“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 evil one. 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.
Stand is the watchword for this battle, the apostle’s order of the day: “that you may be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil, ... that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and mastering all your enemies[168] to stand.... Stand therefore, 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 focis the 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, and apostasy 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 the sword 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 the armour in 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: the girdle of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of readiness to bear the message of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the word, and the continual cry of prayer.
1. In girding himself for the field, the first thing the soldier does is to fasten round his waist the military belt. With this he binds in his under-garments, that there may be nothing loose or trailing about him, and braces 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, of a 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).