WE MAY NOW seek to comprehend the particularity of that stage in the process of salvation that Paul images as “awakening” in Romans 13:11–14. In what way does this experience differ from the antecedent stages in the process—calling, revelation, death-and-resurrection of the self, bearing about of the Messiah’s dying-and-rising through the world? We may begin with clues in the text of Romans 13:11–14.1
First, awakening is characterized by proximity—a proximity that is both spatial and temporal: “our salvation is nearer (egguteron) than when we first believed” (Rom.13:11); “the day is drawn near (ēggiken).”2 Perhaps we can circumscribe this spatial and temporal proximity in the concept of actuality: in awakening, everything that belonged to the messianic kairos acquires a higher degree of actuality than it had in the previous instances of its existence.
Second, there is an unmistakable militancy about the imagery with which Paul describes the awakened consciousness to which he summons his readers: “Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light (endusōmetha de ta hopla tou photos)” (Rom. 13:12b).3 The association of light with weapons and warfare is found in Jewish apocalyptic literature.4 Anticipating the final battle between the “sons of light” and the “sons of darkness,” the War Scroll from Qumran praises God: “You have appointed the day of battle from ancient times . . . to come to the aid of truth and to destroy iniquity, to bring darkness low and to magnify light . . . to stand forever, and to destroy all the sons of darkness.”5 Employing similar imagery, Paul pictures the moment of awakening as a readiness for battle, conveying the inner transformation required by using the middle voice of the verb enduō—“gird oneself.”6
Third, it is noteworthy that all of the personal pronouns in Romans 13:11–14, whether first or second person, are plural. The pronominal subject of the infinitive egerthēnai in Romans 13:11b may have been humas (you), or the somewhat less well-attested hēmas (us);7 but, in any case, it is a collective subject, and not merely an individual consciousness, which is summoned to awakening. Similarly, in Romans 13:11c, Paul speaks of “our salvation” (hēmōn hē sōtēria), with the pronoun in the emphatic position. The verbal forms of address are also plural, whether hortatory or imperatival: apobalōmetha, “let us cast off” (Rom. 13:12c); endusōmetha, “let us put on” (Rom. 13:12d); peripatēsōmen, “let us conduct ourselves” (Rom. 13:13); endusasthe, “gird yourselves” (Rom. 13:14a); mē poieisthe, “do not make” (Rom. 13:14b). In these exhortations, commentators sense Paul’s attempt to engender solidarity among members of the congregation.8 Obviously, awakening was a process in the life of the individual. But the collective character of the experience is emphasized in this paragraph.
Fourth, Paul focuses upon concrete behaviors that must be put aside, if awakening is to occur: drunkenness, debauchery, quarreling (Rom. 13:13b). Correspondingly, he emphasizes the decency of conduct (euschēmonōs peripatēsōmen) that must characterize the awakened life (Rom. 13:13a).9 To be sure, ethical admonitions to a transformed life are found in most Pauline epistles. Distinctive here is the intensity of interest, the urgency to commence (signaled by the ingressive aorist subjunctive of peripateō),10 and the intimacy of connection (conveyed by the mystical exhortation to “put on [endusasthe] the Lord Jesus Messiah” [Rom. 13:14a], like a tunic).11 There is, one might say, an interpenetration of the self with specific modes of conduct in 13:11–14 that gives to waking-being a higher concretion.
Finally, the summons to awakening as a whole suggests that the moment is probative in a final sense. “The day” (hē hēmera) that has “drawn near” (ēggiken) is a judgment day, in which each of the antecedent stages of “salvation” will be put to the test. Will the process that began “when we first believed” (Rom.13:11c) achieve critical mass, so to speak, so that it combusts? The choice on that day is absolute: “Clothe yourselves in the Lord Jesus Messiah, and make no provision (pronoian mē poieisthe) for the flesh, toward desires” (Rom. 13:14). The expression pronoian poieisthai (to make provision) is an idiom of business life.12 The test is this: will it be possible, on the day of awakening, to suspend the routine mechanism of self-interest, the constant projection of thought toward desire, so that existence is completely enveloped in the Messiah?
Whatever insight these observations may provide into the experience of awakening described in Romans 13:11–14, they do not yet penetrate to the core of Paul’s conception, which is irreducibly eschatological. The awakening to which Paul summons results, in the last instance, from a “knowing” or “discerning” (eidotes) of the kairos (Rom. 13:11a). In awakening, the decisive event of the past (the Messiah’s advent) is brought together with the present (the now of salvation) as a potential for knowledge. But why does Paul choose the image of a suddenly emergent consciousness to convey the eschatological constellation between past and present? Or, to put it another way: how does the image of awakening in Romans 13 express Paul’s mature conception of the relation of past and present in “the now time”?
Perhaps the best prospect of finding an answer to this question lies in a comparison of the eschatology of Romans 13:11–14 with that of Paul’s earliest extant letter, 1 Thessalonians.13 In response to the concerns of the Thessalonian believers about “times and seasons” (1 Thess. 5:1), Paul reminded them of his teaching about the “day of the Lord” (1 Thess. 5:2–10):
The day of the Lord (hēmera kuriou) comes like a thief in the night. When they say “peace and security” (eirēnē kai asphaleia), then sudden destruction comes upon them, like birth-pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they shall in no way escape. But you, brothers, are not in darkness (ouk este en skotei), so that the day should catch you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day (pantes gap humeis huioi photos este kai huioi hēmeras). We are not of night or of darkness (ouk esmen nuktos oude skotous). So then let us not sleep like the others (ara oun mē katheudōmen hōs hoi loipoi), but let us be alert and sober (alla grēgorōmen kai nēphōmen). For those sleeping sleep at night (hoi gar katheudontes nuktos katheudousin), and those getting drunk get drunk at night (kai hoi methuskomenoi nuktos methuousin). But since we are of the day (hēmeis de hemeras ontes), let us be sober, putting on (endusamenoi) the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation, because God did not destine us for wrath, but to obtain salvation (sōtēria) through our Lord Jesus Messiah, the one who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep (eite grēgorōmen eite katheudōmen), we might live with him.
It is immediately apparent how much this passage has in common with Romans 13:11–14, not only in terms of imagery, but also in vocabulary.14 In both cases, Paul speaks of “day” (hēmera) and “night” (nux), of “light” (phōs) and “darkness” (skotos). Both passages mention “drunkenness” (methuō/methē) as a paradigmatic vice. Both texts employ the verb enduō in exhortations to “put on” spiritual armor. In both cases, the divinely destined goal is “salvation” (sōtēria). In both places, Paul employs the formula “Lord Jesus Messiah” (kurios Iēsous Christos).
At the center of both passages stands the contrast between sleep and waking; but in this case, the vocabulary is different, and the difference is significant. In 1 Thessalonians 5:2–10, Paul uses the verbs katheudō and grēgoreō to speak of being asleep and remaining awake, and does not employ the vocabulary of Romans 13:11, neither the noun hupnos nor the verb egeirō.15 In Romans 13:11, by contrast, Paul does not recur to the terms katheudō or grēgoreō.16 The difference is not merely terminological, but conceptual. The action denoted by katheudō is “lying down to sleep,” “lying idle,” “passing the night in sleep.”17 But hupnos is the state of “sleep,” in which one dreams, from which one wakes.18 As a powerful and all-encompassing state,19 hypnos was hypostasized as a god—the son of Night,20 the twin-brother of Death.21 The condition described by grēgoreō is “being watchful” or “remaining alert”;22 thus the noun grēgorēsis is “wakefulness.”23 By contrast, egeirō marks the moment of arousal, the transition out of sleep: thus, to “wake up,” to “awaken.”24
The crucial difference between 1 Thessalonians 5 and Romans 13 with respect to the imagery of sleeping and waking is a difference between the static and the dynamic. In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul contrasts two conditions: on the one hand, those who are asleep in their own lives, intoxicated—the sons of night and darkness;25 on the other hand, those who are alert and sober—the sons of light and day.26 In abstract terms, the contrast is between consciousness and unconsciousness. But in Romans 13, Paul focuses upon the moment of transition, the instant of awakening.27 Awakening relates to sleep in Romans 13:11 precisely in being separated from it (ex hupnou egerthēnai); that is, the structure of awakening is dialectical. Thus, awakening in Romans 13 is a distinctive experience, to be distinguished both from consciousness and from unconsciousness.
Another, more precise difference between 1 Thessalonians 5 and Romans 13 appears in the way in which night and day are contrasted. In 1 Thessalonians 5:5–8, the contrast is static and absolute: night and day are discrete periods, each with its own denizens (1 Thess. 5:5), each spawning its own behaviors (1 Thess. 5:7–8).28 But Romans 13:12 focuses upon the moment of turning from night to day.29 The punctual nature of the contrast is emphasized by Paul’s use of a vivid expression for the night approaching its end: hē nux proekopsen (the night is far gone).30 The aorist of the verb prokoptō suggests “the time of night when especially deep darkness holds sway just before dawn.”31 Again, the image is dialectical: day relates to night precisely at the moment of separation.
I suggest that the different ways in which sleeping and waking, night and day, are imaged in 1 Thessalonians 5 and Romans 13 reflect a significant development in Paul’s eschatology.32 The eschatology of 1 Thessalonians may be characterized as primitive. Paul’s consolation of the bereaved in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 cites an apocalyptic “word of the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:15–16).33 The saying about the day of the Lord that comes like a thief in the night in 1 Thessalonians 5:2 is based upon traditional material (cf. Rev. 3:3).34 The slogan “peace and security” (eirēnē kai asphaleia) cited in 1 Thessalonians 5:3 has its closest parallel in Jewish literature in the messianic Psalms of Solomon (8:18).35 The orientation of 1 Thessalonians is entirely toward the future. Paul reminds the Thessalonians of how they responded to his preaching: they determined “to wait for the Son out of the heavens, whom he [that is, God] raised out of the dead, Jesus the one who saves us from the coming wrath” (1 Thess. 1:10).36 Paul’s consolation to the bereaved is that “God will bring those who have died in the Messiah with him” when he returns (1 Thess. 4:13–18).37 Only twice in 1 Thessalonians (4:14; 5:10) does Paul speak of the death of Jesus, and that only in passing. By contrast, all of the references to the second “coming” (parousia) of Messiah Jesus in the authentic Pauline epistles, with one exception (1 Corinthians 15:23), are found in 1 Thessalonians (2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23).38
A striking contrast is presented by Romans with respect to Paul’s eschatology. As noted, the term parousia is missing.39 And, indeed, there are no unambiguous references to the Second Coming of Jesus.40 To be sure, Paul still speaks of “a day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Rom. 2:5),41 and looks forward to “the coming glory to be revealed” when “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay” (Rom. 8:18, 21).42 But it is clear that, for the author of Romans, the messianic event has already occurred. That event is the death and resurrection of the Messiah (Rom. 8:34).43 “The righteousness of God has been manifested . . . through the faith of Jesus Messiah” (Rom. 3:21–22). “At the kairos, the Messiah died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6).44 “God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners the Messiah died for us” (Rom. 5:8). This “righteous act” of Messiah Jesus has inaugurated a new creation (Rom. 5:18–19; cf. 2 Cor. 5:17). Henceforth, “nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Messiah Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:39).
In seeking to understand this development in Paul’s eschatology, we must bear in mind the number of years that have passed between 1 Thessalonians and Romans: 1 Thessalonians is Paul’s earliest extant letter, and as such the oldest writing in the New Testament.45 According to a broad critical consensus, Romans is the last authentic Pauline epistle.46 Depending upon which chronology of Paul’s life and letters one adopts, as few as six or as many as fourteen years separate Paul’s first and last letters.47 In any case, Paul had suffered and learned much in the intervening years: he had been imprisoned and tortured on account of Messiah Jesus (2 Cor. 11:23–25; Phil. 1:7, 13).48 Not surprisingly, he contemplated his own death, anticipating that his life might be “poured out as a libation upon a sacrificial altar” (Phil. 2:17), imagining what it would be like to be “away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8; cf. Phil. 1:23).49 In moments of crisis, it seems that Paul appropriated the event of the crucified Messiah more deeply as the truth of his own life (2 Cor. 4:7–12; 12:9–10).50 In my view, it would be a mistake to attempt to explain the development in Paul’s eschatology as a rationalizing response to the specious problem of the “delay of the parousia.”51 Indeed, I would argue that the mature eschatology of Romans reflects an intensification of expectation:52 “Our salvation is nearer than when we first believed,” Paul declares (Rom. 13:11). By the time Paul wrote Romans, the future hope of Paul’s early years had become a present reality,53 to be grasped in a moment of awakening.
We may now summarize what we have learned about the awakening to which Paul summons in Romans 13 as the culmination of Pauline eschatology. Paul urges his readers toward a moment when the full import of the messianic event will be received in the present as an actuality. In that moment, the latent messianic self that was unveiled in the calling, and that had emerged through participation in the Messiah’s death and resurrection, ignites in the flash of an awakened consciousness. In that moment, the constant projection of thought toward desire is arrested; the existence of the believer is enveloped in the Messiah. The awakened self takes charge of his conduct, giving each action a higher ethical purpose. The awakened self is a militant, armed for struggle against the powers of darkness that had once enthralled him and that still hypnotize others. And the awakened self participates in a collective consciousness, bound to others by the love that led the Messiah to die for all. The community of awakened selves is “the revelation of the sons of God” (hē apokalupsis tōn huiōntou theou) for which the whole creation waits with eager longing (Rom. 8:19).54