Hello and Welcome to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am continuing my study on the Whole Armor of God with my focus on the Helmet of Salvation.

My previous posts on the Helmet of Salvation have focused on the protection, saving, healing, and renewing that takes place in our minds.  This was a useful avenue of study for me but I have been pondering the passages of scripture that speak of Jesus as the head and us as His body and wondering if it wouldn’t behoove me to spend some time on how those passages of scripture relate to His being a Helmet of Salvation.

The passages I’ve been pondering are these:

Colossians 1:18: “and He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence”

Colossians 2:18-19: “Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he had not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God”

I’ve also been pondering Paul’s writing his hope that we “may grow up into all things into Him who is the head-Christ” which is found in his letter to the Ephesians and, along with all of these passages, there has been a fragment of scripture floating through my mind but one where I could not remember where in the Bible it was located.  I did some research and found it in Psalm 133:2 which says, “It is like precious oil upon the head, Running down on the beard, The beard of Aaron, Running down on the edge of his garments.”

I felt as though there were something important here to see but, beyond the obvious (Jesus is the Head and we are His body) no clear picture was coming together.  I thought I’d let it simmer on a back burner in my mind for a bit and return to it in a few months but then I read two things which caused my out-of-focus mental picture to sharpen.  The first was Psalm 133:1.  Verse 2 picks up in mid-thought so I was curious what the context of “it is like the precious oil…” would be.  The Psalm opens with, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”

The second thing I read was a statement in William Gurnall’s The Christian in Complete Armour:  “Be very careful of giving thine enemy hand-hold.  Wrestlers strive to fasten upon some part or other, which gives them advantage more easily to throw their adversary; to prevent which, they used-1. To lay aside their garments; 2, To anoint their bodies” (Gurnall, Vol 1. pg 120).

Reading this statement on the heels of having studied Colossians 2:15 which says, “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them…”, I saw with clarity how, joined as we are to the Head Jesus Christ, protected and nourished by Him, partaking of His divine nature and thus His same anointing, of course no enemy can get a grip on us!  I was reminded of Hebrews 7:25: “…He is able to save to the uttermost…” and I amused myself for a bit imagining all enemies attempting to snag a hold merely sliding off into a puddle at my feet. 

However, it was Psalm 133:1 which struck me.  I read verses 1 & 2 together and thought about how difficult it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.  In fact, if I take a long look at our society, I would say it is impossible for us.  But then, maybe it was never expected for us to try to live in unity.

If this study on the Whole Armor of God has showed me anything it is that this Christian life is all Jesus Christ.  It is not we who live, it is Christ living in and through us.  We do not love in our own strength, His love fills us and overflows out of us to the world around us.  We do not do our best to believe and have faith, our faith is His faith.  We do not strive to be righteous, our righteousness is His.  We do not stand and fight the enemy in our own strength, we are made to stand in His covenant love and life and rest in His victory.  When it comes to living in unity with the brethren, it is not left up to us.  We are not to strive to be like Jesus Christ but are to live in the realization that we are IN CHRIST is He is IN US.  Unity.  True unity is found in Jesus Christ and everything He is and has is ours through the working of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible makes clear the Holy Spirit is the anointing that was upon Jesus and is upon us.  Acts 10 tells the story of Cornelius the Centurion and Peter’s Vision and also records Peter saying, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (verse 38).  1 John 2:17 says, “But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.”

I think it’s important to keep in mind Jesus’ description of the One He would send during His conversation with His disciples at the last supper (found in chapters 13-17 of John’s Gospel) when reading 1 John 2:17 because John is not describing some thing as the anointing but rather a Person.  That Person is the Holy Spirit and yet we do not merely have an experience of the Holy Spirit without also experiencing the Son and Father.  I think we have been taught to think too much in terms of separation when it comes to God.  It’s like we’ve been taught to believe we have one relationship with Jesus, another with the Father, and yet another with the Holy Spirit assuming we have belonged to denominations that believe the Holy Spirit is still at work today rather than having ceased with the death of the last Apostle.

The being of God is unity which is a subject I don’t have the space to elaborate on in this post.  I will share two passages of scripture.  The first is also found in 1 John 2 where the Beloved Apostle writes, ““he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also” (verse 33b).  The second is 2 Corinthians 3:17: “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”  We are filled with the fullness of God and that’s all of Him: Father, Son, and Spirit.

In His letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul writes, “I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, will all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.  But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift…for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head-Christ-from whom the whole body, joined and knot together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Eph. 4:1-7, 12-16).

Paul ends this letter with “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.  Amen.”

I wonder if we would not begin to see brethren dwelling in unity if we began offering grace to all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity because it is Jesus alone who is the Head.  The passage in Colossians 2 warns us not to be cheated of the reward we have in Jesus Christ by those who have not held fast to the Head.  Let us not only hold fast to Him who is the Head but grow up in all things into Him who is the Head.

The Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance.  Where are the boundary lines to that inheritance?  Is there ever a moment when we would hear, “this far and no further” or could it be the words of C.S. Lewis are accurate and there is only “further up and further in”?  Let us cease being afraid to leave behind the “discussion of elementary principals of Christ” and “let us go on to perfection”.  What is there to fear?  We are made complete in the One who is not only the Head of all principality and power but has disarmed all principalities and powers having made a public spectacle of them (See Hebrews 6:1-3, Colossians 2:15).  May the anointing Holy Spirit open our eyes for us all to see that we abide in the One who is perfect love and who thus casts out all fear.  May we see that because we abide in Him and the Father is also in Him, we have been brought to complete unity.

Above all, may the Holy Spirit bring us to see that, as we abide in His love, we put on the love which is the bond of perfect unity! It’s all Jesus Christ and there are no limits to His love!

Hallelujah!  Amen.

 Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Gurnall, William, The Christian in complete Armour, Volume I, Seventh Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2021, Page 120

Lewis, C.S., The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle, HarperCollins Publishers, Barnes & Noble, Inc. New York, New York, 2009, Pages 753-760