Ephesians 6:12

“ for our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

A more literal translation of this verse is:

“For our struggle/ wrestling is not against blood and flesh, but against the principalities, against the authorities, against the cosmic rulers of this darkness, against the evil spirits in the heavenly realms.”

Paul changes his analogy briefly from the soldier in the army to the wrestler on the ground, to make the point that the struggle is personal, one in which every christian is engaged.

With ever-evolving military technology taking warfare from a battlefield to the safety of a computer lab, we can think of the life and death struggle of warfare as being a comfortable thing for us. No, we are wrestling an enemy, it is hand to hand, brute strength wrestling.

Our enemy in this struggle is not blood and flesh, but spiritual. When we are rejected, mocked, hated, or suffer violence for our faith in Christ, we are not to hate those who who oppose us, but love them. They are not doing it to us, but the spirits and rulers of the heavenly realms are doing it.

Paul here lists four different spiritual powers that oppose us. These are evil spirits, not human beings. They are the fallen angels who serves satan in various areas and with various levels of authority and power.

There is a definite hierarchy in the infernal kingdom, just as there is a succession of authority in God's Kingdom. it is unwise to make too much of these various terms for spiritual rulers and powers. God has not given us a detailed description all these spirits that oppose us, except to highlight that there is a struggle, and the sacrifice of Christ on the cross of Calvary has ensured their defeat.

The rulers or principalities (in Greek “archas”) are spirits which rule over geographic areas such as cities, regions, nations, and so on. They influence culture through religious expressions, through arts, media and governmental institutions. Wherever there are people, there are principalities seeking to control them, and most importantly, resist the gospel in an area.

A biblical example of this is Daniel 10. Daniel has a vision of an angel who describes a three week struggle against the prince over the kingdom of Persia. This is a real struggle initiated by Daniel’s prayer and fasting.

The authorities are spirits which exercise governmental power to oppose christians. They persecute believers and stand in the way of the preaching of the gospel. In many countries, they may take a nationalistic cover, or a religious cover ( for example Islamic or Hindu), or a civil religion such as secularism that opposes all public expressions of belief. Extreme forms such as Nazism, communism, and fascism, result from a combination of authorities and principalities which hold people in extreme bondage, sometimes over generations.

The “cosmic powers of this darkness” are spirits which energise seemingly impersonal forces that control the lives of large swathes of humanity. These would include wars, revolutions, abortion, ritualised murder, drugs, and so on. They seem impossible to overcome because their power is not localised. As soon as one manifestation is defeated, another pops up to replace it. The ongoing strife in the Middle East and in Afghanistan are examples of this.

The “evil spirits in the heavenly realms” are the kinds of spirits which bring affliction, addiction, torment, and destruction to individual lives and family groups. These are the demons which Jesus dealt with daily.

As christians, we are involved in fighting this battle each day. The fact that the battle is fought in the heavenly realms does not make this battle less real than other struggles we might engage in.

For Western christians, there is widespread ignorance of the spiritual realm. Our modern mindset ignores anything that is non-material. When we ignore the power that satan exerts over us, we are unable to fight effectively.

The other problem is that we have failed to discern the spirits and the nature of the struggle. We end up fighting the wrong battles against flesh and blood enemies. The battle must be fought at the heavenly level not at the ground level. The enemy is not coming against us with tanks and artillery, but bombs and missiles. Our warfare must be fought in the air, not on the ground.

Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 10:4 that the weapons of our warfare and not fleshly but spiritual. In verse 13 of Ephesians 6, he describes what the weapons are which God has given us.

Key points in this verse:

• We are not struggling against flesh and blood, but against spiritual powers

• This is a personal wrestle which every christian is engaged in

• The enemy has a wide variety of spirits embedded in various layers of society and culture

• We need to discern the true nature of the battle or we will be consumed by the enemy