FINALLY. The word that begins the reading from Ephesians 6 is “finally” – after weeks of working our way through this letter, finally we come to the concluding exhortation.  Remember Ephesians is like “a diptych, a double-facing panel” – the first three chapters, the theological side, lay the foundation for the second side, the application side.[i]  In the first side the author let us in on “the meaning of life” – something is wrong with the world; it is skewed toward disorder and it bends toward death, but God’s plan is to put the universe to rights, to put everything back together under one King, Jesus, to tear down the wall that separated us from God and from each other, and build himself a temple where he can live with his people.  (Eph. 2.19)  It’s not a temple of stone and mortar like Solomon dedicated, but a living, breathing house, and that is us.  Given the theology in the first three chapters, the second panel of the diptych turns to application and the question “How, then, shall we live?”  It says “If God has called you, then be worthy of that calling; imitate God, like children imitate parents.  Be humble and gentle and patient; be unified; take off your old selves and put on new ones of righteousness and holiness.  (4:24)  Now, at the end of the letter, the author closes with two things:  (1) A reminder of the context; and (2) a command to suit up.

First, the context – Before he signs off, he author says, “Oh, yeah, one more thing – the stuff I’m telling you to do won’t be easy because you’re in a war and people are going to be shooting at you while you do it.”[ii]  Christian life is infiltrating enemy territory and taking it inch by inch, which should tell us that if we don’t feel like we’re in hand-to-hand combat[iii] every day, then we’re probably not doing it right.  J.C. Ryle was an evangelical churchman and the first bishop of Liverpool in the 19th century.  Bishop Ryle took spiritual warfare so seriously that he said “true” religion always has two marks:  Inward peace, from faith in the gospel, but also inward warfare. 

There is a vast quantity of religion current in the world which is not true, genuine Christianity.  It passes muster; it satisfies sleepy consciences; but it is not good money.  It is not the real thing which was called Christianity eighteen hundred years ago.  There are thousands of men and women who go to churches and chapels every Sunday, and call themselves Christians.  Their names are in the baptismal register.  They are reckoned Christians while they live.  They are married with a Christian marriage-service.  They are buried as Christians when they die.  But you never see any “fight” about their religion!  Of spiritual strife, and exertion, and conflict, and self-denial, and watching, and warring they know literally nothing at all.  Such Christianity may satisfy man . . . but it certainly is not the Christianity of the Bible.  It is not the religion which the Lord Jesus founded, and His Apostles preached.  True Christianity is “a fight.”[iv]

Enlightened, 21st century Episcopalians like us are suspicious of talk like that because, first of all, who uses militaristic imagery anymore?  And also because it’s not just war we’re talking about, but supernatural war, and it’s not reasonable to think we’re in a war with spiritual powers.  But Bishop Ryle and Ephesians disagree.  We are in a fight, and if we can’t feel that, we’re either not fighting at all or we’ve been lulled to sleep and can’t see the true nature of the conflict.

I can see two reasons to say Christian life is war:  (1) War requires advance preparation, and (2) it demands heightened awareness of our surroundings.  For example, in Afghanistan today, going down the street ain’t just taking a walk.  You have to train and plan and prepare meticulously for the maneuver, then you have to be aware of all your surroundings when you got out there.  For the Christian, putting on God’s armor is how we prepare in advance.  One thing you don’t see in the English translation is that there is one imperative verb – the command to “stand” in the fight – followed by four participles.  The tense of the participles means we can really translate them like this:  After having wrapped yourselves in truth, after having put on righteousness, after having fitted your feet, after having taken up faith . . . then we are to stand. 

We only have time for “bullet points” (to extend the military theme) to see how this preparation works:

Standing in the fire of the enemy means we’ve already prepared by wrapping ourselves in the truth (6:14a).  The first thing a Roman soldier put on was a leather belt or apron around his midsection, and the more rigorous the fight expected, the tighter he’d tie the apron.[v]  Our belt is truth, which Ephesians 1 said is “the gospel of your salvation.”  (1:13)  So under all the armor, the piece that is at our center and fixes all the others in place, is the gospel truth that Jesus is the new king.

The breastplate to protect our hearts (6:14b) is that king’s righteousness, as well as our own.  Scholars argue over whether it is God’s righteousness in Jesus, or whether it is our own ethical behavior, but I think it’s both.  A Christian’s life should be above reproach, but the gospel promises that our standing before God isn’t dependent upon our ethical behavior but upon the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. 

Having our feet shod with the readiness of the gospel (6.15) means we’re ready not just to lean on the gospel in a defensive posture, but to advance with it as an offensive weapon, which Paul says in 2 Corinthians has “divine power to destroy strongholds [and] arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and . . . take every thought captive to Christ.”  (2 Cor. 10:4-5)

The shield that covered the soldier’s body is faith (6.15), radical trust in God that stops the arrows dipped in pitch, lighted and launched at us, a metaphor for every accusation and every temptation to doubt or despair.[vi]  

The helmet of salvation really means “the helmet which is salvation”, and the sword of the spirit is saturation in the word of God (6.17) that reminds us Jesus already accomplished our salvation.   

After preparation, awareness.  When we’ve put on the armor, prayer keeps us aware of our surroundings.  Without prayer, we won’t see the battlefield, and the armor won’t work. 

Ephesians tells us we’re in a war, but, secondly, it’s God’s armor we’re wearing.  The Ephesians would have read chapter 6 and heard echoes of Isaiah, where God fights in his own armor as a warrior for his people.  Or an apocryphal book, the Wisdom of Solomon, which says:  The Lord will take his zeal as his whole armor, and will arm all creation to repel his enemies; he will put on righteousness as a breastplate, and wear impartial justice as a helmet; he will take holiness as an invincible shield, and sharpen stern wrath for a sword, and creation will join with him to fight against his frenzied foes.”  (Wis. 5.17-20)  The war is God’s war to put the world to rights and defeat his “frenzied foes,” but we are the sharp end of the spear, both the “outward sign” of the new king’s reign, and also the means by which that reign advances.  It starts by submitting our individual lives to his reign, then it moves into our families and our parishes, and into a world still under the thumb of principalities and powers that bend toward death. 

So the questions for us:  Have we joined the battle yet?  Are we really fighting to submit to the kingdom of God and live into our calling to extend that kingdom in our world?  With all this talk of war, one might expect the tenor of Ephesians to be one of fear, but it’s not; it’s one of confidence because we fight with a power far greater than we could muster ourselves.  Ephesians started with the promise that in Jesus we tap into “the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.  God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion . . . .”  (Eph. 1:18-21)  Even as we fight the powers and authorities in heavenly places, Jesus is already reigning over them, and when we come to communion and eat the bread of his flesh and drink the wine of his blood, we live in him and he lives in us.  (John 6:56)  That’s why there’s hope – we win not by our own strength and skill but by his power and life in us.  Hand-to-hand combat is draining, and often every victory seems to come with a setback.  But here is food and drink and strength for us, and the victory is sure, and so we can sing: 

Alleluia!  Sing to Jesus! His the scepter, his the throne;
Alleluia!  His the triumph, his the victory alone. 

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.