The Armor of God

First, there is truth. This is the “belt of truth.” It holds everything together. If you don’t start with truth, nothing else will make sense. I believe this is the notion of being authentic before God. When you pray and talk to him, don’t tell him how you know you ought to be a certain way, or try to convince him (and yourself) that you are better than you are.

One of the common things we do in relating to him is to try to fix ourselves before coming before him. If we are angry, we know we are not supposed to be angry so we try to make ourselves not angry instead of coming to God and admitting how angry we are. We try to produce in ourselves, by our own power, the thing we need to ask God to do in us through his Holy Spirit. Often we do this without even realizing we are doing it. But the Bible tells us that God desires truth in the inward person (Psalms 51:6). Authenticity before God is the starting point. If you can’t be truthful before him, before whom can you be truthful? And being truthful to God makes it a lot easier to be truthful toward one another. Being truthful to God is actually being utterly dependent on his grace, his “love that will not let me go” even if he knows exactly who I am and how far from his perfection I fall short. It’s OK because he has loved us “while we were yet sinners.”

Next we “put on the breastplate of righteousness.” Righteousness means right standing with God (and, somewhat incidentally, with others). Notice that the analogy calls this the breastplate. It is the part of the armor that covers the vitals. The idea is that if you are right with God, it’s hard to beat you down. But righteousness with God comes through our faith in Christ.

While it’s possible to be a Christian even when we are doing things that displease God, deliberately ignoring God’s word makes a person spiritually vulnerable. Deliberate rejection of God’s word moves a person out from under God’s hand of protection. Paul even refers to delivering a person to Satan for the destruction of the body so that his spirit can be saved in the day of the Lord (1 Corinthians 5:5).

It’s important to note that righteousness is relational. Cherishing one’s relationship with God and “fearing” to do anything that would jeopardize that relationship is what the notion of “fear of the Lord” means for Christians.

The notion of being shod with the “preparation” (literal Greek) of the good news of peace, for the first time gives us something of an offensive nature, something that implies we can move forward. It’s the good news of peace. This is crazy in the middle of a war, going around announcing peace. But isn’t this also news of victory? The “forces of evil,” Satan’s minions who seek to kill and destroy, take advantage of the general chaos brought about by the battlefield that our world has become since the fall. But the simple announcement of peace with God clarifies everything. It’s like ending of the book LORD OF THE FLIES. When the British naval cutter came, all the savagery and craziness suddenly was ended by the simple fact of the appearance of the naval officer. In the same way we read in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 that “…the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.”

This good news operates on both the individual level and the cosmic level. Certainly bringing good news to our local situation can make a difference. As families hear the good news and believe, the whole environment can change over time. But it also operates on a large scale. Colossians 1:20 tells us that God willed “through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross, through him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”

Finally, Jesus tells us that “everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God” (Luke 12:8). We see that the confession of Jesus even brings the Father into the fray in all his power and glory.

The mainstay of our armament, useful “in all circumstances,” is the shield of faith. Understanding that faith is personal trust, we see that our relationship with God again is key. The fact that faith is this all-powerful shield, capable of extinguishing “all the flaming darts of the evil one,” seems paradoxical. Faith seems like such a slender reed to base all our hopes on. Yet it is not our faith that does the work, but God’s power. Trusting God and calling out to him in our extremity mobilizes the most powerful person in existence on our behalf. Ephesians 1:19-20 shares Paul’s prayer that we should know

what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, 
according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ 
when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand
in the heavenly places....

Our accouterment is completed by “the helmet of salvation” and “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” The helmet of salvation is the last line of defense. When all seems lost, when the enemy has us on the ground, the helmet still protects us. It lets us “live to fight another day.”

Simply taking God’s salvation is, ironically, our gift to him (Psalm 116:12-13):

What return shall I make to the Lord
For all the good he has done for me?
I will take the cup of salvation;
I will call upon the name of the Lord.

Finally we come to “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” We note from Romans 1:16 that the word of the good news is the power of God. In fact we find that throughout the Bible God chooses first and foremost to operate through his word. There are a lot of reasons for this, but suffice it to say that words are the currency of relationships. In general God chooses to evoke and invite rather than coerce. This is the way the Spirit operates. Jesus tells us that “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63).

I have personally been amazed by the way the word of God, even spoken partially and haltingly, has become a seed in a person, eventually, years later, bearing the fruit of life. The sword of the Spirit is not a way to perpetuate the vicious cycle of violence and hate. It introduces new possibilities into dead-end situations. It breaks the hold of Satan on people. It penetrates to “the division of soul and spirit,” “discerning of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” It is the valuable thing the master left to his servants when he went on a journey (Matthew 25:14-30). It is the thing the world can get nowhere else. And he has given it to us as a truly spiritual weapon to fight “the cosmic powers over this present darkness.”

If we are to be “fit for battle” we need to master this powerful weapon that allows us to marshal the power of God. It is an invaluable weapon for true good for our own lives and the lives of others. It is the means that God uses to reshape us, to transform us “by the renewal of the mind.” It is even the way God enables faith: “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).

Finally Paul moves away from the metaphor slightly to encourage us to pray: “at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer [the generic word for speaking to God] and supplication [asking God for specific things or to do specific things].” He then returns to a military orientation, exhorting us to be alert and endure, and to pray for one another.

It’s hard to talk about prayer because we’ve all heard it over and over. We can use every kind of analogy or image to express the importance of talking to God. But let me say it simply: anyone who does not pray, and pray increasingly as you become more mature in Christ, is missing out on the deepest essence of salvation. Because Jesus above all things bought us “access to God” (Romans 5:2). This is what Paul means when in Ephesians 2:6 he says we are “seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Jesus is seated at the Father’s right hand, and we are seated with Jesus. This simply indicates the perfect access we have to the Father through Jesus. We’re right there. We are allowed “with confidence to draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

It is tragic that Christians don’t pray about everything. It’s like having millions in the bank and scrounging in dumpsters to find food to eat. It may take a while to “get the hang of” praying to God. But there’s absolutely no downside to trying. The worst that can happen is a waste of a few minutes of time. And certainly there are plenty of times when we aren’t doing anything important, times when we can experiment with talking to God. Try it out! “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalms 34:8).