The Christ Community, Part 11: The Church as the Army of God (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

Scattered throughout the New Testament are words, phrases, and illustrations that give the church a military flavor. In Philippians 2, for example, Paul speaks of “Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier.” In Philemon 2 he refers to “Archippus our fellow soldier.” In 2 Timothy 2 Paul exhorts his young apprentice to “endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” Moreover, Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6:12, “Fight the good fight of the faith.” The Christian life is a battle.

But the military motif is found not only in Paul. It’s also found on the lips Jesus. In Matthew 11:12, Jesus offered this challenging statement: “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.” Forcefully advancing is something an army does. It’s no wonder, then, that theologians have long spoke of “the church militant,” that is, the church on mission, as opposed to “the church triumphant,” the company of believers who left the battlefield of this earth and have gone to be with Jesus.

Now, we have to interpret these kinds of Scriptures carefully. The Christian mission does not involve taking up arms against a human enemy to advance the cause. That’s a gross distortion of the nature and purpose of the kingdom of God. When Jesus stood before Pilate, he said in John 18, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.” Moreover, the previous night—when Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane—Peter pulled out a sword and tried to attack the authorities, but Jesus said in Matthew 26:52, “Put your sword back in its place…for all who live by the sword will die by the sword.”

So, when we look carefully at the military flavored passages of the New Testament, it’s quite clear the type of conflict Christians are engaged in is radically different from the normal concept of warfare as we understand it. In fact, in this particular fight, the enemies are invisible. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5:

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Our is a different kind of war, says Paul. “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood.” So, the military image is designed to teach believers that: The church of Jesus Christ is a spiritual army that fights spiritual enemies with spiritual weapons. This message takes a look at some of those weapons. It also emphasizes that believers are not struggling for a victory, but from a victory—the victory Christ has already won.