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I must admit that when I was asked to write on this topic, my first impression that it was something to do with John and his mushrooms. However, after a little meditation I remembered Paul writing about the ‘Armour of God’ (Ephesians?) and came up with the following reflections on it.
What is this belt? Is it there to stop our stomachs expanding as we gorge ourselves on every morsel of ‘truth’ we can find? Not that we shouldn’t vary our diet, of course, and see how many different morsels contain the salt we search for. Is it there to stop our trousers falling down and letting the world see our embarrassing underwear? Or is it a symbol of God’s relationship with us — the truth we have found in Him? Close to our belly to quell the butterflies, but something that once we have put on tends not to come off unless we purposely take it off. Is it a metaphor for the relationship we each enjoy with God, for the truth we have found in Him? As such our belts will be different to those of others — no two will be the same. There will be common features, such as the holes, the buckle, but the designs may differ, the width may vary, and how tight we choose to wear it will be different from others. Only by proudly wearing it can we cause others to stop and look. And it is only by examining the belts of others that we can gain a fuller picture of the belt-maker himself, and the variety He enjoys.
So Paul gives us the rundown on the latest in Christian Soldier Accessories, why do we need these? — “So that you can withstand in that evil day, and having done all stand” So in what way does the breastplate of righteousness help us stand and withstand. Well what is righteousness? What makes it a breastplate and not a bright green woollen tank-top?
There are 2 types of righteousness, that which is given, and that which we work at. God gives us his righteousness when we accept him as our Lord, and this sign is what makes us acceptable to God, not our own righteousness.
He saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit.
Titus 3v5
So when Paul says put on the breastplate of righteousness he is not referring to this, since those he is writing already have it, but to the righteousness we work at. What is this righteousness :—
And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us.
Deuteronomy 6v25
These commandments are summarised by Jesus in Matthew 22:37–40. The consequence of relying solely on Gods righteousness is that in the battle we will not be seen as soldiers, and will be mistaken by our own side as the enemy. The other side however will see we are unprotected and attack us in our heart, so we will soon suffer and we will be useless to our own side.
And let our people learn to apply themselves to good deeds, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not to be unfruitful.
Titus 3:14
Using Gods righteousness as excuse for not putting on the breastplate means we will only be counted on the casualty list, not as soldiers who fought for their King. However relying on our own righteousness is worse, we may feel the victors but when the victory comes well be counted as an imposter. (Romans 10:1–4). Therefore we need to be righteous — it strengthens our faith and it keeps our heart safe. It marks us out as a soldier, someone that puts fear in the enemy, as long as we keep it clean. If we don’t, we become an object of ridicule and we will quickly fall down, not even approaching the heights and honour that the great soldier attains for God, which if we claim to love him should be the ultimate motive.
Christian faith is often described by non-Christians as two things: something for weak people to lean on and hide behind when they can not handle problems in life, and a convenient excuse for not being able to answer awkward questions. Bearing this in mind, is the fact that Paul portrays faith as a shield not supportive of these accusations? Is the shield of faith not just something to hide behind and to use to mask the things about life which we do not understand?
It is certainly true that there is a lot in life about which we have very little knowledge or understanding. Perhaps these things are simply beyond human comprehension. Above all of these is God. He is so big, so powerful, so all-knowing and so immense that humans simply could never understand everything about Him. We can not even get close! It is therefore essential to have faith in order to follow Jesus, but there is certainly more to faith than just allowing us to gloss over the fact that there are such huge gaps in our knowledge about God.
In Ephesians 6, Paul says, “take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”. This is certainly not just faith being used as a crutch. The shield bearer is using the shield as an integral part of their weaponry in order to combat their adversary. Here, faith is rendering useless the attacks of the enemy. This passage tells us that faith is a very powerful tool and, that when used in conjunction with the rest of the armour of Christ, can be a very effective weapon!
So how large a role does faith play in the life of a Christian? In Romans 10 v. 9, Paul says the following: “if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”. We cannot honestly confess that Jesus is Lord unless we have faith. This is certainly one aspect of faith and one that has large implications. However, faith is nothing without love (1 Corinthians 13). Paul stresses this point further in Galatians 5 v. 6. While trying to reconcile differences in the early church he says, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”. It is this love that must prompt the actions of which James talks in the second chapter of his letter. James describes faith as being inextricably linked to actions, “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.” (James 2 v. 26).
Faith is something very much more than an excuse for not making the best use of our intellect whenever we come into contact with any Christian concept or difficult situation. It should be an active part of our Christian lives which should guide us in everything we do.
Salvation is God’s divine act of delivering us from our sin; it is done purely because we believe and repent of our sins and not because we in any way deserve it. Through accepting Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice of dying on the cross, we are accepting that the one perfect man, our God made incarnate, has died for us and for our salvation. We are accepting his freely given liberation from all sin, guilt and shame; and allowing God to make us a new creation, free from sin.
We always know that we are going to sin again, even if we have the best of intentions: sin is the human side of our nature, the act of a corrupt world on the perfect creation of God. Alongside this however, we have the everlasting promise of God that we only need ask and we will be forgiven.
When I became a Christian I accepted the fact that I could never be perfect and that the best I could do was put my trust in God, who is the only perfect being. I accepted his acceptance of my sin and his salvation which freed me from guilt and allowed me to live my life with a purpose. In short, God’s salvation freed me to be myself and to live my life in the best possible way and to his glory.
It is said that God has put eternity on mens minds, that at least part of what makes us human is the desire to find out more about ourselves, where we came from and where we are going, those classic questions that have occurred to men across the ages “Who am I?” or “Why am I here?” Man is a restless creature and his desire to find answers to these questions and others can help to explain the rise of the New Age movement of the past few decades.
It is therefore no surprise that for shoes we find the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. Without shoes on a man is going nowhere fast and without the peace that comes from Christ a Christian will not be ready to go out either. It is this peace that settles mans longing after eternity, that provides us with an assurity, with an answer to all those questions. Peace is knowing that you belong to God, you are his and he loves you. With that peace in your heart then you are ready to go out, for then you truly will be invulnerable.
What better way of producing those sounds of danger, power,terror, pain, and victory than thrusting a sword into someone’s midriff? War better way to defend oneself from a ferocious onslaught than to destroy the foe in one courageous action? What more powerful part of ancient armour can be used both for defence and offence? What better tool has God given to us than His very own Spirit-empowered words — the Bible?
But how infinitely greater is this sword than even the most devastating of man-made nuclear warheads! This sword has shaped history and moulded millions of lives to God’s glory.
And how immeasurably deeper is the pain of conviction of sin from these sacred pages compared to the worst physical tortures! And how fantastically wonderfuller (bad grammar I know!) is the comfort of God’s mercy and salvation written here, than the feeble protection given by a mere stick of metal!
The Word of God is everlasting (Is 40:8).
The Word of Gos is real, relevant, ALIVE (Heb 4:12).
The Word of God tells us EVERYTHING we need to know about God, ourselves, life, eternity, salvation, right and wrong. It is inspired by God Himself, and is unbeatably useful in making us what He wants us to be.
Just to make you read the Bible for yourself, look up the following verses which talk more about the relationship between God’s Word, swords and Jesus : Revelation 1:16 2:12,16 19:15 John 1. Jesus, the Bible, victory, power and judgment are INSEPARABLE concepts. Be wowed and spleughjified by the most incredible piece of literature the universe will ever know. “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” (Is 55:11)
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Last modified: 25th November 2005