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Let us read on, watching for any military terms and any further parallel with the armour,
endeavouring to discover the battle ground and the opponents.
"Let us walk honestly (decently), as in the day: not in rioting and drunkenness, not in
chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof" (Rom. 13: 13, 14).
Instead of exhorting to fight, the Apostle drops all reference to armour as such, and
speaks of "walk". The opponents are not soldiers or external foes, but "the lusts of the
flesh" such as drunkenness and wantonness. To leave the matter beyond dispute, he
returns to the theme, and in place of the exhortation, "Let us put on the armour of light",
we have, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ".
If this is what `armour' means to Paul, then it is perfectly fitting for him to speak of
`wrestling'. In I Thess. 5: 7, 8 he speaks of armour once more in a very similar context:
"For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the
night; but let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and
love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation."
The context of this passage will be examined in vain for any allusion to fighting. The
only foes are those of Rom. 13:, the foes within, the lusts of the flesh and the works of
darkness.
In our next reference the word `armour' is translated `weapons'; and here at last we
find the word `warfare'. Perhaps, at last, we shall now see the field of battle and the
nature of the conflict:
"For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling
down of strongholds" (II Cor. 10: 4).
Here the military terms: weapons, warfare, pulling down strongholds. The next verse
reads:
"Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the
knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ"
(II Cor. 10: 5).
The fortress that is besieged is that of the `imaginations' or `reasonings', prompted by
the spiritual power called `height' in Rom. 8: 39.
The captives taken are the
`thoughts' brought into obedience to Christ. There is nothing here approaching `warfare'
in the military sense. The words of Prov. 16: 32 are still true and can be applied to our
present theme:
"He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he
that taketh a city."
When we examine the one remaining reference to hopla, translated `armour' or
`weapons', we shall have further grounds for avoiding the military figure.