Be Strong in the Lord:
The Armor of God, Part 1 (Ephesians 6:10-13)

Ephesians: The Armor of God • Part 1

The strength is not yours, the armor is not yours, and the victory was won before you ever put it on.

This teaching comes from the King James Bible, and every verse I quote is from the KJV.

These are my own convictions from the Word of God, shared through The Prevailing Word of God ministry, and they do not speak for any local church.

Most believers meet the armor of God as a list. Belt, breastplate, shoes, shield, helmet, sword. The list is memorized, the pieces are named, and the passage is filed away as a devotional picture.

Paul did not write it as a list. He wrote it as the closing argument of a letter, and the argument will not hold together if the last chapter is lifted out of the first five. Before a single piece of armor is described, four verses set the terms of the whole passage. They tell us where the strength comes from, who the enemy actually is, what the armor is for, and what counts as winning.

A Word That Looks Backward

The passage opens with a word that ties it to everything already written.

Finally. The word sends the reader back. Chapters one through three are almost entirely about what God has done in Jesus Christ: chosen, adopted, accepted, redeemed, forgiven, sealed, quickened, raised, seated. Not one of those verbs is something the reader accomplished. Chapters four through six then describe the walk that follows, and the armor is the last paragraph of that walk.

That order matters more than any single piece of the armor. This is not a passage about how a believer becomes strong enough to be accepted. It is a passage about how an accepted believer stands. The conflict described here is fought from a position already given, never for a position still being earned.

Be Strengthened, Not Be Strong

The command reads “be strong in the Lord.” The form of the Greek verb carries a sense the English can flatten: be strengthened, be made strong, keep on being empowered. It is not an order to produce strength. It is an order to receive it, and to keep receiving it.

Paul then names the supply: “the power of his might.” Those are not decorative words. He used the same vocabulary earlier in the letter, and he used it about one specific event.

The strength a believer is commanded to draw on in chapter six is the strength that raised Jesus Christ out of the grave in chapter one. That is the measure. Not enough power to cope, or to manage, or to hold out until Friday. Resurrection power, already demonstrated, already applied to the believer, and available now.

The Whole Armor, and Whose It Is

Two things are said about this armor before any piece of it is named.

It is whole. The Greek behind “whole armour” is a single word, panoplia, and it means the complete equipment of a soldier, not a selection from it. A believer does not get to be a man of truth who never takes up the shield, or a man of prayer who leaves the sword in the rack. Partial armor is simply armor with a gap in it, and the gap is where the enemy works.

It is God’s. Every piece belongs to Him before it is issued to anyone. Truth is His truth, righteousness is the righteousness He provides, the gospel is His gospel, the word is His word. The soldier supplies nothing but the willingness to put on what has been handed to him. Paul says the same thing to Corinth: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds” (2 Corinthians 10:4).

And note what it is for: to stand against the wiles of the devil. The word rendered “wiles” speaks of method, strategy, a planned approach. The enemy in this passage is not pictured as raw force battering a wall. He is pictured as a schemer working by deception. That is why the first piece named will be truth, and why every later piece is tied to something God has said.

Not Flesh and Blood

This single verse corrects more error than most sermons on it contain. The believer’s conflict is not with people. Not with the neighbor, not with the relative who mocks, not with the man in the comment thread defending a doctrine that Scripture will not support. Those people are the field, not the enemy. Treat a person as the enemy and the real one is left entirely unopposed.

Paul stacks four terms for the actual opposition: principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places. The terms describe rank and organization. This is a structured opposition with authority in it, and it operates in the heavenly places. Peter describes the same enemy from the ground: “your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith” (1 Peter 5:8-9).

That last phrase in Ephesians 6:12 is worth sitting with, because Paul has used it before. The believer was blessed “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3), and God “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). The conflict takes place where the believer has already been seated with Jesus Christ. The enemy operates in a realm where the outcome has been settled over his head.

The Evil Day, and What Winning Looks Like

The evil day is spoken of as something that arrives. Armor is put on before it, never during it. No soldier dresses while the arrows are in the air, and no believer builds a working knowledge of Scripture in the hour the crisis lands. The preparation belongs to the ordinary week.

Then the goal is stated, and it is smaller than most people expect. To stand. Not to conquer, not to seize new ground, not to defeat an enemy who has already been defeated. Paul describes what Jesus Christ did at the cross:

The believer is not sent to win that battle again. He is sent to hold the ground the Lord already took, and to be found still standing when the day is over.

What This Means This Week

Three things follow before the first piece is even picked up.

Stop trying to generate strength. The command is to be strengthened in the Lord, and the supply named is the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Effort spent manufacturing courage is effort not spent drawing on His.

Change who you think you are fighting. If a person’s name comes to mind when you think of your spiritual battle, the wrong target has been assigned. Pray for the person. Oppose the deception.

Dress before the day comes. Whatever is not in place on an ordinary Tuesday will not be in place on the evil day.

In the next study the first piece is taken up: the girdle of truth, and why Paul put it on first.

Amen.

2 Corinthians 5:18-21 (KJV)

18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;

19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.

21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

If this study helped you, please share it. • The Prevailing Word of God

Related Teaching

The Origin of Spiritual Warfare

Renew the Mind, Change the Life

What Really Saves You

← All Articles