Romans 13:11-14

Do this, knowing the time, that it is already time for you to awaken out of sleep, for salvation is now nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is far gone, and the day is near. Let’s therefore throw off the works of darkness, and let’s put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and lustful acts, and not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, for its lusts.

Notice how Paul talks about the time of salvation being future here. He uses this future hope as the motivation behind the actions that we take today by saying that since the time of our salvation is getting closer and closer, we should act in a specific way.

It is easy to be confused when talking about salvation as a future event. The fact is that Paul uses all tenses when discussing salvation. He talks about the fact that we were saved, he talks about being saved, and he talks about our future salvation. This time, Paul is talking about the salvation that comes in the future, and as I mentioned before, the future salvation will be better than what we currently have.

The future salvation is when we get our new bodies; the ones that are like the body of Jesus after he was raised from the dead. Our future salvation is the one that finally takes away our ability to sin and makes us truly righteous like Jesus. We should be looking forward to this time with a great amount of hope and that hope should fuel our desire to live as ones who are destined to be without any sin at all.

Right now, our bodies are a problem and Jesus is the solution. That’s why we should “throw off” the body’s desires and “put on” Jesus. Jesus is compared to armor because, we are in a fight as long as we are still waiting and hoping for our future salvation.