Pentecost +15 – Armor of God

Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church

Rev. Dr. Les Martin

Pentecost +15 2024
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Ephesians 6:10-20

+In the Name of the Living God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today, we come to the end of our sermon series on Ephesians, with Paul’s analogy concerning the “Full Armor of God.” Some might think I count myself lucky to have avoided last week’s sometimes controversial reading on the duties of husbands and wives, but honestly I would’ve rather avoided this weeks’ reading, personally. Why?

Well, if both Deuteronomy and Mark today warn us about “messing with the message” by either adding or subtracting from it, creating human traditions that matter more than the Commandments of God.

Teachings about the “Full Armor of God” can certainly fit the bill. Just glancing at the internet in preparation for this sermon, here is what I found:

• Learn what the Full armor of God is and how to use it in Spiritual Warfare
• 30 Practical Strategies to put on the whole armor of God
• Suit Up in Prayer: God’s Armor Never Rusty
• True meaning of each piece of the Armor of God

The thing is: to treat the analogy of the armor of God this way is to make it a “totem” or an object subject to our control, ripped out of the context of the letter to the Ephesians. It can become the worst form of pick-and-choose Christianity, ignoring what Paul is getting at in the logic of his message.

It’s not a new problem, this fascination with the pieces of this metaphorical armor and seeking the esoteric, hidden meaning of them and their uses. Way back in the 1500’s, John Calvin writes:

We must not pay too much attention to the detail of each piece of armor, since all Paul intended was an analogy to a soldier’s equipment. It is silly to try to work out why righteousness should be a breastplate and not a girdle!

So, my hope today is to sidestep the volumes of dubious reflection on the “full Armor of God” and instead place this image back into the contextual narrative of Ephesians where it belongs, no focus on our role in spiritual warfare, no fascination with “sword drills,” rather a look at what this armor really is, what that says about our life in Christ, both now and going forward.

When we think about the armor, the first thing we must understand is that Paul is always using word pictures and analogies. If I say my wife is like a rose, the incorrect knowledge to take from that to say, I wonder how many thorns Kate has. It’s an analogy. It’s not the first word picture Paul uses in Ephesians. In chapter two, he talks about citizenship as an analogy. In chapter four, he talks about darkness versus light and the old man versus the new man, echoing Romans in Adam and in Christ. What exactly is the word picture here? Yes, a Roman Centurion. But there’s something deeper for insight. Let’s look at where Paul drew his armor imagery from by turning to the book of Isaiah. I will read it because I still haven’t convinced you to bring your Bibles.

• Isaiah 11:5: “Justice will be like a belt around his waist. Integrity will be like a belt around his hips.”
• Isaiah 49:2, “He made my mouth like a sharp sword. He hid me in the hollow of his hand. He made me like a sharpened arrow. Hid me in his quiver.”
• Isaiah 52:7, “How delightful it is to see approaching over the mountains the feet of a messenger who announces peace, a messenger who brings good news, who announces deliverance.”

In Isaiah, we see imagery of belts of justice and integrity. We see a mouth. Don’t think of the mouth, but words like a sharp sword. And we see the feet of a messenger who announces peace. This is clearly the imagery Paul is drawing from. And it’s not a surprise that Paul would use Old Testament imagery. He does it often. In Romans, we have Abraham in Romans 4, Adam in Romans 5. He’s not taking the story as it was in the Old Testament. He’s building on it. He’s using it as analogy. The issue here is this, if the armor imagery is drawn from the book of Isaiah and is an analogy, if it isn’t pointing to some spiritual sword or breastplate or the like, then what does it represent when Paul is using this imagery, what does it point to? Now, thankfully, Isaiah is happy to give us the answer: only the answer isn’t a what.

It’s a who.

The Church has always received these particular words of the prophet as his revelatory perception of who the Messiah, the coming King. Listen to how St Jerome, centuries before Calvin puts it in his commentary on Ephesians, from what we read of the Lord our Savior.

Throughout the scriptures, it is manifestly clear that the whole armor of Christ is the Savior Himself. It is he whom we are asked to put on.

It is one and the same thing to say, Put on the whole armor of God and put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Our belt is truth and our breastplate is righteousness. The Savior is also called truth and righteousness. No one can doubt that he himself is that very belt and breastplate on the prince. On this principle, he is also to be understood as the preparation of the gospel of peace. Christ Himself is the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation. He is the sword of the Spirit because he not holy.

Scripture is the word of God, living and efficacious, the utterance of which is stronger than and sharper on both sides our armor, this armor of God is Jesus linguistically, that’s how analogies work when we speak about the full armor of God. As Christians, if we’re standing on Isaiah, if we’re standing on Paul, if we’re standing on church interpretation, what we are really speaking about is our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, if the armor is Christ Himself, how do we put it on here? As the letter concludes, we would do well to look backward through its teaching and what we have learned, namely that to be clothed in Christ as verse 11 today suggests now a better right reading might be to come into union with Christ has everything to do, not with what we should do, not with what we should be aspiring to, but with what already has been done in the context of Ephesians.

We can say it clearly, putting on the armor is being baptized. Let’s think back over our sermon series and what we’ve learned about Ephesians in our very first sermon, the consensus of faithful scholars is that Ephesians is baptismal catechesis. It’s the teaching of Paul for those preparing for baptism, focusing on the work and purpose of Christ and how we should live in light of this having been united with Him in baptism elsewhere in the letter twice in chapter one, the bulk of it, verses three through 14, and later in chapter five, verse 14, Paul is deliberately lifting early church baptismal liturgies and hymns as he instructs those about to be baptized.

By the time we come to chapter six, interpreting put on the armor, in light of Paul’s general approach of using word pictures, specifically analogies and Old Testament imagery, and in light of the baptismal argument he is making in Ephesians, brings us to this unescapable conclusion, the armor is Christ, and we were clothed in it in baptism, that’s when we put it on for those about to be baptized. It’s something that will happen, which is why we put on the armor of Christ when you’re instructing catechumens. But for us, it’s past tense. We are clothed in Christ. We are empowered with the strength of His might. Understanding the armor of God this way also helps us understand what it’s for. Armor is a good visual.

I think that’s why Paul uses it goes all around us in terms of how it’s a good visual for how Christ shields and protects us. But again, it’s less helpful if we take the image to literally. We see that today, because what does armor suggest? Friends? Armor suggests war and that we specifically are the warriors. What are the choices for Warriors? Fight or defend? Fight I must claim the world. I must claim this culture. I must claim my family, or at the very least, I must claim myself for Christ.

Don’t like fighting. How about defending?

I need to make a strong, protected tactical retreat. I’ve got to back away from this godless age, this degenerate culture, and from the attacks of the enemy.

See the problem when we think about armor too literally and we think about warfare too literally. There are two things I think that are the inevitable result. One we think it’s somehow up to us, not Jesus, to win the victory.

It’s all on. Less problem is less can’t do it. The deeper, more painful problem, as I look at the church today, though, is over time. If we think in this way, we can actually become more like us in our spirit, Christians who are always aggressive, always defensive, not at home in our Father’s world, lacking the blessed feet of peacemakers, not servants but soldiers, not a community that

unbelievers would want to join.

Church history and Christian culture today can show us the ugly truth of what we look like if we follow the role road of Christian violence to its logical end and. It, but because the armor is Christ and putting it on is baptism, Paul encourages a different course in the letter one that would make no sense. Militarily, he doesn’t say attack. He doesn’t say defend. Twice in verse seven and in verse 13, what word does he use?

Stand?

Not attack, not defend, just right there in the middle of the battle that is raging all around us. The advice is, stand, stand, because it’s not our fight, it’s Christ’s and it is finished, as he said one Friday, stand, because those flesh and blood people that we are so tempted to attack aren’t even who we’re fighting against. Stand because although we do still struggle against the powers, chapter 1:22 reminds us that they are already under Christ’s feet. He has already given us the victory, even if it isn’t fully realized yet

Stand.

Not attacking or retreating, but standing, not aggressive or fearful, but standing the Call of the church is to stand not blown around by every wind of doctrine, but rooted and grounded in love, compromising neither our witness to the truth of Christ or our loving service in the name of him who lifted up is drawing the whole world to Himself, loving ambassadors, patient teachers, selfless servants, not Centurions. On the night of his betrayal, Jesus taught his disciples in the upper room in John 16:33 we hear him say these words. I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace in the world. You have trouble and suffering but take courage. I have conquered the world.

In this world, we have trouble in suffering. Look around at the world today. You don’t even have to go that far. Just look around at our little community here at Saint Brendan’s and think about what individuals are facing right now.

We do still struggle against the rulers, against the powers, against this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil.

We struggle, but the role of conquering them, well, that’s not ours. Christ has subdued them, and so we stand hard pressed, but not crushed, perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not abandoned, struck down, but not destroyed.

We stand clothed in our baptismal identity. We strand in we stand in Christ, whose grace, in the words of today’s collect, always precedes and follows us. It’s Christ’s grace that’s doing the attacking and the defending. He’s got us coming and going in his grace. So as we conclude Ephesians, we find that we have come full circle back to the truth of chapter one.

You remember chapter one, don’t you? I talked about my little boy and how I love to put things in my pocket and say “In, in, in.”

Beloved, that’s Ephesians.

We stand in Christ,

in, in, in.