The armour of... Ephesians itself. How Ephesians speaks with one message (Ephesians 6:10-24 and Ephesians)

 “[Impersonating the devil:] ‘Call yourselves Christians? Call yourselves children of God? Would the LORD really let some nobodies like you become part of his people? Do you think the maker of the universe would really think that you are special? Do you really think God Almighty cares about little old you?’

“Being under attack from the devil is scary. It’s easy for us to forget that sometimes. Occasionally, he attacks us less ferociously so that we’ll get complacent and start thinking, ‘The devil’s not someone to worry about.’ But when he gets his daggers out, and his flaming darts, no matter who we are, no matter how long we’ve been a Christian, being under attack from the devil is scary.

“Suddenly, everything we’ve ever believed can come into question. ‘Do I really believe in Jesus? Have I been tricking myself all along? Does God really care about me?’”

Spiritual Warfare in Ephesians itself

This is how I opened a sermon at my church when I was asked to preach about “the sword of the Spirit” from Ephesians 6.

The final section of Ephesians is one of the key places that we go to inform our understanding of who the devil is, what the devil is doing and how we can fight back. This passage becomes a key building-block in a systematic theology of spiritual warfare. This is absolutely right. However, there is a danger if that is all we do when we come to Ephesians 6. We miss a lot if we stop listening to what Ephesians 6 is saying within the book of Ephesians.

In particular, we might miss the very specific ways that the devil might want to attack the Ephesians. Spiritual warfare in general is always an issue, and the devil might try to lead us away from Christ in all sorts of ways, but is that why this section is included in Ephesians? Should we see this as, in the first instance, being about withstanding all the devil's schemes, whatever they may be?

Though I don't think that's a completely wrong approach, I think there are good reasons to think that Paul has a particular kind of temptation in mind. And that's largely because of what the armour is.

Looking closely at the armour

The spiritual armour described in Ephesians 6 is made up of six pieces of armour. In every case, the thing that Paul encourages the Ephesians to defend themselves with is something that Ephesians has already mentioned before. Truth, righteousness, [readiness that comes from] the gospel of peace, faith, salvation and the Spirit. Six concepts which we have already seen, and with which Paul has, in a way, already been arming them throughout the letter. These are not just generic pieces of armour for a generic fight with Satan, but specific, Ephesians armoury, ready for the devil trying to undermine Paul's wonderful message from Ephesians.

I used to find this super frustrating! I had heard quite a few talks on the armour of God which said “all the pieces come from Ephesians” but none of those people actually said where in Ephesians these ideas come from. “Oh, they're everywhere...” was usually the answer if questioned. To an extent that is true, but if this was so important, why weren't they showing us actual links and why they mattered? My frustration continued until one glorious day, when the wonderful Stephen Boon opened my eyes to the true reality of the armour of God's sources with Ephesians.

Yes, faith, the gospel of peace, the Spirit come up everywhere in Ephesians. In a sense that's true. But they also almost all come up somewhere in particular. In fact 5 out of the 6 pieces of armour come up not only in one particular verse, but also very nearly in the right order too. And that verse is a pretty significant one.

One really significant verse

Ephesians 1:13 is the big “you also”. The first verse where Paul takes all the wonderful blessings that he has said are available to Jewish believers only in Christ, the true seed of Abraham, and then points his finger at Gentile believers too. You also can have access to this stuff! Have a look through and see if you can spot the pieces of armour:

“And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed [“faithed” - same word in the Greek], you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,”

Paul wants the Ephesians to fight the devil by remembering this: You also were included! Arm yourself with the message of truth, which included you. Remember the gospel which you heard which included the inclusion of all nations. This salvation to all with faith, whatever their origin, was triumphantly lauded by the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. This is the armour of Ephesians itself.

The defence teaches us what the attack is

So it makes sense that the particular (or at least a particular) Satanic attack that Paul had in mind was to question the inclusion of the Ephesians in the blessings laid out in the letter. Since Ephesians is the best way to defend, it is likely that Ephesians is the thing the devil is trying to attack.

Hence the questions: “Call yourselves Christians? Call yourselves children of God? Would The LORD really let some nobodies like you become part of his people? Do you think the maker of the universe would really think that you are special? Do you really think God Almighty cares about little old you?”

The theme of Old Testament allusions in the armour of God

We see other Ephesians themes in this section. The pieces of armour mainly seem to come from Isaiah as well. The one out of the six which doesn't come straight from Ephesians 1:13 (the breastplate of righteousness) is a direct reference to Isaiah 59:17, which is also where the helmet of salvation comes from. It’s possible that the belt of truth is from Isaiah 11:5 and the sandals or readiness are from Isaiah 52:7. Paul is continuing to make that point that the Old Testament backs up the idea of the inclusion of the Gentiles, rather than undermining it. Furthermore there are more references to the mystery, which Paul is revealing (as discussed previously with relation to Daniel and Genesis). As Paul closes the letter, he continues to ask them to pray for the message of the gospel to go out among the Gentiles.

Overall we can see Ephesians speaking with one, clear, glorious message of God's plan finally coming together as all the nations are included in His people and become His dwelling place and His body through the work of Jesus Christ.

The end

Back to the sermon I mentioned at the beginning… This was how I ended it:

“So how can we fight back? How can we take the battle to the devil? Maybe something a little like this:

“‘Call yourselves Christians?’ ‘Yes, we do, because it is the truth!’

“‘Call yourselves children of God?’ ‘Yes! The good news of the gospel proves that we are!’

“‘Would The Lord really let a nobodies like you become part of his people?’ ‘Yes! We ARE nobodies. We deserve to be alienated from Him, but he has granted us a great salvation!’

“‘Do you think the maker of the universe would really think that you are special?’ ‘YES! YES! YES! Every one of us who believes, who trusts in Jesus, is special to God. Through faith he has given us new life and made us part of his people!’

“‘Do you really think God Almighty cares about little old you?’ ‘You’re not going to get to us today, Satan! The Holy Spirit has told us that God does care about us! We know for a fact that he DOES care about little old us! Wherever we come from, whatever we’ve been through. We weren’t born into this blessing, but God has been gracious. He has been merciful to us.’

“The devil’s weapons are pathetic compared to what we have on our side. Let’s fight back…”

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