God’s Armor
This week, Latter Day Saints read Doctrine and Covenants 27, which describes a revelation on the Holy Supper that Joseph Smith received from an angelic messenger.
Towards the end of this message we find, reiterated, with some alterations, Paul’s admonition to the Christians in Ephesus to “put on the whole armor of God.” What is it, I wondered, that made this imagery so potent that 2000 years later we are still enchanted by it, so potent that God would reiterate it to Joseph Smith nearly 2000 years after Paul first wrote it?
So, I set myself down to study the imagery.
Of course, I know I’m not the first person to do this, but as I studied this imagery, I was suddenly struck by how paradigm shifting this passage must have been to Paul’s original audience! We’ve heard references to Paul’s famous armor imagery so often that, despite the continued potency of this analogy, we may have lost sight of how powerful this passage must have been when Paul first wrote it! Now, I don’t have any illusions that this will be some definitive analysis of this imagery; rather, I just hope to share a certain insight I had as a studied the evolution of this imagery of God as an armored warrior that perhaps, my insights might help others see another facet of this powerful imagery.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no Biblical scholar, so what follows is by not meant to be some thorough exegesis by any stretch of the imagination; rather, it’s just a little rhetorical analysis, based on my admittedly cursory study of the evolution of this imagery, beginning with the symbolic enumeration of God’s armor is in Isaiah chapter 59, through the most recent usage of that same imagery in the Doctrine and Covenants.
Isaiah’s Warrior God
Isaiah is not the first prophet to conceptualize God as a warrior, ready and able to defend his people (not only do we see God as a warrior in Exodus — 14:14 and 15:3 — but we also see this imagery amongst the pagans, who often worshipped warrior gods), so it’s not the idea of God as a warrior that makes Isaiah’s imagery so potent; rather, it’s the strikingly visceral nature of Isaiah’s imagery, and the symbolism that he give to each piece of that armor, that makes Isaiah’s description so potent: Isaiah doesn’t just paint a picture of God as warrior, but he presents God dressed in a suit of armor crafted from His own virtues:
“he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.”
(Isaiah 59:17).
This imagery, then, not only tells the reader that God is a warrior, it tells us how God is a warrior, the method by which he fights and defends and wins His battles: He protects His vitals with righteousness, He protects His mind by His saving power, and beneath this armor, He covers His body with “vengeance” (a word that suggests not only His just or righteous nature, but His authority, or right, to mete out justice in behalf of others), and, finally, ALL of this, His whole soul, is covered with single-mindedness — the cloak of zeal — which alludes to God’s oneness, or His undivided nature (Deuteronomy 6:4; 1 Corinthians 1:13), while the standard which this divine warrior will raise, to call His saints to battle and to strike terror in the hearts of his enemies, is His own Spirit (Isaiah 59:19).
Isaiah’s audience would have been familiar with Jehovah’s virtues, but to see those virtues described as an armor He wears when He goes to war, and to see His spirit (the very spirit He pours out upon His prophets) described as the battle standard He fights under — and which Israel is to rally around — all of this takes the familiar war-like imagery of the pagan gods and the prophetic revelation that God will fight Israel’s battles, and combines them to paint for the saints a picture of a God who fights battles spiritually, through His own divine character traits.
The Warrior God in The Book of Wisdom
Certainly father Lehi’s admonition to his children to “awake” and “put on the armor of righteousness” (2 Nephi 1: 23) is an allusion to Isaiah’s imagery of God in his armor, but the the next reference to this symbol-thick imagery that I want to address is found in The Book of Wisdom, written around the first century BC , when Jewish culture and the Jewish nation was under a sustained attack by the armies and the philosophies of the Hellenized world. The anonymous author of this text builds on Isaiah’s imagery, expanding upon the virtues Isaiah enumerated, but this time, rather than coming as a conqueror ready to mete out vengeance, the imagery shows “the Most High” protecting “the righteous” from their enemies and rewarding them for their faithfulness:
“[…] they will receive a glorious crown and a beautiful diadem from the hand of the Lord, because with his right hand he will cover them, and with his arm he will shield them. [17] The Lord will take his zeal as his whole armor, and will arm all creation to repel his enemies; [18] he will put on righteousness as a breastplate, and wear impartial justice as a helmet; [19] he will take holiness as an invincible shield, [20] and sharpen stern wrath for a sword, and creation will join with him to fight against the madmen. [21] Shafts of lightning will fly with true aim, and will leap to the target as from a well-drawn bow of clouds, [22] and hailstones full of wrath will be hurled as from a catapult […]”
Here we are introduced more fully to the imagery that we will see in Paul’s passage. However, note that while the author of Wisdom expands considerably on Isaiah’s imagery, and alters it slightly in places, it is still God who is dressed in the armor.
This, I think, was Paul’s great innovation, and must be one of the things that made Paul’s discussion of God’s armor so profound and memorable: the early Christians whose lives were literally under attack by the Roman state would have already been familiar with the scriptural references to God as avenging warrior, as well as with Isaiah’s imagery and the imagery from The Book of Wisdom; they would have been familiar with the idea of their God dressed for battle and ready to defend and avenge them, His people; but what Paul does, which is different than his predecessors, is take this image of God wearing His own virtues as armor in His battle against Israel’s enemies and he builds upon it by commanding the saints, themselves, to take up that armor and fight the fight.
Paul’s Armor of God
If the chronologies suggested for the compositions of Paul’s letters are correct, then Paul builds to his passage in Ephesians over time.
First, we read this in his first letter to the Thessalonians (around 50 AD), as Paul admonishes the saints to prepare for the evils that are coming, not as those who are “in darkness” or “of the night,” those who do not have the benefit of the revelations which the saints have been given regarding the evil that is shortly to come and the trying days ahead; rather, he admonishes them to be “children of light” and “children of the day” and to act as those who have been warned and to be prepared for the coming of the Lord, which shall be “as a thief in the night” (a reference to Jesus’s parable recorded in Matt. 24:43):
“For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. [8] But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. [9] For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ […]”
This first allusion to the armor of God in Paul’s writings is clearly building on Isaiah’s imagery: there is a breastplate (of faith and love rather than of righteousness) and a helmet (of the hope of salvation rather than just salvation — and certainly these are a reference to the primary virtues that form the foundation of Paul’s teachings, in general: faith, hope, and love will appear again and again in Paul’s writings), but the idea that Paul introduces here is this extension of Isaiah’s imagery: if God is a warrior whose armor is forged from His own virtuous characteristics, then the way God helps us, the way God defends us from evil, is by revealing those virtues to us and teaching us to wear them, ourselves.
In short: as we take upon ourselves the godly qualities, God shields us from the wickedness of this world that will slay us with a spiritual death.
We see the imagery of armor again in Paul’s epistle to the Romans (around 57 AD). Here, Paul emphasizes imagery of light and darkness, calling the armor “the armor of light,” implying (based on the context and on what he said the last time he used armor imagery) that the “armor” is the revelations from God (which include His revelations about virtuous living), and the clothing or “garments” we are to wear (to use Isaiah’s language again) is none other than “the Lord Jesus Christ,” Himself:
“[10] Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. [11] And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. [12] The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. [13] Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. [14] But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”
All of this is building to Paul’s final use of this imagery in his letter to the Ephesians. Written around 62 AD, when Paul was a prisoner in Rome and close to the end of his mortal ministry, Paul builds on Isaiah, Wisdom, and his own teachings to, once again, give an admonition to the saints that they need armor-up:
“Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. [12] For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. [13] Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. [14] Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; [15] And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; [16] Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. [17] And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
Things are going to get bad, Paul seems to say — and how is God going to save you? By YOU becoming a godly warrior, dressed and prepared for battle as God, Himself, would do!
Paul makes some interesting alterations and extensions to what we’ve seen before with this imagery. Notice, first, that unlike His portrayal in Isaiah and Wisdom, God is not portrayed as an attacker here; there are catapults and bows of the cloud and arrows of lightning assailing and destroying the wicked; God is also not an avenger here, as He was in Isaiah (perhaps that come later?). Rather, the assailant in Paul’s analogy is “the adversary” (the name “satan” actually means “adversary”): the embodiment of evil is on the offensive, and the saints will need “the whole armor of God” to defend themselves against this assault.
This phrase — “the whole armor of God” — encapsulates the changes that Paul makes to the imagery. The implication is that previous details of God’s armor were insufficient, and Paul’s new imagery appears to rectify that descriptive deficiency. Thus, the additions to the armor are particularly interesting: while the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation remain the same, Paul’s additions, based as they are Roman soldiers’ armor (which Paul was probably familiar with on a daily basis, since he wrote in prison), suggests a need to be as armed as the enemy will be: that if the saints are to defend themselves against empire of darkness and worldliness, they must be armed in equal fashion by taking upon themselves more than just righteousness and the hope of salvation and the garments of vengeance and a cloak of zeal.
In this light, Paul’s additions are particularly enlightening, especially because not all of the pieces of armor are simple “virtues” anymore; some of them seem to refer more to the revelations or “light” that God has given His saints in preparation for the “dark” times that are coming. Thus “the preparation of the gospel of peace” has been added to God’s armor as shoes, those things that protect a traveler on the road (the straight and narrow path? The path of coming tribulation and persecution? Are these not often one and the same?). The revelation of the gospel or “good news” of Christ’s atonement “prepares” us to meet God, to return to that Eden from which we have been ejected (an interesting potential commentary on the relationship between grace and works discussed earlier in this same letter, Ephesians 2:8–10), but the road back will not be an easy one, and we must walk it with soldierly order and caution, especially, perhaps, in light of the prophesied “apostasy” that is sure to come.
The addition of a shield and a sword also suggests that the times ahead will be perilous. The shield is faith — which, with love, was the breastplate in Paul’s earlier version of this imagery, suggesting something important, I think, about the relationship between love and faith and hope and righteousness, all of which are central elements of Paul’s teachings and all of which, in Paul’s mind, work to “shields” a saint’s most vital part: the soul.
And God’s Spirit, which, in Isaiah, was the standard (the banner, the flag) around which the people of God would rally, in Paul becomes a sword — which, again, suggests the threat that evil poses, and the need for saints to be fully armed if they are to survive the coming tribulations.
Thus, the one alteration that stands out to me the most is the addition of a girdle. Belts were used in armor not only to hold up one’s clothes (in an age before elastic!), but to keep one’s core muscles tight, to protect the back from strain. The fact that Paul calls the belt in God’s armor “Truth” is, therefore, especially instructive, for the concept of “Truth” encapsulate ALL the other virtues not named as a specific piece of the armor: chastity, zeal, humility, patience, brotherly kindness, love, honor, etc. — any virtue you can imagine is woven into the fabric of the belt that tightens God’s core and keeps his back straight and strong, as are the revelations and the ordinances that God would have the saints embrace: the baptismal covenant, the Abrahamic promises, the mysteries of the kingdom yet to be revealed — any revelation of Truth, past or present, is woven into the belt of the armor of God, the very thing that holds the whole suit of armor together.
Perhaps this is why the girdle of Truth holds a position of primacy in Paul’s list of armor: it emphasizes that he is enumerating “the whole armor of God,” indeed!
The Armor of God in the Doctrine and Covenants
This brings us to the similar passage in the D&C: when Joseph Smith went to purchase wine for the holy supper, an angel appeared and told Joseph that wine wasn’t necessary for the sacrament, and then told Joseph that the keys of the priesthood had been restored to prepare the people for the second coming of Christ, who will return with the prophets of old, many of whom are named, and the angel concludes His message by quoting Paul:
“Wherefore, lift up your hearts and rejoice, and gird up your loins, and take upon you my whole armor, that ye may be able to withstand the evil day, having done all, that ye may be able to stand. [16] Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, which I have sent mine angels to commit unto you; [17] Taking the shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked; [18] And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of my Spirit, which I will pour out upon you, and my word which I reveal unto you, and be agreed as touching all things whatsoever ye ask of me, and be faithful until I come, and ye shall be caught up, that where I am ye shall be also. Amen.”
Just as Paul’s changes are notable, so, too, are the changes here: it is no longer “the armor of God” but “MY armor”: God, Himself, is offering it; the sword is the sword of “MY Spirit” (which He promises to “pour out”) and “MY word which I will reveal unto you.”
And Paul’s imagery of “light” in his letter to the Romans, which merely implied a faith in God’s continuing revelations, is made plain here n the D&C, with God saying that He will pour out His Spirit and reveal His word to His saints in the Latter Days, in preparation for the tribulations to come before the second coming.
The Whole Armor of God
Nothing I have said above is meant to suggest that Isaiah and the author of Wisdom meant to suggest that the people of God need not take upon themselves the godly qualities: this imagery of God as a warrior dressed for battle in His own godly virtues implies the need for His people to dress the same: during the intense, centuries-long persecution that was poured out upon Jehovah’s people, they needed to know that the way they are expected to fight God’s battles is the same way God fights His battles: with godly virtues. There is never an implication that the saints are to be anything less than god-like in their behavior: we are to be holy as He is holy (Lev. 11:44; 1 Pet. 1:15–17; Eph. 1:4); we are to be perfect, as He is perfect (Matt. 5:48); we are to be godly, as He is godly — and that means we must dress ourselves in the same virtues as He does. If He is a holy warrior, we must become holy warriors, too.
But the implications in Paul’s phrasing — “the whole armor of God” — is that there is more to God’s armor, more to the saints’ armor, than Isaiah and the author of Wisdom described. If the saints are to be true saints, if we are to be like the warrior God we worship, then we must see the whole picture. Paul was not contradicting Isaiah; rather, he was admonishing the Christian saints to dress themselves in the further light and knowledge God had revealed through His Son. Once we had the full “light” of the Gospel revelation, then we would realize that this armor of God’s wasn’t for Him, alone, but for us, as well.
The phrasing of Paul’s admonition to “put on the whole armor of God,” cliched as it may sound to our ears, is quite powerful: it not only builds on the previous imagery of the warrior God, but it brings that imagery to fruition, interpreting the armor of the armored God Isaiah saw (which armor was forged from God’s own virtues), through the revelation of the gospel (or “good news”) of Jesus Christ’s atonement. These virtues do not merely make us worthy to dwell in His presence; they make us like Him, and thus capable of participating in His work, in His war — the battle between good and evil, virtues and vice, light and darkness, eternal life and eternal death — but this armor, these virtues, come from God, Himself, who is their creator, and who reveals them to us through His prophets (which is how He, as the author of Wisdom wrote, “takes care of” us and “covers” us and “shields” us from the attacks of our enemies — 5:16–17).
Just as Christ opened the gates of Eden to exiled Man, so Christ makes available the godly virtues that the saints need to wear if they are to survive the darkness and wickedness of this world. For the first Christians, that darkness was the tribulation of Roman persecution, and, ultimately, the Great Apostasy; for the Latter Day Saints, that darkness would be the tribulation and wickedness that would darken the world before the second coming of the Savior.
And just as Christ offered that armor to His early saints through the apostle, Paul, so He offered it again to his Latter Day Saints through Joseph Smith.
The Armor Imagery and the Relationship Between Grace and Works
The thing that stands out to me in Isaiah’s description of the armored God is that God is armed with his virtues; in Paul’s reworking of that imagery, we see that God has given His armor to His saints: we can now wear this armor for ourselves — not just can: must! We must acquire these virtues, must dress ourselves, arm ourselves, as the ancient prophet described God being dressed and armed, with godly virtue; if we don’t, we will not be able to stand against the powers of darkness.
And, in the Doctrine and Covenants, God reiterates this, commanding the Latter Day Saints to take upon ourselves “my whole armor” — emphasizing His grace — that we “may be able to withstand the evil day” — emphasizing our role, our works.
This imagery, then, provides an interesting commentary on the relationship between God’s grace and our works, doctrine that Paul discusses in Ephesians and throughout His ministry. We are saved by God’s grace, Paul teaches, and not by our own works out by the works of the law, not by the ordinances, themselves, which God, at various times, had commanded His people to perform.
But Paul’s armor imagery also implies that we saints cannot just sit back and let God fight our battles for us without doing our part. We have a role to play in our own salvation. Bad things are coming; the world is a wicked place; and if we saints are to survive the darkness of this world — and, specifically, the spiritually deadly darkness of the last days — we will certainly need God’s grace, but our own efforts will also be required. We will need to arm ourselves as God, to clothe ourselves in righteousness and truth; we will need to be obedient (or faithful) to God’s commandments and to God’s revealed Truth, so much so that it’s as though we are actually wearing the light of God’s revelations as garments, the light of God’s authority as armor, because if we don’t, if we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (another of Paul’s teachings, Philippians 2:12), we will be spiritually slain.
Seeing the history of this imagery, the development of the symbolism of God armor over time, helps, I think, accentuate the significance of what Paul was saying when he first counseled the saints to take upon themselves “the whole armor of God,” or to dress themselves in God’s armor. This image of the armored, warrior God would have been well-known to Paul’s audience and, thanks to Isaiah, they would have known that God’s armor was forged of the godly virtues.
Paul, then — and the angelic messenger who came to Joseph Smith nearly 2000 years after Paul’s death — is saying that God is offering us His very own heavenly armor, and He is commanding us to clothe ourselves as gods, in divine virtue and divine light, or we will not spiritually survive.
The prophets have assured us that we are not alone in this fight: Isaiah assured us of this; Paul assured us of this; Joseph Smith assured us of this. But while we may not be alone in the fight, it is still our fight, and we must do all in our power to “withstand the evil day” or we will not “stand” — and that means working to acquire the virtues, the revelations, the Spirit by which God will protect and defend us. He has forged this armor, He offers it to us; we have only to accept and put it on.