What Are We Wrestling Against?
Background
12. Greek, “For our wrestling (‘the wrestling’ in which we are engaged) is not against flesh,” &c. Flesh and blood foes are Satan’s mere tools, the real foe lurking behind them is Satan himself, with whom our conflict is. “Wrestling” implies that it is a hand-to-hand and foot-to-foot struggle for the mastery: to wrestle successfully with Satan, we must wrestle with GOD in irresistible prayer like Jacob (Ge 32:24–29; Ho 12:4). Translate, “The principalities … the powers” (Eph 1:21; Col 1:16; see on Eph 3:10). The same grades of powers are specified in the case of the demons here, as in that of angels there (compare Ro 8:38; 1 Co 15:24; Col 2:15). The Ephesians had practiced sorcery (Ac 19:19), so that he appropriately treats of evil spirits in addressing them. The more clearly any book of Scripture, as this, treats of the economy of the kingdom of light, the more clearly does it set forth the kingdom of darkness. Hence, nowhere does the satanic kingdom come more clearly into view than in the Gospels which treat of Christ, the true Light.
rulers of the darkness of this world—Greek, “age” or “course of the world.” But the oldest manuscripts omit “of world.” Translate, “Against the world rulers of this (present) darkness” (Eph 2:2; 5:8; Lu 22:53; Col 1:13). On Satan and his demons being “world rulers,” compare Jn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; Lu 4:6; 2 Co 4:4; 1 Jn 5:19, Greek, “lieth in the wicked one.” Though they be “world rulers,” they are not the ruler of the universe; and their usurped rule of the world is soon to cease, when He shall “come whose right it is” (Ez 21:27). Two cases prove Satan not to be a mere subjective fancy: (1) Christ’s temptation; (2) the entrance of demons into the swine (for these are incapable of such fancies). Satan tries to parody, or imitate in a perverted way, God’s working (2 Co 11:13, 14). So when God became incarnate, Satan, by his demons, took forcible possession of human bodies. Thus the demoniacally possessed were not peculiarly wicked, but miserable, and so fit subjects for Jesus’ pity. Paul makes no mention of demoniacal possession, so that in the time he wrote, it seems to have ceased; it probably was restricted to the period of the Lord’s incarnation, and of the foundation of His Church.
spiritual wickedness—rather as Greek, “The spiritual hosts of wickedness.” As three of the clauses describe the power, so this fourth, the wickedness of our spiritual foes (Mt 12:45).
in high places—Greek, “heavenly places”: in Eph 2:2, “the air,” see on Eph 2:2. The alteration of expression to “in heavenly places,” is in order to mark the higher range of their powers than ours, they having been, up to the ascension (Rev 12:5, 9, 10), dwellers “in the heavenly places” (Job 1:7), and being now in the regions of the air which are called the heavens. Moreover, pride and presumption are the sins in heavenly places to which they tempt especially, being those by which they themselves fell from heavenly places (Is 14:12–15). But believers have naught to fear, being “blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places” (Eph 1:3).
(6:12) In the word “wrestle,” (palē (παλη)), Paul uses a Greek athletic term. Thayer defines as follows: “a contest between two in which each endeavors to throw the other, and which is decided when the victor is able to press and hold down his prostrate antagonist, namely, hold him down with his hand upon his neck.” When we consider that the loser in a Greek wrestling contest had his eyes gouged out with resulting blindness for the rest of his days, we can form some conception of the Ephesian Greek’s reaction to Paul’s illustration. The Christian’s wrestling against the powers of darkness is no less desperate and fateful. The literal Greek is, “Our wrestling is not against blood and flesh.” The Greek reverses the order. The principalities and powers, are the archē (ἀρχη), “first ones, preeminent ones, leaders,” and the exousia (ἐξουσια), “authorities,” the demons of Satan in the lower atmosphere who constitute his kingdom in the air.
The rulers of the darkness of this world, the kosmokratōr (κοσμοκρατωρ), “the world-rulers of this darkness,” are Satan and his demons. They are also called “the spirit forces of perniciousness in the heavenly places.” The heavenly places here are not those highest ones inhabited by the holy angels, but the lower heavens, the lower atmosphere surrounding this earth. One might be troubled at the change of figure from that of a Roman soldier to that of a Greek wrestler, arguing that a soldier does not engage in a wrestling contest clad in full armor. But the difficulty disappears when one sees that the figure of a wrestling match speaks of a contest at close quarters, and an individual contest, between the Christian and his demon enemies.
Ephesians 6:12
Our wrestling is not (οὐκ ἐστιν ἡμιν ἡ παλη [ouk estin hēmin hē palē]). “To us the wrestling is not.” Παλη [Palē] is an old word from παλλω [pallō], to throw, to swing (from Homer to the papyri, though here only in N. T.), a contest between two till one hurls the other down and holds him down (κατεχω [katechō]). Note προς [pros] again (five times) in sense of “against,” face to face conflict to the finish. The world-rulers of this darkness (τους κοσμοκρατορας του σκοτους τουτου [tous kosmokratoras tou skotous toutou]). This phrase occurs here alone. In John 14:30 Satan is called “the ruler of this world” (ὁ ἀρχων του κοσμου τουτου [ho archōn tou kosmou toutou]). In 2 Cor. 4:4 he is termed “the god of this age” (ὁ θεος του αἰωνος τουτου [ho theos tou aiōnos toutou]). The word κοσμοκρατωρ [kosmokratōr] is found in the Orphic Hymns of Satan, in Gnostic writings of the devil, in rabbinical writings (transliterated) of the angel of death, in inscriptions of the Emperor Caracalla. These “world-rulers” are limited to “this darkness” here on earth. The spiritual hosts of wickedness (τα πνευματικα της πονηριας [ta pneumatika tēs ponērias]). No word for “hosts” in the Greek. Probably simply, “the spiritual things (or elements) of wickedness.” Πονηρια [Ponēria] (from πονηρος [ponēros]) is depravity (Matt. 22:18; 1 Cor. 5:8). In the heavenly places (ἐν τοις ἐπουρανιοις [en tois epouraniois]). Clearly so here. Our “wrestling” is with foes of evil natural and supernatural. We sorely need “the panoply of God” (furnished by God).
Ver. 12. “For our wrestling is not,” saith he, “against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness, in the heavenly places.”
Having stimulated them by the character of the conflict, he next goes on to arouse them also by the prizes set before them. For what is his argument? Having said that the enemies are fierce, he adds further, that they despoil us of vast blessings. What are these? The conflict lies “in the heavenlies”; the struggle is not about riches, not about glory, but about our being enslaved. And thus is the enmity irreconcilable. The strife and the conflict are fiercer when for vast interests at stake; for the expression “in the heavenlies” is equivalent to, “for the heavenly things.” It is not that they may gain anything by the conquest, but that they may despoil us. As if one were to say, “In what does the contract lie?” In gold. The word “in,” means, “in behalf of”; the word “in,” also means, “on account of.”6 Observe how the power of the enemy startles us; how it makes us all circumspection, to know that the hazard is on behalf of vast interests, and the victory for the sake of great rewards. For he is doing his best to cast us out of Heaven.
He speaks of certain “principalities, and powers, and world-rulers of this darkness.” What darkness? Is it that of night? No, but of wickedness. “For ye were,” saith he, “once darkness” (Eph. 5:8); so naming that wickedness which is in this present life; for beyond it, it will have no place, not in Heaven, nor in the world to come.
“World-rulers” he calls them, not as having the mastery over the world, but the Scripture is wont to call wicked practices “the world,” as, for example, where Christ saith, “They are not of this world, even as I am not of the world.” (John 17:16.) What then, were they not of the world? Were they not clothed with flesh? Were they not of those who are in the world? And again; “The world hateth Me, but you it cannot hate.” (John 7:7.) Where again He calls wicked practices by this name. Thus the Apostle here by the world means wicked men, and the evil spirits have more especial power over them. “Against the spiritual hosts of wickedness,” saith he, “in the heavenly places.” “Principalities, and powers,” he speaks of; just as in the heavenly places there are “thrones and dominions, principalities and powers.” (Col. 1:16.)