<p>13:11 <i>And consider this too: Knowing the time, that already it is time for you to awake out of sleep</i><em>- </em>God actually saw us as saved right from the beginning of the world; He purposed, and effectively it was done. Perhaps this is the hardest thing our faith has to grapple with. &quot;Knowing the time, that for us, the hour already is to be aroused out of sleep&quot; and be resurrected (Rom. 13:11 YLT) may mean (contrary to the implication of the AV) that for us who are with God now, the time of resurrection and salvation is now with us, and therefore we should live lives which answer to this fact. The day of salvation is in that sense <em>today</em>&nbsp;(2 Cor. 6:2 Gk.). So sure is God's word that it is as if the concept of a delay between its utterance and the fulfilment is something not to be considered. Thus &quot;the vision&quot; is an ellipsis for 'the fulfilment of the vision' in Hab. 2:3. Although our day by day spirituality fluctuates, God is beyond time. He sees us either as an essentially good tree bringing forth good fruit, or as essentially bad (Mt. 7:23). And yet my sense is that here we have yet another example of where the early believers fully expected the Lord's return in their lifetimes. This was not simply because they were mistaken, or because the Lord's scheduled return in the first century was delayed because the church wasn't ready for it. This expectation of the Lord's soon return is, it could be argued, actually part of the Christian faith. We are to live in expectation of His imminent return, whether or not we consider current events to align with the relevant prophecies.</p><p><em>For now is our salvation nearer to us than when we first believed- </em>The &quot;salvation&quot; is &quot;the day&quot; of the Lord's return (:12). We are chronologically nearer to that final salvation than when we first believed. This suggests a specific start point for 'first belief'; confirming that there is a specific point when a person becomes a believer, rather than belief being something drifted into as a result of upbringing or exposure to Christian preaching. And that specific point in time is surely baptism. &quot;Nearer&quot; uses the same word used by the Lord in saying that we know His coming is 'near' because of the fulfilment of the signs in the Olivet prophecy (Mt. 24:32,33). Those signs were indeed fulfilled- His coming was indeed scheduled for the first century. But it was delayed, because the required preconditions of Israel's repentance, the spreading of the Gospel and the required spiritual fruit in the church were just not met. And so it has been delayed until our days. And we face the same urgent challenges in those same areas which the early church failed in.</p>