Chapter # 13 Paragraph # 2 Study # 5
January 10, 2021
Humble, Texas
(092)
1769 KJV Translation:
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].
1901 ASV Translation:
12 The night is far spent, and the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness.
13 Let us walk becomingly, as in the day; not in revelling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy.
14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.
- I. In What Sense Has "The Night Advanced"?
- A. The word translated "almost gone" (NASB) or "far spent" (Authorized Version) [prokopto] is used in six texts of the New Testament and five of them are in Paul's letters (Romans 13:12; Galatians 1:14; 2 Timothy 2:16; 3:9; and 3:13).
- 1. The word typically means "to make progress toward some goal".
- a. This verb is typically "active" (Jesus was advancing in wisdom and maturity: Luke 2:52; Paul was advancing in Judaism beyond many of his contemporaries: Galatians 1:14; worldly chatter will advance to further ungodliness: 2 Timothy 2:16; men of depraved mind will not progress: 2 Timothy 3:9; and, evil men will advance in worse ways: 2 Timothy 3:13).
- b. Thus, Paul wrote, "The night advanced (Aorist, Indicative, Active) and the day has drawn near (Perfect, Indicative, Active).
- 1) That "the night advanced" means that history recorded that "the night" made a certain amount of progress so that it's "time" is up.
- 2) That "the day has drawn near" means, then, that history is on the cusp of the arrival of "the day".
- 2. Our question is this: is "the night" that "made progress" a "Big Plan" development in the scheme of God's Divine Plan, or is it a "small plan" development in the hearts/minds of the individual believers?
- 3. Paul's immediately prior declaration that "our salvation" is nearer now than when we believed seems to strongly suggest that he is dealing with "The Grand Plan" wherein there are two major developments.
- a. The first development was the coming of Jesus of Nazareth to accomplish a potent, "salvific" goal in which "the night" seemed to have triumphed by putting Him to death. The extreme wickedness of "the night" had been marching with the goal always in mind to hamstring the Plan of God. The "method" was "to subvert the foundation of salvation", but the only "mechanism" available to "the night" was powerful, slanderous, deceit coupled with murder of the body. This pursuit made most of its "goal" by promoting wicked behavior and pursuing Jesus to the death of the cross.
- 1) The word "night" is generally used of the dark period of the cycle of a "day".
- 2) But there are a few references to "night" as a sinister force; a metaphor arising out of the fact that men often do evil in the night because the darkness hides them from being easily discerned, and they often stumble because they cannot see (John 11:10; 1 Thessalonians 5:2; 5:5; and 5:7).
- 3) Paul is using the term metaphorically because he addresses the need to put away from us "the works of the night" and calls for us "to walk in the day".
- 4) Thus, Paul is referring to that period of the growth of the mystery of iniquity that persistently sought to derail God's Plan by preventing the coming of Jesus to bring salvation into play.
- b. The second development is prophesied to be another "coming" of Jesus from heaven to bring about the establishment of a kingdom of righteousness upon the earth. This will be an event that will exist as the actual dawn of "the Day". Whereas, in the first coming, the goal was to provide the foundation of "salvation" in the death of the Cross, in the second coming, the goal is to eradicate the wicked from the earth by means of a period of great tribulation such as the world has never seen, nor ever will see again.
- 4. Paul's words about "the night has advanced almost to its demise" and "the day is near in terms of its accomplishment in ultimate terms of salvation" is, thus, taken to be a very large overview with no particular attention to the details of the interim except the encouragement to each believer to cease participation with the nefarious objective of "the night".
- a. That there has already been a two-thousand year period of God's Great Plan (to include the building of The Church) has caused many to denigrate the terms "far advanced" and "near".
- 1) In what sense did "the night" exhaust its methodologies in Paul's day except to take the main issue into focus? Jesus declared just before His crucifixion that "now" will the ruler of this world be cast out (John 12:31). His very next statement refers to His crucifixion and it casts the entire conflict motif into a contest of "methodology" where "the ruler of this world depends upon killing his Opponent" and Jesus depends upon His voluntary death for the purpose of establishing true "righteousness" through the "justification" of those who believe Him. As soon as Jesus "died" both had "done the very best they could do" to accomplish their goals, and Jesus' goal came out the winner. Satan's methods are doomed to fail; God's methods are irrepressible and incapable of being made futile. Once Jesus was dead, "the night" had done all it could do; but, it was not enough. Thus, "the night advanced", but that "advance" only brought the dawn of "the day" into "nearness". The "night's" loss is complete and the last vestiges of its methods of deceit and murder are only the groanings and twitching of its own death. The "day's" triumph is yet to be clearly seen, but its arrival is inevitable and will powerfully destroy the works of the ruler of this world.
- 2) The "denigration" is actually pointedly addressed by Peter in his final letter when he plainly declared that a goodly amount of time would go by before the triumph of the Cross would be clearly seen by The Resurrected's Return in great power and glory. It is this "goodly amount of delay" that creates the "denigration" but it is all a matter of perspective seeing that a "day" with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years are as a day (2 Peter 3:8).
- b. Paul is simply addressing the twin realities of a long-developing night that reached its zenith with the murder of Jesus, and a "near" arrival of a day that will bring "salvation" to the fulness of its promises.