Paul says we are wrestling not with human flesh, but with principalities and powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, and with the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. This passage may not be unfamiliar to those who read their bibles and attend church on a regular basis, but the meaning of Paul’s words is difficult to grasp. What are the principalities and powers, the world rulers of darkness, and the spiritual hosts of wickedness? We may be tempted to assume that Paul is speaking out of his own cultural context when the ancients believed demons, devils, evil spirits, and sinister forces inhabited everything from the pits of hell to a glass of water. We may assume that such talk from Paul is quaint, dated, and outside our frame of reference. But if that is our assumption, we would be tragically mistaken. By principalities and powers, Paul is referring to something as real to our experience as to his own. Rather than being archaic and unsophisticated in his thinking, Paul is profoundly wise in his analysis of the human predicament.
What Paul and many in the ancient world understood is that there is an outer and an inner aspect to every reality in our world – a physical dimension which can be seen, heard, touched and measured and a spiritual dimension, invisible and untouchable, yet a dimension as real, perhaps more so, than its physical counterpart. For example, a school can be the building, teachers, students, curriculum, teaching, learning, attitudes about education, student attitudes, and the attitudes of teachers and parents. In a real sense, no one has ever seen a school because a school is the sum total of all the attitudes, activities, and assumptions as well as the building, personnel, and students which make up the institution. No one has ever seen an army, either, because an army is as much a configuration of activities, attitudes, and assumptions as it is guns, tanks, and soldiers.
And we may say the same about a marriage, a family, a church, a business, a government, or a nation. There is an interior to every exterior, an inner dimension to every outer dimension, and a spiritual nature to every physical nature.
By principalities and powers Paul means the sum total (visible and invisible) of the forces of might and authority in our world. Now principalities and powers can be good or bad, or I suppose even indifferent. But because the New Testament understands the world as basically alienated from its Creator and hostile to the divine will, Paul recognizes what we are reluctant to admit–that for the most part there is a demonic, evil, sinister spirituality to many of the principalities and powers we experience–so much so that in the second chapter of Ephesians Paul speaks of the principalities and powers as an atmosphere in which we live. We breathe it, absorb it, and drink it in. And just like fish are unaware of the water in which they live, so we can be unaware of the spirituality of evil in which we exist, and thus ignorant of the ways it determines the way we think, speak, and act. Behind and within every institution – every principality and power – is a set of traditions, customs, expectations, beliefs, and values which prop up and legitimize those institutions. And when the principalities and powers are alienated from God, these invisible realities can degenerate into monstrous public opinion, peer pressure, mob psychology, dehumanizing prejudice, jingoistic patriotism, crippling taboos, murderous greed, and idolatrous allegiances – all of which suck the very life out of our world and deny the grace and sovereignty of God. (This was true of Nazi Germany).
That’s one reason the Bible calls consistently and faithfully for conversion, not just of individuals, but also of principalities and powers, institutions and societies, the physical and the spiritual, and the outer and the inner. To change an institution, whether that institution be a marriage, a church, a business or a nation, we must touch its very soul – its interior. Otherwise, the more things change – the more we try to manipulate the outer without recognizing the crucial role of the inner – the more they stay the same.
Now, do I have to tell you that the principalities and powers are still with us? And do we have to be told that they are not all good? The contemporary evidence for the spiritual hosts of wickedness is frighteningly alarming: the pervasive tyranny of alcohol and drug addiction affecting every aspect of social life; the appalling violence associated with the abuse of women and children; the destructive political and economic factors which sap the strength of the poor and drain away the courage of the powerless; the senseless violence in our streets; the re-emergence of racism and hate groups which look to the likes of Adolph Hitler for inspiration; the deadly seduction of materialism that is ruining our planet, destroying our families, cheapening our souls, and taking food from the mouths of the hungry; the reckless rattling of swords and the cavalier taking of human life for the most questionable of motives; the twisting of truth and the embracing of lies to sanction personal and corporate self-interest.
How is the church to respond to all this? How can we respond? Obviously individual, popgun efforts at such monstrous and subtle configurations of evil are ineffective. Paul recognized this. He said that we must put on the whole armor of God in our struggle with the principalities and powers. Such armor is described in terms of the equipment issued to the Roman legionnaire, and the metaphor for the church in these verses is the Roman wedge – the most effective military formation known up to that time and for some 1000 years in the future. The shield, breastplate, and greaves (for the legs) served as protection against the blows of the enemy. When the lines closed and the two sides squared off for combat, the legionnaire used the short, two-edged sword (gladius) to thrust up under the enemy’s shield and thus disembowel him. In such close hand-to-hand combat and with the deadly efficiency of the wedge, the long swords used by most of Rome’s enemies were rendered burdensome and useless. And then there was the Roman long-shield – a shield designed to cover 2/3 of the body of the legionnaire, and 1/3 of his comrade’s body to the left. This brilliant innovation encouraged tight ranks since each fighter was in part dependent on his neighbor for protection. The design of the Roman shield guaranteed that the wedge would not easily break apart.
Endowed with the whole armor of God, the church is exhorted by Paul to stand (vv. 11, 14). This word has the sense of the “drawing up of a military formation for offensive combat.” Paul has no notion here of a Christian life as a last-ditch, rear-guard, defensive operation. He envisions the church taking the fight to the enemy – to the citadel of evil – and he expects the church to win!
But before we marshal our forces, start our crusades, and beat our drums, let’s look once again at this whole armor of God – greaves of truth, breastplate of righteousness, boots equipped with the gospel of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, sword of the Spirit which is the word of God, and prayer, prayer, prayer.
Strange armor indeed from the perspective of the world, for what good is truth unless it is the way the principalities and powers are unmasked and shown for what they really are and the way human beings are set free from the clutches of evil.
What use is righteousness, unless it reveals God’s will to a world bent on every will but the Almighty’s?
Of what value is salvation unless it grants assurance to us in times of dark despair when the unleashed might of the principalities and powers of our world make doubt seemingly the only sensible and expedient choice?
What can the shield of faith do, unless it can protect our hearts and souls from the onslaught of powerful temptations and appealing seductions to bend the knee to that which is less than the living God?
What good is a sword made only of words – even if they are God’s words – in the face of such devious and seemingly unconquerable forces, unless these principalities and powers are undergirded and propped up by salacious ideas, twisted values, and demonic traditions, all capable of being purged by the Word of God?
From our study of these verses, Paul would remind us of three truths:
First, in our faithfulness to God and our daily discipleship, we do not contend with just flesh and blood. We contend with principalities and powers — with constellations and clusters of values, ideologies, customs, prejudices, convictions, hatreds, taboos, and loyalties alienated from and hostile to God. And pity the church that cannot or will not recognize the nature and extent of the enemy!
Secondly, it takes the whole armor of God to look the principalities and powers in the eye and say, “Jesus is Lord” and then to live that confession in every sphere of our lives. The popguns we have been accustomed to using in our fight with evil are so woefully inadequate that it would be laughable if it were not so pathetic.
And thirdly, we can’t be faithful alone in our contention with evil. Just as a lone legionnaire has no chance against an army of hostile forces, so a solitary Christian apart from the Body of Christ has no chance before the monolithic and omnipresent powers of evil. But together, unified in purpose – provided it is God’s purpose – and armed with all Christ-like graces, we shall discover that, in the words of Jesus, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against us.” We shall be able not only to defend ourselves from the onslaught of evil’s delusions and schemes – we shall be able to assail the very citadel of Satan and watch the walls come tumbling down.
So, shoulder to shoulder, with the shields of faith overlapping, let us unmask the principalities and powers, crippling evil to its knees as we wield in Jesus’ name the weapons of the Spirit. And for God’s sake, let’s be done with our popguns!
(Paul’s use of military imagery may disturb those of us who understand Jesus’ abhorrence of violence and his observation that “those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.” We must recognize that Paul is talking about the weapons of the Spirit. These weapons are faith, righteousness, truth, peace, salvation, and prayer. The very nature of these “weapons” does not allow for violence. So why does Paul use military imager? He does so for the very reason John uses violent images in the Book of Revelation. He wants his readers to realize how dangerous and deeply engrained evil can be in our world. This is especially true within empires with their combine of power which includes social, religious, military, and economic dimensions working in concert and often undetected. John in Revelation says that the church has only three weapons it can use against the violent and arrogant empire of Rome: sacrificial love, the Word of God (truth), and faithful testimony to the alternative of Jesus. For both Paul and John, the battle is real and critical. The weapons of the empire must be met with more powerful weapons—the weapons of the Spirit. Only the faithful trust that these spiritual weapons will in the end be victorious. And this victory will not destroy the enemy—this victory will “conquer” the enemy with a barrage of love. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. taught us this truth, but he also said that such a victory will not come without cost.]
