For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
(Eph. 6:12)

What comes to mind when you think of spiritual warfare? Perhaps images of Linda Blair’s contorted face or spinning head from the movie The Exorcist. Those who are more biblically minded might think of Jesus’ casting out a legion of demons, sending them into a herd of pigs to plunge over a cliff. Or maybe you can find no other explanation for some experience of dark oppression, so you start to consider something demonic.

But The Exorcist was fiction, and Jesus’ casting out demons was something that happened back in a unique period of time. Your experience of evil oppression could just as easily be your overactive imagination.

Basic to Christian Discipleship and Mission

Why bother with spiritual warfare? The reason is twofold. One, it is evident throughout the Bible. Two, we are called by God to spiritual warfare. Spiritual opposition is part of a biblical worldview. Believers must be equipped for spiritual warfare, for it is integral to Christian discipleship.

Spiritual opposition is the subject of both our Lord’s priestly work and our Lord’s priestly prayer. He came “to destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil” (Heb. 2:14). His prayer on the eve of the cross was that His sheep would be kept from the evil one (John 17:15).

Spiritual warfare is recognized by every New Testament writer. In his first letter to the persecuted and scattered exiles, Peter addresses an array of practical matters dealing with all sorts of ordinary issues related to suffering. He concludes the epistle with a discussion of spiritual warfare, not as something abnormal or tangential to the topic but normal and integral. Peter remarks: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

But the vast teaching on the subject of spiritual warfare is found in the writings of the Apostle Paul, as core subject matter in the curriculum of Christian discipleship. The division, disorder, depravity, and dysfunction highlighted in the first letter to the church at Corinth are shown in Paul’s second letter to involve spiritual opposition (2 Cor. 2:11; 10:3–6; 11:14; 12:7).

It is in his letter to the Ephesians, however, that the Apostle establishes a center for the study of spiritual warfare. Every chapter touches on the subject, as Paul describes the deliverance of Christ, the call of the Christian, and the dark world in which we live as children of light, contending with spiritual forces of evil.

V-J (Victory in Jesus) Day

Though Ephesians 6 contains the most focused treatment of spiritual warfare in the letter, that is not where the Apostle starts the discussion. We can follow the stream of thought beginning with the headwaters in chapter 1 to its outflow in chapter 6.

The letter begins with a declaration of deliverance in Ephesians 1:3–14, a single sentence in the original language. This magisterial statement unfolds in Trinitarian form, like the unfurling of the banner of our salvation, the flag of victory raised to herald the kingdom of God and His Christ. The Father appoints salvation in His predestinating love. The Son accomplishes salvation through His saving work on the cross. The Spirit applies that finished redemption as He unites us to Christ in our effectual calling, sealing us to belong to God.

This salvation rooted in our triune God is expressed in Christ’s victory for His church over the dominion of Satan. The sentence of verses 3–14 forms the ground for the prayer of verses 15–23 that showcases the kingdom authority of Christ.

That he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church (Eph. 1:20–22; cf. Col. 1:11–14).

Right from the start, Paul provides an important principle for understanding spiritual warfare. Deliverance from the bondage of sin and the tyranny of the devil comes not from our conquest of Satan but Christ’s. Jesus is the strongman who binds the enemy. The victory is His; the spoils are ours. We fight in His strength, living out His victory. This tells us something about why Paul will later emphasize “standing firm in Christ” as the approach to the conduct of spiritual warfare.

Ephesians 2:1–3 moves from the general to the personal, as Paul speaks of this grace of God reaching to our personal experience. “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:1–2).

In our fallen condition, we were dead in sin, following the god of this age (2 Cor. 4:4), of our father the devil (cf. John 8:44; 1 John 3:10). We were citizens of the fallen kingdom by natural birth, being sons of disobedience and children of wrath, along with the rest of humanity sharing the guilt of Adam’s first transgression.

The prayer discloses the strength we need to live in this world in the face of continued spiritual opposition. That ability will be found not in ourselves but in the power of Christ alone. That power is ours through the Spirit who unites us to Christ. This prayer directs us in faith to know the love of God from which neither demons nor powers can separate us (Rom. 8:38–39).

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