The Whole Armor of God

Scripture: Ephesians 6:10–24

Read Ephesians 6:10–24 before proceeding. Keep your Bible open throughout this session.

Finally, be strengthened in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Clothe yourselves with the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

(Ephesians 6:10–11)

The Christian Life as Battle

Paul has come to the end of his letter. He has given the saints the doctrine of the first three chapters, and the practical instruction of chapters four and five. He has just finished walking them through the household codes: what the gospel looks like in the ordinary stations of marriage, family, and work. He could end there. Many letters do.

He does not. There is one more reality to name, and it is the reality the saints will spend the rest of their lives contending with. The Christian life is a battle.

This is the picture the whole letter has been preparing us for. From the beginning, Paul has named the heavenly realms (as the NET renders his Greek phrase en tois epouraniois): the realm where the saints have been blessed (1:3), where Christ has been enthroned (1:20), where the saints are seated with Christ (2:6), where the Church displays God’s wisdom to the watching powers (3:10). Now Paul names what is also true of that realm: it is where a war is being fought. The NET says “in the heavens” at 6:12, but Paul’s Greek phrase is the same one he has used all along.

The enemy is not what the saint might first suspect. Paul says the saints do not contend with mere human enemies, with flesh and blood, but “against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens” (Ephesians 6:12). The Christian’s real opponents are not the difficult people in her life. The Christian’s real opponents are not merely the cultural movements that oppose the gospel or the political systems that resist Christian witness. Behind these, working through the world and exploiting the sinful flesh the saint still carries, are spiritual powers. The Christian who fights only the visible battle is fighting the wrong war.

This is sober pastoral realism. Paul is not being sensational. He is not drawing on speculation. He is naming a reality the New Testament names elsewhere: the principalities and powers, the rulers of this age, the ruler of the domain of the air, the dragon, the accuser. The Christian Church across the centuries has confessed the existence of these powers in her baptismal rites and catechisms. The Lutheran tradition has taken them seriously. Luther’s hymn A Mighty Fortress, drawn from Psalm 46, names the enemy directly: the old evil foe, with his cunning and great might. Luther knew the war was real because Paul had told him.

And Paul names the saint’s stance. The saints are to be strong, but not strong in themselves. They are to be strengthened in the Lord and in the strength of His power. The saint who fights with her own strength will lose. The saint who fights in the Lord’s strength will stand, because the Lord’s strength is sufficient for the day, whatever the day brings.

Paul names the verb the whole passage will turn on: stand. The Greek verb (histēmi, with its compound anthistēmi) appears four times in the space of four verses. The saints are to stand against the schemes of the devil. On the evil day they are to stand their ground. They are, having done everything, to stand. They are to stand firm with the belt of truth fastened around them. The Christian’s posture in the spiritual battle is not advance. It is not retreat. It is standing. The ground has already been taken by Christ. The saint’s task is to hold it.

This is good news. The Christian is not asked to win a war that has not yet been won. Christ has already won it: at the cross, at the empty tomb, at the right hand of the Father. What remains is for the saints, in the time between, to stand on the ground Christ has already conquered. The schemes of the devil are real, but they are the schemes of an enemy who has already been defeated. He may rage, but he cannot prevail.

The Armor of God

To stand on this ground, the saints have been given armor.

The Greek word Paul uses for the full armor is panoplia: the complete outfit of a heavily armed soldier, every piece. Paul knew such soldiers well. If, as has long been held, he writes from his house arrest in Rome, he has lived for as long as two years under the watch of a soldier who guarded him (Acts 28:16, 30). He knows what each piece is, what it is for, how it is worn. And as he describes the saint’s armor, he draws on the soldier in front of him, but he transfigures every piece into a gospel reality. Each piece of the saint’s armor is something Christ has given her. The armor is not the saint’s. It is God’s, given to her.

Paul names six pieces, in two sets. The first three are worn before the battle begins, fastened to the body. The second three are taken up in the moment of contact. We will treat each.

The belt of truth. The Roman soldier’s belt held everything else together: the tunic gathered, the sword hung from it, the loose ends tucked. Without the belt, the rest of the armor was loose. Paul says the saint’s belt is truth. Truth holds the Christian life together. Where there is truth, the rest of the armor stays in place. Where truth is loosened, everything begins to come apart. The saint’s commitment to truth (to the truth of the gospel, the truth of Scripture, the truth in her own speech) is the underlying integrity of her armor. The Lutheran tradition has named this with characteristic seriousness. The Christian who plays loose with truth is a Christian whose armor is unbuckled.

The breastplate of righteousness. The breastplate covered the soldier’s vital organs: the heart, the lungs. Without it, a single thrust could end the soldier’s life. Paul says the saint’s breastplate is righteousness. Lutheran readers have understood this in two ways, both correct. There is the imputed righteousness of Christ: the righteousness given to the saint at her justification, by which she stands before God as righteous because Christ has clothed her in His own righteousness. There is also the practical righteousness that flows from this: the actual right living the saint walks in as a fruit of her standing. The breastplate is both. The saint who knows her standing in Christ and who walks accordingly is protected at the heart.

The footwear of peace. The Roman soldier wore caligae, heavy hobnailed sandals that gave him traction in the field. Without proper footwear he could be knocked down or unable to advance. Paul says the saint’s feet are fitted “with the preparation that comes from the good news of peace” (Ephesians 6:15). His word hetoimasia can mean preparation or readiness. The good news is not just what saved the saint; it is what equips her to stand in any terrain. The saint who knows the gospel is ready. She knows where she is going. She knows whose she is. She has firm footing. The Lutheran tradition has read this with attention to the proclamation of the gospel: the saint who hears the gospel preached and receives it through the means of grace is a saint who is shod for whatever the day brings.

These are the three pieces worn before the battle begins. The saint who has been formed by truth, by the righteousness of Christ, by the good news of peace, is dressed and standing before the first attack. The next three are the pieces she takes up in the moment of contact.

The shield of faith. Paul’s word is thureos, the large door-shaped shield (the Roman scutum), taller than wide, made of wood and leather. It could be braced against the ground or held up against the air. Roman soldiers fighting in formation could overlap their shields with their fellow soldiers, forming a wall against the arrows of the enemy. The shield was the soldier’s most active piece of armor; it could be moved into the path of any attack. Paul says the saint’s shield is faith. With it the saint “can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16). Note what Paul says: not some, not most, but all. Every accusation, every doubt, every temptation, every despair the enemy can shoot at the saint can be answered by faith: faith that takes the saint outside of herself and into Christ, where she belongs. The shield works because it is held up, in the air, in the very direction the attack is coming from. And it shields not because of its own strength but because of what it holds up: Christ and His promise.

The Lutheran tradition has placed enormous weight on this image. Faith is not the saint’s contribution to her own salvation. Faith is the empty hand by which she receives Christ. And the same faith is the shield by which she stands against the enemy. The Reformers’ insistence on sola fide, faith alone, was not just about how the sinner is justified at her conversion. It was about how the saint stands every day after, against every flaming arrow.

The helmet of salvation. The helmet protected the soldier’s head: his thinking, his perception, his command of himself. Without it, a single blow could disorient him beyond recovery. Paul says the saint’s helmet is salvation. The saint whose head is covered by Christ’s promise is a saint whose head is protected. The enemy’s most insistent attack is on the saint’s confidence in her salvation. He whispers that she is not really saved, that she has not done enough, that her sins are too great, that the cross was not enough for her. The helmet of salvation answers all of these, and it does not answer by sending her to look inside herself for proof. It points her outside herself, to what Christ has said and done for her: the Word preached, the water poured on her in Baptism, the absolution spoken, the body and blood given for her. It says: I am baptized into Christ. He has given Himself for me, and His promise cannot fail. She trusts not her grip but His Word, and she prays that He would keep her from both despair and presumption. The Lutheran tradition has placed this assurance at the center of the gospel’s pastoral comfort. The Christian’s confidence is not in her performance; it is in Christ’s work for her. That confidence is her helmet. And because it is His gift, it is not a license. The helmet is not worn by the one who has thrown it off to go on in sin without repentance. The Augsburg Confession, Article XII, rejects the teaching that those once justified cannot lose the Holy Spirit, and the Formula of Concord warns that those who let sin rule against their conscience grieve and lose the Spirit (Solid Declaration II.69, 83). So the terrified are comforted and the secure are warned, and both are sent to the same place: back to Christ, in repentance and faith, where the helmet is given again.

The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Paul’s word is machaira, the short sword used in close combat (the Roman gladius). Unlike the shield or the helmet, the sword was an offensive weapon. It was the only one Paul names. The saint’s sword is the Word of God, the Spirit’s weapon, given to His people. With the Word, the saint not only defends; she also pushes back. The Word of God is what Christ Himself used in the wilderness against the devil’s temptations: it is written, it is written, it is written (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10). The same Word, in the saint’s mouth, is the Spirit’s blade. The Lutheran tradition has prized this image. The Reformers fought their battles with the Word. The catechized saint, who knows the Scriptures and can wield them in the moment of attack, is a saint armed by the Spirit Himself.

These are the six pieces. The full armor of God. Together, they constitute the saint’s protection and offense in the spiritual battle. They are not optional. They are not extras. They are the gospel itself, in its various functions, applied to the saint for the fight she is in.

Praying at All Times

Paul names one more thing, and it is not, strictly, a piece of armor. It is the air the armor breathes in.

The saint, having put on the armor, is to pray. And the prayer is comprehensive: at all times, in the Spirit, with perseverance, on behalf of the whole body of saints.

Notice how comprehensive this is. With every prayer and petition. At all times. In the Spirit. With all perseverance. For all the saints. Paul stacks the universals. Prayer is not occasional. It is not formal only. It is constant, Spirit-worked, perseverant, and offered for the whole body. The Christian who is armed for battle but does not pray is a Christian who is armed without breath. The armor is God’s gift, and the saint who wears it calls on the Giver, answering the Word He has first spoken to her.

The Lutheran tradition has read this as one of the great proof-texts for the centrality of prayer in the Christian life. Luther’s Small Catechism gives morning and evening prayers and prayers at table, and treats prayer as part of the Christian’s daily discipline. The saint who imagines she does not have time to pray has misjudged the situation. She does not have time not to pray. The day is a battlefield. The armor needs the breath of prayer.

And the prayer is for all the saints. The Christian does not pray only for herself. She prays for the whole body: for her fellow saints in her own congregation, for saints in other congregations, for saints suffering for the gospel in places she has never seen. The body of Christ stands together, and the prayers of the saints are part of how the body holds. When one saint is being shot at by the flaming arrows of the enemy, another saint somewhere else may be holding up her shield by praying for her. The communion of saints is a praying communion.

An Ambassador in Chains

And then, in the most striking turn of the chapter, Paul asks the saints to pray for him.

He asks for the right words to speak. He asks that he may confidently make known the mystery of the gospel. He calls himself, in a phrase that gathers the whole letter into a single image, an ambassador in chains.

Let that phrase sit for a moment. Ambassador in chains. An ambassador is the personal representative of a sovereign, sent abroad to speak on the sovereign’s behalf, treated by the receiving nation as having the standing of the one who sent him. Ambassadors do not normally go in chains. They go with credentials, with retinue, with diplomatic immunity. They are received with honor. But Paul, the ambassador of the King of all kings, sits in chains under a Roman guard. The kingdom’s representative is the kingdom’s prisoner.

This is the image the whole letter has been preparing us for. From the opening verse (Paul’s self-introduction as an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God) through “the prisoner” of 3:1 and 4:1, through every reference to his imprisonment, the letter has been written from a guarded room. Now Paul names what he has been all along: an ambassador in chains.

And what does he ask the saints to pray for? Not his release. Not his comfort. Not his vindication. He asks them to pray that he may speak boldly. The chains have not silenced him, and he asks the saints to pray that fear will not silence him either. The man in chains asks the Church to pray for his speech.

This is the gospel logic of the whole volume in one image. The Christian’s circumstances do not determine the gospel’s progress. Paul’s chains have produced this letter. They have, as he tells the Philippians, made Christ known even among those who guard him. They have not stopped him from preaching the mystery of the gospel: the same mystery he has named throughout this letter, the heading up of all things in Christ, the inclusion of the Gentiles, the love of God in His Son. The chains have, if anything, sharpened the preaching.

Paul ends his request with a small but moving notice. He is sending Tychicus to them, “my dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord” (Ephesians 6:21), who will tell them more about Paul’s circumstances and who, it is generally agreed, carried this letter. Tychicus is the messenger between the imprisoned apostle and the saints in Ephesus. The personal connection between the apostle and his churches has been sustained by faithful brothers like this one. The gospel does not travel through abstract mechanisms. It travels through people: through the Tychicuses of every age, who carry the letters and the news between the saints and their pastors.

Paul tells the Ephesians that Tychicus has been sent for two reasons: that they may know how Paul is, and “that he may encourage your hearts” (Ephesians 6:22). The encouragement of the saints is a constant pastoral concern. Paul has spent six chapters on doctrine and exhortation. He ends with a personal touch: the sending of a brother who will encourage the hearts of those who receive the letter.

Peace, Faith, Grace

The letter ends in two short verses, but the verses gather almost everything the letter has said.

Paul ends with a final benediction. To the saints he sends peace, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. To all who love our Lord Jesus Christ “with an undying love,” he sends grace (Ephesians 6:24).

Four words run through the closing benediction: peace, love, faith, grace. These are not random. They have appeared throughout the letter, and Paul gathers them at the end like a final note in a long piece of music. Peace: the peace Christ Himself is, who has destroyed the middle wall of partition (2:14). Love: the love in which the saints live (5:2), the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (3:19). Faith: the empty hand by which the saint is saved (2:8) and the shield by which she stands (6:16). Grace: the grace by which the saints have been saved (2:8), freely bestowed on them in God’s dearly loved Son (1:6), poured out to them from the God who is rich in mercy (2:4).

The benediction names the source of these gifts: the same Father and the same Lord Jesus Christ named at the letter’s opening (1:2–3). The letter that opened with grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ ends with peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, and with grace. The whole letter has been bracketed by the same divine names. The God who is named at the beginning is the God who is named at the end. He is the One from whom every spiritual blessing has come, and He is the One in whose grace the saints will continue to stand.

Paul ends with a description of the saints he is writing to: those who love the Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love. The Greek is en aphtharsia, “in incorruptibility,” a word Paul elsewhere uses of the resurrection body. Not a love that fades. Not a love that decays. Not a love that turns. Love that lasts, because the Lord who is loved is Himself incorruptible, and His love comes first.

The letter ends. The volume ends. The chains, in some sense, also end. The man who has been writing from prison closes his letter with grace. The grace he sends is the grace he has received. The Father who has given everything is now invoked, in benediction, to keep on giving.

A Word at Volume’s End

We have reached the close of Volume One of The Pauline Captivity Letters.

We began with the address: Paul’s self-introduction as an apostle of Christ Jesus, writing to the saints in Ephesus. We end with a benediction: grace to all who love the Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love. Between those two ends, Paul has given us the most cosmic of his letters. He has named the eternal counsel of God, the cosmic exaltation of Christ, the mystery of the saints’ inclusion, the great salvation by grace through faith, the unity of the Church across every wall of partition, the household and temple of God, the prayer of the bowed knee, the walk worthy, the put-off and put-on, the walk in love and as children of light, the household codes transfigured, and finally the armor and the prayer of the saints in spiritual battle.

The whole letter has been written from chains. That fact runs through every chapter like a watermark. Paul did not write Ephesians as a free man addressing a free people. He wrote it as a prisoner addressing a people who were, in the most important sense, free in Christ. The chains were on his wrist. They were not on the gospel. They were not on the Church. They were not on the saints to whom he wrote.

Three more captivity letters remain. Philippians, also written from prison, will give us joy as the Christian’s defiant posture in suffering. Colossians, written from the same imprisonment and commending the same Tychicus (Colossians 4:7), will give us the cosmic Christ in even sharper focus. Philemon, the brief and personal letter, will give us the gospel applied to a single relationship: between a master and his slave, long understood to have been a runaway, who have both become brothers in Christ. Each of these will be its own volume, in its own time. Each will be read in the same spirit we have read Ephesians: as a confessional Lutheran study, with the Book of Concord as our guide, listening for what the Spirit said through Paul, and continues to say through Paul, to the Church.

For now, Volume One is complete. The saints have heard Ephesians. Whatever they make of it, they make of it together with the apostle who wrote it from his prison. In Christ, with its companions “in him” and “in the Lord” running through every chapter, have been the volume’s title and its substance. To be in Christ is to be where every spiritual blessing has been given. To be in Christ is to be raised, seated, sealed, gathered, addressed, walked, armed. To be in Christ is to be among the saints: beloved, kept, sent.

May the saints who have studied this volume go from it the way Paul ended it: with grace, with peace, with love that does not decay. And may the chains that wrote it remain a reminder that the gospel has never been bound. So long as one saint will read what one apostle wrote from prison two thousand years ago, the chains have lost.

For Discussion

1. Paul says the Christian’s real enemies are not flesh and blood but “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.” Where in your own life are you tempted to fight the wrong battle, to identify a person or a circumstance as the enemy when the real opponent is somewhere else?

2. The verb that runs through the armor passage is stand. The saint is not asked to advance, but to hold ground that has already been won. How does this change the way you think about the Christian life? Where in your life are you trying to win ground that Christ has already taken?

3. Paul names six pieces of armor: truth, righteousness, the good news of peace, faith, salvation, and the word of God. Pick one. Where in your life is it most clearly worn? Where is it most loose-fitting?

4. The saint’s prayer is at all times, in the Spirit, for all the saints. Where is your own prayer life most reflective of this? Where is it least? What would a small change in the direction of Paul’s vision look like for you this week?

5. Paul calls himself an ambassador in chains. The Christian’s circumstances do not determine the gospel’s progress. Where in your own circumstances do you sense the gospel still going forward despite the visible limits? Where are you tempted to think the limits have stopped it?

6. The volume ends with peace, faith, grace, love. Look back over the eleven sessions you have walked through. Where has any of these become more real to you? Where is one of them still being given to you, slowly, by the Spirit’s work?

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, You who have blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ, You who have raised us with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms, You who have made us one new man in Your dearly loved Son: strengthen us now for the battle. Clothe us in Your armor: in the truth that holds everything together, in the righteousness of Christ that protects our hearts, in the good news of peace that gives us footing, in the faith that shields us from every flaming arrow, in the salvation that guards our minds, in the word of Your Spirit that is our weapon. Teach us to pray at all times in the Spirit. Keep us in Your Word and faith, from despair and from presumption alike. Make us Your people, standing on the ground Christ has already won. And as we close this volume, bring us into the next chapter of Your work in our lives: in our marriages, in our households, in our congregations, in our work, in our quiet hours alone with You. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the same yesterday and today and forever. Amen.

Looking Ahead

Volume One is complete.

The next volume in The Pauline Captivity Letters will take us into the apostle’s other letters from prison, beginning with Philippians, often called the most joyful letter Paul ever wrote, and one of the most paradoxical. From chains like those that produced Ephesians’ cosmic vision will come the great Philippian refrain: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4). Joy from a prison cell. The contrast tells you most of what you need to know about the gospel.

But that is for another time. For now, you have walked through Ephesians. You have heard the apostle out. The doctrine has been laid down, the practice has been described, the armor has been put on. Whatever you do tomorrow morning, you do as one who has heard this letter.

Until we meet again (in Volume Two, or in the resurrection, whichever comes first), grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.