FOOTNOTES:

“Not on the vulgar massCalled ‘work’ must sentence pass,Things done, which took the eye and had the price.”

In His book of accounts there is a stern reckoning in store for deceitful dealers and the makers-up of unsound goods, in whatever handicraft or headcraft they are engaged.

Let us all adopt St Paul’s maxim; it will be an immense economy. What armies of overlookers and inspectors we shall be able to dismiss, when every servant works as well behind his master’s back as to his face, when every manufacturer and shopkeeper puts himself in the purchaser’s place and deals as he would have others deal with him. It was for the Christian slaves of the Greek trading cities to rebuke the Greek spirit of fraud and trickery, by which the common dealings of life in all directions were vitiated.

3. To the carefulness and honesty of the slave’s daily labour he must even addheartiness: “as slavesof Christ doing the will of God from the soul, with good will doing service, as to the Lord and not to men.”

They must dothe will of Godin the service of men, as Jesus Christ Himself did it,—and with His meekness and fortitude and unwearied love. Their work will thus be rendered from inner principle, with thought and affection and resolution spent upon it. That alone is the work of a man, whether he preaches or ploughs, which comes from the soul behind the hands and the tongue, into which the workman puts as much of his soul, of himself, as the work is capable of holding.

4. Add to all this, the servant’santicipation of the final reward. In each case, “whatsoever one may do that is good, this he will receive from the Lord, whether he be a bondman or a freeman.” The complementary truth is given in the Colossian letter: “He who does wrong, will receive back the wrong that he did.”

The doctrine of equal retribution at the judgement-seat of Christ matches that of equal salvation at the cross of Christ. How trifling and evanescent the differences of earthly rank appear, in view of these sublime realities. There is a “Lord in heaven,” alike for servant and for master, “with whom is no respect of persons” (ver. 9). This grand conviction beats down all caste-pride. It teaches justice to the mighty and the proud; it exalts the humble, and assures the down-trodden of redress. No bribery or privilege, no sophistry or legal cunning will avail, no concealment or distortion of the facts will be possible in that Court of final appeal. The servant and the master, the monarch and his meanest subject will stand before the bar of Jesus Christ upon the same footing. And the poor slave, wonderful to think, who was faithfulin the “few things” of his drudging earthly lot, will receive the “many things” of a son of God and a joint-heir with Christ!

“And,ye lords, do the same things towards them”—be as good to your slaves as they are required to be towards you. A bold application this of Christ’s great rule: “What you would that men should do to you, do even so to them.” In many instances this rule suggestedliberation, where the slave was prepared for freedom. In any case, the master is to put himself in his dependant’s place, and to act by him as he would desire himself to be treated if their positions were reversed.

Slaves were held to be scarcely human. Deceit and sensuality were regarded as their chief characteristics. They must be ruled, the moralists said, by the fear of punishment. This was the only way to keep them in their place. The Christian master adopts a different policy. He “desists from threatening”; he treats his servants with even-handed justice, with fit courtesy and consideration. The recollection is ever present to his mind, that he must give account of his charge over each one of them to his Lord and theirs. So he will make, as far as in him lies, his own domain an image of the kingdom of Christ.

FOOTNOTES:[148]We cannot absolutelyproveinfant baptism from the New Testament texts adduced on its behalf; but they afford a strong presumption in its favour, which is confirmed on the one hand by the analogy of circumcision, and on the other by the immemorial usage of the early Church. Titus i. 6 shows that stress was laid on the faith of children, and that discrimination was used in their recognition as Church members.[149]1 Cor. xi. 32; Heb. xii. 5, 11, etc.[150]Acts vii. 22, xxii. 3; Rom. ii. 20; 2 Tim. ii. 25, iii. 14.[151]1 Cor. x. 11; Col. i. 28, iii. 16; 1 Thess. v. 14, etc.[152]The wordfamily(Latinfamilia) denoted originally the servants of the establishment, the domestic slaves. Its modern usage is an index to the elevating influence of Christianity upon social relations.[153]Rom. i. 1; 2 Cor. iv. 5; Gal. i. 10, etc.

[148]We cannot absolutelyproveinfant baptism from the New Testament texts adduced on its behalf; but they afford a strong presumption in its favour, which is confirmed on the one hand by the analogy of circumcision, and on the other by the immemorial usage of the early Church. Titus i. 6 shows that stress was laid on the faith of children, and that discrimination was used in their recognition as Church members.

[149]1 Cor. xi. 32; Heb. xii. 5, 11, etc.

[150]Acts vii. 22, xxii. 3; Rom. ii. 20; 2 Tim. ii. 25, iii. 14.

[151]1 Cor. x. 11; Col. i. 28, iii. 16; 1 Thess. v. 14, etc.

[152]The wordfamily(Latinfamilia) denoted originally the servants of the establishment, the domestic slaves. Its modern usage is an index to the elevating influence of Christianity upon social relations.

[153]Rom. i. 1; 2 Cor. iv. 5; Gal. i. 10, etc.

Ἰδοὺ ὁ Σατανᾶς ἐξῃτήσατο ὑμᾶς, τοῦ σινιάσαι ὡς τὸν σῖτον.Lukexxii. 31.

Ἰδοὺ ὁ Σατανᾶς ἐξῃτήσατο ὑμᾶς, τοῦ σινιάσαι ὡς τὸν σῖτον.

Lukexxii. 31.

“From henceforth be strong in the Lord, and in the might of His strength. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritualhostsof wickedness, in the heavenlyplaces.”—Eph.vi. 10–12.

We follow the Revised reading of the opening word of this paragraph, and the preferable rendering given by the Revisers in their margin. The adverb is the same that is found in Galatians vi. 17 (“Henceforthlet no man trouble me”); not that used in Philippians iii. 1 and elsewhere (“Finally, my brethren,” etc.). The copyists have conformed our text, seemingly, to the latter passage. We are recalled to the circumstances and occasion of the epistle. High as St Paul soars in meditation, he does not forget the situation of his readers. The words of chapter iv. 14 showed us how well aware he is of the dangers looming before the Asian Churches.

The epistle to the Colossians is altogether a letter of conflict (see ch. ii. 1 ff.). In writing that letter St Paul was wrestling with spiritual powers, mighty for evil, which had commenced their attack upon this outlying post of the Ephesian province. He sees in the sky the cloud portending a desolating storm. The clash ofhostile arms is heard approaching. This is no time for sloth or fear, for a faith half-hearted or half-equipped. “You have need of your best manhood and of all the weapons of the spiritual armoury, to hold your ground in the conflict that is coming upon you.Henceforth be strong in the Lord, and in the might of His strength.”

It is the apostle’s call to arms!—“Be strengthened in the Lord,” he says (to render the imperative literally: so in 2 Timothy ii. I).Make His strength your own.The strength he bids them assume ispower,ability, strength adequate to its end.[154]“The might of His strength” repeats the combination of terms we found in chapter i. 19. That sovereign power of the Almighty which raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, belongs to the Lord Christ Himself. From its resources He will clothe and arm His people. “In the Lord,” says Israel evermore, “is righteousness and strength. The rock of my salvation and my refuge is in God.” The Church’s strength lies in the almightiness of her risen Lord, the Captain of her warfare.

“Thepanoplyof God” (ver. II) reminds us of the saying of Jesus in reference to His casting out of demons, recorded in Luke xi. 21, 22—the only other instance in the New Testament of this somewhat rare Greek word. The Lord Jesus describes Himself in conflict with Satan, who as “the strong one armed keeps his possessions in peace,”—until there “come upon him the stronger than he,” who “conquers him and takes away his panoply wherein he trusted, and divides his spoils.” In this text the situation is reversed;and the “full armour” belongs to Christ’s servants, who are equipped to meet the counter-attack of Satan and the powers of evil. There is a Divine and a Satanic panoply—arms tempered in heaven and in hell, to be wielded by the sons of light and of darkness respectively (comp. Rom. xiii. 12). The weapons of warfare on the two sides are even as the two leaders that furnish them—“the strong one armed” and the “Stronger than he.” Mightier are faith and love than unbelief and hate; “greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.”

Let us review the forces marshalled against us,—theirnature, theirmode of assault, andthe arena of the contest.

1. The Asian Christians had to “stand againstthe wiles[schemes, ormethods[155]]of the devil.”

Unquestionably, the New Testament assumes the personality of Satan. This belief runs counter to modern thought, governed as it is by the tendency to depersonalize existence. The conception of evil spirits given us in the Bible is treated as an obsolete superstition; and the name of the Evil One with multitudes serves only to point a profane or careless jest. To Jesus Christ, it is very certain, Satan was no figure of speech; but a thinking and active being, of whose presence and influence He saw tokens everywhere in this evil world (comp. ii. 2). If the Lord Jesus “speaks what He knows, and testifies what He has seen” concerning the mysteries of the other world, there can be no question of the existence of a personal devil. If in any matter He was bound, as a teacher of spiritual truth, to disavow Jewish superstition, surely Christ was so bound in this matter. Yet instead of repudiating the current belief in Satan and the demons, He earnestlyaccepts it; and it entered into His own deepest experiences. In the visible forms of sin Jesus saw the shadow of His great antagonist. “From the Evil One” He taught His disciples to pray that they might be delivered. The victims of disease and madness whom He healed, were so many captives rescued from the malignant power of Satan. And when Jesus went to meet His death, He viewed it as the supreme conflict with the usurper and oppressor who claimed to be “the prince of this world.”[156]

Satan is the consummate form of depraved and untruthful intellect. We read of his “thoughts,” his “schemes,” his subtlety and deceit and impostures;[157]of his slanders against God and man,[158]from which, indeed, the name devil (diabolus) is given him. Falsehood and hatred are his chief qualities. Hence Jesus called him “the manslayer” and “the father of falsehood” (John viii. 44). He was the first sinner, and the fountain of sin (1 John iii. 8). All who do unrighteousness or hate their brethren are, so far, his offspring (1 John iii. 10). With a realm so wide, Satan might well be called not only “the prince,” but the very “god of this world” (2 Cor. iv. 4). Plausibly he said to Jesus, in showing Him the kingdoms of the world, at the time when Tiberius Cæsar occupied the imperial throne: “All this authority and glory are delivered unto me. To whomsoever I will, I give it.” His power is exercised with an intelligence perhaps as great as any can be that is morally corrupt; but it is limited on all sides. In dealing with Jesus Christ he showed conspicuous ignorance.

Chief amongst the wiles of the devil at this time was the “scheme of error,” the cunningly woven net of the Gnostical delusion, in which the apostle feared that the Asian Churches would be entangled. Satan’s empire is ruled with a settled policy, and his warfare carried on with a system of strategy which takes advantage of every opening for attack.[159]The manifold combinations of error, the various arts of seduction and temptation, the ten thousand forms of the deceit of unrighteousness constitute “the wiles of the devil.”

Such is the gigantic opponent with whom Christ and the Church have been in conflict through all ages. But Satan does not stand alone. In verse 12 there is called up before us an imposing array of spiritual powers. They are “the angels of the devil,” whom Jesus set in contrast with the angels of God that surround and serve the Son of man (Matt. xxv. 41). These unhappy beings are, again, identified with the “demons,” or “unclean spirits,” having Satan for their “prince,” whom our Lord expelled wherever He found them infesting the bodies of men.[160]They are represented in the New Testament as fallen beings, expelled from a “principality” and “habitation of their own” (Jude 6) which they once enjoyed, and reserved for the dreadful punishment which Christ calls “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” They are here entitledprincipalitiesandpowers(ordominions), after the same style as the angels of God, to whose ranks, as we are almost compelled to suppose, these apostates once belonged.

In contrast with the “angels of light” (2 Cor. xi. 14) and “ministering spirits” of the kingdom of God(Heb. i. 14), the angels of Satan have constituted themselvesthe world-rulers of this darkness. We find the compound expressioncosmo-krator(world-ruler) in later rabbinical usage, borrowed from the Greek and applied to “the angel of death,” before whom all mortal things must bow. Possibly, St Paul brought the term with him from the school of Gamaliel. Satan being the god of this world and swaying “the dominion of darkness,”[161]according to the same vocabulary his angels are “the rulers of the world’s darkness”; and the provinces of the empire of evil fall under their direction.

The darkness surrounding the apostle in Rome and the Churches in Asia—“this darkness,” he says—was dense and foul. With Nero and his satellites the masters of empire, the world seemed to be ruled by demons rather than by men. The frightful wish of one of the Psalmists was fulfilled for the heathen world: “Set a wicked man over him, and let Satan stand at his right hand.”

The last of St Paul’s synonyms for the satanic forces, “the spiritual [powers] of wickedness,” may have served to warn the Church against reading a political sense into the passage and regarding the civil constitution of society and the visible world-rulers as objects for their hatred. Pilate was a specimen, by no means amongst the worst, of the men in power. Jesus regarded him with pity. His real antagonist lurked behind these human instruments. The above phrase, “spirituals of wickedness,” is Hebraistic, like “judge” and “steward of unrighteousness,”[162]and is equivalent to “wicked spirits.” The adjective “spiritual,” which does duty for a substantive—“the spiritual [forces, orelements] of wickedness”[163]—brings out the collective character of these hostile powers.

St Paul’s demonology[164]is identical with that of Jesus Christ. The two doctrines stand or fall together. The advent of Christ appears to have stirred to extraordinary activity the satanic powers. They asserted themselves in Palestine at this particular time in the most open and terrifying manner. In an age of scepticism and science like our own, it belongs to “the wiles of the devil” to work obscurely. This is dictated by obvious policy. Moreover, his power is greatly reduced. Satan is no longer the god of this world, since Christianity rose to its ascendant. The manifestations of demonism are, at least in Christian lands, vastly less conspicuous than in the first age of the Church. But those are more bold than wise who deny their existence, and who profess to explain all occult phenomena and phrenetic moral aberrations by physical causes. The popular idolatries of his own day, with their horrible rites and inhuman orgies, St Paul ascribed to devilry. He declared that those who sat at the feast of the idol and gave sanction to its worship, were partaking of “the cup and the table of demons” (1 Cor. x. 20, 21).Heathen idolatries at the present time are, in many instances, equally diabolical; and those who witness them cannot easily doubt the truth of the representations of Scripture upon this subject.

II. The conflict against these spiritual enemies is essentially aspiritualconflict. “Our struggle is not against blood and flesh.”

They are not human antagonists whom the Church has to fear,—mortal men whom we can look in the face and meet with equal courage, in the contest where hot blood and straining muscle do their part. The fight needs mettle of another kind. The foes of our faith are untouched by carnal weapons. They come upon us without sound or footfall. They assail the will and conscience; they follow us into the regions of spiritual thought, of prayer and meditation. Hence the weapons of our warfare, like those which the apostle wielded (2 Cor. x. 2–5), “are not carnal,” but spiritual and “mighty toward God.”

It is true that the Asian Churches had visible enemies arrayed against them. There were the “wild beasts” with whom St Paul “fought at Ephesus,” the heathen mob of the city, sworn foes of every despiser of their great goddess Artemis. There was Alexander the coppersmith, ready to do the apostle evil, and “the Jews from Asia,” a party of whom all but murdered him in Jerusalem (Acts xxi. 27–36); there was Demetrius the silversmith, instigator of the tumult which drove him from Ephesus, and “the craftsmen of like occupation,” whose trade was damaged by the progress of the new religion. These were formidable opponents, strong in everything that brings terror to flesh and blood. But after all, these were of small account in St Paul’s view; and the Church need never dreadmaterial antagonism. The centre of the struggle lies elsewhere. The apostle looks beyond the ranks of his earthly foes to the power of Satan by which they are animated and directed,—“impotent pieces of the game he plays.” From this hidden region he sees impending an attack more perilous than all the violence of persecution, a conflict urged with weapons of finer proof than the sharp steel of sword and axe, and with darts tipped with a fiercer fire than that which burns the flesh or devours the goods.

Even in outward struggles against worldly power, our wrestling is not simply against blood and flesh. Calvin makes a bold application of the passage when he says: “This sentence we should remember so often as we are tempted to revengefulness, under the smart of injuries from men. For when nature prompts us to fling ourselves upon them with all our might, this unreasonable passion will be checked and reined in suddenly, when we consider that these men who trouble us are nothing more than darts cast by the hand of Satan; and that while we stoop to pick up these, we shall expose ourselves to the full force of his blows.”Vasa sunt, says Augustine of human troublers,alius utitur;organa sunt, alius tangit.

The crucial assaults of evil, in many instances, come in no outward and palpable guise. There are sinister influences that affect the spirit more directly, fires that search its inmost fibres, a darkness that sweeps down upon the very light that is in us threatening its extinction. “Doubts, the spectres of the mind,” haunt it; clouds brood over the interior sky and fierce storms sweep down on the soul, that rise from beyond the seen horizon. “Jesus was led of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil.” Away fromthe tracks of men and the seductions of flesh and blood the choicest spirits have been tested and schooled. So they are tempered in the spiritual furnace to a fineness which turns the edge of the sharpest weapons the world may use against them.

Some men are constitutionally more exposed than others to these interior assaults. There are conditions of the brain and nerves, tendencies lying deep in the organism, that give points of vantage to the enemy of souls. These are the opportunities of the tempter; they do not constitute the temptation itself, which comes from a hidden and objective source. Similarly in the trials of the Church, in the great assaults made upon her vital truths, historical conditions and the external movements of the age furnish the material for the conflicts through which it has to pass; but the spring and moving agent, the master will that dominates these hostile forces is that of Satan.

The Church was engaged in a double conflict—of the flesh and of the spirit. On the one hand, it was assailed by the material seductions of heathenism and the terrors of ruthless persecution. On the other hand, it underwent a severe intellectual conflict with the systems of error that were rooted in the mind of the age. These forces opposed the Christian truth from without; but they became much more dangerous when they found their way within the Church, vitiating her teaching and practice, and growing like tares among the wheat. It is of heresy more than persecution that the apostle is thinking, when he writes these ominous words. Not blood and flesh, but the mind and spirit of the Asian believers will bear the brunt of the attack that the craft of the devil is preparing for the apostolic Church.

III. The last clause of verse 12,in the heavenly places, refuses to combine with the above description of the powers hostile to the Church. The heavenly places are the abode of God and the blessed angels. This is the region where the Father has blessed us in Christ (i. 3); where He seated the Christ at His own right hand (i. 20), and has in some sense seated us with Christ (ii. 6); and where the angelic princedoms dwell who follow with keen and studious sympathy the Church’s fortunes (iii. 10). To locate the devil and his angelsthereseems to us highly incongruous; the juxtaposition is out of the question with St Paul. Chapter ii. 2 gives no real support to this view: supposing “the air” to be literally intended in that passage, it belongs toearthand not to heaven.[165]Nor do the parallels from other Scriptures adduced supply any but the most precarious basis for an interpretation against which the use of the exalted phrase in our epistle revolts.

No; Satan and his hosts do not dwell with Christ and the holy angels “in the heavenly places.” But the Church dwells there already, by her faith; and it is in the heavenly places of her faith and hope that she is assailed by the powers of hell. This final prepositional clause should be separated by a comma from the words immediately foregoing; it forms a distinct predicate to the sentence contained in verse 12. It specifies thelocalityof the struggle; it marks out the battle-field. “Our wrestling is ... in the heavenly places.”[166]So we construe the sentence, following the ancient Greek commentators.

The life of the Church “is hid with the Christ in God”; her treasure is laid up in heaven. She is assailed by a philosophy and vain deceit that perverts her highest doctrines, that clouds her vision of Christ and limits His glory, and threatens to drag her down from the high places where she sits with her ascended Lord.[167]Such was, in effect, the aim of the Colossian heresy, and of the great Gnostical movement to which this speculation was a prelude, that for a century and more entangled Christian faith in its metaphysical subtleties and false mysticism. The epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians strike the leading note of the controversies of the Church in this region during its first ages. Their character was thoroughly transcendental. “The heavenly things” were the subject-matter of the great conflicts of this epoch.

The questions of religious controversy characteristic of our own times, though not identical with those of Colossæ or Ephesus, concern matters equally high and vital. It is not this or that doctrine that is now at stake—the nature or extent of the atonement, the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son with the Father, the verbal or plenary inspiration of Scripture; but the personal being of God, the historical truth of Christianity, the reality of the supernatural,—these and the like questions, which formed the accepted basis and the common assumptions of former theological discussions, are now brought into dispute. Religion has to justify its very existence. Christianity must answer for its life, as at the beginning. God is denied. Worship is openly renounced. Our treasures in heavenare proclaimed to be worthless and illusive. The entire spiritual and celestial order of things is relegated to the region of obsolete fable and fairy tales. The difficulties of modern religious thought lie at the foundation of things, and touch the core of the spiritual life. Unbelief appears, in some quarters, to be more serious and earnest than faith. While we quarrel over rubrics and ritual, thoughtful men are despairing of God and immortality. The Churches are engaged in trivial contentions with each other, while the enemy pushes his way through our broken ranks to seize the citadel.

“The apostle incites the readers,” says Chrysostom, “by the thought of the prize at stake. When he has said that our enemies are powerful, he adds thereto that these are great possessions which they seek to wrest from us. When he saysin the heavenly places, this impliesfor the heavenly things. How it must rouse and sober us to know that the hazard is for great things, and great will be the prize of victory. Our foe strives to takeheavenfrom us.” Let the Church be stripped of all her temporalities, and driven naked as at first into the wilderness. She carries with her the crown jewels; and her treasure is unimpaired, so long as faith in Christ and the hope of heaven remain firm in her heart. But let these be lost; let heaven and the Father in heaven fade with our childhood’s dreams; let Christ go back to His grave—then we are utterly undone. We have lost our all in all!

FOOTNOTES:[154]Ἐνδυναμοῦσθε[fromδύναμις]ἐν Κυρίῳ καὶ ἐν τῷ κράτει τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ. See the note on these synonyms, on p. 76. Comp., for this verb, Col. i. II; 2 Tim. iv. 17; Phil. iv. 13:Πάντα ἰσχύω ἐν τῳ ἐνδυναμοῦντί με,—“I have strength for everything in Him thatenablesme.”[155]Comp. remark onμεθοδεία(iv. 14), p. 247.[156]John xii. 31, xiv. 30, xvi. 11: comp. Luke iv. 5–7; Heb. ii. 14.[157]2 Cor. ii. 11, xi. 3; 2 Thess. ii. 9, 10; 2 Tim. ii. 26, etc.[158]Rev. xii, 7–10; Gen. iii. 4, 5; Zech. iii. 1; Job i.[159]Ch. iv. 27; 2 Cor. ii. 11; Luke xxii. 31.[160]Luke x. 17–20, xi. 14–26.[161]Col. i. 13: comp. Acts xxvi. 18, etc.[162]Luke xvi. 8, xviii. 6.[163]Τὰ πνευματικὰ tῆs πονηρίας.[164]Mr. Moule aptly observes, in his excellent and most useful Commentary on Ephesians in theCambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges: St Paul’s “testimony to the real and objective existence” of evil spirits “gains in strength when it is remembered that the epistle was addressed (at least, among other designations) to Ephesus, and that Ephesus (see Acts xix.) was a peculiarly active scene of asserted magical and other dealings with the unseen darkness. Supposing that the right line to take in dealing with such beliefs and practices had been to say that the whole basis of them was a fiction of the human mind, not only would such a verse as this [vi. 12] not have been written, but, we may well assume, something would have been written strongly contradictory to the thought of it” (p. 176).[165]See p. 103.[166]The objection against the common rendering taken from the absence of the Greek article (τά) before the phraseἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις, required to link it toτὰ πνευματικὰ τῆς πονηρίας, is not decisive.[167]Col. ii. 8–10, iii. 1–4; Phil. iii. 20, 21: comp. Eph. i. 3, ii. 6, 18, iv. 10, 15; Heb. vi. 19, 20, etc.

[154]Ἐνδυναμοῦσθε[fromδύναμις]ἐν Κυρίῳ καὶ ἐν τῷ κράτει τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ. See the note on these synonyms, on p. 76. Comp., for this verb, Col. i. II; 2 Tim. iv. 17; Phil. iv. 13:Πάντα ἰσχύω ἐν τῳ ἐνδυναμοῦντί με,—“I have strength for everything in Him thatenablesme.”

[155]Comp. remark onμεθοδεία(iv. 14), p. 247.

[156]John xii. 31, xiv. 30, xvi. 11: comp. Luke iv. 5–7; Heb. ii. 14.

[157]2 Cor. ii. 11, xi. 3; 2 Thess. ii. 9, 10; 2 Tim. ii. 26, etc.

[158]Rev. xii, 7–10; Gen. iii. 4, 5; Zech. iii. 1; Job i.

[159]Ch. iv. 27; 2 Cor. ii. 11; Luke xxii. 31.

[160]Luke x. 17–20, xi. 14–26.

[161]Col. i. 13: comp. Acts xxvi. 18, etc.

[162]Luke xvi. 8, xviii. 6.

[163]Τὰ πνευματικὰ tῆs πονηρίας.

[164]Mr. Moule aptly observes, in his excellent and most useful Commentary on Ephesians in theCambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges: St Paul’s “testimony to the real and objective existence” of evil spirits “gains in strength when it is remembered that the epistle was addressed (at least, among other designations) to Ephesus, and that Ephesus (see Acts xix.) was a peculiarly active scene of asserted magical and other dealings with the unseen darkness. Supposing that the right line to take in dealing with such beliefs and practices had been to say that the whole basis of them was a fiction of the human mind, not only would such a verse as this [vi. 12] not have been written, but, we may well assume, something would have been written strongly contradictory to the thought of it” (p. 176).

[165]See p. 103.

[166]The objection against the common rendering taken from the absence of the Greek article (τά) before the phraseἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις, required to link it toτὰ πνευματικὰ τῆς πονηρίας, is not decisive.

[167]Col. ii. 8–10, iii. 1–4; Phil. iii. 20, 21: comp. Eph. i. 3, ii. 6, 18, iv. 10, 15; Heb. vi. 19, 20, etc.

“Wherefore take up the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having conquered all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the readiness of the gospel of peace; withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evilone. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: with all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”—Eph.vi. 13–18.

Standis the watchword for this battle, the apostle’s order of the day: “that you may be able tostandagainst the stratagems of the devil, ... that you may be able towithstandin the evil day, and mastering all your enemies[168]tostand....Standtherefore, girding your loins about with truth.” The apostle is fond of this martial style, and such appeals are frequent in the letters of this period.[169]The Gentile believers are raised to the heavenly places of fellowship with Christ, and invested with the lofty character of sons and heirs of God: let them hold their ground;let them maintain the honour of their calling and the wealth of their high estate, standing fast in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.Pro aris et focisthe patriot draws his sword, and manfully repels the invader. Even so the good soldier of Christ Jesus contends for his heavenly city and the household of faith. He defends the dearest interests and hopes of human life.

This defence is needed, for an “evil day” is at hand! This emphatic reference points to something more definite than the general day of temptation that is co-extensive with our earthly life. St Paul foresaw a crisis of extreme danger impending over the young Church of Christ. The prophecies of Jesus taught His disciples, from the first, that His kingdom could only prevail by means of a severe conflict, and that some desperate struggle would precede the final Messianic triumph. This prospect looms before the minds of the New Testament writers, as “the day of Jehovah” dominated the imagination of the Hebrew prophets. Paul’s apocalypse in 1 and 2 Thessalonians is full of reminiscences of Christ’s visions of judgement. It culminates in the prediction of the evil day of Antichrist, which is to usher in the second, glorious coming of the Lord Jesus. The consummation, as the apostle was then inclined to think, might arrive within that generation (1 Thess. iv. 15, 17), although he declares its times and seasons wholly unknown. In his later epistles, and in this especially, it is clear that he anticipated a longer duration for the existing order of things; and “the evil day” for which the Asian Churches are to prepare can scarcely have denoted, to the apostle’s mind, the final day of Antichrist, though it may well be an epoch of similar nature and a token and shadow of the last things.

In point of fact, a great secular crisis was now approaching. The six years (64–70 after Christ) extending from the fire of Rome to the fall of Jerusalem, were amongst the most fateful and calamitous recorded in history. This period was, in a very real sense, the day of judgement for Israel and the ancient world. It was a foretaste of the ultimate doom of the kingdom of evil amongst men; and through it Christ appears to have looked forward to the end of the world. Already “the days are evil” (v. 16); and “the evil day” is at hand—a time of terror and despair for all who have not a firm faith in the kingdom of God.

Two chief characteristics marked this crisis, as it affected the people of Christ:persecution from without, andapostasy within the Church(Matt. xxiv. 5, 8–12). To the latter feature St Paul refers elsewhere.[170]Of persecution he took less account, for this was indeed his ordinary lot, and had already visited his Churches; but it was afterwards to assume a more violent and appalling form.

When we turn to the epistle to the Seven Churches (Rev. ii., iii.) written in the next ensuing period, we find a fierce battle raging, resembling that for which this letter warns the Asian Churches to prepare. The storm which our apostle foresees, had then burst. The message addressed to each Church concludes with a promise to “him that overcometh.” To the faithful it is said: “I know thy endurance.” The angel of the Church of Pergamum dwells where is “the throne of Satan,” and where “Antipas the faithful martyr was killed.” There also, says the Lord Jesus, “are those who hold the teaching of Balaam, and the teaching of the Nicolaitans,” with whom “I will make war with thesword of my mouth” (comp. Eph. vi. 17). Laodicea has shrunk from the trial, and grown rich by the world’s friendship. Thyatira “suffers the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce” the servants of Christ. Sardis has but “a few names that have not defiled their garments.” Even Ephesus, though she had tried the false teachers and found them wanting (surely Paul’s epistles to Timothy had helped her in this examination), has yet “left her first love.” The day of trial has proved an evil day to these Churches. Satan has been allowed to sift them; and while some good wheat remains, much of the faith of the numerous and prosperous communities of the province of Asia has turned out to be faulty and vain. The presentiments that weighed on St Paul’s mind when four years ago he took leave of the Ephesian elders at Miletus, and which reappear in this passage, were only too well justified by the course of events. Indeed, the history of the Church in this region has been altogether mournful and admonitory.

But it is time to look at thearmourin which St Paul bids his readers equip themselves against the evil day. It consists of seven weapons, offensive or defensive—if we count prayer amongst them: thegirdle of truth, thebreastplate of righteousness, theshoes of readiness to bear the message of peace, theshield of faith, thehelmet of salvation, thesword of the word, and the continualcry of prayer.

1. In girding himself for the field, the first thing the soldier does is to fasten round his waist the militarybelt. With this he binds in his under-garments, that there may be nothing loose or trailing about him, andbraces up his limbs for action. Peace admits of relaxation. The girdle is unclasped; the muscles are unstrung. But everything about the warrior is tense and firm; his dress, his figure and movements speak of decision and concentrated energy. He stands before us an image of resolute conviction, ofa mind made up. Such a picture the words “girt about with truth” convey to us.

The epistle is pervaded by the sense of the Church’s need of intellectual conviction. Many of the Asian believers were children, half-enlightened and irresolute, ready to be “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine” (iv. 14). They had “heard the truth as it is in Jesus,” but had an imperfect comprehension of its meaning.[171]They required to add to their faith knowledge,—the knowledge won by searching thought respecting the great truths of religion, by a thorough mental appropriation of the things revealed to us in Christ. Only by such a process can truth brace the mind and knit its powers together in “the full assurance of the understanding in the knowledge of the mystery of God, which is Christ” (Col. ii, 2, 3).

Such is the faith needed by the Church, now as then, the faith of an intelligent, firm and manly assurance. There is in such faith a security and a vigour of action that the faith of mere sentiment and emotional impression, with its nerveless grasp, its hectic and impulsive fervours, cannot impart. The luxury of agnosticism, the languors of doubt, the vague sympathies and hesitant eclecticism in which delicate and cultured minds are apt to indulge; the lofty critical attitude, as of some intellectual god sitting above the strife of creeds, which others find congenial—these are conditionsof mind unfit for the soldier of Christ Jesus. He must have sure knowledge, definite and decided purposes—a soul girdled with truth.

2. Having girt his loins, the soldier next fastens on hisbreastplate, or cuirass.

This is the chief piece of his defensive armour; it protects the vital organs. In the picture drawn in 1 Thessalonians v. 8, the breastplate is made “of faith and love.” In this more detailed representation, faith becomes the outlying defensive “shield,” while righteousness serves for the innermost defence, the rampart of the heart. But, in truth, the Christian righteousness is compounded of faith and love.

This attribute must be understood in its full Pauline meaning. It is the state of one who is right with God and with God’s law. It is the righteousness both of standing and of character, of imputation and of impartation, which begins with justification and continues in the new, obedient life of the believer. These are never separate, in the true doctrine of grace. “The righteousness that is of God by faith,” is the soul’s main defence against the shafts of Satan. It wards off deadly blows, both from this side and from that. Does the enemy bring up against me my old sins? I can say: “It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?”—Am I tempted to presume on my forgiveness, and to fall into transgression once more? From this breastplate the arrow of temptation falls pointless, as it resounds: “He that doeth righteousness is righteous. He that is born of God doth not commit sin.” The completeness of pardon for past offence and the integrity of character that belong to the justified life, are woven together into an impenetrable mail.

3. Now the soldier, having girt his loins and guardedhis breast, must look well to his feet. There are lying ready for himshoesof wondrous make.

What is the quality most needed in the soldier’s shoes? Some say, it isfirmness; and they so translate the Greek word employed by the apostle, occurring only here in the New Testament, which in certain passages of the Septuagint seems to acquire this sense, under the influence of Hebrew idiom.[172]But firmness was embodied in the girdle.Expeditionbelongs to the shoes. The soldier is so shod that he may move with alertness over all sorts of ground.

Thus shod with speed and willingness were “the beautiful feet” of those that brought over desert and mountain “the good tidings of peace,” the news of Israel’s return to Zion (Isai. lii. 7–9). With such swift strength were the feet of our apostle shod, when “from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum” he had “fulfilled the gospel of Christ,” and is “ready,” as he says, “to preach the glad tidings to you also that are in Rome” (Rom. i. 15). This readiness belonged to His own holy feet, who “came and preached peace to the far off and the near” (ii. 17),—when, for example, sitting a weary traveller by the well-side at Sychar, He found refreshment in revealing to the woman of Samaria the fountain of living water. Such readiness befits His servants, who have heard from Him the message of salvation and are sent to proclaim it everywhere.

The girdle and breastplate look to one’s own safety. They must be supplemented by the evangelic zeal inseparable from the spirit of Christ. This is, moreover,a safeguard of Church life. Von Hofmann says admirably upon this point: “The objection [brought against the above interpretation] that the apostle is addressing the faithful at large, who are not all of them called to preach the gospel, is mistaken. Every believer should be prepared to witness for Christ so often as opportunity affords, and needs areadinessthereto. The knowledge of Christ’s peace qualifies him to convey its message. He brings it with him into the strife of the world. And it is the consciousness that he possesses himself such peace and has it to communicate to others, which enables him to walk firmly and with sure step in the way of faith.” When we are bidden to “standin the evil day,” that does not mean to stand idle or content to hold our ground. Attack is often the best mode of defence. We keep our faith by spreading it. We defend ourselves from our opponents by converting them to the gospel, which breathes everywhere reconciliation and fraternity. Our Foreign Missions are our grand modern apologetic; and God’s peacemakers are His mightiest warriors.

4. With his body girt and fenced and his feet clad with the gospel shoes, the soldier reaches out his left hand to “take up withal theshield,” while his right hand grasps first the helmet which he places on his head, and then the sword that is offered to him in the word of God.

The shield signified is not the small round buckler, or target, of the light-armed man; but the door-like shield,[173]measuring four feet by two-and-a-half and rounded to the shape of the body, that the Greek hoplite and the Roman legionary carried. Joined together, these large shields formed a wall, behindwhich a body of troops could hide themselves from the rain of the enemy’s missiles. Such is the office of faith in the conflicts of life: it is the soldier’s main defence, the common bulwark of the Church. Like the city’s outer wall, faith bears the brunt and onset of all hostility. On this shield of faith the darts of Satan are caught, their point broken and their fire quenched. These military shields were made of wood, covered on the outside with thick leather, which not only deadened the shock of the missile, but protected the frame of the shield from the “fire-tipped darts” that were used in the artillery of the ancients. These flaming arrows, armed with some quickly burning and light combustible, if they failed to pierce the warrior’s shield, fell in a moment extinguished at his feet.

St Paul can scarcely mean by his “fiery darts” incitements to passion in ourselves, inflammatory temptations that seek to rouse the inward fires of anger or lust. For these missiles are “fire-pointed dartsof the Evil One.” The fire belongs to the enemy who shoots the dart. It signifies the malignant hate with which Satan hurls slanders and threats against the people of God through his human instruments. A bold faith wards off and quenches this fire even at a distance, so that the soul never feels its heat. The heart’s confidence is unmoved and the Church’s songs of praise are undisturbed, while persecution rages and the enemies of Christ gnash their teeth against her. Such a shield to him was the faith of Stephen the proto-martyr.

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