It is a remarkable, insightful statement from the mind of God as inscripturated through the pen of Paul, a word of truth that we – I speak as to Christians – seem to forget to remember far too often. That to which I refer is Eph 6.12:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. – (NASB)

God grants us insight on at least three levels in this message from Paul. First, of course, is that it is necessary for us to be strong and fully armed, ready to do battle against the enemies of God (Eph 6.10-18). This need to be clothed in spiritual battle attire makes clear that, apart from His provision of armor and a double-edged sword of truth, we are ill-equipped to engage in the unseen battle that is raging all around us. We are as one who brings a knife to a gun fight: we will be quickly overwhelmed and enslaved if we engage the enemy with our own weapons while relying on our own defenses.

Second, and just as obvious, is that the battle is a spiritual and not a physical one. It is not against people that we struggle but against the powers and principalities that motivate and direct the actions and attitudes of those who oppose the purposes of God. Slaves to sin and under the power of the evil one, men and women around the world carry out the plans of Satan. There is a spiritual, unseen war currently being waged all about us, of which we are generally forgetful.

The third thing we learn here – albeit we learn it implicitly* – is that those people who are slaves to sin and in the service of the enemy of God have no idea that they are serving evil in general and the achieving the purposes of Satan in particular. Such people are blind to the glory of God in Christ, unable to see the truth of the gospel, and without choice to serve sin. Even when their behavior is correct, their motivations are wrong. They are as ignorant of and as unresponsive to the purposes and will of God as a corpse is unaware of those looking at it in a funeral home. These people are literally the walking dead, cut off from the life that is in Christ Jesus.

That we forget the truth of Eph 6.12 is obvious when we become upset with those who oppose our own Christian agendas for our country and the world. It should not surprise us, however, to find the unbelieving world fighting against us: they are slaves to the enemy and the enemy is arrayed against God’s children. Or, to put it another way, they are “vessels of wrath fitted for destruction” that serve to glorify God through their contrast to us – hopefully (Rom 9.22-23).

These opponents of Christ need to be opposed by us, but we must remember that they are not willing or knowing warriors in the spiritual battle that is going on. We would do well, too, to remind ourselves of Eph 2.1-3:

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”

It may be somewhat easier for me to keep this in mind: I did not become a Christian until I was almost 25. I remember my opposition to God and the people of God, as well as my motivation: I truly believed that what I was proposing was not only a better way but more realistic and true.

I was blind, but now I see. But I remember what being blind is like. It was the love and compassion of others, not the power of their soporific, sophomoric** arguments that brought me to a point of repentance. Love and prayer, not logic and debate, are the most powerful evangelistic tools.

It is said that, prior to conversion, all a person experiences of God is an impending sense of judgment and wrath; only after salvation are they capable of knowing His love. It is also said that, for most people, the only Bible they’ll ever “read” is what they behold in the life of a Christian.

We would do better to show them the firmness and gentleness of God rather than display our own indignation and condescension. After all, they are just doing the best they can do with an unenlightened mind.

* When I come to a realization about something that’s not directly taught in the text, I refer to it as implicit teaching; if you do it, it’s eisogesis. Ah, the advantages of self-serving vocabulary!

** I was going to write “vapid and vacuous,” but that seemed too, well, you know, ostentatious.


2 Cor 1:13