“Put on the Lord Jesus Christ” in Romans 13:14 is interpreted in various ways. As a metaphorical language, it could be regarded to have multiple senses, and scholars often derive its meanings from its usage in Jewish and Greco-Roman sources and Paul’s utilization of similar clothing imagery (Gal 3:27; Eph 4:24; Col 3:10).
In this paper, I will focus more on the immediate context of Romans 13:11–14, where the metaphor is positioned alongside a variety of paired images. I will argue that the “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ” metaphor highlights the concept that believers are clothed with the power of Christ’s resurrection in their union with Christ. The metaphor can convey another meaning of “adopting Christ’s character and example” in believers’ ethical living and I do not deny this interpretation. However, I contend that among the multiple senses, the idea of “adopting power” is most highlighted in context (cf. Judg 6:34; 1 Chr 12:18; 2 Chr 24:20), and this meaning is subtly linked with Paul’s idea of union with Christ (Rom 6).
I will develop my argument through a thorough exegetical study of Romans 13:11–14, focusing on the series of images in paired metaphors such as night vs day and darkness vs light (vv. 12–13), covered with the eschatological undertone in the passage. Concepts from metaphor theory such as novel and conventional metaphors, their relationship, and the concepts of “highlighting” and “hiding” will facilitate my exegesis.
This investigation will reveal that the “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ” metaphor (Rom 13:14) is highly correlated with the “Put on the weapons of light” metaphor (Rom 13:12) regarding the former’s meaning. Furthermore, this paper will show that the “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ” metaphor is not used spontaneously but was created within the progression of his thought in the context. In other words, Paul created the metaphor to effectively communicate his ethical vision, that he perceives believers’ ethical living in terms of “adopting certain aspects of Christ.”
In this regard, this paper will offer a modest contribution to how to interpret Romans 13:14 from the view of its position with other linguistic elements in near context, and to how Paul’s theological thoughts are embedded in his ethical exhortations.
Grounded in Janet M. Soskice’s Metaphor and Religious Language (1985) and George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s Metaphors We Live by (1980), I will interact with NT scholars who have incorporated metaphor theory into exegesis such as Erin M. Heim’s Adoption in Galatians and Romans (2017), as well as studies on Paul’s ethics through clothing imagery such as Michael Thompson’s Clothed with Christ (1991) and Jung Hoon Kim’s The Significance of Clothing Imagery in the Pauline Corpus (2004), and other related works including Joshua W. Jipp’s Pauline Theology as a Way of Life (2023).