Put on the panoply of God, that ye may be able to stand against the artifices of the devil
The letter to the Ephesians ends with a call to get dressed for battle. Two questions follow: whose armour is it, and why does the verse warn about the devil's tricks and not his strength?
The armour comes at the end of the letter. Writers tie that to its subject: the higher the ground, the harder the attack.
The enemy contests the highest position hardest. Where we are most clearly Christian, he will oppose us with all his power... When Israel reached Canaan, the land God had given them, that was exactly where they had to fight. They had to fight to possess what God had already made theirs. So we must remember what this conflict is about. We will hardly feel it unless we are set on possessing what is already ours.
The verse does not tell us to stand against the devil's might. Writers press that difference, and they trace it back to the cross.
We have to stand, not so much against the devil's strength — Christ dealt with that — as against his tricks. The truth is that the cross made him a defeated enemy for us, and we always have the right to treat him that way... His tricks are what we should always fear most. To resist them we need to put on the full armour of God.
Open attack is easier to survive than a friendly approach. One writer shows this from Israel's history: a walled city did not frighten them, but crafty neighbours beat them.
Many people can stand his roar, yet his tricks beat them. Israel could look calmly at the high walls of Jericho, because they knew God was with them. But the crafty Gibeonites, a neighbouring people who fooled them, beat them completely. How treacherous our poor hearts are! We cannot trust them!
A trick works by looking harmless, so the problem is spotting it. One writer offers a simple test.
A trick is something that looks fair and innocent, and yet lures the soul away from the path of obedience. How often the devil tries to lead those who have the truth into a side-path. At the start it turns away so slightly that objecting to it would seem fussy. Each of us can ask one simple question that exposes every trick: "If I follow this course, where will it lead me?"
The words "of God" mean more than good quality. Every piece is a gift from God, meant to be used for Him.
God gives this armour to the Christian, so that he may be for God in the very place where the devil's tricks are at work. Not one piece of it is against God, not one piece stands between the soul and Him. God puts Himself behind the armour, as if He said, "I am here behind the armour with you." It comes from Him, to be used for Him.
This also explains why no shop sells it. It is not equipment strapped on from outside.
But there is a full suit of armour that He Himself made. It can resist every weapon the enemy's craft has forged against us. No part of it is like the gear made to stop physical weapons. You cannot buy it in a shop and put it on like a coat or a hat. It is all shaped in the soul, and is spiritual in nature, and no weapon of the enemy can pierce any part of it.
Two words in the command carry weight. The first is a duty, and it does not happen by itself.
The armour has to be "put on". Being Christians does not mean we have put it on. The armour is provided for us as Christians, but it remains with us to put it on. It is not enough to look at the armour, or to admire it, or to be able to describe it.
The second word rules out picking and choosing, because a gap is exactly what the enemy is looking for.
It is no good having part of it on and another part missing. Satan will be quick to notice the gap, and we cannot be rightly for God if we are not for Him in every way.
Put the armour on in advance. Do not scramble for it once the attack lands.
But there are times when the enemy makes special attacks on God's people. He wants to rob them of particular truths. Such attacks make an evil day for the people of God. To meet them we need to have on the whole armour of God. It is too late to be putting on the armour in the middle of the struggle.
- Contested — the ground most worth holding is the ground under attack. The fight is to possess what God has already made ours.
- Craft — the verse warns about trickery, not force. The cross broke his strength, so his side-paths beat believers, not his roar.
- Given — every piece comes from God, and He stands behind it with us. It grows in the soul; no shop sells it.
- Whole — one missing piece leaves one place exposed, and Satan finds it fast. Admiring the armour is not wearing it.
- Early — put it on before the evil day, because nobody dresses for battle once the fighting has started.
because our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against principalities, against authorities, against the universal lords of this darkness, against spiritual [power] of wickedness in the heavenlies.
Paul ends his letter by naming the opposition a Christian faces, and it is not human. That raises two questions. Who are these unseen powers? And why does a believer who is already blessed in heaven still have to fight?
The first thing the verse removes is the assumption that our real trouble comes from people. Commentators point out that the enemy uses hostile people, but those people are not the source.
First, we are told to remember that it is not against flesh and blood that we wrestle. The devil may indeed use men and women to oppose the Christian and deny the truth. But we have to look past those people and see the one who is using them. At Philippi, a city where Paul preached, a human woman opposed him. But Paul saw the evil spirit that was moving her. In the power of the Name of Jesus Christ he took up the fight with that spiritual wickedness. He commanded the evil spirit to come out of her (Acts 16:16-18).
The older English rendering "high places" has misled readers. Writers stress that the right word is "heavenly," not "high." They also link this fight to Israel's wars in Canaan.
The translators showed how strange the thought was to them. They put "high" into the text instead of "heavenly." But here the devil and his angels stand where the armies of Canaan stood when Joshua and Israel fought them.
(Canaan was the land God promised to Israel. Joshua led the people in to take it. The nations already living there fought them for every field.)
The four titles are not repetition. One writer reads them as real beings with authority. Their evil runs two ways at once: over the world, and against believers.
The conflict, then, is against Satan and his hosts, whatever the instrument used. Principalities and powers are spiritual beings in a position of rule with power to carry out their will... Toward the world they are the rulers of the darkness of this world. Toward Christians they are the "spiritual power of wickedness in the heavenly places". The world is in darkness. It does not know God. These spiritual beings rule and direct that darkness — the darkness of paganism, philosophy, so-called science and unbelief. They direct the superstitions, corruptions and modern errors of the Christian world too. The Christian is brought into the light... So the opposition to the Christian has a religious character. Spiritual beings try to rob him of the truth of his heavenly calling. They try to draw him into a path that denies that truth, or into conduct that does not match it.
Israel fought men for land. We fight spirits over the enjoyment of what is already ours.
For us, the fight is not with flesh and blood, as Israel's fight was. Our blessings are spiritual in the heavenly places... Israel had passed through the wilderness — had crossed the Jordan; the manna had stopped; they ate the grain of the land... So it is with the Christian... We are sitting in the heavenly places in Him, so that we may enjoy the things of heaven as the fruit of our own country. But conflict is before us, if we want to enjoy them practically... The enemy is subtle. We have to withstand his tricks even more than his power.
The enemy works by deception, so his attacks land on what we believe.
Let us name a few of these tricks. Teaching that breeds unbelief. Empty superstitions. Evil doctrines. False ideas about where the world's history is going. Here we are not dealing with our own desires. We are in conflict with the enemy's direct attacks... Here we stand face to face with Satan, with the deceit of unrighteousness, and with false teaching. These are the things we are to resist.
Others add that the state of the fighter matters: unjudged flesh disarms us, since "we cannot carry the flesh into the heavenly conflict."
The titles sound overwhelming until they are measured against God's own title.
There are "the rulers of the darkness of this world." A closer rendering is "the world-rulers of this darkness." These are Satanic authorities and powers that rule this world of darkness. We might well fear them if we were not under the protection of the Lord Almighty. The word translated Almighty is literally the All-ruler. The world-rulers may be great. But they are nothing in the presence of the All-ruler. It is like this world: great to us, yet tiny beside all things — the mighty universe of God.
- See — the opposition in front of you is an instrument; the wrestling is with the one using it.
- Locate — the word is "heavenly," not "high." These enemies hold the very place where your blessings are. The Canaanites held Israel's land the same way.
- Recognise — they rule the world's darkness, and they attack believers through religion, to rob them of the truth of their heavenly calling.
- Contest — the blessings are already yours. The fight is only over enjoying them now, and you win it against tricks more than against force.
- Measure — world-rulers stand before the All-ruler; great as they are, they are nothing there.