The Day is at Hand

“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. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” -Romans 13:11–12

The metaphor of night and day is a classic archetype of good and evil, right and wrong, past and future (i.e., turning over a new leaf). In the present context, Paul has time in mind as much as good and evil in mind (cf. vs 11, you know the time; the hour has come, etc.). 

When he says the night is far gone, he means the old epoch is coming to an end; thus, in like manner, the old way of sinful living has come to an end. And when he says, the day is at hand, he means the epoch of Christ’s light shining upon us has come into view; it is upon us even now.

Eschatologically, Paul appears to have in mind the closing of the Old Testament period and the emerging age of Christ’s kingdom—the mustard seed if you will (Matthew 13:31-32). In 70 A.D., Christ visited Jerusalem in her day of judgment and not a stone of the Temple was left standing (cf. Luke 21:5-24). It was the end of the Jewish epoch. From that point in history forward, the new humanity would take the gospel of the already-but-not-yet kingdom of Christ to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:18-20).

Paul is exhorting the believers in the Church at Rome, who are even now part of the family of God, to live as Kingdom believers by casting off the  works of the old way, the old man, the old epoch, and put on the armor of light, the vestiges of the church militant—to live as citizens of Christ’s kingdom, as citizens of the new redeemed humanity.