Charles Ellicott Commentary Romans 13:11

"And this, knowing the season, that already it is time for you to awake out of sleep: for now is salvation nearer to us than when we [first] believed." — Romans 13:11 (ASV)

And that, knowing the time.—And that there is all the more urgent motive for you to do—this law of love, it is the more incumbent on you to practice—because you know what a critical moment it is in which you are living. The word for “time” here is different from that used in the next clause and signifies a definite and critical season.

Awake out of sleep.—This is a striking metaphor. The true, genuine Christian life is like the state of a person whose eyes are open and whose faculties are all alert and vigorous. Everything else, whatever it may be, the state of heathenism or of imperfect and lukewarm Christianity, is like the torpor of sleep.

Our salvation.—That blissful participation in His kingdom which the Messiah at His Second Coming should inaugurate for His people. (Romans 8:23, the manifestation of the sons of God, the redemption of the body; Luke 21:28, your redemption draweth nigh.)

When we believed.—When we first became Christians. Every hour brings the expected end nearer.

On verses 11-14:

The Apostle now gives a reason for enforcing this and other duties upon his readers. The end of the world itself is near.

St. Paul, like the other Apostles (compare to 1 Peter 4:7; Revelation 22:20, and others), certainly believed that the Parusia, or Second Coming of Christ, was near at hand. This was in strict accordance with Mark 13:32 and resulted naturally from the peculiar form of the Jewish Messianic expectation. A great shock had been given to the disciples by the crucifixion of Him whom they thought to be the Messiah, and though they began to recover from this as soon as they were convinced of His resurrection, they still could not reconcile themselves to it entirely.

The humiliation of the cross was still a stumbling-block to them taken alone, but falling back upon another portion of their beliefs, they looked to see it supplemented, and its shameful side cancelled, by a second coming in power and great glory. Their previous expectations, vague as they were, led them to regard this as part of the one manifestation of the Messiah, and they did not expect to see a long interval of time interposed.