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Ephesians 6:10-20 reveals that Christ is the constituents of God’s armor. In this portion of the Word, the church is revealed as the warrior to defeat God’s enemy. As the warrior, the church needs might and the whole armor of God.
Verse 11 opens with the words, “Put on the whole armor of God.” To fight the spiritual warfare, we need the whole armor of God. The whole armor of God is for the entire Body, not for any individual member of the Body. The church is a corporate warrior, and the believers together make up this unique warrior. Only the corporate warrior can wear the whole armor of God; no individual believer can. We must fight the spiritual warfare in the Body, not individually.
The charge to put on the whole armor of God is an imperative, a command. God has provided the armor for us, but He does not put it on for us. Rather, we ourselves must put on the armor God has provided. We must exercise our will to cooperate with God’s command to put on the armor.
The Lord with His might is the armor that we put on for our protection. We as the Body need to put on Christ Himself as our armor. In order to fight the spiritual warfare, we must have Christ as the whole armor of God.
The first part of verse 14 says, “Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth.” For us to gird our loins is to strengthen our entire being. Our whole being needs to be strengthened with truth. This strengthening is not for sitting but for standing.
According to the way the word truth is used in chapter 4 (vv. 15, 21, 24-25), truth here refers to God in Christ as reality in our living, that is, God realized and experienced by us as our living. This is actually Christ Himself lived out by us (John 14:6). Such truth, such reality, is the girdle that strengthens our whole being for spiritual warfare. Our living must have a principle and a standard. This is nothing less than God Himself expressed in our living in a practical way. When such truth girds our loins, we are made strong for the purpose of standing.
Suppose, however, that our daily living is far below the standard of the truth as it is in Jesus. Instead of being able to stand and to withstand in the evil day, we will flee. Because in our daily walk there is no testimony and no expression of God, we do not have the strength to stand against the stratagems of the devil. If our daily living is loose, we are not able to stand against the powers of darkness. In order for us to stand, our daily living must be according to the principle of the truth and up to the standard of the truth — that is, God Himself expressed as the principle of our daily walk, as the standard of our daily living, and as the pattern of our life.
Those who have such a living certainly have their loins girded with truth. These are the ones who are able to face attack and opposition. Because they are girded with truth, they can stand before the opposers. But if God is not expressed in our daily life and walk, we will not have a girdle about our loins, and we will have no strength to stand against the enemy. We will not have the power to face opposition or controversy.
The truth with which we are girded for spiritual warfare is actually the Christ whom we experience. In Philippians 1:21 Paul says, “To me, to live is Christ.” This Christ whom Paul lived was his girdle of truth. This Christ was God expressed and revealed in Paul’s daily walk. Because Paul’s daily living was conformed to the pattern of Christ, he had the strength to face all opposition and adverse circumstances. Because Paul had been girded with truth, he had the strength to stand.
In Ephesians 6:14 Paul goes on to say, “Having put on the breastplate of righteousness.” The breastplate of righteousness covers our conscience, signified by the breast. Satan is our accuser. In fighting against him we need a conscience void of offense (Acts 24:16), but no matter how good we may feel our conscience is, we need to have it covered with the breastplate of righteousness. Righteousness is to be right with both God and man. If we have just a little problem with either God or man, Satan will accuse us, and there will be holes in our conscience through which all of our faith and boldness will leak out. Hence, we need the covering of righteousness to protect us from the enemy’s accusations. Such righteousness is Christ (1 Cor. 1:30).
If in anything we are not righteous, our conscience will be a conscience with offense, but if we are to engage in spiritual warfare, we must have a conscience void of offense, a conscience without holes. When our conscience has holes in it, our faith will leak out through the holes. If accusations and offenses remain on our conscience, faith will disappear. Therefore, we need to deal with our conscience in order to have a good conscience, a conscience void of offense. In addition, we need to put on the breastplate of righteousness to cover our conscience.
Revelation 12:11 says, “They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb.” To be covered by the blood of the Lamb is mainly to have upon us the breastplate of righteousness. Righteousness is in the blood, and the covering of the blood is the breastplate. Although this may be difficult to explain doctrinally, we can understand it experientially. Whenever we intend to fight against the powers of darkness, Satan, through his accusations, causes our conscience to become very sensitive. These feelings actually are not the sensitivity of the conscience but the result of Satan’s accusations. Immediately our response to such accusations should be, “I overcome Satan, the accuser, not by my perfection and not even by a conscience void of offense but by the blood of the Lamb. I am defended against his accusations by the breastplate of righteousness.”
The righteousness that covers our conscience and that guards us from Satan’s accusations is Christ Himself. He is our righteousness. We are covered not by our own righteousness but by Christ as our righteousness. Some may wonder how the breastplate of righteousness can be related both to Christ and to the blood. In experience we cannot separate the blood from Christ. Apart from His blood, Christ could not cover us. Under the cleansing of His blood, He becomes our righteousness. Whenever we are about to take part in the spiritual warfare, we need to pray, “Lord, cover me with Yourself as my righteousness. Lord, I hide under Your blood.” Furthermore, we must tell the accuser, “Satan, I overcome you, not by my merit but by the prevailing blood of the Lamb.”
Ephesians 6:15 says, “Having shod your feet with the firm foundation of the gospel of peace.” Our feet must be shod in order to have a firm footing and the strength to stand in the battle. This is not for walking a way or running a course but for fighting the battle.
The expression the firm foundation of the gospel of peace means the establishment of the gospel of peace. Christ has made peace for us on the cross, both with God and with man, and this peace has become our gospel (2:13-17). This gospel of peace has been established as a firm foundation, as a readiness with which our feet may be shod. Being thus shod, we will have a firm footing that we may stand to fight the spiritual warfare. The peace for such a firm foundation also is Christ (v. 14).
In order to understand Paul’s thought in this verse, we need to see that here the gospel is the gospel of peace. According to verses 15 and 16, on the cross Christ accomplished peace so that the Gentiles could contact the Jewish believers and so that all the believers could contact God. This peace is the glad tidings, the good news; in other words, it is the gospel. For this reason, verse 17 says that Christ preached the gospel of peace.
We also should preach this peace as the gospel. The gospel of peace spoken of in 6:15 is the peace accomplished by Christ on the cross for all the believers to be one with God and for the Gentile believers to be one with the Jewish believers. This peace is our gospel. With this peace there is a firm foundation, which is a secure footing for our standing. Therefore, the peace accomplished by Christ on the cross is a firm footing, a firm foundation. As we fight against the evil powers, the peace Christ has accomplished is a firm foundation for our feet. To take part in the spiritual warfare, our feet must be shod with this firm foundation.
In fighting, the crucial thing is to stand. We must be able to stand and to withstand the attacks of the enemy. Those who are defeated will run, but those who are victorious will stand. As we wrestle against the enemy, we will find that Satan does not run away. Even when we are victorious over him, he continues to wrestle with us. Therefore, we need to be able to stand. Spiritual warfare is a wrestling match. In order to wrestle against the enemy, we need a firm footing. If we have our feet shod with the firm foundation of the gospel of peace, we can withstand any attack of the enemy. If we have such a firm footing, nothing can shake us. No matter what happens, we can stand and withstand in the evil day.
Usually peace is the opposite of warfare. When we have peace, we do not fight, and when we fight, we do not have peace. But here we fight with peace and in peace. We fight by standing in peace. If we lose the peace between us and God or between us and other believers (Col. 3:15), we lose the standing to fight. Christ is the peace for us to be one with God and to be one with the saints. This peace is the firm foundation that enables us to stand fast against the enemy.
Ephesians 6:16 says, “Besides all these, having taken up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming darts of the evil one.” We need truth to gird our loins, righteousness to cover our conscience, peace as the standing for our feet, and faith to shield our entire being. If we live by God as truth, we have righteousness (4:24), and righteousness issues in peace (Heb. 12:11; Isa. 32:17). Having all these, we can easily have faith as a shield against the flaming darts of the evil one. Christ is the Author and Perfecter of such faith (Heb. 12:2). For us to stand firmly in the battle, we need to be equipped with all these four items of God’s armor.
The shield of faith is not something that we put on, but something that we take up in order to protect ourselves against the attacks of the enemy. Faith comes after truth, righteousness, and peace. If we have truth in our living, righteousness as our covering, and peace as our standing, we will spontaneously have faith. This faith is a safeguard against the flaming darts, the attacks, of the enemy.
We certainly are not to have faith in our own ability, strength, merit, or virtue. Our faith must be in God (Mark 11:22). God is real, living, present, and available. We need to have faith in Him.
We also should have faith in God’s heart. Every Christian needs to know and trust both God and the heart of God. God’s heart toward us is always good. No matter what may happen to us or what kind of sufferings we may experience, we should always believe in the goodness of God’s heart (Rom. 8:31-39). God has no intention to punish us, to injure us, or to cause us to suffer loss.
Along with faith in God’s heart, we should have faith in God’s faithfulness (1 Cor. 1:9; 1 John 1:9). We may change, but God does not change. As James 1:17 says, with God there is no variation or shadow cast by turning. Furthermore, God cannot lie (Titus 1:2) but is always faithful to His word.
God is not only faithful but also able. Therefore, we need to have faith in God’s ability. In Ephesians 3:20 Paul declares that God “is able to do superabundantly above all that we ask or think.”
Still another aspect of our faith is faith in God’s word. God is bound to fulfill all that He has spoken. The more He speaks, the more responsible He becomes to fulfill His own word. We can tell Him, “God, You have spoken, and Your written Word is in our hand. Lord, You are bound to fulfill Your word.” We should praise God for His faithful word.
We also need to have faith in God’s will. Because God is a God of purpose, He has a will (1:9, 11). His will with respect to us is always positive. Hence, no matter what befalls us, we should not doubt God’s will, and we should not care for our happiness or our environment. Rather, we should have faith in and care for God’s will. Our environment may change, but God’s will never changes.
Furthermore, we must have faith in God’s sovereignty (Rom. 9:19-29). Because God is sovereign, He can never make a mistake. Under His sovereignty, even our mistakes work for good. If God did not sovereignly allow us to make mistakes, we could not possibly make them. When we are wrong, we need to repent. Yet there is no need for us to regret, for that means we lack faith that God is sovereign over our mistakes. After we repent for a mistake or shortcoming, we should exercise faith in God’s sovereignty. We could not have made that mistake if He had not sovereignly allowed us to do so. Hence, there is no need for regret.
We all need to have full faith in God, in God’s heart, in God’s faithfulness, in God’s ability, in God’s word, in God’s will, and in God’s sovereignty. If we have such faith, Satan’s flaming darts will not be able to damage us.
The flaming darts are Satan’s temptations, proposals, doubts, questions, lies, and attacks. Every temptation is a deceit, a false promise. Satan often makes proposals to us. For this reason, we need to get into the Word. If we are not in the Word, we will have no covering against the devil’s proposals. Doubts and questions are also the flaming darts of Satan. Note that a question mark looks very much like a serpent. It was Satan who asked Eve, “Did God really say?” (Gen. 3:1). When the devil questions us in this way, our response should be to flee, without even talking to him. Many times Satan attacks us with lies, but the shield of faith guards us against these flaming darts.
The devil’s flaming darts come as thoughts injected into our mind. These thoughts may seem to be our own thoughts, but they are actually Satan’s. We should never confess to the Lord all these thoughts injected into us by Satan in his subtlety. Instead, we should say, “Lord, I am fallen, but I am under Your cleansing. Satan, this thought is yours, and you must bear the responsibility for it. I will not share this responsibility.”
If we would have the faith to be defended against Satan’s flaming darts, we need a proper spirit with a conscience void of offense. However, faith is not mainly in our spirit nor in our conscience but in our will, the strongest part of our heart. Romans 10:10 says that we believe with our heart. According to our experience, this faith in our heart is related mainly to the exercise of our will. No one with a weak will can have strong faith. In James 1:6 we are told that he who doubts is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind. Such a person has a vacillating will. Hence, if we would have faith, we need to exercise our will.
In the first part of Ephesians 6:17 Paul goes on to say, “Receive the helmet of salvation.” This is for covering our mind against the negative thoughts directed at us by the evil one. Such a helmet, such a covering, is God’s salvation. Satan injects threats, worries, anxieties, and other weakening thoughts into our mind. God’s salvation is the covering that we take up against all these. Such a salvation is the saving Christ whom we experience in our daily life (John 16:33).
Satan’s darts come to us through our mind. Therefore, just as our conscience needs the breastplate of righteousness and our will needs the shield of faith, so our mind needs the helmet of salvation. We need truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and then salvation. If we have truth in our living, we will have righteousness as our covering. Righteousness issues in peace, and peace gives us the ground to have faith. Then faith brings in salvation.
In Ephesians 6:17 Paul also speaks of “the sword of the Spirit, which Spirit is the word of God.” Among the six items of God’s armor, the sword of the Spirit is the only one for attacking the enemy. With the sword we cut the enemy to pieces. However, we do not take up the sword first. Rather, we must first put on the girdle, the breastplate, and the shoes, and then take up the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation. When we are entirely protected and have salvation as our portion, we may receive the sword of the Spirit.
The antecedent of the word which in verse 17 is Spirit, not sword. This indicates that the Spirit is the word of God. Both the Spirit and the word are Christ (2 Cor. 3:17; Rev. 19:13). Christ as the Spirit and the word furnishes us with a sword as an offensive weapon to defeat and slay the enemy.
The Word is the Bible. But if this Word is only the printed letters, it is neither the Spirit nor the sword. The Greek word for word in Ephesians 6:17 is rhema, the instant word spoken at any moment by the Spirit in any situation. When the logos, the constant word in the Bible, becomes the rhema, the instant word, this rhema will be the Spirit. This rhema, which becomes the Spirit, is the sword that cuts the enemy to pieces. For example, we may read a particular verse again and again, only to have it remain the logos, a word in letters. Such a word cannot kill anything, but one day the Spirit speaks this verse to us, and it becomes the rhema to us, the present, instant, living speaking of the Spirit. At that time this rhema becomes the Spirit. For this reason, in John 6:63 the Lord Jesus said, “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” Here also the Greek text for words is rhema. The instant, present word is the Spirit; this kind of word is the sword. Therefore, the sword, the Spirit, and the word are one.
In our Christian experience the Word and the Spirit should always be one. Without taking the Word, we cannot have the Spirit. In our experience we receive the Spirit mostly through the Word. As we contact the Word in a living way, it becomes the Spirit to us. However, we should not take the Bible without the Spirit. We must have both the Word and the Spirit.
Christ is both the Spirit and the Word. He is not the Spirit without being the Word nor the Word without being the Spirit. Because He is both the Word and the Spirit, He created us with a mind to understand and a spirit to receive. When we come to the Bible, we should exercise both our mind and our spirit. We exercise our mind by reading and our spirit by praying. Since we need both to read and to pray, we should pray-read the Word. Through pray-reading our spirit becomes strong and ready to kill the enemy. We should not only exercise our spirit to receive the Spirit but also exercise our mind to consider the Word. The more our spirit is strengthened by pray-reading the Word, the more eager we become to use the sword of the Spirit to slay the enemy. In our speaking we should have a sword with which to cut the enemy to pieces.
With the whole armor of God we have truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation. Finally, we have the rhema, the Spirit, the sword; this is our offensive weapon for attacking the enemy. When we have the whole armor of God, including the sword, we are not only protected but also prepared to wrestle against the enemy. By having truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation, we are equipped, qualified, strengthened, and empowered to use the sword in spiritual warfare. Then the enemy is subject to the cutting of our sword, and he is slaughtered by us.
Ephesians 6:18 says, “By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this in all perseverance and petition concerning all the saints.” The expression by means of all prayer and petition modifies the word receive in verse 17. By prayer we receive both the helmet of salvation and the word of God. This indicates that we need to receive the word of God by means of all prayer and petition. We need to pray as we are receiving the word of God. We have seen that the whole armor of God is composed of six items. Prayer may be considered the seventh. It is the means by which we apply the other items.
The modifier by means of all prayer and petition in verse 18 is related to all six items of the armor covered in verses 14 through 17. It is by means of all prayer and petition that we gird our loins with the truth, put on the breastplate of righteousness, and have our feet shod with the firm foundation of the gospel of peace. Furthermore, it is by prayer that we take up the shield of faith and receive the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Whenever we are about to put on the armor or take up any item of the armor, we need to pray. We cannot and we should not attempt to use any part of God’s armor without prayer. Prayer is the unique way to apply the armor of God. It is prayer that makes the armor available to us in a practical way. Therefore, prayer is crucial and vital.
Verse 10 says, “Be empowered in the Lord and in the might of His strength.” The Greek word here rendered empowered has the same root as the word for power in 1:19. To deal with God’s enemy, to fight against the evil force of darkness, we need to be empowered with the greatness of the power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him in the heavens, far above all the evil spirits in the air. The fact that we are to be empowered in the Lord indicates that in the spiritual warfare against Satan and his evil kingdom, we can fight only in the Lord, not in ourselves. Whenever we are in ourselves, we are defeated. Therefore, we need to be empowered in the Lord; that is, we need to experience Christ as our power who strengthens us inwardly, saturating every part of our being. When Christ empowers us as the heavenly dynamo and energizes us from within, He saturates us and invigorates us.
We cannot fight the spiritual warfare in ourselves; we can fight only in the Lord and in the might of His strength. In 6:10 Paul refers to power, might, and strength. First, we are empowered by the power that raised Christ from among the dead and made Him to be the Head over all things. Then we know God’s might and strength.
The charge to be empowered implies the need to exercise our will. If we would be empowered for spiritual warfare, our will must be strong and exercised. We should not be weak-willed and vacillating. To be empowered involves our will. In Paul’s command to be empowered, an active element — be — is combined with a passive element — empowered. We need to exercise our will to be empowered in the Lord.
In summary, the armor of God that covers us is Christ realized by us as our truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation. Truth as the girdle, righteousness as the breastplate, the gospel of peace as the firm foundation, faith as the shield, salvation as the helmet, the Spirit, the word of God, as the sword — all these are the various aspects of Christ in our experience. We should experience Christ as our girdle of truth; we should experience Christ as righteousness that covers our conscience; we should experience Christ as the gospel of peace to strengthen our stand to fight the spiritual warfare; we should experience Christ as the faith to shield our entire being from the attacks of the enemy; we should experience Christ as salvation to cover our mind against the negative thoughts Satan seeks to inject into our mind; and we should experience Christ as the sword of the Spirit to slay the enemy. All these aspects of Christ are applied to us by prayer. In order to fight the spiritual warfare, we should experience Christ as the constituents of the divine armor and be empowered in Christ and in the might of His strength. As the corporate warrior we should be inwardly empowered with Christ as the heavenly dynamo and outwardly clothed with Christ as the constituents of God’s armor; in other words, we should be mingled with Christ. May we endeavor to experience and enjoy Him as the constituents of God’s armor in order to fight the spiritual warfare and defeat God’s enemy.
