Night, day, and armor imagery (13:11–14)

Says Romans 13:11–14 connects waking from sleep and the approaching day with rejecting drunkenness, sexual wrongdoing, dissension, and jealousy, and with putting on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sanday and Headlam discuss the contrast between darkness and light and compare the armor image with other Pauline passages, including 1 Thess 5:8 and Eph 6:13 and following (Romans, 1922 Scribner printing, p. 378). They tentatively suggest a Jewish background involving a final conflict, while describing Paul’s armor imagery as spiritual rather than literal military equipment. Their suggestion is a proposed background comparison, not evidence that Paul used a particular document.

Implies The immediate connection between the images and the rejected vices makes their ethical force clear: readiness entails changed conduct, not an instruction to arm for physical conflict (13:12–14).

The comparison neither establishes a general Greco-Roman convention equating night with vice nor identifies a particular rite behind the clothing language. It also does not determine the precise eschatological horizon of the approaching day; the note on waking and clothing considers that question. No historical event or timetable is reconstructed from the metaphor.