Romans 13:13–14

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.