Last Tuesday I
provided a summary of the Letter to the Ephesians and thus tried to put the
latter half of Ephesians 6 in its proper context. In this entry I want to make a
case for envisioning the Christian life as a life of war, and the Christian as
a warrior. Let’s consider five texts.
1.
Ephesians 6:10-20. In this passage, the Apostle Paul uses the imagery of armor
and weaponry. Why would he do that unless he intended for us to dress ourselves
for war and fight? Can you imagine a marine taking the time to put on the whole
armor of a marine and then just going to the grocery store to buy a gallon of
milk? Wouldn’t that be absurd? You don’t need body armor, an M-16, a handgun, a
knife, grenades, and mace to buy a gallon of milk!
However,
you do need those things to fight a war or to stand up to an enemy, and the
same holds true for Christians. The reason we need to put on the whole armor of
God and take up the sword of the Spirit is not so that we can settle into a
comfortable, middle-class American lifestyle. That would be as absurd as a
marine getting fully outfitted just to buy a gallon of milk! No, the reason we
need to put on the whole armor of God and take up the sword of the Spirit is so
that we can engage in war. To be a Christian is to be a warrior, and therefore one
of the main points of Ephesians 6:10-20 is that we must learn to rise up in
Christ and fight with all our might!
2.
Second Corinthians 10:3-6. The Apostle Paul writes, “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war
according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but
have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty
opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to
obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is
complete.” Again, this language makes no sense if Paul is being merely metaphorical.
However, he’s not being merely metaphorical and one of the ways we know that is
how he describes his own life in 2
Corinthians 11:23-31:
“Are they
servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far
greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near
death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less
one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was
shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in
danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from
Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger
from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in
hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from
other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the
churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not
indignant? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The
God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am
not lying.”
Friends, this is a description of a warrior, and so I say
again that there is no way Paul is being merely metaphorical when he explicitly
takes up the language of war. He means precisely what he says. Now, that
doesn’t mean all Christians are called to go through the things Paul went
through, but it does mean that all Christians are called to put on the whole
armor of God and take up the sword of the Spirit and wage war according to the
Spirit. To be a Christian is to be a warrior and therefore we must
learn to rise up in Christ and fight with all our might!
3.
First Thessalonians 5:1-11. The Apostle Paul writes, “Now
concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have
anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the
Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘There is
peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains
come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in
darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all
children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the
darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be
sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk
at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the
breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God
has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus
Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live
with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you
are doing.”
With
these words, Paul is highlighting the urgency of the war we’re in, an urgency
that arises from and is sustained by the reality of the coming Day in which
Jesus Christ will return physically and visibly to this world. However, this
time he will come not to make atonement for sins, but to judge all peoples and bring
all things to their appointed end. Paul means for meditation on this Day to
have at least two effects on our souls. First, he wants it to strike a rightful
fear of the Lord into our hearts so that we will pursue holiness and
Christ-likeness. Second, he wants it to grip us with a sense of the urgency of
the war we’re in. It’s been so long since Jesus first came to the earth that we
might be tempted to think he’s not coming back at all, or at least not in our lifetimes.
But the truth is that the Lord always keeps his word, although he doesn’t work
on our timetables. He could come back at any moment and we would do well to
meditate on and feel the force of this fact.
Now,
why would Paul raise these issues in this manner if the battle we’re facing is merely
metaphorical? Why would he tell the Thessalonians that, since they’ve put on
the helmet of salvation and the breastplate of faith and love, they are no
longer subject to the wrath of God, which is the final and terrible cost of
this war we’re in? Why would he go on to give them several commandments in
verses 11-22, each of which is tantamount to an instruction for war? If Paul is
not talking about an actual war in which Christians warriors in the Lord, then
none of his words make sense.
Friends,
in this text, Paul is trying to woo us off the bench and into the battle by
helping us see the reality of the second coming of Christ. To be a Christian is
to be a warrior and therefore we must learn to rise up in Christ and fight with
all our might!
4.
First Timothy 6:11-16. “But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue
righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take
hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the
good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence
of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony
before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment
unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,
which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only
Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who
dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be
honor and eternal dominion. Amen” (emphasis mine).
Paul
says many things to Timothy in these few verses, but it can all be summed up in
these words: in light of the reality of Christ, fight the good fight of the
faith! Do not be passive. Do not be timid. Do not be lazy. Do not be
self-indulgent. Rather, put on the whole armor of God and be an aggressive Christian!
Pursue the right things. Take hold of eternal life. Keep the commandments of
the Lord unstained and free from reproach. Fight, Timothy, fight!
Now,
why would Paul speak to Timothy like in this way if he were not engaged in an
actual battle? And why would the Lord have preserved these words for us if we
were not engaged in an actual battle? To be a Christian is to be a warrior and
therefore we must learn to rise up in Christ and fight with all our might!
5.
Second Timothy 4:6-7. These are among
Paul’s last words to Timothy as he was nearing the end of his life: “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering,
and the time of my departure has come. I
have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the
faith” (emphasis mine). Paul, as a faithful man of God, had come to the end of
his life, and as he looked back over it and searched for words to describe it,
what came to his mind was this: “I have fought the good fight!” Why? Because
that’s the way a warrior thinks and speaks. That’s the kind of language a
warrior uses when he reflects on his life. That’s the way a warrior inspires
the next generations, namely, by humbly displaying himself as an example of the
way they should live. And again, none of this makes sense unless Paul thinks we
Christians are actually engaged in a war. Beloved, to be a Christian is to be a
warrior and therefore we must learn to rise up in Christ and fight with all our
might!
Some
of you may be wondering why I’ve gone to such lengths to establish this point.
I have two reasons. First, believe it or not, some Christians deny that we’re
in a battle and that we must fight with all our might. They argue that Christ
has done it all for us and that there’s nothing left for us to do but rest in
him. Of course, there’s some truth to this but the work of Christ on our behalf
does not mean that we have no part to play. Indeed, the Lord has clearly
commanded us at several points to live as warriors and apply everything at our
disposal for the sake of his glory and our salvation. In addition to the ones
we’ve already considered, the Apostle Paul masterfully balances our part and
God’s part in Philippians 2:12-13. I encourage you to slow down and truly savor
this text.
“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now,
not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling [you
do this, you take up the armor of
God, you fight for it—but then verse
13], for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good
pleasure.” So it’s true that God has accomplished all things for us in Christ and
that he deserves all the glory for this fact. And it’s true that by his mercy
he’s given us a part to play, so we must learn to rise up and fight.
The
second reason I went to such great lengths to establish this point is because
if what I’m saying is true, the implications of these things for our lives are
far reaching and serious. If you are in Christ and you spend the next several
weeks meditating on the teaching of Ephesians 6:10-20 with me, I cannot imagine
that you will come to the conclusion that your life can remain as it is. Even
if you’re already a stalwart warrior, even if you’re trained and skilled and
practiced in the art of spiritual warfare, you’re going to find things in your
life that need to be improved and shifted about or done away with. You will not
be able to be remain true to the Word of God and remain as you are.
And
if you’re on the opposite end of the scale—if you’re a lazy, self-indulgent,
bench-warming, unskilled, flabby warrior, then this teaching is going to call
for radical change in your life. This teaching is going to call you,
unapologetically, to come out from the world, to take up your cross daily, to
die to yourself, to enter into boot-camp, and to become disciplined and skilled
and practiced in the art of spiritual warfare.
Now,
most likely, the majority of us are somewhere in the middle of the scale
between a stalwart warrior and a flabby warrior. This implies that Ephesians
6:10-20 will be both encouraging and challenging to us. It will strengthen us
and call on us to change. It will enliven us and call on us to die to
ourselves. It will affirm us and call on us to loosen our grip on money, possessions,
habits, and even people that are near and dear to us.
Friends,
when a Pastor like me is compelled to call the people of God to difficult
things like these because he’s trying to be faithful to the Word of God, he’d
better do so carefully. He’d better guard himself against legalism and
self-righteousness on the one side, and liberalism and fear of men on the
other. He’d better stay close to the Lord by staying close to his Word. And in
short, this is why I took so much time to establish the fact that the Christian
life is war and Christians are warriors.
Now, as challenging as is this call, the good news is
this: when
we follow the will and ways of the Lord, we discover true joy in the Lord. When
we choose to die to ourselves by the grace of Christ, we find the path to life
in Christ. When we choose the narrow way, we find the broadest pleasures in
Christ. So, by his grace and for his glory, let’s submit ourselves to his words
in Ephesians 6:10-20 and allow him to transform us into the kind of warriors he’s
destined us to be.
