Sunday evening, November 17, 1996
Renewing the Covenant: Fight the Good Fight of Faith
Ephesians 6:16, 1 Timothy 6:12
By Don Garlington, Ph.D.
We have been discussing the renewal of our covenant
relationship with God, and have studied how the heart and essence
of that relationship is faith. God gives us faith in the first
place, and then he nourishes and strengthens it so that we can
persevere in our faith. We also discussed that faith has two
components: reliance and faithfulness. First, Christians rely
upon Christ and his work on our behalf, and in this aspect we see
the very genius of the Hebrew term for faith, which means to lean
upon something. Second, it means that we are faithful to him. So
we find two components to faith, reliance and faithfulness, and
where we find the one, we find the other.
Faith is always exercised in the context of testing, trials, and
problems, including persecution. In this study I want to pick up
on that particular aspect of faith and talk about the good fight
of faith, referring to Paul's statement in 1 Timothy 6:12 where
he instructed Timothy to fight the good fight of faith.
The Defensive Nature of Faith
Why has faith been appointed to be the means of redemption,
forgiveness, and salvation? Many answers have been given to that
question, but one common answer is that faith is so easy that
anyone can have faith and be saved. In this study I want to
challenge that notion. Faith is not easy. Were it so, it would
not be described in militaristic terms the way that it is. Both
in Ephesians 6 and 1 Timothy 6 Paul tells us that faith has
something to do with fighting and warfare.
Faith has a defensive and offensive character. We read of its
defensive nature in Ephesians 6:16 where Paul says, "In
addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you
can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one." All
of the elements of the armor are important, Paul says, but above
all, we must have the shield of faith. Why do you think he
mentioned the shield? Shields were important in ancient warfare.
Ancient Greek fighting men were so connected with these weapons
that they were required to come back either carrying their
shields, if they had been victorious, or being carried on them,
if they fell in battle. So the shield was a symbol for warfare in
the ancient world.
In Ephesians 6 Paul uses the word for a large body shield. As he
draws upon that metaphor, he says that this shield is something
which quenches the darts or flaming arrows of the evil one. Now
you may wonder how a shield could quench a flaming arrow,
especially knowing the nature of the flaming arrows to which Paul
referred. Flaming arrows were the equivalent of flamethrowers in
the ancient world. They were the most horrific offensive weapons
one could launch against an enemy. How could these shields
protect someone against flaming arrows? In one commentary on
Ephesians 6, the writer points out that shields were made of wood
covered with leather. Before soldiers went into battle, they
soaked their shields in water so that when flaming arrows hit
them, they would be quenched. I am sure Paul drew on his
knowledge of this practice. Therefore he likens to faith as a
shield as a vital defensive implement in our spiritual warfare.
Assault of Flaming Arrows
What are the "flaming arrows of the evil one" that
the Christian is to extinguish with the shield of faith? These
flaming arrows, or fiery darts, as it is translated in some
versions, refer to every kind of assault that the devil launches
against us. There is no limit to Satan's ingenuity. Every arrow
has our name on it specifically. Do you know how it is said in
warfare that the bullet that kills a soldier is the one that has
his name on it? It is the one he never hears, I understand. So
every fiery dart has our name upon it.
Using other metaphors, Paul speaks of Satan's assaults against
Christians in other places in his letters as well. In 2
Corinthians 12 he speaks of a messenger of Satan coming to buffet
him. I have a friend in the pastoral ministry who gives a certain
illustration of what that means. As my friend was growing up, he
went through a phase when he wanted to be a fighter. On one
occasion he went up to another boy and challenged him to a fight.
The boy agreed, and they went outside, put up their fists, and
began to skirmish. The other boy hit my friend hard again and
again. My friend said he was truly buffeted on that occasion. And
there are two Greek words used for hitting someone--one means to
hit with an open hand, like a slap, and the other means to hit
with a clenched fist. My friend got the clenched fist.
Paul varied his metaphors. He also referred to Satan's assaults
as being messengers of Satan who would beat him about the head.
But no matter what metaphor Paul, or we, might use, when these
fiery darts come, they are unpleasant in the extreme. Every one
of them has as its avowed purpose the goal of causing us to
forsake the way of the covenant made with God in Christ. It is
nothing less than that.
Satan is relentless in his assaults on Christians. Now, suppose
the CIA or the Israeli secret service or the KGB was on your
trail? Where would you run? Where could you hide? These
organizations have almost infinite resources at their disposal.
There is no place you could run and hide from them. Unlike them,
Satan has truly infinite resources at his disposal. He knows you.
He knows where you live, what your weaknesses and vulnerabilities
are, and what it takes to get you off the rail easily. He uses
those resources to shoot flaming arrows right at your heart.
Therefore we must take along the body shield of faith which has
been soaked in water, as it were, and hold it up in order to
quench the fiery darts.
The more we explore Paul's language and look into his metaphor,
the more we see how serious the issue becomes. That is the
defensive character of faith.
The Fight Is Necessary
Faith also has an offensive character. And the first thing we
must realize about the offensive nature of faith is that the
fight is necessary. In 1 Peter 5 we read that our enemy, the
devil, goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
That is a well-known passage, but what is not quite so well-known
is that Peter derived his language from Psalm 22.
Psalm 22 is one of the great messianic psalms which gives a very
vivid anticipation of the sufferings and glory of the Messiah.
Psalms 18 and 22, along with Isaiah 53, form sort of a trilogy in
anticipation of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in his
suffering and subsequent glory. Psalm 22 starts with David
speaking of himself, and messianically of Christ: "My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" He had been forsaken for
a period of time and was suffering from that agony. Not only
that, he was scorned by men, as we read in verse 6, "I am a
worm and no man, scorned by men and despised by the people."
This was people's opinion of David even though he is the king of
Israel. They called him a worm, not a human being.
Then David said he was encompassed by enemies who were no better
than animals. Look at verse 12: "Many bulls encompass me;
strong bulls of Bashan surround me. They open wide their mouths
at me like a ravening and roaring lion." Peter gets his
language from this verse. It is important that we understand the
source of his language, because what Peter is saying is that if
men treated the Master like Beelzebub, are they going to treat
his disciples any better? The suffering that befell the disciples
is the same kind of suffering--less intense but the same in terms
of quality--as that which fell upon Jesus himself.
Now, when we signed on to be Christians, this was in the
contract. But there is a form of evangelism with ties to the
health and the wealth gospel that says if we just give our hearts
to Jesus, everything will be great from that point onward. We
will graduate with honors, we will get the job we want, we will
have the spouses we want, we will have beautiful children, fine
homes, cars, boats, cabins and all the rest. This is not an
exaggeration; indeed, I have heard such things with my own ears.
But do you not see how that simply runs afoul of the notion of a
Messiah whose suffering people form his body? And so the fight of
faith is necessary because the adversary is real. He goes about
as a roaring lion trying to chew us up and spit us out, and he
has an almost infinite array of weaponry at his disposal.
We Must Fight before We Rest
Second, the fight is necessary because God requires that we
fight before we rest. In Genesis we read that God entered into
his rest after the six days of creation, and it is noteworthy
that God's seventh day, his sabbath, is never said to end. He
enjoys that rest even now. But as a result of his fall, Adam was
not able to enter into God's sabbath rest. As the first apostate
and renegade from the covenant, Adam went his own way and chose
Satan's interpretation of reality.
After the account of Adam, the rest of Scripture, beginning with
the early passages of the Old Testament, picks up the notion of
the people of God entering into a rest. We see it in the case of
Israel. The people would work six days a week and then rest one
day. They worked and rested, worked and rested, over and over
again for centuries. Even the feast days of Israel were designed
to teach about resting. All of the festival days--Pentecost,
booths, and so forth--tied into a sabbath system, as we read in
Leviticus 23 and 25. Each festival was headed by the seventh day
Sabbath.
There was a whole complex of Sabbath keeping. Even the land was
to lie fallow. In the sabbatical year and the year of jubilee the
captives went free because they were entering into rest. Do you
remember how Jesus went into the synagogue in Nazareth one day?
He told the worshipers, "This day this scripture is
fulfilled in your hearing." It was as though he was the high
priest who puts the yobel , the ram's horn, to his
lips and announced the coming of the Day of Atonement on which
the year of jubilee began. The yobel was not a brass trumpet, nor
a shofar. The yobel made a very high, shrill, unmelodic sound.
But for those in debt, in bondage, those with property in hock or
in servitude to a fellow Israelites, it was the sweetest sound
they ever heard.
All of this symbolized the sabbath rest for the people of God,
yet that rest is not here. In one sense it is, for we know that
Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest." Yet resting in Christ and
ceasing from the law and our own works all simply opens up the
door to the ultimate rest because at the present time, as the
writer to the Hebrews says, we are struggling with sin. Our
struggle with sin is the struggle to persevere, because sin in
the epistle to the Hebrews means apostasy. We are struggling
against apostasy.
So until such time as the sabbath rest becomes a matter of
historical reality in its consummate phase, we are required to
fight. We are required to bear the image of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the one himself who went through the wilderness and now
calls to us to follow him.
We Must Fight to Save Our Souls
The fight of faith is necessary because otherwise we will lose
our souls. Again, look at the language of 1 Peter. He says that
as the outcome of the fiery trials through which we are passing,
we obtain the salvation of our souls (1 Peter 1:9). In a similar
passage in 1 Timothy 6:12 Paul says to take a firm grip on
eternal life.
Now we are not advocating an idea of losing salvation in the
Arminian sense of the term, but we are saying there is a sabbath
rest which many professing Christians may very well miss because
their grip on eternal life is not firm. I once knew a man who had
been very dear. He was a worker in the gospel, a brother, so it
seemed. Yet when I visited him after an absence of several years,
something had happened. It was as though he had undergone a
personality change. He was in the process of divorcing his wife.
He was already running around on her and asking his children,
"Why do you want to go to church and hear about this mean,
cruel, unloving God?" It was as though another person or
spirit had come and occupied his body. And as far as I know, he
is still going down that course. Why would he do that? He did not
take a firm grip on eternal life, as Paul tells Timothy to do. I
am not saying these things to unsettle you and to scare you, but
this is reality. This is why the fight is necessary--the good
fight of faith.
The Fight of Faith
How does faith fight? I think it does so by telling us certain
things. One thing faith tells us is just who the enemy is. It
tells us that, in fact, he is alive, personal, intelligent, and
scheming and devising our downfall if he possibly could manage
it. If faith did not tell us that, when we experience trouble we
would think, "Well, these are just hard times for me. I am
going through a rough patch." We would concoct some idea of
fate: that the fates are against us and that we are going through
a stretch of bad luck right now.
But faith tells us there is a designing enemy. We think of Job in
that regard, do we not? We speak of the patience of Job because
of the way that phrase is translated in James. But when we read
the book of Job, we find that Job could be very impatient. He
said things like, "If I washed myself and cleaned myself up,
God would simply throw me back in the muck again." We must
realize that Job said some things which were pretty blasphemous.
And this was not unique to Job. Jeremiah said some things which
were downright blasphemous. On one occasion he accused God of
deceiving the people. And when he was thrown into the sewer,
Jeremiah railed against God.
Finally, though, both Job and Jeremiah came to understand that
God is the one who appears in the whirlwind, the one who simply
announces his sovereign majesty over the creation, saying that is
the bottom line and there is no point in going any further. And
like theirs, our faith informs us that not only does God exist,
but also the enemy exists. Being informed that he exists and what
he is like, we are then able to intelligently wage war against
him.
The New Creation
Second, faith tells us that there is a prize, which is the new
creation. When we talk about renewing the covenant, the new
creation is the ultimate thing God intends to do. The new
creation means the removal of all problems, all sin, and all
evil. It means human beings are given what Paul calls spiritual
bodies, meaning not some sort of ectoplasm that one can see
through, but rather, substantial flesh-and-blood bodies
especially created and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And we will be
enabled to do marvelous things. Even the most brilliant person,
we are told, uses only about ten percent of the available gray
matter in the brain. The new creation means that one hundred
percent of the human brain will be engaged in a work which will
challenge all of the capabilities a human being possesses. Faith
tells us that there is such a prize.
Is this just something we dream up to make us feel better
throughout the course of this life, especially in the rough
patches? Some may say that, but there is a substantial body of
evidence, from both the old creation and from the written word of
God, that such a thing is to be, and I want to be there to see it
unfold. If someone says this is the proverbial "pie in the
sky," I would say for the sake of argument that it is pretty
good pie, and I am intending to have a big slice of it.
One of the horrors of those who will be lost is that they will be
excluded from the glory which is to be. I think that implies the
new creation is going to take place first. Those who will not
dwell in it will see it in all of its splendor and then have to
depart from it, forever banished from the presence of God and his
glory. But for those who believe, faith tells us about the prize
of the new creation that is well worth fighting for.
The One Who Has Gone Before Us
Faith also tells us that there is one who has gone before us.
The whole imagery of the book of Hebrews demonstrates that Christ
is the inaugurator of our salvation, the author as well as the
perfecter of our faith. He is the one who went through the
wilderness first, and the wilderness was more intense, more
dangerous, and more outrageous in terms of the slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune for him than it will ever be for us. Faith
tells us Jesus has been there before us.
A very interesting insight opens up as we compare a certain
passage in the gospels with the book of Deuteronomy. Remember how
the Pharisees said John the Baptist had a demon because he came
neither nor drinking? And when the Son of Man came eating and
drinking, they said he was a glutton and a drunkard? The
Pharisees were not really accusing Jesus of indulgence. They were
reflecting upon Deuteronomy 21 in which we read of parents
bringing an incorrigible son, one who cannot be controlled by
them, to the elders of the city. As they brought their son, the
parents would say, "We cannot do anything with this
disobedient son," and so the elders of the city would stone
him. After he died, they would take his body and affix it to a
tree to be a warning to all who pass by that this one was under
the curse, the anathema, of Yahweh himself. This was God's
repudiation of this individual.
In that passage the incorrigible son was described as a glutton
and a drunkard. Do you see what the Pharisees were saying, then,
about Jesus? They were saying that they were obliged by nothing
other than the law of God itself to make an example of Jesus and
to purge the evil from their midst, which is what Deuteronomy 21
said to do. There was one difference, though. In Deuteronomy the
man was hung on the tree after he died. But in the Jewish
interpretation of the period, Deuteronomy 21 was fulfilled when
they put a living man upon a tree and put nails through his
wrists and his feet. So in their zeal to crucify Jesus the
Pharisees thought they were doing God's service. And Jesus
pointed out later to his disciples, "If they call the master
of the house Beelzebub, then what are they going to do to
you?"
Faith tells us that Jesus of Nazareth was not simply a martyr in
some sort of a romantic cause. No, he was affixed to the tree
while he was still alive because he is one who bore the curse of
Yahweh for sinners. He is the one who is now living, the one who
made his trek through the wilderness, that we might follow him.
Faith tells us that, and faith must tell us that, because Jesus
Christ was able to triumph by faith in God his Father. In the
book of Hebrews, Jesus is represented as being the man of faith,
the one who relied upon his God and was faithful to his God to
the very end. That faith is required of us also.
A Cloud of Witnesses
Faith also tells us that other disciples have fought and won.
After the writer to the Hebrews lists the heroes of faith in the
eleventh chapter, he begins the twelfth chapter by describing how
we are surrounded by a great cloud of witness--those who had
borne witness to the faithfulness of God in their own lives.
To understand this better, we must try to reconstruct the
situation of these Hebrews. It seems that some of their goods had
been plundered and some of them had been put into jail. But what,
the writer is asking, had they suffered in comparison to those
who already fought the good fight of faith in the Old Testament
and probably during the period between the two testaments? Were
any of them put into hollow logs and sawn in two? Were any of
them forced to go into the wilderness and live in caves? Were any
of them disemboweled, having their very entrails laid open so
that all could see? These Hebrews would have to answer, "No,
by no means." None of this had this happened to them. We
must also ask if any of this has happened to us. And we must also
answer, "By no means."
Thus, we must remember--and faith will remind us--that others
have already fought and won. I do not know many of those people
by name. Some of them I know from the Old Testament record. But
there are hundreds, thousands, and millions of believers whose
names are totally unknown to us, and yet they have fought and
won. May we be like them! When we die, if the Lord does not
return in our lifetime, who is going to remember our names? Those
who survive us in this church might, but who else will know
anything about us? Who on the other side of the world will have
heard of us? But it doesn't matter, because we will have fought
and we will have won, because faith has enabled us to understand
that there is a good fight which must be waged.
Whatever God Ordains Is Right
Finally, faith tells us that whatever God ordains is right.
There is a moving hymn, "Whate'er my God ordains is right;
holy his will abideth; I will be still whate'er he doth, and
follow where he guideth," and so on.
We were talking a couple of nights ago about the way that we
might make a choice between a big bowl of ice cream and a big
bowl of bitter Brussels sprouts. All we want is the ice cream but
we must have a portion of the sprouts, because we need the iron
and vitamins found only in them. And so although we often think
we know what is good for us, we usually do not know what we are
talking about, because what we want is not necessarily what we
need.
Faith takes God at his word. You see, that is what Adam was
supposed to do in the beginning. Adam could go only one way or
the other. He had two choices. He made his decision because he
thought that the adversary's explanation of reality was true and
was real. But faith takes God at his word. The only way we know
we are following the right course of action and that we are
committed to a sense of principles which are worth being
committed to is that God has said so in a book, and we are
committed to believing the words of that book.
Do you remember the story of St. Augustine's conversion? It
thrills me every time I think of it. While Augustine was in his
house one day, he thought he heard a voice coming from the
courtyard outside. The voice said, "Take up the book and
read. Take up the book and read." Later on, he said he was
not sure where that voice came from. He may have just been
hearing children playing in the street. But he went out into the
courtyard and found a copy of the Latin Bible. Taking it up, he
read from Romans 13 where Paul says, "Let us behave
decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not
in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and
jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ,
and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful
nature" (vv. 13-14). As Augustine read these words, he was
converted.
Do you know the story of Spurgeon's conversion? He went to a
little Primitive Methodist chapel on a snowy night in London.
Only a handful of people had even bothered to show up, among them
an old lay preacher who finally got up to preach because even the
minister himself couldn't make it in the storm. This man opened
the Bible to Isaiah 45:22, "Turn to me and be saved, all you
ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other." And
the man said to Spurgeon, "Young man, you look very
miserable. You need to look to the Savior and live." And
Spurgeon, in his autobiography said, "I was not accustomed
to be addressed in public in such terms as that." He was
only about fourteen or so. But Spurgeon simply took God at his
word, and all of his doubts and fears about the faith fell away.
Taste and See That the Lord Is Good
Finally, faith is tasting that the Lord is good. In our study
of Psalm 73, I pointed out that the very first thing that author
of that psalm writes is the last thing that he came to
understand. "Surely God is good to Israel," he writes,
referring to his own people, "to those who are pure in
heart," meaning those who are not idolatrous, who are
undivided.
Now it may not seem to us sometimes, if we are honest, that God
is good. Sometimes we do not know what in the world is going on.
We may find ourselves abandoned by those who were our friends. We
may wonder why--why has this happened, why have friends proven to
be false? And as we ask these questions, we find ourselves
totally bewildered.
When this happens, to a certain extent we simply have to wait
until we can get out of the forest. When we are out, we can look
back and see where it all falls together, but for the time being
we cling to the words in Hebrews 12 that all discipline for the
time being seems painful. Do you know why it seems painful?
Because it is painful. But there is such a thing as the
afterwards principle. Afterwards, when the pain subsides and when
we can begin to look back and see the bigger picture in our lives
and in the lives of others, then we bear the peaceable fruit of
righteousness.
Remember the afterwards principle, which faith reminds us of
while we are going through troubles. Faith tells us that the Lord
is good, and we simply need to wait a little while longer to see
that goodness manifested in ways which are unmistakable. The
vistas of grace will unfold before us, and there we shall see the
Lord Jesus Christ truly bearing all things by the word of his
power.
It is a great gospel--the gospel of God's Son and faith in his
Son. And we know this is the good fight of faith, particularly
because God intends for us good as we wage warfare. Therefore, we
must fight and struggle on, knowing we have not much longer to
fight. May we number our days, get a heart of wisdom, and look to
the Christ who has gone before, who has made his trek through the
wilderness, and who one day is going to be standing, as the
writer of Hebrews says, in the midst of the congregation, singing
praises to God the Father. Amen.
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