Put on Christ

When Augustine heard those children's words, his eyes fell upon a large Bible that was chained, and he let the Bible just open up anywhere, and his eyes fell upon the printed page. And here's what he read, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust, and like a lightning bolt, the Word of God pierced his heart, and this was the text used by Almighty God to convert the soul of Augustine. You've heard this week not only the clarity of the gospel presented in the book of Romans by the Apostle Paul, but also how the Lord used this book to convert the German monk Martin Luther.

And today, as we move ahead to chapter 13, we'll hear how the Lord used that chapter to convert Saint Augustine, often referred to as Augustine of Hippo. Welcome to the Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. As this is the Friday edition, it's the last time that we'll be in Romans, and the last opportunity you'll have to secure an early copy of The Power of the Gospel by R.C.

Sproul. This new year-long hardcover devotional begins shipping in just a few weeks. So request yours with a gift of any amount at renewingyourmind.org, and spend 2025 in Romans with Dr. Sproul as your guide.

Here's Dr. Sproul in Romans 13, beginning in verse 8. Owe no one anything except to love one another, the text does make mention of an obligation of something that we do owe, and a debt that can never be remitted fully in this world. We can pay our debts to the bank. We can pay our debt to the store.

We can pay our debt to the credit card company. But our debt in this world to love our neighbor is never discharged until we cross into heaven. This is a perpetual obligation, an indebtedness that is given to us in the great commandment, which calls us to love the Lord our God with all of our heart strength and soul and so on, and our neighbors as we love ourselves. And immediately here the Apostle links this obligation of love to some of the Ten Commandments. For the conclusion he reaches is this, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.

Now I want to come back to that in just a moment. Then he mentions certain of the commandments. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness.

You shall not covet. And if there's any other commandment, all are summed up in this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Now when Paul lists some of the Ten Commandments, the ones that he mentioned are those that are often described as coming from the second table of the law. And if we look at the beginning of the Ten Commandments, the first few prescribe our responsibility to God on a vertical plane. And then the focus of the Ten Commandments moves to our responsibility of how we treat each other as human beings with respect to no adultery, no murder, no stealing, no coveting, no false witness, and the like.

But we notice here that the ones that are mentioned are the ones that prescribe behavior on the horizontal plane, that describe our behavior toward each other. And Paul is saying here that whoever loves another has fulfilled the law. This is not any serious departure from what our Lord Himself taught on the matter or what was found in the great commandment that I've already alluded to that concludes with the statement, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Now this brief passage here has created lots of consternation, particularly in the second half of the twentieth century, and again particularly in American liberal Christianity where with the publication and popularization by Joseph Fletcher in his book Situation Ethics, the basic thesis of that borrowed from a more sophisticated treatment of ethics by the Princeton scholar Paul Lehman, Ethics in the Christian Context, Fletcher developed this famous concept of situation ethics and whereby he reduced the entire law of God to one essential precept, and that is the law of love. And he would quote, for example, from St. Augustine where Augustine was famous for saying, love God and do as you please. When Augustine said love God and do as you please, and as he expressed that in its more profound fullness, he was saying that if your decisions on how you treat your fellow person are always motivated by a love for God, a singular love for God, you really don't even have to worry about the law because what the law reflects is what is pleasing to God. And if you love God, you can do as you please because you will be doing what pleases God.

Is that simple? Love God and do as you please mean that if you really love Him, what will please you is what pleases Him, and what pleases Him is revealed to us in His law. Now the rule of love of situation is this, love God and do what the love of God requires in every human situation. The Apostle Paul in speaking of the love of God on one occasion said, let not fornication be once named among you as befitting saints. In other words, the Apostle was saying, I can't envision any earthly situation that would justify disobedience to God's law of purity. When Paul talks about love here, he's talking about love fulfilling something. He's talking about the purpose of the law, the goal of the law, where the law takes us ultimately, and where it takes us is to the love of our neighbor. Further on he says, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Augustine commented on that as well.

There's this question associated with this text. We know that as part of our fallen nature, in fact a strong part of our fallen nature, is a kind of distorted self-love, which is rooted and grounded in selfishness. And so some interpret the great commandment to love your neighbor as you love yourself to mean you are to love your neighbor as much as you sinfully love yourself. Others look at this text and say, no, there is a legitimate virtuous kind of self-love that is not a sin, that is not a violation of the law of God, and that it is perfectly natural for human beings, even unfallen human beings, to have a simple affection for themselves. We are called to deny ourselves in certain situations, but we are not called to hold ourselves in absolute contempt because we are made in the image of God, and there is a certain dignity that God assigns to us. We can easily inflate that importance and self-worth as Paul has addressed already here in his letter to the Romans. But at the same time, there's not the idea implicit in the great commandment that the love of the self is inherently evil.

Now which way is intended by the law we don't know. So either view of that could possibly be right, but in any case we do know that we have a kind of self-love and that we are to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves. The other question is what does it mean to love your neighbor and who is your neighbor? Remember Jesus was given that question, who is my neighbor in terms of an attempt to get him to exegete the Old Testament great commandment that calls us to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves, and Jesus could have answered that question very simply and directly as a rabbi by saying, look, when the Bible says love your neighbor, the Bible is saying by that love everybody because everybody is your neighbor.

Your neighbor is not just somebody that lives next door or down the street or in your neighborhood. Now again parenthetically we hear this terribly distorted idea that the basic essence of Christianity is the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man, and I have to keep repeating that the Bible nowhere teaches the universal brotherhood of man. Now by nature Jesus told us we are children of Satan and we belong to his family. Now I am laboring the point that we're not all brothers. The unbeliever out there in that community is not my brother, but he is my neighbor.

And what the Bible does teach is the universal neighborhood of man and that the law of the neighborhood in which God is the supreme mayor is the law of love that is to be given to everybody. Again who is my neighbor? Jesus doesn't say everybody is your neighbor.

All people are neighbors. He answered that question differently. You know how he answered the question, who is my neighbor? He said, who is your neighbor? A man went down from Jericho and fell among thieves, and this thief beat him and robbed him and left him in the road for dead. Then he tells the story of the priest and the Pharisee who come and cross the street to the other side and ignore the bleeding fellow. But a Samaritan who had no business dealing with the Jews saw this man in the street, took compassion, went out of his way, bound up his wounds, took him to the inn, paid the innkeeper for his continual treatment there, and then went on his way. And Jesus answered the question, who is my neighbor with the parable of the good Samaritan.

And so we see the biblical responsibility extends to all people. And just a quick recapitulation of this horizontal aspect of the law to remind you that the love that we are to have for our neighbor that is revealed in the law includes these things. If we love our neighbor, if we love our fellow human being, we won't commit adultery because adultery is the hatred of our neighbor.

It is the destruction of our friends, of our family. You shall not murder or steal. You don't love your neighbor and then help yourself to their possessions. If you love people, you don't slander them. You don't poison everybody to them.

You don't stab them in the back behind their back. That kind of behavior violates the specific law of God and most of all violates the law of love. I can't love you and slander you at the same time. God understood that. God understood what destroys human relationships. God understood and understands what destroys and fractures love. Paul sums this up by saying love does no harm to a neighbor. Isn't that a simple way of putting it? If you love your neighbor, friends, you don't harm your neighbor by stealing from him or slandering him, being jealous of him, envious, bearing false witness, backstabbing.

No, if you love somebody, you don't want to harm them. And that's the way we're supposed to live as Christians, that we're supposed to be known by the love that we have for one another. Therefore, Paul concludes, love is the fulfillment of the law. Now granted, this is just a really quick, short, and terse treatment of that theme here in Romans. Paul wrote a whole chapter to the Corinthians when he explained to them what it means to love. 1 Corinthians 13 is not a treatise on romance.

It's a treatise of loving one's neighbor and what that means. Alright, the tone changes now in verse 11, and I'm going to plunge on. And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, and the day is at hand. Therefore, cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Now, as Paul enjoins a certain kind of behavior and prohibits another in this section, he prefaces it by reminding the people what time it was. And I say this to you knowing the time, knowing that it's high time, that it is high time to wake up. It's not a time to take a nap. This is a time that requires vigilance, alertness, and diligence.

Why? For now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. Well, let's unpack that. Is this again another one of those examples where the Apostle believed the return of Jesus was going to come fully and finally within his lifetime and then later had to change his whole theology of the future as many critics assume? What is Paul talking about when he says their salvation is nearer than it ever was? Some refer that to the closeness of the advent of Christ that Paul anticipated in the first century, and he may have been thinking in terms of the destruction of Jerusalem here, saying, wake up. Wake up. It's closer than you think any day now. The judgment of God is going to come upon you, maybe.

But most commentators I think, and rightly so, think that what Paul is talking about is the consummation of our salvation when we pass into glory. How old are you? Let me ask another question. How old were you ten years ago? Well, I can answer that for you. You were ten years younger than you are now. How old will you be ten years from now?

Again, you can do the simple math given your age at the moment. But the deeper question is, where will you be ten years from now? Where will you be twenty years from now? Let me cut the gordian knot here and say, where will I be in fifty years?

There's no doubt about that. I'm not going to be in this pulpit fifty years from now. Where will you be? Some of you, young people, God willing, will still be here. Where will you be in a hundred years? But you know, in the fullness of time, a hundred years is not that long. And fifty years is only half of that. Ten years is only a tenth of it.

I don't care how old you are. It's time to wake up because the day is approaching. The end of our lives is approaching. That's what I think Paul is talking about here. Our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

What? Salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. I thought that when we first believed, we were saved.

Isn't that the way we talk as Christians? When were you saved? Well, I was saved February 13, 1957, eleven o'clock. I was saved. And then the preachers come and say, well, boy, you're a lot closer to salvation now than you were when you were first saved. First saved? How many times do I have to be saved?

First time, second time, third time, fourth time? Now here what Paul is dealing with are the tenses of the verbs of the Greek word sotsosotsamae, which means to save. And that word appears in the biblical text in every one of the tenses of the Greek verbs, which are far more than what we find in English. There was a sense in which you were saved from the foundation of the world. There's a sense in which you were saved. There's a sense in which you were being saved. There's a sense in which you have been saved.

There's a simple errorist you are saved. There's the present act of you are being saved. There's the future you shall be saved.

There's the future perfect you shall have been saved. And salvation is unfolded biblically in all of those different increments. And in the ultimate sense of salvation is not something that you experienced when you were born again. That was one aspect of salvation, but the fullness of your salvation does not take place until your glorification, until you enter into heaven. And Paul is addressing believers. He says the fullness of your salvation is much closer today than it was when you first believed. You know, friends, that is not bad news. That's good news that the fullness of our salvation comes closer to us with every passing hour.

But that has implications. He uses a figure from the normal daily movement of the sun, the difference between night and day. He says the night is far spent. And he's describing that time that has passed already as the nighttime. We're now in the last watch of the night. The dawn of the fullness of our salvation is about to break through. The day or the time of darkness is passing, and the time of the fullness of living in the light is at hand. Again, this metaphor is used over and over and over again in the Scriptures that by nature we are children of darkness. And the Bible uses that metaphor to describe sin and that we love by nature, we love darkness rather than the light because our deeds are evil. People love darkness because it conceals us from exposure. But when we are brought into the fullness of the day, then we are known for what we are.

The night, Paul says, is far spent. The day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Let's walk properly as in the day. Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. Earlier in this book we looked in the very first chapter of the letter to the Romans, and we saw the thematic introduction to the doctrine of justification. I mentioned on that occasion that when Luther understood that through the interpretive eyes of his patron Saint Augustine and understood the gospel of justification by faith for the first time, I remember I told you that Luther wrote, he said, when I saw the gospel, the gates of paradise opened, and I walked through.

And so we know that one of the impacts of the book of Romans in church history was that God used this epistle of Paul to awaken Luther and to bring about the Protestant Reformation. But now we come to another one of those passages where there was a young man who, in defiance of his mother's Christian commitment and defiance of God, lived a life of unbridled licentiousness. He had fathered a child out of wetlock. He had involved himself in the gross practices of the pagans of his day, and he was a brilliant student of philosophy.

But he was as corrupt in the flesh as he was brilliant in his intellectual acumen. And one day he was standing in a garden where children were playing, and they had a refrain as they were playing a little children's game, and the refrain was simply this, tolalega, tolalega, tolalega, which means pick up and read, pick up and read. And when Aurelius Augustine heard those children's words, his eyes fell upon a large Bible that was chained, and he let the Bible just open up anywhere, and his eyes fell upon the printed page. And here's what he read, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust. And like a lightning bolt, the Word of God pierced his heart, and this was the text used by Almighty God to convert the soul of Aurelius Augustine, whose ministry continues to this place even tonight. Not in rioting and drunkenness. The reference there in the text is to the practice of the pagan religion under the aegis of the god Bacchus, who was the god of the grape, the god of the vine, and he was the sponsor of the ancient Bacchanalia, which was an orgiastic feast involving gluttony and unbridled sexual behavior and an intentional work to get drunk so that in the drunken stupor, the pangs of conscience could be silenced and people could then engage in unbridled sin, the Bacchanalia.

That's what's in view here. And Augustine's eyes fall upon the text and he says, not in this debauchery, Aurelius, not in this kind of lifestyle, not in this kind of hedonism, not of this kind of unrestrained licentiousness, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh. An odd use of the term from which the word providence comes. Don't provide opportunities for sin. The old country preacher said if you were trying to get over drunkenness, don't tie your horse to the post in front of the saloon. Don't make provisions.

If you struggle with sexual temptation, don't subscribe to Playboy or other such things. Don't make provisions for human sin and weakness. Luther put it this way. He said, I can't stop the birds from flying around in the air near me, but I don't have to let them nest in my hair.

That's what it means by not making extra provisions to accommodate our base desires. Instead, provide for your soul. Put on Christ, and walk as people who walk in daylight. An important and serious reminder for each of us on this Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind.

That was R.C. Sproul from his sermon series in Romans, sermons that he preached at St. Andrew's Chapel in Sanford, Florida. And it was these sermons that formed the basis for his expositional commentary on Romans and led to the development of a new resource, The Power of the Gospel. It's a year-long devotional in Romans with additional application for each day's reading. And the hardcover edition can be yours when you give a gift of any amount, when you call us at 800-435-4343, or when you give your gift online at renewingyourmind.org. This new devotional begins shipping in just a few weeks, so be one of the first to receive a copy when you respond today at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes.

But remember, this offer ends at midnight, so be quick and don't delay. Thank you for fueling the listener-supported outreach of Renewing Your Mind. The Reformation led to wonderful summaries of the Christian faith in various confessions and catechisms. One of the most precise and comprehensive is the Westminster Confession of Faith. And you'll hear R.C. Sproul teach from that confession beginning Monday, here on Renewing Your Mind. .