NOTES for Eph 6:11-12

It is not always easy to understand adequately Paul's words concerning the spiritual fight. For us today "the principalities, the powers and the rulers of the world” designate either the representatives of the earthly power, or a certain spiritual hierarchy, of course of the darkness.

However, neither the “yahvisme”, nor the Christian tradition has ever tended to an excessive spiritualism. Certainly, the existence of the spiritual world wasn’t a secret neither for the Judaism, nor for the Christianity, but this world (in exception maybe of the sects with gnostic orientation) has never thought as something, completely separated from our world.

Besides, neither the Jews, nor the Christians have ever exaggerated the influence of this world on the human affairs, although they did not deny it. And under "principalities", "powers" and "rulers of the world", if Paul probably hinted at certain spirits of the darkness, then it would be above all only about the sense of their influence on the spiritual state of concrete people. But indeed, the apostle says concretely that Christians will fight not with people!

It is not surprising: indeed, the battle of concrete people (even if it is about representatives of the power) can hardly change something radically: to the replacement of some come others, no society can be without power, and there is no reason for hope that the new ones will be better that the old.

The only battle, to which are called Christians is the battle against evil, in which lies the world. And there is only one way to resist this evil: do in such way that the Kingdom spreads the most fast and most widely possible in the world, transforming it. Because only a complete victory of the Kingdom can end this evil, in which the fallen world is laying.

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.

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.