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the dead, and your members as instruments (weapons, armour) of righteousness unto
God."
Here is a use of the word "weapon" which is perfectly intelligible when used in the
way that we have seen in Rom. 13:, I Thess. 5:, and II Cor. 10:, but utterly impossible
of direct interpretation if unscriptural ideas of "warfare" are used.
A summary of our findings will be given at the close of the next article.
#3.
pp. 179 - 186
In the previous paper of this series we found our whole space occupied with the
questions, "Who are the contestants?" and "What is the armour?" and the investigation
necessitated so much reference that a clearly stated answer was crowded out. Before
proceeding, therefore, we must attempt to put this first part of our subject before the
reader with some degree of clarity.
Who are the contestants? The necessary qualification for the soldier in Paul's
teaching, in line with the typical teaching of the law, precludes from the ranks all who are
"babes", "novice", and such as are not, for any reason, spiritually mature. The sword of
the Spirit is the Word of God, and must be either taught or preached when it is being
used. There is no other way of actually "fighting" with the Scriptures, and consequently
all those passages of Scripture that indicate that a babe is "unskillful" in the Word, or that
maturity in the faith is connected with being ready to teach others, apply equally to the
soldier.
We saw, moreover, that the putting on of the armour was explained as the putting on
of Christ, and was balanced by the putting on of the new man. With the exception of the
passage in Eph. 6:, the armour is always used in the conflict with the flesh and its lusts.
He who puts on this armour is one who begins to "work out" what has been worked in.
The close of Ephesians is really an anticipation of Philippians, the epistle of the soldier,
the overcomer, and the prize. Reverting to the fact that the soldier in Israel had to be
20 years old before bearing arms, and that this age limit is mentioned in the case of those
who fell in the wilderness, we find in Psa. 91: a suggestion of the security of the
believer viewed as simply "in Christ", as contrasted with the responsibility of one who
"20 years old and upward" steps out into the arena of conflict, where gain and loss are
permissible terms.
"Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flieth by day; nor
for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at
noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall
not come nigh thee . . . . . The dragon thou shalt trample under feet."