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 1^st 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