There are things that we all need to know in order to get by in this world. And there are other things that make life much easier when we know them. For example, we need to know the rudiments of communication, a little bit of math, perhaps some spelling. A little knowledge of personal hygiene is always helpful, and so the knowledge basic morality. When I was working as an office manager, and someone applied for a secretary job, I assumed that they had some basic office and communication skills – it went with the job. All of us have the job of living in this world – some skills are necessary. But we are also eternal spiritual beings, and there are some things we should know as saints of God.
When Paul wrote this letter to the church in Rome, he assumed that those people knew certain things. “Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.” Paul assumed that the Romans knew something about the time, salvation and Christian duty.
For example, they knew that salvation is not the superficial, temporal and earthly thing that some people think. In this convoluted, pluralistic, religious mishmash which we call “America” ten people, using the same religious word, could very well be talking about ten different things. “Salvation” to one man is his deliverance from drug abuse and alcoholism. To another man it only means freedom from the guilt that he once felt over his adultery. To someone else “salvation” might be a synonym for “religion,” which he carries out by attending church. Salvation is contained within the wafers of the mass to some people, while others find it in baptism. “Salvation” for some is the same as going to Heaven when they die; for others it is death itself – escape. We could run down this path all day, but it would be pointless, because these are not Biblical salvation.
The salvation of God, and of the Word of God, is a multifaceted and miraculous blessing of the Almighty. It began in eternity past with Jehovah’s determination to save – and to save certain specific sinners. Eventually, “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” But it was not simply the sending and the incarnation of Christ which redeemed those sinners. Redemption necessitated the blood and the sacrificial death of the Son of God on the cross. When the day comes that the Holy Spirit re-generates the spirit of the sinner dead in sin, that person will repent before God and trust what Christ did on the cross. The other day, I read about an interview that someone had with the liberal theologian Karl Barth. The interviewer wanted to pin down when exactly when Barth had been saved, probably doubting that the man was saved at all. Barth’s reply was, “It happened one afternoon in A.D. 34 when Jesus died on the cross.” That may superficially sound like an excellent answer, but when we know what that man believed about Christ and the nature of salvation, it proves to be an obvious attempt to dodge the question. There is a sense in which God’s children were saved in eternity past, when the Lord decreed to save them. And yes, there is another sense in which they were saved at Calvary, when the Lord Jesus paid the price for their redemption. But the practical answer to the question “when,” is that day when we repent and trust Christ Jesus. Without repentance and faith, there is no reason to believe that Christ died for that individual.
So salvation has an aspect which flows out of eternity past. Then it was expressed and accomplished in a context of ancient history. For the genuine Christian it can be found sometime in our personal history. And as Paul hints here in this scripture there is a part of salvation which is yet to come. “Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.”
I have said many times in the past couple of months that the Book of Romans divides into two segments. The first eleven chapters are a theological study of the nature of salvation from sin, and the last five chapters are more practical. Having said that, let me correct what might be a misconception – this entire book is about salvation. Presenting our bodies as living, holy, sacrifices to God is a natural response to salvation. Not being conformed to this world, but being transformed is something that God expects because He has saved our souls, and intends to take us from this world – completing salvation. Everything that Paul tells us about love, about hating evil, about submission to higher powers, everything – all of these practical exhortations flow out of our salvation, and are meant to bring glory to Jesus – as our God and our Saviour. They are meant to glorify the Saviour now – during the few short years that we remain in this world.
But there is still a sense in which our salvation is not complete. Oh, it is complete, finalized and guaranteed in the promises of God through Christ, but since we live in a context of time, surrounded by a sinful society, And since we still live in sin-corrupted flesh – yes, there is more to come. “Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand.”
And what does Paul mean, when he speaks of “the night” here in verse 12? It seems to be something altogether different. He’s talking about the imperfect and obscure condition of our lives today, in comparison to what will soon be ours at the translation of the saints. He’s talking about our ignorance and confusion. For example, can you describe for me what the Lord Jesus looks like? Thankfully, no one can. What did Moses mean when he said that “they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness”? We catch glimpses of Heaven throughout the Word of God, but with the more detail that we are given, the more confused we become. Isn’t Paul speaking about this same sort of thing in I Corinthians 13? “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
But whatever the future eternal day will be like, it is nearer than when we first believed. Nearer than when we first believed? It’s hard to believe that Paul would even make such a simplistic statement. Our first day of Camp will be on July 20th, and we are one day closer to that day than we were yesterday. We are one day closer to our death, if that is how the Lord wants us to leave this world, and we are one day closer to the Lord’s coming, than we were yesterday at 11:00 a.m. What a silly thing to say because it is so obviously true – but is it silly? When was the last time that you thought about the fact that you are one day closer to your death? That is a consideration that most of us do not want to make, even if it does cross our minds now and then. The other day my wife, Judy, asked me if we had any more of the tract, “Because I am Dying.” That is an excellent way to approach the gospel, because we are all dying, whether we want to consider it or not. And in our world of pleasure and commercialism, not even the Children of God think about the fact that they are one step closer to God’s eternal day, than they were a couple of breaths ago. This is an excellent statement Paul; very thought provoking – at least to the right mind and heart.
“The night the far spent, the day is at hand.” Do you expect the Lord Jesus to come this afternoon? You claim to believe in the imminent return of Christ for His saints, so that means that it could be today. But do you really, really BELIEVE that it will be today? The question is not: do you believe that it could be today, but WILL it be today? I realize that the context is not quite the same, but the words of the Lord Jesus in Luke 12 apply: “Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through. Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not.” If you don’t think that the Lord will come in the next ten minutes, then it could very well be that He will.
“Our salvation is nearer than when we believed.” “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” – Hebrews 10. “The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.” – I Peter. 4:7. “Be patient … brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh” – James 5.
I very often refer to I Thessalonians 4 as evidence that Paul was expecting the Lord to return during his life-time, but his thought doesn’t end with the words: “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” In the following chapter the Apostle goes on; “But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.” Notice that even here Paul said that he expects us to know these things. Do you know these things? Are you convinced of salvation by grace and of the return of Christ for the completion of your salvation?
As I’ve suggested before, there are a great many people who are so confused about salvation that they believe that restraining their strife and envying, and in attending AA meetings and breaking their habit of drunkenness, they are fulfilling the requirement for entrance into Heaven. No sir, salvation from sin is the gift of God’s grace. And victory over sin, if there ever is such a thing, comes as a result of salvation, not as its cause. The same can be said of repentance and faith – they are results of regeneration, not its cause. Nevertheless, in some ways, these things are as much a part of, or at least linked to salvation, as the Lord’s shed blood.
Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. Let us walk honestly – the dishonest man will have a hard time convincing me that he is a child of God. In defining “rioting” James Strong says: “a nocturnal and riotous procession of half drunken and frolicsome fellows who after supper parade through the streets with torches and music in honour of Bacchus or some other (false) deity, and sing and play before houses of male and female friends; hence used generally of feasts and drinking parties that are protracted till late at night and indulge in revelry.” Paul says that we know that such is not Christian behavior. “Chambering” and “wontonness” (elsewhere translated “lasciviousness”) refers to sexual immorality. We should know that such people are not behaving like Christians and are probably not children of God. It is the Christian’s duty to “put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” The sin mentioned here should not be found in Christians – should I say that they WILL not be found in Christians?
I’ll close with this: it is difficult in our society, to get through a day without knowing how to tell time. And we teach our children so that they can know how to read numbers, read words, and read calendars. The times in which we live require this kind of knowledge. And as Christians the Lord teaches us, and expects us to know certain things as well. We must begin with a knowledge of salvation – both intellectual knowledge and the knowledge which comes with experiencing it. We should also know that these are the last days, meaning that we will soon be in the presence of the Saviour. These two pieces of information should produce in us a desire to joyfully serve the Saviour with the best of our ability. This knowledge should stir up our hearts to live holy lives – the putting on the Lord Jesus Christ.
With these things in mind: are you absolutely sure that you are a child of God? Is there evidence enough to conclude that you are a saint of the Lord? Repent of your sin; put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.