The Vulnerable Soldier, 03 – The Breastplate of Righteousness (Eph 6:14)

Posted on 2022-11-07 by thelittleman

My daughter’s been getting into ninja games and sword-fighting with sticks. She’s only 9, so when she challenges me to a duel, I generally have to get down on my knees and fight with my left hand to make it moderately fair. She still tags me with her sword now and then (I am after all a pretty big target!) and she’s starting to anticipate my blocks and changing up her style.

It’s a fun little game we play, but when I think of soldiers in real battles with real swords, it’s terrifying (Braveheart and Gladiator come to mind as a gory examples). Were I ever to enter a real battle with genuine swords, I’d want to make sure that every bit of me was protected—at least by thick leather or something!

The purpose of this study on the armor of God from Ephesians 6 is to describe “The Vulnerable Soldier,” that foolish fighter who leaves himself exposed by leaving one piece of armor behind—thus failing to “put on the whole armor of God” (v.10). Last time we looked at what might happen when a soldier wears everything but the Belt of Truth (meaning he ignores doctrine or lacks integrity), and today we’re tackling the Breastplate of Righteousness.

The Breastplate of Righteousness

As a piece of armor, the Roman breastplate was often a chest-fitted piece of metal that protected the soldier’s vital organs. Other soldiers of the time period used things like overlapping leather, metal, or pieces of horn as scales to protect themselves from the blows of an enemy’s weapon. Gut wounds often proved fatal following extended hours or days of misery due to infection, and any piercing of the heart would drop the soldier dead on the spot.

Paul uses the breastplate as a metaphor for the importance of righteousness in the believer’s life—but don’t get too hung up on the metaphor! While Isaiah also uses “breastplate” as a metaphor for righteousness (Is. 59:17), he also describes it as a robe (Is. 61:10) and a belt (Is 11:5). Paul elsewhere calls righteousness a weapon in the hand (2Cor 6:7) and describes our armor as “light” (Rom 13:12).

The essential truth of this passage then is that righteousness is necessary for the believer (not that it fits snugly into a metaphor). But the question, who’s righteousness is necessary?

I know that “there is none righteous, no not one” (Rom. 3:10-18; Ps 14:1-3; Ps 53:1-3), and Isaiah well describes humanity’s so-called “righteousness” when placed before God (Is. 64:4-7): totally worthless. Our sin has separated us from our righteous God, and the only thing that could repair that relationship was if a righteous Person bridged the gap. We needed a righteous go-between who could share his righteousness with us—and praise God He sent One! “If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1John 2:1; see also John 3:16, etc.).

Paul spends many chapters in Romans describing how my faith can assure that my sin is covered by Jesus’ righteousness (see Rom 4:13-5:11 for example), so I won’t belabor the point, but just look at a few great promises from Scripture about Christ’s righteousness given to the believer:

  • But now the righteousness of God has been manifested…the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Rom 3:21-24)
  • For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. (Rom 5:17)
  • Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (Rom 8:9-10)
  • For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith (Phil 3:8-9)

Christ’s righteousness is necessary for enlistment into God’s army (for the sake of the metaphor), so to lack the breastplate is to be no soldier at all. Yet still there requires a conscious choice for God’s soldiers to be righteous: my righteousness can’t save me (see Eph 2:8-9; Titus 3:5), yet because I’m saved by Christ’s righteousness, I must live a righteous life (see Eph 2:10; 1Peter 1:1-2; 1John 3:7).

As we study what it means to put on the breastplate of righteousness, we could approach it from these two directions: both Christ’s righteousness for my salvation and my righteousness because I’m saved. Since failure to wear Christ’s righteousness is failure to be be a soldier at all, we’ll focus mainly on the second of these, failure to be righteous as a soldier of God. [For further study on this topic, search terms like: “be holy, for I am holy”, “put off…put on”, “goodness”, “blameless”, etc.]

The Soldier without Righteousness

So what happens when God’s soldier wears every piece of armor except that essential breastplate of righteousness? Once again, we’ll take them piece by piece.

The Belt of Truth

  • The Soldier that wears integrity but lacks right living is an oxymoron.
  • Yet the soldier who wears doctrine yet lacks right living is one of the greatest dangers inside Christianity! This is the hypocrite who says the right thing, preaches the most powerful messages, writes the best books yet lives another life entirely behind closed doors. You needn’t look far to find examples of such leaders (names like Ravi Zacharias and Jerry Falwell Jr. come to mind). Doctrine without righteousness is perhaps the most destructive internal force that a Christian church or family can face.

The Shoes of Readiness

  • The Soldier that wears the Gospel but lacks right living is sort of the external counterpart to the one just mentioned. While right doctrine with wrong living can destroy a church from within, the right Gospel with wrong living can destroy it from without.
  • These are the “Christians” who behave no differently than the world, the chameleons who pepper their secular lives with Jesus yet who love the world and can’t stand the “uptight Christians” or “that Book of dos and don’ts” (see 1John 2:15-17). The Gospel they preach might be solid, yet their goal is perverse: “Jesus wants to change your eternity but not your life here and now.” Something is obviously wrong.

The Shield of Faith

  • The Soldier that wears Faith but lacks right living bears no responsibility for her own sin. She is of the “let go and let God” ilk, making no personal effort to overcome her sinful ways and habits and then blames God, circumstances, and others for when her life never changes. She remains stuck in the muck of her former life, a slave to sin practically if not officially.

The Helmet of Salvation

  • The Soldier that wears Salvation but lacks right living is the type of Christian that’s stuck in Romans 6:1 (“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?”) and hasn’t yet made it to Romans 6:2 (“By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”). This is the Christian who loves the idea of salvation from Hell to an eternity with Christ…and leaves it at that. They never mature, never change, never bear the fruit of faith and love (1Thes 5:8)—and the rest of Christendom has every right to doubt they’re even a child of God.

The Sword of the Spirit

  • The Soldier that carries the Scriptures but lacks right living is the person we meet in James 1:22-27. This person might read the Word, listen to Christian podcasts, and attend church faithfully, yet he never lets the Word pierce his heart and change his life. He looks into the mirror of the Word, sees his wretched condition, and goes away without making the necessary changes. His religion is worthless, he remains stained by the world, and he cannot know the blessings of God. What misery!

The Soldier with Righteousness

From the above accounts, it’s clear that righteousness is a necessary outgrowth of salvation. Again, while good works can’t save a person, a person who is saved will do good works! (Eph 2:8-10). If we are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus, God sees us as righteous and His Spirit lives within us. We are his soldiers. As such, we must regularly put on the breastplate of righteousness, making that conscious choice to change and to become more like the righteous Savior who saved us. There’s no better time to start than the present.

©2022 E.T.

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