When Paul tells the Roman believers that it is time to awake from sleep, that salvation is nearer to us than when we believed, that the night is advanced and the day has drawn near, that they should put on the weapons of light, that they should walk properly as in the day, that they should make no provision for the desires of the flesh (Rom. 13:11-14), he means that a day of persecution is approaching from which they will be ‘saved’ by putting on the armour of a sober and righteous lifestyle. With hindsight we must conclude that what Paul is speaking about is the suffering that Nero would inflict on the church less than a decade later. This is when they would see the salvation of God that had now drawn near.

The coming of the day - contrary to the consensus of commentators - does not bring an end to trouble: the night is not the ‘present evil age’ (cf. Gal. 1:4) from which they are waiting to be saved. On the contrary, the coming of the day marks the beginning of trouble, which is why, like soldiers before a battle, they must wake from sleep and put on the armour that will protect them in a time of persecution. Wright can only apologize for Paul’s mixed metaphors here (Wright, Romans, 728), but this misses the point. The only reason for them to wake up at this late stage in the night and put on armour is that they face a severe conflict and need to be ready for it.

14 They put on Christ for the same purpose - not because that is what it means to be Christian but because that is how, as a community, they will survive the coming day of wrath. Christ is the one who has already survived the destruction that is the coming of God’s wrath against Israel.

We find the same argument in 1 Thessalonians and Ephesians. The ‘day of the Lord’ will come unexpectedly, bringing ‘sudden destruction’, but the believers are already ‘sons of light and sons of the day’ - they have been chosen and prepared precisely for this day of eschatological transition; they are an eschatological community in this specific sense. So during this ‘night’ of waiting they should not sleep or get drunk but should put on the armour that will protect them from the destructive force of the day of God’s wrath (1 Thess. 5:1-11).

Similarly, the Ephesians are to leave behind all manner of idolatry and immorality, because it is behaviour of this sort which will bring the wrath of God upon the ‘sons of disobedience’ (Eph. 5:6; cf. 2:3). They are to leave behind darkness and walk in the light; they are to ‘awake… and rise from the dead’; they are to walk carefully in the light ‘because the days are evil’ (5:7-16). Finally, they are to put on the ‘armour of God’ so that they may be able to resist the schemes of the devil and stand fast ‘in the day of evil’, when they will find themselves assaulted by the ferocious spiritual powers that move darkly behind the political institutions of flesh and blood (Eph. 6:10-16). Paul’s parenesis is oriented towards an eschatological event - an ‘day of evil’, a ‘day of redemption’ for which they have been sealed (Eph. 4:30), a ‘day of fire’ that will test the character and faith of the community (cf. 1 Cor. 3:13).