Ephesians 6:17

And take. — There is a break here. We are said not to put on, but to “take” (or rather, receive) — a word specially appropriate to “salvation.”

The helmet of salvation. — The word here (as in Luke 2:30; Luke 3:6; Acts 28:28) rendered “salvation,” is not the word commonly so rendered in the New Testament. It is, indeed, not “salvation” in the abstract, but a general expression for “that which tends to salvation.” But it occurs in the LXX. version of Isaiah 59:17, which seems obviously referred to, “He put” a helmet of salvation upon his head.” In 1 Thessalonians 5:8, where the breastplate is “of faith and love,” the helmet supplies the third member of the triad of Christian graces in “the hope of salvation.” Here the metaphor is probably somewhat different. The helmet guarding the head, the most noble and vital part, is “salvation” in the concrete — all that is of the Saviour, all that makes up our “state of salvation” by His atonement and grace — received in earnest now, hoped for in perfection hereafter.

The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. — In this we pass to the one offensive weapon of the Christian, “the sword of the Spirit” — i.e., given by the Holy Spirit — which, like the helmet, but unlike the rest of the defensive armour, does not become a part of himself, but is absolutely of God. The passage reminds us at once of Hebrews 4:12 : “The word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword.” But there (as in 1 Corinthians 14:26; 2 Corinthians 2:17; Colossians 1:25; Colossians 2 Tim. 2:29) the original word is the larger and deeper word (Logos), signifying the truth of God in itself, and gradually leading up to the ultimate sense in which our Lord Himself is the “Word of God,” revealing the Godhead to man. Accordingly the work of the Word there, is that of the “engrafted Word,” “to divide asunder the soul and the spirit” within. Here, on the contrary, we have another expression (Rhema), signifying the Word as spoken; and St. Peter (in 1 Peter 1:25) defines it exactly: “The word of the Lord endureth for ever; and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.” We cannot, of course, limit it to Holy Scripture, though we naturally remember that our Lord used the Scriptures as His only weapon in the Temptation. It is the gospel of Christ, however and wherever spoken, able to put to shame and to flight the powers of evil.