Living by Faith - Romans

The Day of Battle

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 54-64

Genre: Talk

Track: 054

Dictation Name: RR311ZB54

Location/Venue:

Year: ?

Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. The hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Let us pray. Oh Lord our God, we come to Thee mindful of all Thy grace and mercy unto us day after day. We thank Thee that our times are in Thy hands, and that we who cannot see a step beyond the present walk in Thy eternal light, are surrounded by Thy wisdom and grace, and mercy; and have the blessed assurance of victory. Give us grace so to walk day by day, that we are in all things more than conquerors through Jesus Christ, in His name we pray, amen.

Our scripture is Romans 13:11-14, our subject: The Day of Battle. Romans 13:11-14, The Day of Battle.

“11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

12 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.

13 Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.

14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”

These verses, besides their importance as a part of the word of God, have an interesting place in the history of the church. In his Confessions, Saint Augustine tells us that verses 13-14 in particular were instrumental in his conversion. He had reached a crisis, he was out under the tree in the garden; his philosophy had failed to give him peace, and as a result, in turmoil, he was pacing up and down. Then in the neighboring house, the windows being open, a child, a small boy or girl was chanting: “Take up and read, take up and read.” Augustine never knew who the child was, nor what that little chant had reference to. But he took it as a word for himself, so he went over to where he had some books with him, including the Bible, picked up the Bible, opened it, and his eyes fell on verses 13 and 14.

Having read those, he said: “No further would I read, nor did I need. Instantly as the sentence ended, by a light as it were of security infused into my heart, all the gloom of doubt vanished away.”

The words that Paul here uses are imagery common to the Bible, common to church history. The darkness of sin is often spoke of, the refusal to believe. It is contrasted to the light of the gospel; walking with the Lord is to walk in the light. The world outside of Christ very early in the history of the church was seen as the dark age. Now, we are familiar with that term in its anti-Christian use by modern scholars to describe the world after the fall of Rome, and with the triumph of Christianity.

At first they called the dark age everything from the fall of Rome to the 1500’s, and the Renaissance. Little by little they were compelled by the facts to reduce it to a smaller and a smaller era, until finally they dropped the term, because truthfully there was no era from the fall of Rome on that could be called a dark age. Politically confused at times, but not dark. In fact, a time of growing light.

But for the early church, and for Christians over the centuries, anyone who lives outside of Christ is living in the dark age. Christ’s coming, the word of God, faith in the Lord, bring light and wisdom. The non-Biblical Hebraic writings also stressed this fact. One of the pieces written about a century B.C. is called The Wisdom of Solomon although Solomon’s name is not in it. And the writer tells the rulers of the world, and I quote: “Your dominion was given you for the Lord, who will examine your works and inquire into your plans, to see if the nations have kept His law.”

The Bible repeatedly summons us to awaken out of sin and the sleep of sin into faith. Paul himself stresses this, for example in 1st Corinthians 15:34 “Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.”

Again in Ephesians 5:14 “Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”

Again in 1st Thessalonians 5:5-6 “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.”

Paul begins this passage in verse 11: “knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.”

These words are sometimes a problem to people. What does Paul mean when he says: “Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” What does he mean by salvation? He is not talking about being saved, that is, being born again and being now a Christian, because he goes on to say: “It is nearer than when we believed.” Obviously he does not refer to personal salvation, he is talking to the saved. He is not referring to heaven, because if he were referring to heaven or the second coming as many say, he would not say: “This is the time to put on armor” because then it would be irrelevant; it would be a question, if it were the second coming of waiting for the rapture, or if it were with reference to the end of the world, waiting for the end. But this is not what he says.

In verse 12 he says: “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.”

He is not saying the day is ending, that history is ending; he is saying the night of history is far spent, and the day is at hand. In other words, it is going to be dawn very soon. That is not talking about the end of the world, it is saying that the world was in darkness outside of Christ, and now that he has come, the dawn of history is about to break forth. The gospel is going to be preached to the nations, and men are going to go forth into all the corners of the world to bring light, to bring the day time of history to the nations.

To see these verses as referring to the last judgement or to the second coming is to paralyze Christian action in time. This is alien to Paul. Moreover, it would be saying that Paul didn’t know what he was talking about, and that he was not inspired of God when he wrote this; because if Paul were saying: “Jesus is coming very soon” well, obviously, almost 2,000 years later He hasn’t come, and Paul didn’t know what he was talking about. I find it bewildering that so many commentators who claim to believe the Bible from cover to cover tell us that this is what Paul believed. They don’t have a high opinion of Paul, nor a high opinion of God’s infallible word.

Paul is summoning believers into the light of Christ, into the daytime of history which is about to dawn, and he is telling them: “It is time to wake up, put on your armor, we have got a battle ahead. It is dawning, the light is there; now we have to wage war against darkness, we have to bring the world into the light.”

The day thus, is a time for work and battle. This is what Paul is telling us. In verse 13 he goes on to say: “Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.”

The word ‘walk’ is a form of the word ‘paripateo’ which we have in the English as peripatetic. It refers figuratively to the whole round of activities of daily life. The word has the implication of power, of dominion, of more than walking; of trampling something under foot and completely crushing it. So, when Paul says: “Let us walk” alright, we put on armor. The day is breaking, we have work to do, we go forth as conquerors; and we are to walk honestly or honorably as good soldiers, faithful to the Lord. We are living in the day, which is the time of work, of dominion, and conquest.

The battle imagery is very clear. To exercise dominion we must cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. The day is at hand, the time for work. And so we must abandon living for ourselves.

The word ‘rioting’ or ‘reveling’ is stronger in English now than it once was. Reveling or rioting in the old fashioned sense was not racing down the street with a mob and torching things, it was living heedlessly. It was living for ones pleasures, living purposeless, without meaning.

Then he goes on to say that we are to forsake drunkenness, or it can be rendered, strong drink. So that the whole point is, you are living heedlessly; the big thing in your life is to enjoy yourself, to drink, eat, and be merry.

‘Chambering’ has reference to simply, bedding ourselves; being comfortable, feeling that this is the be-all and end-all of life. ‘I am going to live well, I am going sleep well, and my bedding is going to be the best, and this is why I am alive, to take care of number one.’

Wantonness can be rendered in modern English as ‘excess.’ Excess in terms of wanting more and more for ourselves.

‘Not in strife,’ because no man is saved, no man is blessed, no man is converted by quarreling with him.

‘Envying,’ or jealousy, which is a mark of the old order, not of the new.

Then in verse 14 Paul concludes: “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”

We must put on the new man Jesus Christ, the new humanity; we are called to be members of Christ, to be members of the new creation. This is why we are called a new creature, a new creation in Christ. The old humanity, the humanity of Adam, must give place to a new humanity which is dedicated to a new way of life.

In Galatians 3:27 Paul says: “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” So that now we live in terms of Christ, not ourselves.

In 1 Corinthians 1:30 Paul says Christ is for us “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:” Then Paul says that putting on Christ means that we do not make provisions or take thought for the flesh, our fallen human nature. Paul is not telling us to make no provision for our daily life, but for the flesh, a term which in the Greek has reference consistently in Paul to the Old Adam, the Old Man. We are not converted to say: “Now that I have got the question of heaven and hell settled, I can relax and enjoy myself. Now I don’t have to worry about that because heaven is my destination; I have got fire and life insurance. So let’s see how we can live well.” No.

Paul has no objection to us living well, but he has an objection to making all the blessings that God provides us go for one end, to go on living as though we were never Christians; as though our lives had no reference to the kingdom of God. The new nature means a new life, and the old must give way to it. What Paul is here condemning is not living well, he is not commending asceticism, but he is insisting that we now have a purpose in our lives, a government in our lives, an authority in our lives, and His name is Jesus Christ, and in Him all that He requires of us in our daily lives, in our families, in our work, to be under the government of Jesus Christ, to be under that which He has established in every sphere of life; so that we are not to fulfill the desires of the Old Adam, but of the New Adam, Christ.

It is strange that those who profess to be Bible believing have so misinterpreted this passage and others like it, referring it to the second coming. If so, as we have seen, Paul was wrong in expecting a very quick return. But age after age, such a reading has crippled the church. Paul says that we are to walk in the light, that we are to bring light into the world; and if all we can think about and if all that the church can think about is being raptured out of this world, of running away from responsibilities, of treating them as non existent--- is it any wonder that after twenty centuries the world is not as far along in the light as it should be? And when you think of the extent to which the church today is committed to the belief that any time now the second coming is due, consider how often Hal Lindsey has set dates during the 70’s again and again, or since the 50’s or 40’s in the creation of Israel; every time trouble breaks out in the East there have been floods of pamphlets and materials on how the second coming is going to be here almost any time, because the clock of prophecy is ticking, and the last tick is just a little ways away.

The result has been impotence on the part of the church. Instead of putting on armor, they have disarmed themselves. Some of you may remember how in the Laguna area in Southern California in the 60’s, a big issue was ‘rapture robes’ not putting on the armor of God, but making rapture robes to be raptured in. The frivolity, the irrelevance, and the triviality which has marked this kind of thinking is incredible.

Paul summons us to cast off the works of darkness, and to arm ourselves for battle and for work; and to seek to conquer, to exercise dominion in Christ’s name. Paul summons us to the day of battle unto victory, not the day of departure. And that is why Paul is so eminently practical. In the next chapter, chapter 14, he gives counsel concerning the life of the Christian and their daily walk. He does not tell us: ‘Now that I have told you about the second coming I am going tell you how to prepare yourself to be rapture.’ But rather how we are to live unto the Lord, and whether we die, to die unto the Lord. Because this is the purpose of our lives, we have been bought with a price, we are the Lords; and we are to live and to die unto Him, and to walk always in the light as in the day, not in terms of the old humanity.

Let us pray. Oh Lord our God, Thy word is truth, and Thy word is law. Awaken we beseech Thee Thy church, Thy people. Make them aware that they have been called to walk in the light, and to extend that light into all the dark places of this world. Make of Thy church again a might instrument for the advancement of Thy kingdom, for the overthrowing of the strongholds of ungodliness, and for the winning of men, women, and children into Christ’s kingdom. Grant that day by day we make not provision for our fallen nature, but feed and strengthen and develop the new man in us. We thank Thee for Thy patience with us. Oh Lord our God, Thou art good to us who so often cannot be good to ourselves; teach us to walk in Thee, by Thy word, in the power of Thy Spirit, and to be more than conquerors in whatever we do, and wherever we are. In His name we pray, amen.

Are there any questions now on our lesson?

No questions? Then let us bow our heads in prayer.

Oh Lord our God, bless us in our daily walk, grant that we ever walk in the light of Jesus Christ, give us faithfulness to Thy word, empower us by Thy Spirit, and make us victorious in Him.

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you; this day and always, amen.