When the Apostle Paul tells Christians to “put on the whole Armor of God,” there is only one “offensive” weapon — The Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
People like that clean end of thought period at the end of the statement. It allows them to go no further in the text. Having the passage told to them, with the firm period at the end of the text, allows the verse to be memorized and quoted so easily.
People then interpret the verse as – Take up the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (understood to obviously mean the Bible – Even though the New Testament was still in the process of being written), and go on the offense – attack the sins of people with it (which looks incredibly a lot like attacking people).
That final piece of the “Armor of God” the “Sword of the Spirit” has been used as an excuse to use the Bible to engage in attack for all sorts of reasons (quite often, the sins the person doing the attacking does not like, rather than the sins the person doing the attacking personally commits).
The thing is, the Bible says:
The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.
~Ephesians 6:17–18 (ESV)
Over in John 1:1, the Bible makes absolutely clear that the Word of God is God, more specifically – God the Son, AKA Jesus (verse 14).
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (ESV)
And, interestingly enough, Jesus says in Matthew 5:44-45 – “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” (ESV)
The Word of God, Jesus, tells us to pray for our enemies, while the Apostle Paul tells the Christian that the only “offensive weapon” in the whole of Armor of God is the “Sword of the Spirit,” which is the Word of God, and therefore Christians are to pray without ceasing / pray at all times.
The early (AD185-254) Christian Origen (referencing Exodus 14:14) wrote the following regarding the Christian wielding the Sword of the Spirit – “For they will pray to the Word, who of old said to the Hebrews, when they were pursued by the Egyptians, ‘The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.’”[i]
Origen continues pressing the fact that the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, Jesus, is wielded against our enemies through prayer by saying – “And as we by our prayers vanquish all demons who stir up war, and lead to the violation of oaths, and disturb the peace, we in this way are much more helpful to the kings than those who go into the field to fight for them… we fight on his behalf, forming a special army—an army of piety—by offering our prayers to God.”[ii]
Another early Christian Cyprian (AD 202-258) emphasized that the Christian’s sword is prayer when he told Christians who to treat those who oppose them saying: “you should forgive a brother who sins against you, not only seven times, but seventy times seven times, but, moreover, all his sins altogether; that you should love your enemies; that you should offer prayer for your adversaries and persecutors.”[iii]
Arnobius of Sicca (circa AD330) indicates that the Christian wields the Sword of the Spirit when “prayer is made to the Supreme God, peace and pardon are asked for all in authority, for soldiers, kings, friends, enemies, for those still in life, and those freed from the bondage of the flesh; in which all that is said is such as to make men humane, gentle, modest, virtuous, chaste, generous in dealing with their substance, and inseparably united to all embraced in our brotherhood.”[iv]
Quotes from the early Church Fathers can go on and on and on, continuing the testimony of the Church that in Christ, the Word of God, the Sword of the Spirit is wielded through prayer. The point, however, has been made by those already quoted.
Among our modern Bible scholars, we find theologian Andrew Lincoln who explains that “the Christian soldier wields the sword of the word, it is not first of all the word of judgment but the good news of salvation.”[v]
We also have the Bible scholar Margaret MacDonald, who writes about the Sword of the Spirit, after listing and describing the many other pieces of the Armor of God, “Equipped with the virtues of God and having received the benefits of salvation and the word of God, believers are to turn their attention to prayer.”[vi]
The highly influential theologian and author, NT Wright, explains that the Sword of the Spirit is the Word of God and that the Word means “the word of the gospel through which God accomplishes his powerful, cleansing work in people’s hearts and lives.”[vii] It is Jesus who is the word, who accomplishes the Gospel of God’s cleansing work in the hearts and lives of humanity, and therefore it is utterly important that Christians understand that the use of “the final weapon, if it is to be classed as one, is prayer.”[viii]
Do you want to wield the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, Jesus Himself, more effectively?
PRAY MORE (and find the Sword turn into a Gospel Scalpel removing the sins within one’s own heart).
Buen Camino,
Fr Steve
Steven G Rindahl, DMin STM
[i] Origen, “Origen against Celsus,” in Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Part Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Parts First and Second, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. Frederick Crombie, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 4:666 (8.69).
[ii] Origen, 688 (8.73).
[iii] Cyprian of Carthage, “On the Advantage of Patience,” in Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Novatian, Appendix, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. Robert Ernest Wallis, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1886), 5:488 (9.16).
[iv] Arnobius, “The Seven Books of Arnobius against the Heathen (Adversus Gentes),” in Fathers of the Third Century: Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. Hamilton Bryce and Hugh Campbell, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1886), 6:488 (4.36).
[v] Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, ed. Bruce M. Metzger et al., Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1990), 42:451.
[vi] Margaret Y. MacDonald, Colossians and Ephesians, ed. Daniel J. Harrington, Sacra Pagina Series (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), 17:347.
[vii] N.T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon (London, UK: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2002), 75.
[viii] Wright, 76.