Light: Putting Off and Putting On
Romans 13:11-14
Tonight we're
moving forward a little bit. I want to say a couple of more things about faith
in Romans 13:11 where the apostle Paul made this reference to our salvation
which is nearer than when we first believed. Last week I took some time to go
through the doctrine of faith and what faith is. You would be absolutely
amazed, perhaps, if I were to start cataloging all the things that are going on
in the world of theology that are trying to understand and comprehend and
communicate what faith it. Faith, righteousness, and a number of other key
concepts of Scripture always generate a lot of discussion. Some of it is
enlightening and some of it is not. A lot of it is not.
It seems like
in every generation there are things that are required. One is in the area of
freedom, no matter what previous generations have done there are those who have
to fight and die to preserve freedom. Likewise, each generation has to come to
an understanding of the truth of God's Word on its own, apart from the fact
that there have been generations before us who have laid the groundwork. In
each generation, men have to come to an understanding of what the Word of God
teaches and be able to articulate it to their generation, just as you have
generations of leaders who have to come to understand the law, the principles
of the Constitution, the principles of freedom and to carry those forward into
their own generation. This is important. That's how we learn and grow.
I was on a
radio interview and someone asked me the other day a question about who
influenced me in terms of my theology. I talked about the fact that we're all
influenced by a number of different people. Anyone who gets in the pulpit
anywhere stands on the shoulder of his mentors, the pastor under whom they grew
up, and on the shoulders of their seminary professors, and the shoulders of the
great leaders of the faith, whether you're talking about Lewis Sperry Chafer,
Charles Ryrie, going back to 19th century, Scofield, John Nelson
Darby, going back even further to people like Calvin and Luther.
They are all
part of the process of understanding the truth of where we are today, even when
they go down wrong paths. It's part of the path of understanding the truth.
That's true for us. We learn more from the mistakes we've made than from the
things we did right and that's true in theology. As people have run down wrong
tracks, we've learned from those errors. We all stand upon their shoulders.
Today there are
a lot of battles that go on over just the meaning of faith so I'm not going to
bore you with a lot of those things. We went through an in-depth analysis of it
last time and my conclusion was, basically, that faith is an operation of the
mind. It is an intellectual function, not an emotional function. It has a
volitional element because we choose what we believe. It's primarily
intellectual and it's not emotional so therefore, it has to do with an
operation of the mind.
Now a lot of
people think this sounds too impersonal, or too academic, or too abstract, when
you define faith as simply intellectual assent. By intellectual it means it's
an operation of the mind. Assent means that you agree that it is true. If
you're not agreeing that it's true, then you're saying that it's not true. If
you're saying its true but you don't really believe it, then you're not saying
it's true. So if you're saying that something is true and that you absolutely
agree that it's true, then anything less than that would not be true.
To say that you
agree with the proposition that Jesus Christ died for your sins and you believe
that it is absolutely true, then you're saved. If you believe that Christ died
on the cross for the sins of the world but it doesn't have anything to do with
you, that's not a saving proposition for you. You've rendered it sort of a 3rd
person abstraction which doesn't have anything to do with your own personal
trust and reliance upon Christ.
I also
pointed out that faith in and of itself does not have any merit. It has no value
in and of itself. It is simply a conduit. It is the means by which something is
appropriated, something is embraced, much as a wire is a conduit for
electricity or a pipe a conduit for water. Faith is that which moves something
from one place to another. It is not the valuable thing in and of itself. It is
the object of faith that has value. So if we have the wrong object for faith,
then faith is not saving faith. If we have the right object for faith, then it
is salvific and we have salvation. So faith has no merit in and of itself.
Faith is an intellectual activity and is the only means by which we appropriate
God's gift for us.
It is
salvation that is the gift of God, not faith. This is another problem in the
discussion, especially when dealing with lordship salvation and when dealing
with many Calvinists who are more consistent Calvinists. There are lots of
technical terms related to Calvinism such as Hyper-Calvinist, a 5-point
Calvinist, a supralapsarian are all different terms describing different
degrees and different beliefs within a Calvinistic system.
You have people
who are considered 4-point Calvinists. What that means is that they don't
believe in limited atonement but they do believe in the other 4 points. Then
there are those you might call a 3½ pointer or 3 pointer. It depends on how you
might define those points. I usually say I'm not a 5-point Calvinist. I'm not a
5-point Arminian. I'm neither a Calvinist nor an Arminian. I define all of
those categories in a completely different ways.
I don't deny
the totally depravity of man. And I don't deny that God ultimately oversees His
creation to a degree that He is able to bring about that which He intends, but
He is able to do so in His magnificent, omnipotence without violating
individual responsibility and accountability. So His creatures have the ability
to make choices and are held accountable for those choices and it is not God
who predetermines what their choices will be.
The way many
Calvinists approach faith is to talk about faith as the gift of God. Often they
will use Ephesians 2:8-9. There are other passages they use often, too. They
will say that God gives you the faith. If you define total depravity as total
inability, then if you're totally unable to comprehend or believe the gospel,
then you're totally unable to even express positive volition. They never talk
about it that way. And they say that you're totally unable to express faith so
that the faith that you have is something that must be given to you. They
believe God only gives that to those who are unconditionally elect, so God
gives saving faith and that makes it a separate kind of faith. God gives saving
faith to the elect. He does not give it to the non-elect so those that receive
that gift of faith then, in turn, demonstrate their election by their works.
That's what we mean by lordship salvation.
Now not every
strong Calvinist holds to lordship salvation. Louis Sperry Chafer was a very
strong Calvinist. He had a strong background as a Presbyterian. He was ordained
in the Southern Presbyterian Church. They actually brought him up on heresy
charges because of his dispensationalism but he was not a 5-point Calvinist.
There's some debate that he may have been early on but he wasn't when he taught
at Dallas and when he wrote his Systematic Theology. While he held to the
"T" in Tulip (There are two flowers to describe theology. TULIP: Total
inability, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace and
the Perseverance of the saints. That last "p" is not what Chafer
believed. A lot of moderate Calvinists, like Chafer, only defined perseverance
of the saints as eternal security.
However, there
are many today who say if you do not persevere in obedience and good works then
you weren't ever truly saved to begin with. Louis Sperry Chafer did not hold to
that definition of perseverance so I would say he was more of a 3½-point
Calvinist. The other flower is DAISY. That is the Arminian theology. In reference to God,
the Arminian pulls out a daisy and goes, "He loves me, He loves me not, He
loves, He loves me not, He loves me, He loves me not." So it's either
daisy theology or tulip theology but there's another theology that's somewhat
in between that is Biblical. It's interesting how some of these things will pop
up.
Now just in
terms of our conclusion from last time. First of all, I pointed out there was
no Biblical distinction between this concept of a head faith and a heart faith.
Heart is simply a figure of speech using a body part to symbolize and represent
the thinking of the soul and the soul itself. So the Bible doesn't make any
distinction between the head and the heart. Some people say "Well, they
had a head faith. They're going to miss heaven by twelve inches, the distance
between the heart and the head". That's just completely bogus. That may
preach well but it's not going to get anyone to heaven.
Secondly,
saving faith is not a different kind of faith but its object is the difference,
the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross. If you have a hymnal in front
of you, look at "I Know Whom I Have Believed" (page 409 in WHBC hymnal). We're
just going to get a lesson in applicational theology when it comes to hymns. I
wish there was one way we could straighten out this hymn because there's a lot
of positive things about this particular hymn but if we look at the second
verse. "I know not how this saving
faith to me He did impart." Did you catch that? It's saying that God
is the one who imparts that saving faith. This was written by a Calvinist, a
high Calvinist. It says that God imparts the right kind of faith that is saving
faith.
The hymn goes
on to say, "Nor how believing in His Word brought peace within my
heart." And that's fine. Then in verse 3 we read, "I know not how the
Spirit moves convincing men of sin, revealing Jesus through the Word, creating faith in Him."
This is same
idea, that God creates faith. That it's a different kind of faith, not the same
category of faith as every other kind of faith. So we see how these things show
up in one hymn. There are many others, I'm sure I could go to. But this is even
a contradiction to John Calvin. On John 3:33, John Calvin says, "That to
believe the gospel is nothing more than to assent to the truths that God has
revealed." Did you hear that? That's what a real Calvinist believes. Not a
Bezaite. Beza was the man who followed him and really systemized Calvinist
theology, not Calvin per se. So we see Calvin said that they believe the gospel
is nothing more than to assent to the truths or propositions which God hath
revealed.
Then the last
point by way of review is that salvation is not based on a personal
relationship. Often that's the way in which the gospel is presented.
"Would you like to have a personal relationship with God?" That's
saying that the only way you can get saved is through a personal relationship
with God. There's always an element of truth in these things but the Bible
never says that to be saved you need to have a personal relationship with
Jesus. Believing on Him results in a personal relationship with Jesus but
that's putting the cart before the horse. Judas had a personal relationship
with Jesus and it didn't do Him any good. He was an unbeliever. What matters is
faith alone in Christ alone.
Faith is not an
emotion. If we put an emphasis on emotion then we will fail in the Christian
life. The Scripture consistently emphasizes that the Christian life is related
to belief and knowing something. That comes up to the two categories we talked
about as part of faith: understanding which means we have to know the Scripture
and assent which means we have to believe that it's true.
Now let's move
forward. In this closing part of Romans 13:11 Paul is going to introduce the concept
of light versus darkness and day versus night. He's going to use a metaphor
that is common for him and that is the idea of taking off something, the same
verb that's used in taking off clothes, and in putting something on. But what
is interesting that these two concepts of taking off and putting on are used
grammatically in completely different ways. If we don't pay close attention to
the text then we can really get confused.
It took me a
while as a young student of the Word to work through some of these things
because of the nature of the Greek grammar. You're not going to get this if you
just look at the English. That doesn't provide you with an excuse to never read
your Bible. You just need to recognize that there are problems with English translations
but as I always tell students of Greek and students going off to seminary, that
Greek and Hebrew do not solve all your problems. They may solve some of your
problems but they will often create other problems. Language is limited.
Anything that is finite and part of creation cannot adequately and perfectly
express divine truth. It presents it inherently but not comprehensively.
There's always a limitation in language and language always has a certain
ambiguity to it. This is where you have to evaluate grammar and syntax on the
basis of the analogy of Scripture which is theology comparing Scripture with
other Scripture.
There are
issues here. One issue I briefly touched on earlier in Romans which is a
problem in Romans and Galatians is that when we read a passage such as
Galatians 2:16, "Nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the
works of the Law but by faith in Christ" it isn't that clear in the Greek.
In the Greek it's a genitive and that genitive can mean "by the
faithfulness of Christ" or "the faith in Christ". It can be
either an objective or a subjective genitive. This has become a huge arena of
controversy and discussion in academics in Greek.
I've got a
large book at home with each chapter written by a different person. Some are
proponents of one view. Some are proponents of another view. The preponderance
of scholars argue that it's an objective genitive and should be understood as
faith in Christ and I was reading in there today and at the conclusion at
several of the chapters that grammar cannot solve the problem. Syntax cannot
resolve the problem. These are men who have probably forgotten more about Greek
than most of the people I know will ever learn. That's the issue. Grammar and
syntax don't solve the problem. At some point you have to bring theology and a
comparison of Scripture to Scripture and other doctrines in context to bear
upon the particular passage. So that's just one illustration.
Now let's go
into the rest of Romans 13:11-14. Paul says, "And this (because you know
the time) it is time to awake out of sleep for now our salvation is nearer than
when we first believed." In verse 11 he is simply laying a motivational
foundation that, as believers, we need to wake up. We're living in a time where
there is limited option for fulfilling the mission that God has given us as
members of the Church. So we need to wake up because we don't know when our
time is up.
Our salvation,
that is our ultimate destiny either through the Rapture or our death, could
come today, tomorrow, the next day so are we ready? We need to not waste time.
Ephesians 5 says to redeem the time. Use it wisely; don't waste it. So that's
the foundation for the motivation here. Then he continues in Romans 13:12
saying, "The night is far spent. The day is at hand." What does that
mean?
Next he draws a
conclusion, "Therefore (because of this short time) let us cast off the
works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light." So there we have two
things. The imagery of darkness and light, day and night, and then we have the
verbs "to take off" and "to put on" there. In Romans 13:13
he says in a first person command that involves him as well as us, "Let us
walk properly." Here he's commanding us to walk by the Spirit so he's
bringing in the whole doctrine of the Christian way of life, the Christian
walk.
Paul continues,
"…As in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust,
not in strife and envy." He uses three pairs to give a focus on the fact
that sin should not be a characteristic of the believer's life. In contrast,
Romans 13:14 says, "But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision
for the flesh to make no provision to fulfill its lust." A couple of observations
here in terms of those last couple of verses: here in verse 12 we see the
command is to cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Putting on the armor of light is the positive; removing the works of darkness
is the negative. When he comes to that same topic but in different words in
verse 13 he positively says we're to walk properly.
By juxtaposing
the imagery into verse 12 and 13 we see that the proper and the appropriate
walk is putting on the armor of light. Now that's important because that tells
us that putting on the armor of light isn't positional. It isn't related to
what happened at salvation. It has to do with our ongoing battle after
salvation. It's important to pay attention to that because Paul uses this
terminology. This is not easy stuff.
He uses
"put off" and "put on" both positionally and experientially
and you have to be careful because just because you see "put off" and
"put on" terminology doesn't mean he's always using it the same way.
He talks about the fact that at salvation we "put on" Christ but here
in verse 14 he says to believers to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ".
So in one sense we've already put on Christ, that's positional, and in another
sense we need to "put on" Christ after we're saved. In other words we
put on His character and that would be equivalent to walking by the Spirit.
Walking
properly is contrasted with these three pairs of sinful activity and then it is
further expanded in verse 14 as "putting on the Lord Jesus Christ".
So this is parallel to putting on the armor of light. They mean the same thing.
They're both talking about the Christian life in two different ways.
Then negatively
we're not to make any provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. So that's
just sort of a fly-over of this passage to help us understand that Paul is
really challenging us or exhorting us to obedience. He's saying, "The time
is short. Don't waste time. You have to focus on your spiritual life and your
spiritual growth because you and I have no idea how much longer we're going to
have in this life to grow to spiritual maturity and to fulfill the mission that
God has given to each and every one of us."
Now let's start
drilling down a little bit. There's our motivation in verse 11. In verse 12 he
says, "The night is far spent." The day is at hand. Therefore let us
cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Two things
we see here. First of all he's stating a principle in the first part of the
verse relating to the fact that it is now night but it's progressing. The word
there in the Greek for "far spent" is the word prokopto which means to advance or to move forward.
What he is
saying in this whole section is that he expects Christ to return at any moment.
Now there is a difference between the "at any moment" of Christ
returning and the idea of Christ's soon coming. You can believe today that
Christ is soon coming because as we see different things happen in the world it
seems as if God is moving things forward and setting the stage more and more
for what happens after the Rapture. So we think it could be soon. It could be
in twenty or thirty years.
For the last
sixty-six years since Israel was re-established as a nation in 1948 there has
been this increasing sense that we're living very close to the time of the
Rapture. While we're not date setting I think there's a parallel between what
happened in the story of Simeon and Anna at the time Jesus was born to what's
happening today. In Luke 2 we read that they had been told by the Holy Spirit
that they wouldn't die until they see the Messiah, the Lord's Anointed. We just
know historically that there was this heightened level of expectation that the
Messiah was coming. There were numerous pseudo-Messiahs that were popping up
all over the place. There was such a heightened sense of Messianic awareness in
the early 1st century that it really characterized that particular
time.
I think for
much of the same reason that today there just seems to be so many things
happening that it gives us this sense that it could be very soon. But the apostle
Paul thought it would happen in his lifetime. That's what imminence means that
it could happen at any time. Nothing must happen before Jesus returns at the
Rapture. Not one thing must happen before Jesus returns at the Rapture. There
is no prophecy that must be fulfilled.
Now I want you
to think about what I'm beginning to say. The fact that no prophecy must take
place before Jesus returns at the Rapture is not the same thing as saying that
prophecy might be fulfilled before the Rapture. The prophecy that might be
fulfilled before the Rapture doesn't have anything to do with the timing of the
Rapture, doesn't have anything to do with the immediacy of the Rapture. It
might be part of stage setting for what will happen after the Rapture.
For example, if
something were to happen today or tomorrow or next year that obliterated the
Mosque of Omar, the Dome of the Rock, so there was nothing on the Temple mount
then there would be opportunity to rebuild a temple. There are numerous groups
in Israel who have rebuilt the furniture. They've identified qualified priests.
I saw a report yesterday that someone sent me that a link that they've
identified another potential candidate for the red heifer. A red heifer has to
have no other color except red, no black. Just one black hair will disqualify
it. It can't have ever worked and there are a few other qualifications. The red
heifer will have to live to two years of age and then be examined and then sacrificed
as a burnt offering. The ashes will be used to sanctify the new temple.
We know we're
not under the Law so we wonder what that has to do with anything. Remember, the
Jews still believe the Law is valid. When they rebuild the Third Temple, the Tribulation
Temple, it's an apostate temple. So they believe that to be able to rebuild the
new temple they have to establish it with the sacrifice of a red heifer. So
these things pop up. Ten or twelve years ago there was another candidate for a
red heifer and then a couple of black hairs showed up and disqualified that
one.
Let's say
something like that were to happen. Then the Jews could build the temple.
People would say, "Jesus hasn't come back yet. We must already be in the
Tribulation." No, all that we know is that in the Tribulation there will
be a temple. There has to be temple there for the Antichrist to defile it and
desecrate it. So that temple has to be built. It doesn't have to wait until
after the Rapture for the temple to be rebuilt. It doesn't have to wait until
the Tribulation for the temple to be rebuilt. A third temple could be rebuilt a
hundred years before the Rapture occurs.
Paul expected
it in his lifetime and when he wrote Romans, guess what, there was a temple
standing on the mount when he wrote this. He expected Jesus to come back at any
time. Even though some prophecy seems to be fulfilled that relate to something
in the Tribulation, it still doesn't affect the imminence of the Rapture. The
Rapture is not dependent on any sign. The signs are all related to what happens
after the Rapture. All it means that God may completely set the stage and wait
another hundred years before the time is up. We just don't know but we have to
be ready at any moment.
That just
undergirds everything that Paul is saying here is that the day is near. This is
the Greek word eggizo which is used many times to indicate the whole
concept of imminence, that it is at hand, that it could happen at any moment.
He lays that principle down in the beginning of the verse and then he draws a
conclusion. If this is true, and it is, that the day is at hand, then we need
to cast off the works of darkness. That means to quit living like the cosmic
system and put on the armor of light.
As we analyze
this what we see is a contrast between two sets of words that indicate this
imagery. One is night and darkness, which always indicates something negative,
and day and light, which always indicates something positive. We'll have to look at what the
scriptures say about light and darkness as we go forward. Paul says here that
the night is far spent, that it's advanced. We don't know how far it's
advanced. We assume that it's advanced pretty far after almost 2,000 years but
we don't know.
The night is
far spent and here we need to do an analysis of how the Bible uses this imagery
of night and darkness and light and day. So let's just go through a few of
these verses. One of the first places where we run into an emphasis on this
imagery, this contrast between light and darkness, is in the Gospel of John. At
the very beginning John says, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word
was with God and the Word was God." He goes on to say in John 1:4 "In
Him [the Lord Jesus Christ] was life." It continued to be part of him.
It's the same verb that John used in John 1:1. It's an imperfect tense which
means continual action in the past, emphasizes the eternity of the logos in past life.
"In Him was life and the life was the light of men."
What we see
here is that Jesus' life, the life of the 2nd person of the Trinity
is identified by this equative verb with light. His life is light. His life is
what gives light. John says His life is the light of men. Here it indicates one
of the ideas presented in the light metaphor and that is illumination and
revelation, that part of the role of the 2nd person of the Trinity
is to provide illumination and revelation to men. He is the one as we'll see
later on in John 1:18 where John says, "No one has seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared
Him." That word for declared is exegeomai which is where we get our English word exegesis which
means to explain or to instruct about Him.
This passage is
saying that we learn about the Father by looking at the Son. This is why later
on in the gospel Jesus says, "If you've seen Me, you've seen the
Father." He's talking to Phillip. In John 1:10 He says, "I and the
Father are One." So if you've seen Him, you've seen the Father. He is the
One who reveals the Father. He is the light of men. It's His role to reveal.
In John 1:5 we
read, "And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not
comprehend it." Shines is in the present tense. That's an interesting word
for comprehend. It's the Greek word katalambano.
Lambano is the word used a few verses later
in John 1:12, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to
become children of God, even to those who believe in His name." It's a
contrast with the previous verse which says, "He came to His own, and His
own did not receive Him." This is the intensification of lambano, which means to
receive, to take something in or to hold it. Katalambano has the idea
of embracing something, making something one's own, or taking possession of
something. So it came to have this idea of comprehension but it's really more
than just comprehension. It's a little weak for this but it does relate to that
first aspect of faith, which is understanding.
Katalambano means more than simply comprehension. It means to
comprehend and to embrace that which you have comprehended. Again, this is used
as a synonym for faith. We often talk about the fact that you need to receive
Christ as your Savior. Receiving Christ as your Savior is the same as believing
that He died on the cross for your sins. So Jesus appears to His generation.
The light shines in the darkness. The world system is considered dark because
of sin and because it's apart from truth and apart from light. And the light
shines into the darkness and the darkness does not embrace it. The darkness
does not accept it. The darkness did not believe in it.
Then we skip a
few verses and John uses the light metaphor again. In between he introduces the
ministry of John the Baptist. In John 1:9 he says, "That was the true
Light which gives light to every man who comes into the world." This is a
principle of common grace. Since the incarnation Jesus gives light to every man
coming into the world. It's part of general revelation. This is the idea of
light. It indicates illumination and it indicates life that comes from that
illumination. The first principle we see in understanding night and darkness
and light and day, as it's used in the scripture, is that night and darkness
are used to describe the state of the world under the condemnation of sin and
living under the authority of Satan. This is seen in these verses. John 1:4, 5,
and 9.
I'll repeat the
principle again. Night and darkness are used to describe the state of the world
under the John 8:12 He says, "I am the light of the world." One of
the seven famous I AM statements in
the Gospel of John. I AM is the Greek
phrase ego eimi emphasizing that Jesus is the eternal existent one.
That's the same as the Old Testament I AM which is how God defined His name to Moses.
So Jesus shows
up and He keeps saying I AM, making clear
claims to deity and to be God. In contrast to the night and the darkness Jesus
says that He is the Light of the world and He has come into a fallen, dark
world, operating on the darkness of Satan's lie and all the false views in the
world and Jesus is bringing illumination of truth.
In John 3:19,
John writes "And this is the condemnation that the light has come into the
world and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were
evil." Now a lot of people read it that all men love darkness. It doesn't
say that. It's a general statement of truth, a gnomic principle that generally
it's true that men prefer the dark rather than light but not all. It's because
their deeds are evil that men didn't want the exposure that illumination would
bring. It's like a bunch of cockroaches in your kitchen. You get up at 3:00 in
the morning and click the light on and they all scurry and scramble to run
under the counters and hide. That's probably not true of anyone's house here
but that does happen at times in some places.
The third
point, Jesus also defined His mission in terms of light. He defined His mission
as illumination. He states that while He was in the world, it was day. His
illumination is so bright that He basically says that while He was there it was
day; it wasn't night. When He left the night would come. The way He states this
when He says "I must work the works of Him Who sent Me while it is day;
the night is coming when no one can work."
The problem
people have is that they try to make these word-for-word explanations. These
are idiomatic illustrations and this probably comes from a proverbial statement
related to time. The time is short to accomplish His job. Paul sort of uses
this in the reverse way that Jesus uses it here. The idea is that especially in
the ancient world before the light bulb, even candles, they had many different
little lamps they would fill with olive oil. You still see these if you go to
Israel. The little lamps would have a little wick and you would light that. You
just wonder how in the world they could ever see anything in the dark because
they don't provide that much illumination. Pre-Thomas Edison, the world was a
pretty dark place at night.
In the past the
only thing you could do at night was turn on your television and watch a soap
opera? No, you couldn't even do that. You just went to sleep. The sun went down
you went to sleep. The sun came up the next morning. Then you'd get up. You
worked during the day but when night came you couldn't work anymore because you
couldn't see what you were doing. That's the idea that Jesus is saying. While
He's with them it's time to work but when He left, went to Heaven; then they
couldn't carry out the ministry as it was defined during the Incarnation.
What was the
message? Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. When does John 9 take
place? More towards the beginning of Jesus' ministry. The message is still to
repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He's saying that as long as He's
with them they had work to do. When He was gone, it would be too late to
accomplish the mission of this particular time. So Jesus uses that imagery here
of the night and the day to talk about the fact we have a mission to accomplish
and we need to hurry about the mission before the time runs out. That's the
same thing Paul is saying but he uses day and night in a reverse sense.
In Romans 13.
Paul says "the night is far spent." He's talking about the current
time in which he's living, the Church Age. He's describing that as the night in
contrast to the day when our Lord, the Light of the world returns when He will
illuminate everything. We see that the light of the world is so great in the
Eternal state that there's no need for a sun or a moon in the future state
after the creation of the new heavens and the new earth.
The third
point, then, is that Jesus defined His mission in terms of light, teaching that
day and night are a metaphor about the importance of getting the mission accomplished
right now before the time to do so ends. When the night comes the present
opportunity would be past and be gone.
Light is also
used in contrast to darkness. It's used this way in various passages when it's
used to talk about our position in Christ. It's a very important concept to
understand who we are in Christ. We are as John 12:36 indicates, "Sons of
light". When we are saved we are positionally identified as sons of light.
John 12:36, "While you have the light, believe in the light, in order that
you may become sons of light.
When Jesus is
talking about this in John 12 He's talking to the crowds. When does John 12
take place? This may sound like a silly answer but it takes place right before
John 13. What happens in John 13? Jesus is having the Passover Seder with His
disciples right before He goes to the cross. So John 12 is the last discussion
of anything going on in the life of Christ before all of the events related to
the crucifixion take place. It happens right after He has raised Lazarus from
the dead.
In John 12:36
He's predicting He's going to be taken and crucified. He's talking to the
people. He's having this interchange with the people. John 12:34-36 says,
"The people answered Him, We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains
forever and how can You say, 'The Son of Man must be lifted up?" Who is
this Son of Man? Then Jesus said to them, "A little while longer the light
is with you. Walk while you have the light lest darkness overtake you. He who
walks in darkness does not know where He is going. While you have the light,
believe in the light that you may become sons of light." He's presenting a
gospel presentation, challenging the people to believe in Him that they might
become sons of the light."
Peter talks
about this also in terms of our position in 1 Peter 2:9, "But you are a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people,
that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into
His marvelous light". So this is also taking about a positional
transference that took place at the instance of our salvation. This isn't the
only place that does it. There are a great group of verses that talk about what
happens positionally to us in relation from this shift from darkness to light.
In Acts 26:18
when Paul is preaching he says, "To open their eyes and to turn them from
darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God." Darkness is the
pagan system. All human viewpoint. From darkness to light. Darkness is related
to the dominion of Satan. God is the ruler of the kingdom of light. So you see
this contrast and what happens at salvation is that we are "turning from
darkness to light, from the dominion of Satan to God in order that we might
receive a forgiveness of sin and an inheritance among those who have been
sanctified by faith in me. [Jesus]"
Paul is talking
here that this is what Jesus has said to Paul in terms of His mission. Jesus
says that Paul's mission is to give people the gospel so they can turn from
darkness to light, the dominion of Satan to the kingdom of light. It's a
position of potential spiritual growth to ultimately have an inheritance that
we receive at the judgment seat of Christ. Another parallel to this is
Colossians 1:13, "He has delivered us from the power of darkness and
translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." Power is the word exousia, the same word that's used in John 1:12.
We're born in
darkness and we're sons of darkness. That doesn't mean that if you're a female you're
not qualified to be a son of darkness. We're born as sons of darkness but when
we are transferred into Christ at faith alone then we're now in the kingdom of
His beloved Son. This doesn't mean the kingdom is here. This is in terms of
where we're headed. We are now qualified to be in that kingdom when it comes. A
couple of other verses that are tied together are 1 Thessalonians 5:5,
"You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night
nor of darkness." Paul is talking to the Thessalonian believers and
telling them this is their positional identity. This is who you are in terms of
their relationship to Christ. They are sons of the light and sons of the day.
No matter how carnal and disobedient you might be, we are not of the night or of
darkness.
Ephesians 5:8
says, "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk
as children of light." Our identity before we were saved was that we were
in darkness, the kingdom and domain and authority of Satan but now we are light
in the Lord. That's our position. But then it says to walk as children of
light. Walk always has to do with our experience. So the fact that we are light
in the Lord indicates our position in Christ.
We are sons of
light but sometimes we don't live like it. It's sort of like when you were a
kid, maybe, your parents told you that you're not acting like a member of their
family, like a Jones, or a Smith, or a Williams, or whoever. You're not acting
like a member of the family. It doesn't mean you weren't a member of the
family. It just means you're not acting like a member of their family or how
they thought a member of your family should act.
We need to
learn to walk as children of light. This is a term related to enjoying
fellowship with God and our Christian life. In 1 John 1:7 John says, "But
if we walk in the light [maybe we will and maybe we won't] as He is in the
light, we have fellowship with one another." It's something we enjoy.
We're not in fellowship with one another. We have or enjoy fellowship with one
another. It's something that is richly experiential.
Often you hear
someone say, "Well, I just can't get along with someone. There's just some
sort of personality conflict. What we're really saying is that we can't get
along with them because of their sin nature or my sin nature. It's really a sin
nature problem. You see what the scripture says that if you're walking with the
Lord and they're walking with the Lord and the Holy Spirit and the scripture
are the focal point it's not going to be any kind of personality conflict. What
you're really talking about when you say this is that your sin natures don't
get along.
That's one of
the things I try to tell young couples when they're going to get married. They
really need to get to know the other person, not just how they are at their
best, but how they are at their worst. There needs to be a sin nature
compatibility because if you can't put up with them when they're walking
according to the flesh then you're going to have some real problems. That
always results when we're focusing on our sin nature and letting that dominate.
There are always times in marriages when people get a little crossways with
each other, but if your sin natures are incompatible, such as if one's sin
nature turns toward morality and the other person's trends toward immorality,
you're going to have some real problems. You just can't understand each other
at a fundamental level of your sin natures. But the redemptive factor for
marriage and all relationships is walking in fellowship in dependence on the
Holy Spirit.
As long as
we're doing that we can enjoy fellowship with one another and notice what is
happening at the end of 1 John 1:7. It says that the results of Christ's death
on the cross are having a moment and moment impact on our relationship and it
cleanses us from all sin. How do you recover from sin in relation to God or in
relation to other people? It always comes back to what Christ did on the cross.
Grace is what enables us to overcome any kind of personality conflict or any
kind of difficulty that we have in those relationships.
John 12:46,
"I [Jesus] have come as a light into the world that whoever believes in Me
should not abide in darkness." That word abide in scripture always relates
to fellowship. It's time to stop here but we need to see our positional
relationship with Christ and that by identification we are positionally sons of
light. Then we have our temporal realities. When we're walking by the Spirit
we're walking by the light. We're walking in fellowship.
When we sin,
the enjoyment of that fellowship is broken and we are out of the light and
we're walking in darkness according to the sin nature called carnality. It's
only when we confess our sins in 1 John 1:9 that we are restored to fellowship
to continue that walk. This is fundamental to understanding the passages we're
going to go to in Romans 13, Ephesians 4, and Colossians 3 They are all talking
about what it means to take off those acts of carnality that dominate our lives
when we're out of fellowship and to put on that which is related to Christ.
There are other
passages that are talking about who we are in terms of our identity and they
also use that "put on and put off" terminology so that when we're
saved we see we put on Christ. Then we have a passage like Romans 13:14 that
talks about the fact that we are to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ".
That is not talking about our position but is talking about our relationship
with Him. It goes on to say, "make no provision for the flesh". That
means we're not to walk according to the sin nature. Next time we'll come back
to continue our study on light and darkness in the writings of Paul and in the
writings of the New Testament to help us learn how to live the Christian life.