Subject: Sanctification - Romans 13-14

Romans 13:11-12 (ESV Strong's)

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Subject:   Sanctification

Paul has spent the better portion of this parchment to write about the Justification of man.   He wanted them to know that Justification was completely and only by God.   At the beginning of chapter 12 through the end of the book, he begins to address how we should live in view of that Justification.  In light of being fully justified by God, what should happen to our lives?   In these remaining chapters Paul wants them to know that justification will automatically begin to make a change in person's life.  If that person has, by faith, come to Christ, their lives will begin to change.   That change of life is called Sanctification.   In Justification, through faith, we are have been declared righteous by the work of Christ. In Sanctification, through faith, we are being made righteous.   In the above passage Paul writes that the hour (not "time" hours, but "period" hours) is now upon us.   God's salvation was not a period of time in the past, but an era of time we are living in NOW.   Justification was a moment in time where God declared us righteous.   Sanctification is a period of time whereby God is making us righteous.   By faith we are asking God's justification to take root in our lives and produced a sanctified life.  All by faith.  One unseen and the other demonstrated by the fruit produced by the Spirit.   When Paul tells us to cast off the works of darkness (how we used to live) and to put on the armor of light (the life in, of and by the Spirit) he is telling us that our faith does not stop at Justification.   He is telling us that, by faith, we are live in such a way that our old life is consumed by the life in the Spirit.   When Paul says it is "time to wake from sleep" he is saying, our belief woke us up and we must keep believing to see this change take place in our lives.   We began in belief and we must finish in belief.   Spiritual growth is now and it is done just as we begun, through faith and belief in Christ's work in our lives.