging it. But I am not to feed it: make no provision for it whatever. It is there, and all my energy or zeal will never remove it. But let me simply turn away from it. If I do not feed it, it will not thrive; while the spiritual nature, fed with the milk or meat of the Word, will grow and thrive.
Provision is deliberate. One writer applies this to the eyes:
Someone has said that it is the "second look" that is sin. He meant that when you walk down the street and see something unclean, a pornographic picture, you cannot help that. But when you stop, or turn to look again, that is deliberate! By turning, or stopping to look again, we are actually making provision for the flesh.
This clothing is meant to be seen by others:
We are not only to have done with the things of darkness. We are also to put on the character of Christ, and so wear the beauty of the One who is coming to reign. Our lives are to show that we walk in subjection to the Lord, and that the graces of Jesus Christ mark us. So we become a witness during the night of His absence to the One who will bring in the day. Instead of taking thought of the flesh and how to gratify its lusts, we are to take thought of Jesus, and seek to shine in His beauty.
- Night — we live in the night of Christ's absence, and the day He will bring in is coming. That is why the change of clothes matters now.
- Guard — dropping sin and nothing more leaves the soul a target for Satan. The answer is to hide in Christ.
- Wear — here putting on Christ is not baptism or public profession. It is daily conduct: a garment woven thread by thread, worn from the inside out.
- Starve — do not fight the flesh or try to remove it; just stop feeding it. The second look, not the first, is where we make provision for it.
- Shine — the goal is that ordinary life now shows the beauty of the One who is coming to reign.