NOTES for Eph 6:10

At different times in Yahwist, as also in Jewish and Christian, history, the power of God was understood in different ways. The earliest idea was not very different from a pagan one: God possesses a power stronger than any power in our world, and therefore no one can resist Him.

Abraham, to whom God revealed Himself by the name El Shaddai, meaning literally "God of power" and usually translated "God Almighty," may have thought this way, and so may Jacob, who so wanted to receive at least some part of this power on the eve of meeting Esau, when he wrestled with his God all night.

And each time it turned out that the power of God is not simply an instrument that, once received from God, can be used at one's own discretion, but an instrument of God's action, inseparable from Him and changing from within the person who has dared to receive this power.

It is not accidental that both Abraham and Jacob receive new names after their momentous encounters: a new name means that a person, while outwardly remaining the same, has changed inwardly, changed so much that the former person is no more, and the new one who has come in place of the former deserves a new name. If we want to receive God's power, it will necessarily change us ourselves: for it is inseparable from God's presence, and in that case our own heart must become the place of this presence, a heart that must change so God can enter it.

Later, in the time of the Judges and the first kings, the power of God was seen somewhat differently: it was seen where God enters human affairs, for example when He intervenes in the course of a war to change it in favor of His people.

Here the power of God is already perceived more spiritually; it is personal and inseparable from God's will, it cannot be separated from God and used at one's own discretion. But the initiators in this case are still people, not God. They undertake affairs that they consider right and necessary not only for themselves but also for God, and then ask God to join these affairs as a helper.

Meanwhile, God's power is needed by Him for the fulfillment of His plans, not ours. This should have become especially clear to the people during the Babylonian captivity, when everything human collapsed and God's nearness was nevertheless experienced more vividly than ever.

God gave these lessons to His people for a reason: without assimilating them it would have been hard to expect the power of God revealed to the world in Christ, and the breath of the Kingdom that Christ brought into the world, to be understood and received.

From the theme of social relations Paul moves to the theme of Christian ministry and its place in society. He immediately proclaims that Christians do not struggle against people, even if those people are in power. Following Jewish usage, he calls people "flesh and blood." The aim of their struggle is the spiritual forces that determine the condition of the fallen world, which he calls "rulers," "authorities," and "controllers of this present darkness" ("world rulers of the darkness of this age"), connecting with them "the breath of evil that is under heaven" ("spiritual hosts of wickedness under heaven," v. 12). The goal of Christians, as we can see, is not the seizure of power or social change as such, but the lessening of the influence of those forces of evil which, while acting mainly through people, are not themselves human, using the human person only as an instrument. Of course, a person can become such an instrument only by giving consent to it.

In saying this, the apostle was probably warning those who were carried away by ideas of religious-political messianism, which were widespread in those days in synagogue and near-synagogue circles. And any struggle for power in general, if it becomes an end in itself, by no means lessens the measure of evil in the world; it gives the spirits of darkness the broadest scope for their activity. Only the Kingdom entering the world can lessen that measure, and therefore the Christian's main task is witness to the Kingdom and to salvation, as well as to the One who brought it into the world. But for this witness to be adequate, the witness needs faithfulness ("truth") and righteousness, without which one cannot share in the Kingdom (vv. 14-15). And the main weapons of the witness in resisting the evil in which the world lies are trust in God ("faith"), righteousness, which is the best witness to the Kingdom, and the Torah, the word of God, which makes it possible to distinguish good from evil and to make the right choice in the difficult situations in which the witness sooner or later will find himself (vv. 14-17). On that choice, in the end, will depend not only the fate of those to whom he bears witness, but also his own salvation.

Instructing the Christians of Ephesus, the apostle Paul lists at the end of his letter the spiritual means given to us so that we may serve God and resist evil. He calls them the “whole armor of God,” and from this arose the very concept of spiritual weapons. Having listed everything that belongs to this armor, the apostle turns to the way it should be used; the concluding passage of the letter that we read today is devoted to this. First and foremost, it speaks of prayer. Prayer in all the diversity of its forms is precisely the field in which the apostle calls us to employ the “whole armor of God.” The apostle deliberately does not choose particular forms or kinds of prayer; he speaks of “all” prayer. From his point of view, the essential thing is that prayer be offered. The constancy of our spirit in this offering to God of ourselves, other people, and the whole world is the chief thing to which the apostle calls us. The second important point is the call to embrace the whole Church in our prayer, and especially its mission. The apostle’s concluding phrases open to us an extraordinary opportunity to participate in the ministry carried out by other people by praying for them and receiving them into our heart.