The Unseen War

The apostle wants us to know what fight we are truly in, for a man who mistakes his enemy will spend his strength in the wrong battle. We wrestle not, he says, against flesh and blood. The people who oppose us, the circumstances that press us, the visible obstacles and adversaries of our days, these are not our real enemy. Behind them, unseen, stand principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places. The war is real, and it is deadly, but it is not the war we think we are fighting. It is unseen.

This is a truth we resist, because the flesh-and-blood enemy is so much easier to see and to hate. The person who wronged us stands right there, with a face and a name, and it is satisfying to make him the enemy and spend our anger on him. The circumstance that thwarts us is plain and present, and we throw ourselves against it. But while we wrestle with flesh and blood, the real enemy works unseen behind them, untouched by all our struggling, well pleased to see us waste our force on the visible while he goes about his work in the dark.

THE WRONG ENEMY

How much of our life is spent fighting the wrong enemy. We fight the person, and the person is only flesh and blood, himself as much a captive of the unseen powers as we are, more to be pitied and prayed for than hated. We fight the circumstance, and the circumstance is only the surface, the visible ripple of a deeper movement we cannot see. And all the while the true adversary, the accuser, the tempter, the ruler of the darkness, is left unopposed, for we have never turned to face him, being too busy with the flesh and blood he has cunningly set before us as a decoy. To fight people is to fight the war the enemy wants us to fight, the one that leaves him free.

This does not mean the people who oppose us do no wrong, or that we are to be careless of real injuries. It means we must see past the visible foe to the invisible, must recognize that our deepest struggle is not with the human instrument but with the spiritual power that moves behind it, and must therefore fight with weapons suited to that unseen war. A man does not win a spiritual battle with fleshly weapons, with anger and cunning and the arm of the flesh. The weapons of our warfare, the apostle says, are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.

THE WHOLE ARMOUR

And so the apostle bids us take unto us the whole armour of God, that we may be able to stand. He names the pieces, and every one of them is a grace and not a weapon of the flesh. The girdle of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the feet shod with the gospel of peace, the shield of faith to quench the fiery darts, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. This armour is, in the end, Christ himself, for the apostle elsewhere says simply, put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. To be armed for the unseen war is to be clothed in Christ, in his truth and righteousness and salvation, wielding his word, sheltered behind faith in him.

And notice what the armour is for. It is that ye may be able to stand, and having done all, to stand. The word again and again is stand, not advance by our own assault, not conquer by our own might, but stand, hold the ground Christ has won, refuse to be driven back. This is a great relief to the soul that felt the whole weight of the war upon its own strength. We are not asked to defeat the principalities and powers by our own valor. Christ has already triumphed over them, spoiling them openly on his cross. We are asked to stand in his victory, to hold in his strength the field he has already won.

THE WAR ON THE KNEES

And the atmosphere of the whole warfare is prayer, for the apostle, having named the armour, adds at once, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. The unseen war is fought, above all, on the knees, for the unseen enemy is met by the unseen weapon of prayer, which reaches into the very realm where he works and where our own hands cannot go. The soul that would stand against spiritual wickedness must be a praying soul, for it is in prayer that the battle is truly joined, and the strongholds that no fleshly effort could touch are pulled down by the prayer that is mighty through God.

And there is a simple, sure movement given us for the fight, in two motions that belong together. Submit yourselves therefore to God, the apostle James says, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. First the submission to God, then the resistance to the enemy, and the promise is that he will flee. Be sober, be vigilant, Peter says, for your adversary the devil walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist stedfast in the faith. Not resist in your own strength, which he would break like a reed, but resist stedfast in the faith, standing in Christ, submitted to God, and the enemy who could not be beaten by our strength flees before the soul that stands in the Lord’s.

A DEFEATED ENEMY

We must know one thing more about this enemy, or all our standing will be fearful and grim, and it is the best news of the whole war. The principalities and powers we face are already a defeated foe. On the cross, which looked like his defeat, the Lord defeated them. Having spoiled principalities and powers, the apostle says, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it. The very cross where the enemy thought to destroy him became the enemy’s own undoing, the public display of his defeat. We do not fight toward a victory still in doubt. We fight from a victory already won.

This changes the whole spirit of the war. The soul that fights for a victory not yet secured fights in dread, never sure it can win. But the soul that fights from a victory already won fights in confidence, holding ground that Christ has already taken, against an enemy already beaten who rages precisely because he is beaten. The devil goes about as a roaring lion, but he is a lion on a chain, defeated at the cross, and his roar is louder than his power. We resist not to defeat him but because he is defeated, standing in the triumph of another.

And the One who is in us is greater than the one who is against us. Greater is he that is in you, the apostle says, than he that is in the world. The Spirit of the risen and victorious Christ dwells in the believer, and he is mightier by far than all the powers of darkness arrayed without. So the contest is not between our weakness and the enemy’s strength, in which we should surely lose, but between the enemy’s defeated power and the almighty Spirit within us, in which we cannot lose if we stand in him.

This is how the saints have always overcome. They overcame him, the Scripture says of the accuser, by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony. Not by their own might, but by the blood that defeated him and the word that proclaims that defeat. When the enemy accuses, the answer is not our own righteousness but the blood of the Lamb; when he tempts, the answer is the word of God. We overcome a defeated foe with the weapons of the Victor, and he flees.

So learn what war you are truly in. Stop spending your strength on flesh and blood, on the person and the circumstance, which are not your real enemy, and see the unseen powers that work behind them. Do not fight the spiritual war with fleshly weapons, with anger and scheming and the arm of the flesh, but put on the whole armour of God, which is Christ himself, and stand in the victory he has already won. Fight on your knees, in prayer that reaches where your hands cannot. Submit to God, and resist the enemy, and he will flee, for the battle is not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord. We wrestle not against flesh and blood.