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Brought to Rest

25 Monday Mar 2024

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Hello, Readers!  Welcome to another week and another post on Renaissance Woman!

In last week’s post, I mentioned I was facing some difficulties.  Storm clouds were gathering on the horizon of my life and I didn’t know what was going to happen.  I still don’t.  There have been a few flashes of lightening and rumbles of thunder but the storm has not erupted in full fury.  It could be the storm has merely been postponed or it could be it will all come to nothing.  I didn’t know what was going to happen last week and I still don’t know.

All of which has got me thinking about salvation.  “Put on the Whole Armor of God,” Paul writes in Ephesians 6.  “Take the helmet of salvation…” What do we think of when we think of salvation?  The Strong’s Concordance lists soterion (G4992) as the Greek word translated salvation in this passage which means “defender, defence, salvation.”  Soterion comes from soteria (G4991) which expands a bit on the definition: rescue, safety, deliver, health, salvation, save, saving.  The Strong’s says soteria is derived from soter (G4990) which means “a deliverer, God or Christ”.  Soter comes from sozo (G4982) which means “to save, deliver, protect, heal, preserve, save (self), do well, be (make) whole”. 

I find all of these definitions interesting and even helpful but what truly matters is what I believe about Jesus and salvation.  Do I believe salvation is something Jesus made available to me before He went off to be with the Father in some far off heaven somewhere and now I must believe and have faith in order to receive the salvation He’s made available?  Or, is He Himself my salvation and thus salvation is my reality as His life is lived in me through and by His Spirit?  To me, these are two opposite belief systems even though they might use the same words.  The first points us to Jesus because He is away from us.  Jesus is in heaven (wherever that is) and that’s where we’ll get to go when we die.  The salvation He has bought for us is summed up in our being saved from hell.

In the second, there is no separation because He is not away from us.  He is not God with us in the way that He was God in flesh walking the shores of Galilee all those years ago but neither is He God in heaven waiting for us to die and join Him.  He is God with us inside of us through the Indwelling Holy Spirit.  Thus, His salvation is not something separate from us we have to receive through our believing and having faith.  Rather, He is our very life (see Colossians 3:4) and therefore it follows that the salvation He is is also our very life.

The scriptures make it plain (to me anyway) that Jesus Christ IS salvation: it’s not something He has and bestows on us.  One of my favorite passages of scripture is found in Isaiah and echoes both Psalm 118 and Moses’ song recorded in Exodus 15.  Psalm 118:14 says, ‘The Lord is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation.”  Exodus 15:2 says, “The Lord is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation.”  Isaiah 12:2 says, “Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; For YAH, the Lord, is my strength and song, He also has become my salvation.” 

There is a story related in the second chapter of Luke’s Gospel.  “And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.  And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.  So he came by the Spirit into the temple.  And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said; ‘Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel’.” (See Luke 2:25-32).

My salvation then is a person whose very name means “Yahweh is salvation” (see meaning of Yeshua below).  This person is not separated from me.  I don’t have to go to a meeting place and get a dose of salvation to help me through the week.  Jesus Christ, who is my life, alive in me in and by His Spirit, means salvation is my state of being.  There is no situation I face where His salvation is not because He faces the situation with me.  His presence is always with me therefore His salvation is immediate.

What does that look like?  It looks like Christ in me, the hope of glory.  It looks like my being transformed into His image from glory to glory.  It looks like the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guarding my heart and mind.  It looks like all things being worked together for my good.  It looks like me living and moving and having my being in Christ Jesus.

While this is the truth of Christ in us and us in Christ, we still live in a world that abides by thought processes and ways of being that do not conform to-or even recognize-the life of Jesus Christ.  This world lies in the power of the evil one and those whose minds are still conformed to the patterns of this world will behave accordingly.  I read something in William Gurnall’s The Christian in Complete Armour which I do agree with but only partly.  Speaking on Ephesians 6:12, William Gurnall writes, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood…The Christian’s state in this life [is] set out by this word ‘wrestling.’…It is single combat.  Wrestling is not properly fighting against a multitude, but when one enemy singles out another, and enters the list with him, each exerting their whole force and strength against one another…The permanency or duration of this combat…lies in the tense we wrestle. Not, our wrestling was at first conversion, but now over, and we passed the pikes; not, we shall wrestle when sickness comes, and death comes; but our wrestling is; the enemy is ever in sight of us, yea, in fight with us.” (Gurnall, Vol 1. Pgs. 112-114).

 I read this and felt tired.  There is a modicum of truth to it.  We believers head everyday into a spiritually hostile world.  If Jesus were in some far off heaven somewhere bestowing salvation on us, it would mean we would have to conduct the warfare in our own strength to the best of our own ability with moments of refreshing from heaven.  Perhaps there would be victories but there would be the inevitable failures as well.  Since He is not: since He is in us, He is in our experiences with us.  He is our deliverance from the place we find ourselves.  He is our armor and He is the Victorious One.  I’ve already studied the word “stand” in Ephesians 6:10-18a but it doesn’t hurt to be reminded that the word is a covenant word and it means “made to stand”. 

“In the world you will have tribulation,” Jesus tells us, “BUT! Fear not!  I have overcome the world” (exclamation marks mine).  He gives us rest, even in the midst of the battle.  He is our armor.  He is our salvation.  He is all of these things to us right this very moment because His Spirit is in us and we are thus joined to Him.  The Spirit is the One who makes everything of Christ ours in every moment of our lives.  And so, my closing message for this week is Quench not the Spirit!  Let us cast all our cares on Him!  We may have to remind ourselves we have done so but there is nothing wrong with that.  We remind ourselves as often as we need to that, in this moment, Christ is our strength, our song, our light, and our salvation until we no longer need reminding.  He is our Helmet of Salvation, transforming us through the renewing of our minds!

It is so!  Amen.  

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

References

Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) – What is the Meaning of Jesus’ Name? – Path of Obedience

Gurnall, William, The Christian in Complete Armour, Seventh Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2021

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville Tennessee, 1990

New Vistas

21 Monday Aug 2023

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Hello Readers and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I continue in my study of Ephesians 6: 10-18a.  I am looking specifically at the Apostle Paul’s urging to “Put on the whole armor of God” (verse 11).

This past week has been an interesting one.  Every Christian book I have picked up and every teacher I have listened to has given me a variation on the same message: rest, abide, do only those things you see The Father doing, it is Christ in you that is the hope of glory, Christ lives in you by His Spirit, it is the Holy Spirit who is the revealer, guide, and ability to live the Christian life.  This is all in line with what I have seen up until now in my study: that the Whole Armor of God is the very life of God.  My conviction appears to be substantiated when I read Ephesians 6:11 out of Jonathan Mitchell’s New Testament: “you folks must at some point, for yourselves, enter within (or: clothe yourselves with) the full suit of armor and implements of war (panoply; the complete equipment for men-at-arms) which is God (or: which comes from and belongs to God), in order for you to be continuously able and powerful to stand (or: to make a stand) facing toward the crafty methods (stratagems; schemes; intrigues) of the adversary…” (Mitchell, 479)

I believe this to be true: I believe when Jesus cried “it is finished!” on the cross He had done everything necessary to abolish sin and death and restore us to relationship with The Father.  With His resurrection and ascension, we now have a new and living way opened for us and we-boldly and with confidence-enter the holy places (see Hebrews 10:19-20).  In terms of the whole armor of God and Spiritual Warfare, I don’t believe we are “putting on” something exterior to us nor are we responsible for claiming ground for Jesus, building the kingdom, or seeking to defeat Satan in any way.  Again, I believe this passage is describing the Covenant Life of God freely given to us (and IN US via the Holy Spirit), that the victory belongs entirely to Jesus (see 1 John 3:8) and is a free gift to us because we are in Him, and that His life in us makes us to STAND. 

But then, it doesn’t really matter what I believe if the scripture is saying something else.  The English is clear: Paul says to “PUT ON the whole armor of God”.  I am not forgetting he says to “take up the whole armor of God” in verse 13 but that is the focus of a later post.  At face value, “Put On” does seem to be describing the whole armor of God as something external that we must put on in the sense that we put on our clothes every day.  To that end, I looked up the Greek Word translated “put on”.

That word is endysasthe.  It is the Aorist Imperative Middle 2nd Person Plural Verb form of the Greek enduo.  I realize few share my love of Grammar so I ask you to stay with me through the next few paragraphs!  I’m sure we all remember the definition of a Verb from our language classes but, just as a reminder, a verb is a word that shown an action, occurrence, or state of being.  The Aorist is the tense of the verb and is (probably) best defined as simple past tense.  The Aorist states that an action has happened but gives no information on how long the action took or whether the results are still in effect.  Aorist verbs describe the entire action as a single event.  According to the Ezra Project, “Aorist is an ideal tense to describe an action that happens at a particular point in time.  That is why some grammar books describe it as ‘punctiliar’”. (See Ezra Project link and link to definition of “punctiliar” below).

The Mood of the verb is Imperative which is a verb form used to make a demand or to give advice or instructions.  2nd Person Plural refers to the speaker’s audience.  In this case, the Apostle Paul is addressing many “youse”. 

The Verb enduo is Strong’s number 1746 and is a compound word comprised of en (1722) and duo (1416).  En denotes a fixed position in place, time, or state, instrumentality, a relation of rest, and means simply “in”.  Duo means “to sink, to go down.”  Enduo is thus defined as “to invest with clothing in the sense of sinking into a garment; array, endue”. 

There was enough here for me to meditate on for days however some teachers I’ve recently listened to have made some snarky comments about the definitions in the Strong’s Concordance.  Thus the reason I verified the definition in two other resources.  The Young’s Concordance defines enduo as “to clothe, to go into clothing”.  The Greek English Lexicon defines enduo literally as “to put any kind of thing on oneself; clothe oneself in, put on, wear” and metaphorically as, “the taking on of characteristics, virtues, intentions.”  This Lexicon lists Ephesians 6:11 under the literal definition and Ephesians 4:24 under the metaphorical.  That scripture is “and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”  An interesting anecdote of Alexander the Great is included in this section and that is that, when he would dress as the gods, he believed he became Ammon, Artemis, Hermes, or Heracles.

Still with me?  Great!  Here are my conclusions.  First, I see no reason to consider the occurrence of enduo in Ephesians 6:11 as literal and the occurrence in Ephesians 4:24 as metaphorical. The occurrence in Ephesians 4:24 is endysasthai which is the Aorist Infinitive Middle form of the verb.  Second, I am fascinated by the verb being aorist in both passages.  Both the new man and the whole armor of God are new realities and ways of being for us in this today moment but they originate at a point in the past. They are not new in any sense of the word except that they are new to us when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see them.

Third, I am fascinated by the fact there is no getting around that there are two ways of looking at this word enduo.  We can define it as we are clothing ourselves in the armor that belongs to God and it is ours on loan or we can define it as we are sinking down into the very life of Jesus Christ and He Himself is our armor.  In the first definition, there is no vital connection to the armor.  It is not something that is a part of us which brings me to the inevitable conclusion that, since the armor belongs to God and it is really only loaned to me, it is something that can be snatched away if I happen to fail while conducting Spiritual Warfare.

I have heard many believers say things about their relationship-or lack thereof-to The Father which makes me believe many accept this first definition as truth.  I recently read a description of a book on spiritual warfare which told me the book would help me learn how to escape Satan’s grip, how to address the roots of spiritual bondage, and would teach me how to avoid the wrong approaches so I could truly partner with the Holy Spirit and experience freedom.

This book description is, to me, sadly indicative of the state of believers who do not believe what is spelled out in the Bible.  Satan has no grip on me because the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil.  I don’t worry about sin because I am IN CHRIST, therefore I am born from above (or again), and, because I am born of God I do not sin because His seed remains in me and I cannot sin.  Don’t believe this means you as well? Don’t believe all of that is even in the Bible?  Read 1 John 3!  And, there’s more.

The blood of Jesus, the blood of the new covenant, has cleansed me from all sin because I am IN CHRIST and therefore I walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light (See 1 John 1:7).  Perfect freedom is mine because the law of the Spirit of life IN CHRIST JESUS has set me free from the law of sin and death (see Romans 8:2).  I could go on.  An excellent eye-opening study is to go through the New Testament and underline every occurrence of the words “in Christ”.  Seeing what is ours IN CHRIST is truly marvelous.

And so, I choose the second definition.  I don’t choose it because I wish to (although it really is so much better than the first) but because it is the truth I see proclaimed to me from every page of the Bible.  The manifestation of Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, is my fixed position in time.  As time is linear, this fixed point is past and yet is so vitally my present and also will be my future.  I put Him on by hastening to enter into His rest thus resting from all my works.  I put Him on by abiding in Him because apart from Him I can do nothing.  I put Him on as I conformed more and more into His image.  I sink down into everything He is and experience everything that is mine because I am His and He is God’s (1 Corinthians 3:21).         

He is my salvation.  He is my life.  He is the whole armor of God who protects me and ministers His victory to me in all times and places because in Him I live and move and have my being.  I sink down into Jesus Christ, snuggle into Him like the most comfortable of garments, and my life is now hidden with Him in God (Colossians 3:3).

Isn’t this incredible?!  May the Holy Spirit open our eyes to Christ who is our life!

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

References

Ephesians 6 Interlinear Bible (biblehub.com)

Greek Tenses Explained – Ezra Project

Punctiliar Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

Imperative Mood | Definition, Examples & Use (scribbr.com)

Middle Voice: Overview & Examples | What is Middle Voice? | Study.com

Second Person: Explanation and Examples (grammar-monster.com)

Danker, Frederick William, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1957, 2000

Green, Jay P., The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew, Greek, English, Volume IV, Second Edition, Authors For Christ, Inc. Lafayette, IN, 1796, 2000

Mitchell, Jonathan Paul, MA, The New Testament, 2019 Edition, Harper Brown Publishing, 2009, 2019

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville Tennessee, 1990

Young, Robert, LL.D., Young’s Analytical Concordance to the Bible, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts

Face to Face

31 Monday Jul 2023

Posted by in Studies, Whole Armor of God

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Hello Readers!  Welcome to a new week and a new post on Renaissance Woman.  This week’s post is another installment in my study of the Whole Armor of God.  I am looking at Ephesians 6:10-18a and I have not progressed any further than “Stand”.  The Apostle Paul says to “stand” three times in this passage and I was certain he meant for us to stand fast or stand firm against the onslaught of the enemy.  There is a word in the Greek which does mean to stand, persevere, hold fast, and it is steko.  That is not the word used in this passage.  The word used in this passage is histemi and it means “to stand, abide, appoint, bring, continue, covenant, establish, hold up, lay, present, set up, staunch, stand (by, forth, still, up). 

These two Greek words are related to each other.  Steko comes from the perfect tense of histemi.  The perfect tense in Greek is used to describe actions already done or completed in the past which produced results still in effect in the present: something to bear in mind when reading the passages that use steko.  Histemi carries more of a meaning of “made to stand” or “cause to stand”.  We see this in verse ten of my study passage: “Finally, by brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.”  We stand because Jesus Christ in us causes us to stand.  We are made to stand because we are in covenant with Him.

Covenant is a weighty word.  I have been meditating on the covenants of the Bible since last year when I completed a course on them.  During this course, the Teacher said the Western Church has very little understanding of what covenant means.  The Western Church defines covenant in the terms of contract: if you do this then I will do that.  Surely not, I thought to myself and I have spent a great deal of time since then listening to what my fellow believers here in the west are saying.  I have found this Teacher is correct in his diagnosis of the Western Church.  It came to a head for me when I was watching a television show on the life of Jesus.  Two characters are running a scam on a landowner and, once the landowner agrees to sell, one character says “we’ll draw up the covenants.”  I heard that and I almost exploded.  For the word covenant to be used when contract was so clearly implied left me utterly discombobulated.  The two words have nothing to do with each other. 

I have heard covenant being used when contract is meant many times since by many of my fellow believers.  It is like my ear has been tuned to it.  And, this lack of understanding is being noticed by others.  Just this week I read this in the Spring 2023 edition of Biblical Archeology Review: “The theme of covenant is central to the Hebrew Bible.  It provides the background to many of its most memorable stories where Yahweh establishes alliances with figures such as Noah (Genesis 9), Abraham (Genesis 12; 15; 17), Moses (Exodus 19; 24), Aaron (Exodus 29; Numbers 18:19), and David (2 Samuel 7). 

“Yet modern biblical scholarship has marginalized the covenantal aspects of the Hebrew Bible in favor of the many individuals and events associated with such arrangements, which are generally reduced to their legal aspects and interpreted as obligations subsumed under the law (Hebrew: torah).  The word torah even serves to designate the first major division of the Hebrew Bible.  Reading the Bible in its wider Near Eastern context, however, rehabilitates the covenant as a crucial factor in diplomacy as well as political and private alliances.”

A contract is indeed an if/then document.  Punishments are usually clearly spelled out should either party fail to comply with the contract’s terms.  Covenants are a matter of life and death.  They were not drawn up: they were typically established in blood.  Animals were split in half and the two parties would walk between the pieces through the blood.  The blood of the parties was also often shed and mingled.  A covenant meant both parties were swearing all they were and had-their very lives-were being given to the other person.

In all fairness to the Western Church, they can’t be blamed for thinking in terms of contract because the Covenant of Moses given at Mount Sinai was given in the language “if you don’t do these things, then these things will come upon you.” (See Exodus Chapters 19-24).  I have heard Bible Teachers say the people of Israel made a terrible mistake when they answered with one voice saying, “All the words which the Lord has said we will do” (Exodus 24:3).  Of course they did not.  They could not.  Their inability to do wasn’t a surprise to God either because the Apostle Paul writes, “Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound.  But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (Romans 5:20).

There is a fascinating verse that appears earlier in this same chapter: “For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law” (Romans 5:13).  I cannot venture into a study on this subject now.  The Apostle Paul beautifully explains himself in Chapters 6 and 7 and I highly recommend you take the time to read through them.  I think the Apostle Paul’s point, and the point I am making about the Mosaic Covenant is summed up in Hebrews 7:18-19: “For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.”

The television show about the life of Jesus I mentioned does, in my opinion, do some things brilliantly; one of which is pointing out how the Pharisees especially revered the law.  The laws given by God at Mount Sinai and in the Book of Leviticus were not enough: they developed a system of 613 more laws.  What I find to be tragic is that a great number of believers today choose the same way of living.  Matthew 5:16-20 records Jesus saying, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets.  I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.  For assuredly, I say to you, til heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.  Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Strong words indeed and I cannot blame my fellow believers for using them as a basis for their endeavors to keep the law.  Some do try to keep it in their own strength.  They fail of course and the penances and punishments of their denominations are there for them.  There are others that believe that, because the Spirit has been given, we now have the strength that was lacking in the Israelites of the Old Testament to keep the law. This passage is not a warning given to us by Jesus if we don’t keep the law. For one thing, even those who break the least of the commandments and teach others to do so are in the kingdom of heaven.  They are least in the kingdom, certainly, but they are not burning in hell which is interesting but not the most important point I would make. That point is: the New Testament makes it clear Jesus has fulfilled the law.

Again, I would point your attention to Paul’s letter to the Romans.  Paul writes, “I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.  And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death.  For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me” (Romans 7:9-11).  He goes on to write that famous passage that ends in “O wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?”  He has an answer! 

“I thank God-through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.  There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 7:24-8:4).

Our Christian life is not one of extra ability to keep the law.  It is not one of contract.  I have carefully read the New Testament and I do not find our Christian lives are to be lived as if/then but rather because/therefore.  (Malcolm Smith first put our covenant life in these terms and I’ve never heard it better expressed).  We are partakers of a New Covenant and one we had no part in making.  It was established in the blood of Jesus and He is its mediator (See Matthew 26:28, Hebrews 9:15).  He is in us and we abide and rest in Him.  Because this is the truth, we therefore have ceased from our own works as God did from His. We are made to stand in His strength and the power of His might.  We are made to stand in the covenant position with Him: face to face.

Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!  Amen.

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

References

Greek Tenses Explained

The Rules of the Pharisees – pursueGOD.org

Pharisaic Laws | Bible.org

Heintz, Jean-Georges, “Covenants in Context”, Biblical Archaeology Review, Volume 49 Number 1, Spring 2023, 61

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville Tennessee, 1990

Vine, W.E., Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1997    

Laboring Under a Misapprehension

24 Monday Jul 2023

Posted by in Studies, Whole Armor of God

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Image by PublicDomainArchive from Pixabay

Good Day!  Welcome to a new week and a new post on Renaissance Woman.

This week’s post is a continuation of my study on Ephesians 6:10-18a: “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.  Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.  Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.  Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.  And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit…”

I’ve thought about this passage many times over the years.  I wondered if there was any significance to the order in which the armor is listed or whether one part might be considered the most important.  The shield of faith is introduced with the words “above all” so there was a time when I focused on the shield of faith.  But then, every other part of the armor would have been put on before a roman soldier ever took up shield and sword so, while important, the shield was not necessarily the most important.  As I got interested in Ancient Roman History, I wondered if the order in which a soldier put on his armor matched Paul’s list and thus had any significance and whether the roman soldiers considered one part of the armor more indispensable than another.  I had fun reading different articles on the legionaries of Rome and found there were as many opinions on what was the crucial piece of armor as there were articles.

This was all, of course, before I came to see the armor of God not as something external from us we had to be vigilant to put on (and be extra vigilant not to forget a piece before facing our day) but rather as Jesus Christ Himself.  The Whole Armor of God is the same as the Fruit of the Spirit.  Galatians 5:22-23 list out love, joy, peace longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control but these are not a list of the Fruits of the Spirit-plural but rather an attempt to comprehensively describe the Fruit of the Spirit-singular.  So it is with the Whole Armor of God.  It is not separate pieces we have to be certain we’ve put on every day.  Each piece described by Paul is merely an attempt to comprehensively describe who Jesus Christ is to us at every given moment.  What is coming at us?  Fiery darts?  No problem because Jesus Christ is our defense and a shield about us.  Enemy coming for your mind or attacking your vitals?  No need to fear!  Jesus is the helmet of our salvation and our breastplate of righteousness. 

But, even though I had come to see the whole armor of God as a cohesive description of the strength and might of our Lord Jesus Christ, there were still cobwebs of tradition that needed to be swept away and necessary wisdom and revelation to be given by the Spirit. As I had started this study by focusing on Ephesians 6:10 and also on the call to stand, I spent last week looking at how our feet ought to be shod.  Paul says our feet are to be shod “with the preparation of the gospel of peace”.  The Roman Soldier had his feet shod with either caligae or calcei. 

The caliga was more boot than sandal but was openwork like a sandal as it was made of leather strips that attached to the sole.  The leather would be beveled on the skin side so the strips did not rub on the soldiers’ feet and cause sores.  The sole of the caliga was hobnailed which provided excellent traction on rough ground or on the body of a fallen enemy, whichever the case may be. Calcei were an enclosed boot that the roman army began to transition to in the 1st century.  They offered better protection in wetter and colder climates but, at the time of Paul’s writing and the fact that he was writing from Rome itself, it’s safe to assume his guards were shod with caligae.  These boots enabled a soldier to march great distances or stand his post in relative comfort. 

And so: the supportive shoes that enable us to stand are the preparation of the gospel of peace.  I remembered Philippians 4:7; “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”  I’ve got it!, I cried.  Jesus tells his disciples and therefore us that it is His peace He gives to us (John 14:17) and the passage in Philippians says it is His peace which guards us AND the passage in Ephesians says it is our feet which are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.  Therefore, Jesus Himself is our defense, our peace, our strength and might, and, like the hobnailed boots of the roman soldier, our surety that our foot will not slip.  We can trust that in Him we stand and hold our ground.

The conclusion I have just made is not wrong, per se.  Rather, it is incomplete.  There is a word in the Greek that means “stand” in the sense of holding fast.  It is steko (G4739) and means “to be stationary, to persevere, stand (fast)”.  Steko is translated as “stand” in a handful of passages throughout the New Testament.  I will include two examples.  One is Mark 11:25: “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses”.  Another is Galatians 5:1: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” 

The meaning is clear in these passages.  Our English word “stand” is an accurate translation of the Greek: we stand, persevere, hold fast.  Before last week’s study, I would have agreed this idea of standing is a perfect picture of us having put on the whole armor of God: He gives us His strength so that we stand, persevere, hold fast.  Except steko doesn’t appear at all in the passage in Ephesians.  Every time the English word “stand” appears in this passage, it is translating histemi (G2476). Histemi means, “to stand, abide, appoint, bring, continue, covenant, establish, hold up, lay, present, set (up), staunch, stand (by, forth, still, up).” 

Reading this turned the picture I had in my mind on its head.  I was picturing The Believer standing against the onslaught of the enemy in the power and might of the Lord, persevering against slings and arrows because He was the armor and defense, and able to stand being solidly rooted in His peace.  Instead, I had to picture The Believer abiding.  I had to reconsider everything I thought about Spiritual Warfare because it is conducted from a place of rest. 

This seems so counterintuitive.  Warfare and rest are opposite sides of the coin, right?  Don’t we have to conduct warfare so that we can have rest?  Hebrews 4:10-11a hold the answer for it says, “For he who has once entered into [God’s] rest also has ceased from [the weariness and pain] of human labors, just as God rested from those labors peculiarly His own. [Gen. 2:2.] Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter in that rest [of God]-to know and experience it for ourselves…” (Amplified).  The King James Version says “Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest…”  The Greek word translated as “labour” in the KJV doesn’t hold the meaning of hard work or strenuous activity.  The word is spoudazo (G4704) and it means “to use speed, to make effort, be prompt or earnest, give diligence, be diligent, endeavor, labour, study.”  I find it is a relational word: when we are excited to spend time with someone, we make haste to be prompt so we don’t miss a minute. So it is with the excitement and earnestness with which we enter His rest.

I have always seen this passage on the whole armor of God as relating to Spiritual Warfare.  After all, who wears armor other than someone prepared for battle?  I think it still does but it is the strangest sort of warfare: utterly opposite from everything I’ve been taught to believe.  When I began this study, I saw warfare as something conducted from the victory of Jesus Christ rather than an attempt to gain a victory but never within the context of abiding, covenant, and rest.  As I looked at the word histemi, I thought of the words of Jesus: “without Me you can do nothing…abide in Me…” (John 15). 

That is an arresting idea: the Whole Armor of God as the covenant life and rest that is ours as we abide in Jesus Christ.  Our English “in” is the Greek word en (G1722) which means “a fixed position (in place, time, or state), instrumentality, a relation of rest.”  Our precious Savior says to us, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

This is my focus for the upcoming week.  I am seeing myself as no longer laboring or striving under the burden of all the shoulds, oughts, and musts but will see myself laboring  or making haste to enter His rest.  I will not see myself as standing as in I must persevere and hold fast but rather abiding in the One who is my life.

Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!  Amen.

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

References

Romans in Britain – The Roman Soldier’s Footwear – Caligae and Calcei (romanobritain.org)

 Caligae – Legio X Fretensis (x-legio.com)

The Comparative Study Bible, The Zondervan Corporation, Grand rapids, Michigan, 1984

Matyszak, Philip, Legionary: The Roman Soldier’s (Unofficial) Manual, Thames & Hudson, London, UK, 2009, Page 52-54

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville Tennessee, 1990

Knowing His Rest

05 Monday Dec 2022

Posted by in Personal Essays, Writing

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Hello and welcome to a new post on Renaissance Woman!

This post is going up on the blog a bit later than usual as I travelled to San Antonio for the weekend to take part in a retreat.  The Bishop of my church was going to do some teaching and then we were all going to celebrate his 70 years in the ministry!  The theme of the weekend was “A Living Rest” and it was as I was on my way back home I saw the truth of that illustrated.

I have not travelled on my own in almost twenty years.  And, any travelling I have done has been as a passenger in a vehicle.  I have not flown anywhere in all that time.  It so happened my family could not travel with me to the retreat and, if I wanted to go, I was going to have to go on my own.  I did consider staying home but decided I couldn’t be a coward, I was a grown adult, and my brain injury was not going to keep me home.  It did not and, though I did experience struggles, everyone I asked for help was so incredibly nice and I got to where I needed to go with all my questions answered.

I had a marvelous time but was definitely ready to get home.  It was as I waited for my return flight that I sat in the airport watching the day grow darker and darker as the fog settled in.  I occasionally glanced at the board to see if the fog would be enough to cancel my flight but there was never a change in status.  Despite the thickening fog, my flight remained on time.

The day was still foggy and damp by the time I boarded my plane and took my window seat but the pilot and flight attendants made their announcements and the flight attendants made their final checks.  The pilots began taxiing away from the terminal.

I was enjoying watching it all through the window: the different colored lights, the way the pilots so easily maneuvered that massive plane away from the terminal and onto the runway.  A gray fog still hung over the other planes and various buildings and I could only continue to watch as the pilots fired up the engines and took off, apparently unperturbed by the fog. 

Then, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  My seat was directly over the wing and I could easily see one of the engines outside my window.  As the plane rose into the air, the engine was all I could see.  Anything else including the ground from which we were pulling away, was obliterated from sight by thick fog. 

I was certain the pilots couldn’t be relying on their own sight: they couldn’t be able to distinguish anything more than I could.  No doubt they had to be relying on their instruments which must be so sophisticated that they render human eyesight unnecessary.  The pilots must have implicit trust, not only in their training but in their instruments, that taking off into a blinding fog wasn’t worth a second thought.

As for me, I was in control of nothing.  Lift off or cancellation, none of it was my choice.  All I could do was sit in my seat and trust the pilots.  My trust was both in their abilities and in their trust in the capabilities of the aircraft.

That trust was not misplaced.  In only a few moments, the plane had ascended above the clouds themselves and there wasn’t a wisp of fog to be seen.  The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and I was on my way home.  As I looked out at the clouds spread out as far as my eye could see and lit by the sun, I saw illustrated what I had learned at the retreat.

A close translation of Galatians 2:20 is, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith of the Son of God, the One loving me and giving Himself over on my behalf.” (See the Literal, King James, and Greek Interlinear)  I’ve mentioned it before but it fascinates me that the Greek tou, which is not 3588 in the Strong’s Concordance but 5120, appears three times in this passage and is translated “in”, “of”, and “the (One)”. 

It may seem like splitting hairs but I find there is a massive difference between living my life by faith in the Son of God and living by faith of the Son of God.  Within the context of my illustration, I could have freaked out, gripped the armrests of my seat, and said over and over, “I have faith in the pilots, I have faith in the plane, I have faith that weird noise I heard doesn’t mean the engine is about to fly off this wing.”  Or, I could do as I did and rest in my seat, marveling that the fog was no deterrent to their taking off and knowing that as long as the pilots and flight attendants remained calm, there was no reason for me not to do so.  I suppose I could say my faith was “in” them but it wasn’t, not really.  My faith was their faith and I could enjoy the takeoff in perfect rest because the pilots and flight attendants knew what I did not and the pilots could see what I could not.

One of my Bible Teachers shares a similar illustration.  He was on a flight that began to experience turbulence and was getting nervous but then saw the flight attendant in her seat scrolling through her phone, unfazed by being bounced around.  I see exactly what he is saying as we encountered turbulence coming into Denver.  I looked around to see the cabin shifting back and forth and could feel the plane bump and jerk.  I looked out to see the wing raising and lowering and realized the pilots weren’t fighting the turbulence but were-quite literally-rolling with it.  One of the flight attendants then announced that while we were experiencing some turbulence, it was quite normal to do so coming into Denver.  Again, I could rest in their experience and knowledge.

Jesus Himself is my living rest.  Jesus is my forerunner (Hebrews 6:20).  He is the One who is far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named (Ephesians 1:21).  He declares the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done (Isaiah 46:10).  My faith is His faith made a reality in me through the indwelling of His Spirit.  There are so many times I am following the leading of the Spirit and yet fog settles into the situation and I cannot see the outcome.  Lift off or cancellation?  The result is entirely out of my control.  Yet I rest.  I rest in Jesus Christ who has overcome the world.  I rest in the certainty that He sees what I cannot.

Just one more observation before I close: once the plane was above the clouds, it appeared as if we were hovering.  I knew that wasn’t possible and that the plane was travelling at hundreds maybe thousands of miles per hour. (I have since Googled it and found the average airspeed of a 747 is 550mph).  And so, even though I looked as though we weren’t moving at all, I knew that wasn’t the truth.

I have these times in my Christian life as well.  My vision is not obscured: the sun is shining and the sky is blue.  And yet I looks to me as if I am not making any progress at all.  Here too, my faith is the faith of Jesus Christ.  Because He is in me and I am in Him, I share His Oneness with the Father who has created me in Christ Jesus for good works which He prepared beforehand so that I would walk in them (See Ephesians 2:10).  Not only that, but I know His word is true and that He who has begun a good work in me will continue to perfect and complete it until the Day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6).  It doesn’t matter how it may appear to me for I am in the current of the Holy Spirit and we are ever pressing on towards the goal.

Jesus Christ is the perfect gift given by the Father for the world.  I in Him and Him in me I find not only my very life but a perfect living rest.

Praise His name!  Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!

Amen.

References

Galatians 2:20 Interlinear: with Christ I have been crucified, and live no more do I, and Christ doth live in me; and that which I now live in the flesh — in the faith I live of the Son of God, who did love me and did give himself for me; (biblehub.com)

Green, Jay P., The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew Greek English, Volume 4, Authors for Christ, Inc., Lafayette, Indiana, 1985

Marshall, Reverend A., The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1958,1970

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990