1:1 Most translations have “in Ephesus” as the location of the saints to whom the letter is written. However, the RSV omits the phrase and relegates it to a footnote. In fact, most Greek texts have the Ephesus designation, but the earliest and best manuscripts do not. (The Oxford Bible Commentary, p.1165). If this reference to Ephesus is not accepted as part of the original, then there is nothing in the letter that reveals to whom or to where it has been written. This suggests that it was addressed to the church as a whole – i.e., the entire Christian community.
1:3 If the Greek is followed literally, verses 3 through 14 are a single sentence, joined together by various participles and relative clauses. Such lengthy and complex sentences are one of the clues that Paul did not write this letter. Paul’s style in the letters known to be his is much more simple and direct.
1:4-5 The selection of the elect was made “before the foundation of the world.” See also v.12. This theme of predestination occurs also in Romans 8:29-30. However, if the chosen ones were preselected by God, then there is no point in preaching the gospel in order to win converts, because such proselytizing can have no effect. Thus, Paul’s advice to the Philippians to “work out your own salvation” (Philippians 2:12) makes no sense if their salvation has been predestined since “before the foundation of the world.” And the rule laid down in Romans 10:9 (“if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.”), directly contradicts the notion of predestination, by implying that salvation depends on one’s one actions and efforts.
1:7 The writer declares that in Christ, the elect have “redemption through his blood.” (cf. Colossians 1:13-14.) He clearly views redemption as an accomplished fact, already achieved and enjoyed by members of the Christian community. But Jesus taught a different view of redemption. According to Jesus, redemption will occur at the second coming, when the Son of man descends on clouds from heaven with power and glory. (Luke 21:28)
Indeed, the letter to the Ephesians does not mention the return of Christ at all. In the letter to the Colossians (3:4-6), there was still an expectation that Christ would re-appear, although the expectation no longer had any immediacy to it. But now, in Ephesians, the imagery is all about salvation and redemption in the present. (In addition to 1:7, see 2:5; 2:12-13.)
1:9-10 God had a plan, which has now been revealed to his chosen ones. It is a plan to bring all things together under the rule of Christ. But how could anything have been outside his control in the first place? After all, he existed in the beginning, and all things were made through him (John 1:3), including the principalities and authorities that bring about disorder and conflict in the world. (1:21. See also Colossians 1:16) So the need to bring them all back under control could only have arisen because God and/or Christ let them get out of control. So was turning these forces loose upon the world and mankind part of the mysterious plan, too? If so, the writer does not address this part. See also the comment to Colossians 1:20.
1:14 Here the writer adopts a different stance, whereby the Christians have not yet acquired possession of their inheritance from the Holy Spirit. In v.7 he stated that they already had achieved redemption and forgiveness of sins. They have already been saved (2:5), and those who had been alienated from Christ have been brought near (2:13). What could possibly be left of their inheritance that they have not yet acquired? The writer does not explain.
1:16-17 The author prays that his readers may receive the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God. But earlier he said that God’s chosen ones had already received knowledge of God’s mysterious plan (1:9). So what need would there be of praying for knowledge that they already possess?
1:20-21 The implication is that God assigned Christ to his high heavenly office upon raising him from the dead, thus putting him in command of all the heavenly authorities, powers, and dominions, as well as the church and the world of the current age. Where was Christ before he was thus exalted? The writer does not say, but as we have already seen, other passages state that Christ had such authority from the beginning, not just from his resurrection. (See comment to 1:9-10.)
As for these authorities and powers, “there is no thought here of earthly rulers. These are the designations of various classes of angelic beings—exalted spirits, sometimes regarded as beneficent, sometimes as tyrannous—who were believed to hold sway over different departments of the universe.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.10, p.634.)
1:22-23 Drawing on Colossians, the church is seen as a body, of which Christ is the head. As we saw in the comment to Colossians 1:18, it is different from the body analogy that Paul used in 1 Corinthians 12:12ff. In the Corinthians passage, the head itself was a part of the body, and the various organs of the head (e.g., eye, ear, nose) were considered as members of the body that had to work in harmony. There was no question in Corinthians of Paul’s suggesting that the head corresponded to Christ, who ruled over the “body” of the church. (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:16.) The image presented in Ephesians and Colossians represents a further theological development which occurred after the time of Paul.
2:1 The RSV begins this verse with “And you he made alive.” However, this verb does not appear in the Greek text until v.5. The shifting of the main verb to the beginning is an attempt by the RSV translators to introduce some clarity in the translation of a sentence that consists of a string of participial phrases and relative clauses. As noted earlier, this stylistic complexity contrasts sharply with the genuine letters of Paul, and is one reason to doubt his authorship of the letter to the Ephesians.
2.2 The “prince of the power of the air” need not be identified personally with Satan, whose name does not appear at all in Ephesians. There is, however, a strong assumption of dualism in the letter – i.e., a division of power between the forces of good and light on the one hand, and the anonymous forces of darkness and disobedience on the other. Humanity and the present age are portrayed as under the influence of these dark powers, but God, through Christ, has selected a segment of mankind (the “elect”) to be rescued from this predicament. This general worldview – i.e., the cosmic conflict between the forces of good and evil - is traceable to the Persian prophet Zoroaster, and was widely held throughout the Hellenistic world. In the Jewish tradition, these forces of darkness were often personified by Satan, who in pre-Hellenistic times occupied a negligible place in Hebrew mythology. (See The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.10, p.639.)
But this dualistic view, as already noted (see the comment to 1:9-10), conflicts with the view of one God over all, and Christ as the agent through whom the entire universe and everything in it were created. If everything was indeed created by Christ (Colossians 1:16), then the forces of evil and darkness must have been his work as well. On the other hand, if these evil forces had an independent origin, that makes it easier to explain the presence of suffering in the world, but sacrifices the notion of a single creator God through whom all things came into existence.
2:5 Those who had “died” through sin, have now been made “alive” through God’s grace. Of course, they have not really died and been resurrected – it is only a figure of speech. But such a metaphorical view of resurrection was needed because the real resurrection of the dead which was supposed to occur on Christ’s return, had never materialized. The letter was probably written sometime in the 90s, some 60 years or so after Jesus was crucified (Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, p.621), and so it would be natural to wonder why there had been such a delay, and to invent new ways of looking at the evidence to downplay the failed predictions. In Ephesians we do not read of any future resurrection or second coming. The triumph of Christ has already occurred, and the faithful are already enjoying the benefits of their “resurrection.”
The real Paul expected the resurrection of the faithful to be an actual event, occurring in the future, as is shown by 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and 1 Corinthians 6:14. Also, 1 Corinthians 15:22-23 declares that “all shall be made alive” in their proper order: Christ first, and then “at his coming” those who belong to him.
2:6 Not only the resurrection of the faithful, but the “rapture” itself has already occurred, according to the author of Ephesians. God has “raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places.” Again, this metaphorical exaltation of believers can only be a poor substitute for the real thing, which had been originally expected. Contrast this with Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, where the elevation of the faithful into the clouds to meet Christ is described as a future event, not as something already present in the Christian community or the church.
2:8 The path to salvation is made murkier by this verse. Those who are saved are saved “by grace” but “through faith.” Grace is the free gift of God (Romans 3:24; 6:23) and faith is assigned by God (Romans 12:3). Morever, it has already been predetermined who will be saved. (Ephesians 1:4 and Romans 8:29-30) So whatever the formula, it doesn’t matter, because there is nothing that an individual can do about his or her own salvation.
2:9 Here we are told that salvation is not because of works. This is consistent with Paul’s words in Galatians 2:16 and Romans 10:9, where faith alone is sufficient, but contradicts Paul in Romans 2:6, where we are told that on the day of wrath, God will “render to every man according to his works.” Of course, there is also the contradiction with the book of James, where we read that “faith without works is dead.” (James 2:26) However, even faith is not freely chosen, but is assigned by God. (Romans 12:3) See the comment to Romans 2:6 for a rebuttal of Christian attempts to refute the contradiction between James and Paul on the question of faith vs. works.
2:10 It turns out that both faith (Romans 12:3) and good works are predetermined by God. So the helplessness of the individual is further emphasized. Salvation is entirely out of our hands, both faith and works having been predetermined before we had any say in the matter.
As for the image of Christians being the “workmanship” of God, see Romans 9:20-22 for a disconcerting vision of what God does with the objects of his workmanship.
2:11-13 The Gentiles (non-Jews, or the “Greeks” as Paul sometimes refers to them) were once separated from God and Christ, alienated from the nation of Israel, strangers to the covenant, and without God (literally, “atheists”). But in Christ’s blood they have been returned to the fold. This despairing portrayal of the Gentiles in their pre-Christian state is in stark contrast to that presented by Paul in Romans 2:13-15, where he affirmed that even the Gentiles, who did not have the law, could instinctively do the things of the law, and thus be justified before God. See also Romans 9:30 (“the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.”).
2:14 Christ is our peace? The author of Ephesians either did not know, or did not consider, the words of Jesus: “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)
2:15 Again, the author ignores the actual teachings of Jesus as portrayed in the gospels. Far from “abolishing” the law as claimed here, Jesus said: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish, but fulfill.” (Matthew 5:17) Also in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus even made some of the ancient laws stricter than they were before. (Matthew 5:21-22; 27-28; 31-32).
2:17 “And he came and preached peace to you.” As we have seen, Jesus denied that he came to bring peace. (Matthew 10:34) He even declared that he came to bring strife to family relationships (Matthew 10:35), and that only those who hate their own families could be his disciples. (Luke 14:26) Jesus was not a bringer of peace.
2:20 Here we read that the apostles and prophets were the foundation upon which the household of God was built, with Jesus being the cornerstone. But Paul identified Jesus Christ as the foundation (1 Corinthians 3:11), and Jesus named Peter as the “rock” upon which the church would be built. (Matthew 16:18)
3:1 The author refers to himself as “the prisoner of Christ,” as though he were the only one. It is an exalted position for Paul to be in, since in his earlier letters he was only one prisoner among many. Compare Philemon v.1 and v.9 where Paul identifies himself as “a prisoner of Christ Jesus.” Also see Colossians 4:10, where Aristarchus is a fellow prisoner, and Romans 16:7, where Andronicus and Junias are named as fellow prisoners.
To say that he is the prisoner of Christ Jesus “on behalf of you Gentiles” is an odd expression, which shows that the writer is not addressing a particular congregation, as Paul did in his letters. The intention seems to be to address the Gentiles as a whole, and there certainly was no single congregation to which they all belonged. Thus, the letter is addressed to the church as a whole, which at the time of writing, consisted mostly of Gentile believers.
3:5 Compare this description of how God’s mystery was revealed with similar statements in Colossians 1:26 and Romans 16:25-26. Here, the mystery is revealed to the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. In Colossians the mystery is revealed to the “saints,” which in Paul’s letters was typically used as a designation for the entire Christian community. And in the Romans passage, the mystery is revealed through the prophetic writings to all nations. The differences are significant. Naming the apostles and prophets as the direct recipients of the revelation indicates the existence of a revered class of privileged leaders (the beginnings of a church hierarchy?), in contrast to the more democratic participation of all believers in the revelation, as indicated in Colossians. And was the mystery revealed to all nations (Romans) or only to the community of Christian believers (Colossians)? The wording here in Ephesians indicates the “tendency in a later generation to think of the apostolic age in terms of its gifted leaders.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.10, p.667.)
3:6 This is the mystery, which is now revealed: that the Gentiles, too, are the heirs of Christ’s promise. In other words, the messiah (christos) of the Hebrew scriptures was meant not only for the Jews, but for the other nations as well. It is puzzling that none of the nations outside of Israel were sent any prophets to proclaim the messiah to them when the Hebrew prophets were active among the Hebrews. Why did these nations have to wait for hundreds of years until Paul and his followers took up the idea?
3:8-9 It is “Paul’s” role to “make all men see” the plan of God’s mystery. But as we noted earlier, Paul himself says that the mystery was made known not by himself, but through the writings of the prophets. (Romans 16:26) Paul’s role has no doubt been aggrandized here by the follower and admirer who wrote the letter.
3:10 We now have another agent of revelation. Here it is the church which manifests the wisdom of God to the heavenly powers. Note that the Greek word for “church” (ekklesia), which in the early days was synonymous with “congregation” or “assembly,” now refers to the church as a whole. Here there is only one church, and it is the body, of which Jesus Christ is the head.
3:14 Verses 2 through 13 have been an interlude, interrupting the sentence begun in 3:1. The author now resumes the original thought, which is to recite a prayer.
3:19 To say that the love of Christ surpasses knowledge may be a subtle dig at the Gnostics. The goal of the Gnostics was gnosis, i.e., knowledge. Here the writer of Ephesians proclaims Christ’s love as superior to gnosis.
3:21 Here the church is exalted almost to the level of Christ himself. God’s glory is manifested both in Christ Jesus, and in the church, which as we have seen, is joined to him as the body to the head, as if they were a single organism.
Note that glory to God is invoked for “all generations, for ever and ever.” That the generations of mankind are expected to go on indefinitely pretty much rules out any expectation that the kingdom of God is at hand. Unlike Paul, who thought that “the form of this world is passing away” (1 Corinthians 7:31), the writer of Ephesians obviously expects the present world to stay around for a while.
4:1 As was the case in Colossians, the author follows his presentation of theological doctrine with a series of exhortations to live a Christian life, including specific directives as to how to attain that lofty goal. Unlike Colossians, there is no reference to any teachers of false doctrine.
As in 3:1, the writer purports to be “the prisoner,” not “a prisoner,” as some translations have it.
Note the redundancy in “the calling to which you have been called.” This is as much a stylistic feature of Ephesians as the complex sentence structure. The KJV’s “vocation wherewith ye are called” amounts to the same thing, but “vocation” uses a Latin root for “calling” which adds a bit of stylistic variation to avoid the obvious repetition.
4:5-6 Although the author declares there is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God, he does not explicitly say there is only one church. However, this seems to be an assumption that underlies his whole presentation.
4:8 This “quotation” is from Psalm 68:18, but it is actually a misquotation. Not only has the writer shifted from the second person (“you”) to the third person (“he”), but he has also changed the verb from passive to active, which gives the passage a wholly different meaning. The psalm has “you [God] have received gifts among men,” but the Ephesians writer has rendered it as “he gave gifts to men.” This, of course, fits better into the Christian view of the Old Testament as predicting the arrival of Jesus as messiah, but it is a blatant mistranslation of the actual psalm.
4:9 Continuing to misinterpret Psalm 68:18, the writer argues that only he who has descended into the lower parts of the earth can be said to ascend again. This is no doubt a reference to the period of time between the crucifixion and the resurrection during which Christ was supposedly in the underworld of the dead. The psalmist actually refers to the LORD (Yahweh) several times as the true subject of the psalm.
4:11 This list of roles that benefit from heavenly gifts is similar, but not identical, to the one found in 1 Corinthians 12:28. Note that here in Ephesians, only positions of leadership are mentioned (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers). Paul, however, also lists helpers, administrators, and speakers of tongues. The context of Paul’s testimony is that all parts of the congregation, no matter how humble, have their role to play. That inclusiveness is missing here in Ephesians, where it is the church leadership who have received the heavenly gifts, for the purpose of teaching the rest of the flock until the “unity of the faith” is achieved.
4:17 If the Christians had indeed put on a new nature (e.g., Colossians 3:10), and if living in the passions of the flesh is a thing of the past (Ephesians 2:3), why would the author need to urge his readers to stop living as the Gentiles do?
4:18 The letter is clearly addressed to the Gentiles (3:1), and so this description of the Gentiles must apply to the author’s own readers. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from God through their ignorance and hardness of heart, and given up to sensuality and uncleanness. It is an odd description of people who have been “brought near in the blood of Christ” (2:13) and who are fellow heirs to the promise of Christ (3:6). But it is no worse than Paul’s own description of Gentile practices in Romans 1:21-32.
4:22 “Put off the old nature.” But according to Paul, the old nature is already gone, having been crucified with Jesus. (Romans 6:6) In both Romans and here in Ephesians, the word translated “nature” is literally “person.”
This passage, which continues through v.32, recalls the similar passage from Colossians 3:5-12. However, the teaching of Colossians 3:11, that all are equal in Christ (i.e., there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, slave or free, etc.), is conspicuously absent from this parallel section in Ephesians.
4:24 “Put on the new nature.” It would appear from 2:1-6 that the new nature had already arrived, and Colossians 3:9-10 explicitly states that it has. Also see Romans 6:6, where Paul refers to the old self as having been crucified with Jesus. And Paul told the Corinthians that anyone who is in Christ is already a “new creature.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) Why then would the author of Ephesians be telling his audience to “put on the new nature” when this has already been accomplished?
4:26 Quoting Psalm 4:4, the author teaches that it is acceptable to be angry, as long as one does not sin. However, Jesus taught that anyone who is angry with his brother is liable to judgment. (Matthew 5:22) And Paul wrote that anger is one of the works of the flesh, along with jealousy, idolatry, sorcery, and drunken carousing. (Galatians 5:19-21)
4:32 It must be noted that these admirable words are not intended to be applied universally. The author is clearly speaking about the relations of Christians with each other, not with outsiders. Forgiving one another “as God in Christ has forgiven you,” shows that the advice applies only to those who belong to the Christian community.
5:1 “Be imitators of God.” The author obviously did not think this one through. Here are some of God’s actions that hardly deserve imitating: “The LORD killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 13:15) When the Israelites found a man picking up sticks on the Sabbath, the LORD said to Moses: “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.” (Numbers 15:35) In his legendary conquest of southern Palestine, Joshua “utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded.” (Joshua 10:40) Anyone who has read extensively in the Old Testament knows that such examples can be multiplied almost indefinitely. And if Christians claim that the God of the New Testament is somehow different, then they are committing the very same heresy that Marcion was excommunicated for in 144 A.D.
5:2 The author may appreciate that Christ “gave himself up for us,” but he hardly did so willingly. At Gethsemane, shortly before he was arrested, Jesus was very sorrowful, and prayed that he might be spared from what was about to happen. (Mark 14:35-36)
The “fragrant offering” recalls the burnt offerings of the Old Testament, where animals were sacrificed and roasted, which gave a “pleasing aroma” to the LORD. Jesus, of course, was not burnt, but crucified, and the aroma given off was not likely to have been so pleasing. Not only is the “fragrant offering” reference inapt, it is positively gruesome.
5:3-4 We must again ask why the author would need to warn his readers against such wicked behavior, if indeed they had already been saved through the gift of God, and not by any of their own actions (2:5-9). If they have been predestined for salvation (1:5) then their current actions should have no effect on their eventual inheritance in the kingdom of God. Cf. Paul’s similar warning in Galatians 5:19-21.
5:5 The “kingdom of Christ and God” is a phrase that occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. In keeping with the theological perspective of the epistle, Christ and God are thus treated as equal rulers over the kingdom. “The notion once put forward by Paul, that Christ’s rule is dispensational and temporary, and that at the end ‘he delivers the kingdom to God the Father’ (1 Cor. 15:23-24) is abandoned.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.10, p.707.)
5:11 The warning against taking part in works of darkness may refer to secret religious ceremonies, which some Christian groups were known to engage in.
5:13 “Anything that becomes visible is light.” But the converse must not be true, since God is light (1 John 1:5) yet he is invisible (Colossians 1:15; 1 Timothy 1:17)
5:15 The author counsels his readers to walk as wise men. But Paul had a different view of wisdom: “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.” (1 Corinthians 1:27) And Paul quotes God as saying “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise.” (1 Corinthians 1:19, from Isaiah 29:14)
5:18 The advice here is “do not get drunk with wine.” But Paul was stricter, counseling his readers to drink no wine at all if it might become a temptation or stumbling block to fellow Christians. (Romans 14:21)
5:21 Translations are split between “out of reverence for Christ” and “in fear of Christ” for the second half of this verse. The word used in the Greek text is phobo = “fear.”
5:22-24 The marriage relationship between husband and wife is portrayed as parallel to the relationship between Christ and the church. To think of the husband as the “head of the wife” clashes with our modern ideals of gender equality. But the idealization of the marriage relationship as a mirror of the heavenly bond between Christ and church also clashes with Paul’s view of marriage as the lesser of two evils, inferior to remaining single. (1 Corinthians 7:8-9)
5:25 Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is now viewed as having been made for the church, not for individual sinners. Of course the “church” did not exist at the time of Jesus’s crucifixion, but in the theology of Ephesians, which views the church as a cosmic entity pre-existing with Christ, such a view becomes possible.
5:27 Like the sacrifices to Yahweh in the Old Testament, the church is presented to Christ as unblemished. Given that Christ would not have accepted a flawed bride, it follows that no criticism of the church has any merit.
5:29 The author may think that no man hates his own flesh, but Paul came close. According to Paul, nothing good dwells in his flesh (Romans 7:18). And by following the desires of the flesh, he is doing the very thing he hates. (Romans 7:15) We can hardly think that Paul “cherished” his own flesh as the author here implies. Paul, of course, thought that the flesh and all material things would soon pass away, but by the time Ephesians was written, this expectation was no longer so widely held, as we have already noted. (See the comment to 3:21.)
5:31-32 Here the relationship of Christ and church as husband and wife is made explicit. The quotation from Genesis 2:24 is said to refer to Christ and the church, as a “profound mystery.” There is a hint of such a view in Paul’s correspondence to the Corinthians, where he sees himself as the father who presents the congregation as Christ’s bride. (2 Corinthians 11:2)
6:1 The author continues the theme of domestic obedience. He paints a picture of family relationships that would be indistinguishable from a respectable bourgeois Lutheran family of Bismarck’s Germany. The contrast with Jesus’s view of family relationships is striking. See the comment to Colossians 3:18-20, and in particular Jesus’s words in Matthew 10:35.
6:4 The command to raise one’s children in the “discipline and instruction of the Lord” presumes that there will be sufficient time to raise them. Once again, the expectation of Jesus’s imminent return is shown to be lacking. If the kingdom of God were expected at any moment, we would hardly expect a Christian author to be giving advice on childraising. See the comment to 3:21, and the contrast with Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7:31.
6:5 As in the parallel passage from Colossians 3:22, the author here instructs slaves to obey their earthly masters. “Earthly” is a euphemistic translation of the Greek kata sarka, which literally is “according to the flesh.” Not only is the author condoning slavery, but he is also advising obedience to the ways of the world. Elsewhere in the New Testament, and especially in Paul’s genuine letters, “according to the flesh” stands for the vile and corrupt material world, which is opposed to the spiritual world of God. For example, “if you live according to the flesh, you are destined to die.” (Romans 8:13)
Christian apologists like to defend Christianity’s feeble stand on slavery on the grounds that slavery was so ingrained in the fabric of ancient society that to oppose it would have exposed the fledgling church to the danger of official retaliation and possible extinction. This would be true if the church were just an earthly institution, subject to the same social principles as any other human organization. But if the church really represented the heavenly forces of good and light against the earthly forces of darkness, then it would seem that taking a moral stand against slavery would have been the right and proper thing to do, and that such a stand would have had extraordinary chances for success. The truth is that ancient Christians did not share our modern aversion to the institution of slavery, and that they supported it as part of their effort to appear as good citizens of the empire.
6:6 The slaves are to carry out their duties as though their orders had come from Christ himself. They are to be as “slaves of Christ.” This puts the slavemasters on a par with Christ, and means that any rebellion against slavery would be tantamount to rebelling against Christ himself. Note that the RSV translation has “slaves” in v.5, but “servants” in v.6. In both cases the original text has the Greek douloi = “slaves.”
6:9 The implication here is that the slavemasters should treat their slaves humanely, and avoid threatening them. While this gives the appearance of balance, it is a far cry from condemning the institution of slavery itself. Plus, there is no guarantee that actual masters will follow the advice.
6:11 At no point in the undisputed letters of Paul does he use the word “devil.” Paul’s preferred term for the leader of the opposition is “Satan.”
6:12 A cosmic struggle is envisioned between the warriors of God and the “rulers of the present darkness.” The enemies are not of flesh and blood, demonstrating that the principalities, powers, and rulers of the present age are not to be understood as earthly rulers, but as heavenly forces antagonistic to God. See the comment to 2:2 for a discussion of this dualistic worldview.
6:13-18 We may well wonder what was the purpose of gaining salvation if we are simply to be called back into battle against the forces of evil? Truth, faith, the gospel, salvation – all are weapons in the Christian’s arsenal, to be used in tandem against the enemy. There is no suggestion that this battle will ever end. It appears to be a continuous struggle, as it must have been before Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection brought “salvation” to all. But salvation brings no respite, just a helmet to protect against the “fiery darts of the wicked” one. It is often said that there is “no rest for the wicked,” but apparently there is none for the righteous either.