The Hour Has Come

“Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.” -Romans 13:11

Not only does Paul want the believers at Rome be motivated by love for one another, but he also appeals to their knowledge of “the time.” When he says, “you know the time,” he is asking them to acknowledge their understanding of the critical nature of their present circumstances. (Nero is the Emperor at the time of his writing.) He exhorts them to lay aside their slumber and make notable progress in sanctification since their salvation is nearer than when they first believed.

Clearly, Paul is thinking eschatologically. In the spirit of Christ’s teaching and that of the other apostles, and as he has in other letters, Paul is referring to the return of Christ. (See Philippians 4:4–7; 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11, 23; Hebrews 10:24 ff; James 5:7–11; 1 Peter 4:7–11; and Matthew 25:31–46; Mark 13:33–37 etc.).((William Hendriksen and Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, vol. 12–13, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1953–2001), 441.))

Because of the American evangelical affinity to the novel and modern belief in a dispensational and premillennial eschatology (research John Darby circa.1820) it is possible to miss the urgent nature of Paul’s exhortation. Until the 19^th-century much of the church understood Paul (along with Jesus and John; see Matthew 24 and Revelation 1:3,19, respectively) to be anticipating the end of the Old Covenant epoch. 

Paul’s urgency about the end of the epoch would take place with the fall of the Jerusalem and the final destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70. Ever since, Temple Judaism has been extinct but the church has flourished with the preaching of the word, the witness of the saints, and the power of the Holy Spirit. What was his urgency for these believers at Rome then? See Hebrews 10:24-29 and 1 Corinthians 15:20–28:

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.”