The following excerpt is taken from What Every Christian Should Know About Satan. Order your copy in print, Kindle, or Audible versions here.

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Throughout this study, we have explored various names and titles for the archenemy of mankind. Satan stands defiantly against God and God’s creatures. He appears as a beautiful and seductive “burning one” in Genesis 3. Then, across the pages of Scripture, we see his story unfold in nightmarish fashion as he slanders God, engages in hand-to-hand combat in the heavenly realms, and seeks to ruin the very beings God created as his imagers – namely, you and me. 

Often, the evil one is successful. But he wages war in a shrinking theater. First thrown out of heaven, then cast to earth, then confined to the abyss, he finally is banished to the lake of fire, a place God specifically prepares for him and his spirit saboteurs.

At every diabolical turn, the evil one finds himself set back on his heels. First, in the wake of Adam and Eve’s fall, Yahweh promises his human creatures a redeemer – the seed of woman – who is to crush the evil one’s head, although at great personal cost (Gen. 3:15). Next, God bars humans from the tree of life so they won’t be bound eternally in a fallen state (Gen. 3:22-24). 

When Satan tries to wipe out the Jewish people, reduce their population, or even kill their anointed one, God intervenes. When the evil one tries to get Job to curse God, God places limits on how far Satan can go (Job 1:12; 2:6). When Satan steps forth in the divine council to accuse the high priest of unworthiness, the angel of the LORD becomes Joshua’s advocate, forgiving his sins and dressing him in fresh clothes (Zech. 3:1-5). 

When the tempter tries to catch Jesus at a vulnerable point during his earthly ministry, the Son of God plies Scripture to beat back the assault (Matt. 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13). And when the destroyer thinks he has put an end to the Son of Man on the cross, Jesus conquers Satan, sin, and death through his physical resurrection. 

In every case, God proves superior to this powerful and intelligent creature. Even the holy angels must battle Satan and his minions in the heavenlies, emerging victoriously after pitched battles (Dan. 10:1-21; Rev. 12:7-12). 

Satan is most successful, it seems, bringing the fight to the weakest line of defense – human beings. He woos Eve into disobedience, and she in turn convinces Adam to defy God, plunging humanity and the created order into chaos (Gen. 3). Satan evidently gets Abram and Sarai to speed up God’s timetable for a promised son. This results in sexual relations with an Egyptian slave, who bears a son that becomes a perpetual thorn in Israel’s side (Gen. 16). 

Later, Satan poisons the community of Israelites with grumbling and idolatry as they wander from Egypt to the Promised Land. He counsels the kings of Israel and Judah to abandon God and embrace idols. He gets Peter to rebuke Jesus for mentioning the necessity of the cross (Matt. 16:21-23). Then, he goads Peter to deny Jesus three times, and later to compromise on ethnic conciliation in the church (Luke 22:54-62; Gal. 2:11-16). 

The evil one takes control of Judas Iscariot and, later, the antichrist (Luke 22:3; John 13:27; 2 Thess. 2:9-10; Rev. 13:2, 4). He gets Ananias and Sapphira to tell a white lie about a property transaction, resulting in a serious challenge to the integrity of the early church – not to mention their deaths (Acts 5:1-11). He continues today to prowl the earth like a ravenous lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet. 5:8). He never rests, plying his subtle crafts of doubt, despair, and defiance. 

But just as the Lord promises not to leave us as orphans (John 14:18), he vows to help us engage in battle against the evil one. After ascending into heaven, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit as the down payment on our future home in glory. Further, the Spirit intercedes for us, helps us pray, indwells us, sanctifies us, confirms we are God’s children, and helps us discern between the true promises of God and the counterfeit guarantees of Satan. 

Further, the New Testament tells us God has equipped us to wage war with Satan. Perhaps no other passage makes this as clear as Ephesians 6:10-20, where the apostle Paul exhorts us to “put on the full armor of God” so we can “stand against the schemes of the devil” (vv. 11-12). Let’s look at this passage in context and then briefly survey the full armor God supplies to his followers.

The full armor of God

Ephesians 6:10-20 reads:

Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand. Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest, and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace. In every situation take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit ​— ​which is the word of God. Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints. Pray also for me, that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. For this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might be bold enough to speak about it as I should.

Paul urges Christians to “be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength,” and then to put on “the full armor of God” (vv. 10-11). Everything about this passage leans into Christ. He is our strength. He supplies the armor. His protection enables us to stand, resist, take up, persevere, and emerge victoriously from a battle waged in the unseen realm. 

Christ provides all this, but we must appropriate it by faith. The full armor of God is essential because the evil one has more than a quiver of arrows. He employs many different weapons, all designed to lay us out and thus render us useless – or worse, a hindrance to the kingdom – on the battlefield. And he leads a powerful army of demonic foot soldiers.

The full armor (Greek: panoplia) is the sum total of all the pieces – from helmet to sandals, and from shield to sword. Panoplia appears in only one other place outside Ephesians 6. Luke records a parable of Jesus as he responds to false accusations that he casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of demons:

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his estate, his possessions are secure. But when one stronger than he attacks and overpowers him, he takes from him all his weapons (panoplia) he trusted in, and divides up his plunder. Anyone who is not with me is against me, and anyone who does not gather with me scatters (Luke 11:21-23).

In this parable, Jesus likens Satan to a fully armed strong man. But “one stronger than he” (Jesus) invades Satan’s kingdom and renders the evil one’s armor and weapons inoperable. As a result, Jesus is not in league with Satan, as Israel’s religious leaders allege. Rather, he is at war with the evil one and plunders his goods, rescuing lost sinners from the domain of darkness and delivering them into the kingdom of God. We should note, however, that Satan is well equipped to engage in battle with us. Thus, it is essential that we heed Paul’s urging to put on the panoplia of God.

We may think of the armor of God in two ways. First, as aspects of God’s character. The Old Testament sometimes depicts God as a warrior. In Israel’s song of deliverance, Moses declares, “The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name” (Exod. 15:3). In messianic passages, Isaiah sometimes refers to the coming savior in military terms:

… but he will judge the poor righteously and execute justice for the oppressed of the land. He will strike the land with a scepter from his mouth, and he will kill the wicked with a command from his lips. Righteousness will be a belt around his hips; faithfulness will be a belt around his waist (Isa. 11:4-5). 

In other places, Isaiah depicts the Lord as a defender of justice: “He put on righteousness as body armor, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and he wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak” (Isa. 59:17). 

In other words, God’s attributes, such as righteousness, are revealed to us as pieces of armor the divine warrior wears to carry out vengeance against the wicked and thus deliver his people. God is spirit, of course, and doesn’t wear physical armor. Yet some biblical writers use the imagery of an armor-clad soldier to show us that the Lord always stands ready to defend us. 

We might consider, for example, several places in the Old Testament where the angel of the LORD – the preincarnate Christ – is decked out as a warrior. He confronts Balaam, the prophet-for-hire, with a drawn sword in his hand (Num. 22:22-35). He appears to Joshua as commander of the LORD’s army  (Josh. 5:13-15). He stands between heaven and earth wielding a sword over Jerusalem (1 Chron. 21:9-30). He is the LORD of Armies seated on his throne (Isa. 6:1-13; cf. John 12:37-41). And he rides a blazing, cherubim-propelled chariot-throne across the skies (Ezek. 1:1-28).

All of this is to say, in some respects, that the full armor of God depicts his divine attributes. When we engage in spiritual warfare, we are to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14; cf. Gal. 3:27). Putting on Christ means allowing his divine attributes to shield us and to arm us. It means following him in discipleship and letting him conform our lives to the image of Jesus (Rom. 8:29). It means relying fully on our righteous standing before God in Christ (Rom. 3:22; 1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21). And it means abiding in Jesus and living to please him. As one writer notes, “We are clothed in Christ when we become so closely united with Jesus that others see Him and not us.”¹ This is one way of seeing the full armor of God.

But another way is to understand the panoplia as God’s individually crafted armor for us. Just as young David discovered he could not successfully engage in battle with Goliath while wearing King Saul’s armor, we should understand that the armor God supplies is not one-size-fits-all. We need our own breastplate, sandals, helmet, shield, and sword, which God fits for our personalities, measure of faith, and spiritual gifts. Christ is our commander in chief, and we are his foot soldiers, fitted for battle.

Paul makes it clear this battle is not in the physical realm, for “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens” (Eph. 6:11-12). Ultimately, our enemies are not false teachers, pagans, or persecutors of Christians, no matter how aggressively they oppose the gospel. Rather, we do battle in the spiritual realm. 

Paul lays out a hierarchy of evil spirits under Satan’s command without providing a detailed organizational chart. But that is not his primary concern. He wants us to know these demonic underlings engage in tactics suited to their diabolical skills. Therefore, we must be fully armed in order to stand against the devil’s schemes. 

In his commentary on Ephesians, Walter Liefield writes:

While it may be difficult to identify and distinguish between the specific powers named here [Eph. 6:11-12], the point is clearly made that whatever supernatural forces there may be in this universe, Christ has gained victory over them and so may we. To recognize that is not to diminish the immense spiritual force they represent. Were that the case, there would be no need for the armor and there would be no occasion for the battle.

The devil’s “schemes” (Gr. methodeia) suggest deceit, craft, and trickery. Paul uses the same term in Ephesians 4:14 to describe “human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit” (emphasis added). The apostle also warns the church at Corinth about Satan’s means of deception through counterfeit teachers:

For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no great surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will be according to their works (2 Cor. 11:13-15).

While our struggle as Christians is not against flesh and blood, victory in the spiritual realm requires that the eternal Son of God take on human form. And this he does, as the writer of Hebrews attests: “Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in these, so that through his death he might destroy the one holding the power of death ​— ​that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14). 

Because of Christ’s victory over the evil one, we may take our stand – that is, maintain our ground, hold fast, neither yielding nor fleeing – as we are clad in the full armor of God. In the ancient form of hand-to-hand combat pictured here, the first duty of soldiers forming a line is to stand side by side, with large rectangular shields forming a wall of defense. As one commentator puts it, “the present picture is not of a march, or of an assault, but of the holding of the fortress of the soul and of the Church for the heavenly King.”

Noting Paul’s exhortation in Ephesians 6 to “stand” and “take your stand,” Liefield writes:

There is no need, then, for Christians to accomplish what has already been done. Instead we must resist the attempts of Satan both to retake territory no longer his and to defame Christ and his kingdom by causing us to fail. To stand is neither static nor passive, but the active accomplishment of our present task.

Now, let’s turn our attention to the individual pieces of armor. The order in which they are described generally is the order in which soldiers put them on. 

Next: Armor for Spiritual Battle