Ephesians 6:14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
1 Thessalonians 5: 8But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on (clothe yourself, get into the Spirit) the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet (from peri, “around,” and kephale, “a head,” the protection of the soul which consists in (the hope of) salvation), the hope (favorable and confident expectation) of salvation (deliverance, preservation). 9For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ
The breastplate of righteousness is called faith and love revealing to us that our faith and love which God imparts to us, to trust and love Him is the basis of His righteousness being imparted to us.
Most of the allusions in Ephesians 6 are based upon Old Testament revelations.
The heart must be righteous, for it is deceitful and desperately wicked in its natural state. How can we keep it from the evil of circumstances round about us? We hide it by a breastplate which serves two purposes: it protects from what comes from without, but it also serves as a covering of righteousness over your own being to prevent your nature of unrighteousness from coming up and manifesting itself.
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. We must have something that keeps our heart and protects us. Out of it is the very thing that sustains life.
There is a strength and sustenance to the whole life through His righteousness. It is an upholding thing. “I will uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness” (Isaiah 41:10).
When our heart is right with God, we can feel the power of God in our spirit rising up, it upholds us, lifts our head up into the heavenly places in Christ.
Isaiah 59: 16And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him. 17For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak18According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence. 19So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him. 20And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD. 21As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.
This is speaking of end-time judgments, this armor of the Lord to be a unique thing manifested in the remnant in the last day. We see the Lord here putting on a breastplate of righteousness.
In order to be a vessel the Lord uses to minister judgment through, we have to judge ourselves and be clothed with His Spirit being in oneness with His righteousness. His righteousness keeps our heart in the day of battle that is coming to the earth. This is the day of the army of the Lord; this armor is what His soldiers wear. We wear this armor for defense, but we are not a defensive army, we are aggressively advancing the kingdom by force. We win for the Lord what He has won and we possess the kingdom for Him. This is our heritage in the Lord.
Psalm 149:1Praise ye the LORD. Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints. 2Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. 3Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp. 4For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation. 5Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds. 6Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; 7To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; 8To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; 9To execute upon them the judgment written: this honor have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD.
As the army of the Lord, we put on armor. Ephesians emphasizes putting on the whole armor of God. We must understand that it is His righteousness, and it is our prerogative to put it on. This is not a righteousness that we manufacture; it is not something that we attain by our own efforts or discipline. It is something we acquire by faith. We put it on. He becomes our protection. He becomes the aura of immunity round about us. It is a very real thing.
We have to put on the whole armor of God; if one piece is missing it leaves us vulnerable. This armor is not manufactured by self, it has nothing to do with human attributes, it is divine. It is not something attained through our own efforts or self discipline, it is acquired through faith and this faith is not of our selves it is a gift from God.
It is in the activation of our spirit where it is communing with God, that the life flow of God in our spirit illuminates our understanding or soul so that we are clothed with the Spirit of God, our thinking and feelings are under His influence.
It is only through the life flow of God’s Spirit in our spirit, that we are enabled to put on the armor of God.
When the word speaks of putting on the armor of God it is talking about being clothed with the Spirit. When we are clothed with the Spirit, we are more aware of Him than anything else; whatever else may have been warring against us loses its power as we are caught up into the Spirit. It becomes insignificant (too small and unimportant to be relevant).
We put on His righteousness. This eliminates the feelings of guilt that come from the self-nature. Our heart is constantly aware of its problems, and unless we allow the Spirit of God to search it in deep repentance, our heart will condemn us, so that we are not fully armed. If we try to cover over, it is like painting a building that has tar on it, in time it sweats through the paint.
When our spirit was quickened with the life of God, it is aware of when we are falling short and we will not have peace, our spirit will sweat through or raise its voice sooner or later. Our spirit tends to be in a state of sleep or inactivity when we are living from our soul.
When our spirit is quickened it is like leaven, anything left of the old nature will surface. This is actually a good thing if we learn how to wait upon the Lord, for as we commune with God He transfers His wisdom to us. The Lord wants us to see our need, but unless we are pressing into God, what we see will cause us to be clouded.
The moment we set our heart to let His Spirit cleanse us, His righteousness will clothe us. His righteousness is the answer, to the unrighteousness that still remains in our heart, or what is left of the old nature that comes to the surface. As His righteousness comes upon us through God’s Spirit coming upon us it has a penetrating effect where it cleanses us.
Jeremiah 23:5 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I shall raise up for David a righteous Branch; and He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely; and this is His name by which He will be called, ‘The Lord our righteousness.’
The moment we set our heart to let His Spirit cleanse us, His righteousness will clothe us. His righteousness is the answer, to the unrighteousness that still remains in our heart, or what is left of the old nature that comes to the surface. As His righteousness comes upon us through God’s Spirit coming upon us it has a penetrating effect where it cleanses us. He is also Jehovah-Nissi, The Lord Our Banner.
The Lord is our provision. He becomes our righteousness. It is not something we produce, it is the infilling of Himself into us. Without faith it is impossible to please God, and faith is the God given ability to accept what He reveals and becomes to us. God wants to become our righteousness.
The minute we see this, much of the severity of God disappears—and yet, this increases the fear of God in our life. The love of God and the fear of God are mixed together, they go hand in hand. The Spirit of God in us cries Abba Father; this is the revelation of the love of God and the reverence of God. The Holy Spirit convicts us producing the fear of God, but it is also a convincing, a revelation of the wisdom of God in which we agree Him about the foolishness of unrighteousness.
The love of God is also revealed, because we could not even see this if we were not aware of His love for us. As God reveals Himself to us we become aware of His nature, all of His attributes are mixed together, because in the revelation the essence of His being is being emitted-conveyed-transmitted. There is no righteousness apart from the revelation of the Holy Spirit which comes to reveal Jesus as our righteousness.
John 16: 7Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. 8And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9Of sin, because they believe not on me; 10Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; 11Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.
Under the conviction of the Holy Spirit we see sin through God’s eyes, it produces brokenness and mourning in us, we see our uncleanness and we wonder how God can look upon us, it leads us into repentance because we realize the wrath of God will judge that unrighteousness.
Through His mercy we are given a space of time to repent, but if we have neglected so great a salvation, we are walking far from the Lord, or we are deceived into a false sense of eternal security.
God lives in the realm of eternity, He knows the beginning from the end, and He accounts us righteous when our innermost desire is to go on to perfection. He sees us in Christ, and He does not look upon our sin, but in His love He will discipline us. But we cannot take our salvation for granted, God must finish the work He started in us for us to inherit His kingdom.
When we come and stand in His presence, the Lord looks upon us and sees His own righteousness. He looks upon His own purity and covers us in our unworthiness. It is a great defense in battle, because if we are focused on our soul-salvation we will never feel saved, but when we come clean before the Lord, confessing our sin, we need to know God see’s us through the blood of Jesus.
It is as we press into God where we are filled with the Spirit, that we receive the cleansing of the Spirit and are clothed with God’s righteousness. The infilling of the Spirit displaces any unrighteousness in us, but until we learn how to put on the Lord so that we are continually filled with the Spirit, the flesh that is rendered powerless becomes active in some form or another. We are either walking in the Spirit or walking in the soul. It is only as we take up our cross and deny self that we are empowered by the Spirit. To take up our cross is the negative aspect of putting on the armor.
When our spirit is alive to God, a process of God’s cleansing is going on all the time. Our spirit is desiring one thing and our self-life another, yet our spirit is still growing because it is alive .We can still stumble around, but we have a covenant with God, we have not turned our back upon him, we are just walking far from Him. God does not abandon us, because even if we stumble and fall, we still desire His forgiveness, and we still can put on His righteousness to be cleansed from the unrighteousness in us.
It is amazing how much we can fail God and be guilty of eternal damnation, and still come back and plead for mercy and help. Wisdom is the principle thing; we are insane to mess around with the flesh-life. And if we keep putting it off, God will wake us up by judging us so that we are not condemned with the world.
But if we harden our hearts, we can reach a place where we can no longer hear His voice. Most people who have the wrath of God abiding upon them are not aware of it.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It is His fear mixed with His love that motivates us to surrender all to His Lordship. When we confess our sins, (which is covenanting with God) agreeing with Him through the impartation of His wisdom, saying the same thing about our sin that God does, He faithfully imparts His very righteousness to us in the midst of all the unrighteousness in us and cleanses us of it.
The problem is not the unrighteousness or deceit left in the heart (this is just the fruit of living in independence of Him). Self is the problem. Unrighteousness is the result of not denying self. Selfishness and deception go hand in hand. We have to take up our cross and die on it; suffer in the flesh, so that through intimacy with God, the self-life is rendered powerless to manifest itself by yielding to sin.
When our spirit is truly alive to God we will not have any peace until we have fully surrendered our soul to God. We will experience a little of the joy of the Lord once in a while, but to be honest we have settled to live a life of compromise, which if we could see it for what it really is, it is living in a state of misery in comparison to the abundant life God wants to impart to us.
Once our soul comes under submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ we go on to perfection-which is the manifestation of sonship, where we forcefully advance the kingdom of God in the earth.
We need to learn how to put on the whole armor of God. We receive His truth to gird (To fasten or secure clothing with a belt, To encircle , to surround; enclose; hem in, to prepare (oneself) for action , to equip, furnish, clothe, to endow with some attribute , strengthen, equip with a weapon or power) our loins, to protect our emotions. We take His truth to be the protection about our emotions. We take His righteousness to cover all our unworthiness and our need. He has invited us to participate in His attributes. When our spirit has been enlightened, the choice becomes ours. His attributes are available. We can put them on. We can be clothed with them.
The clothing of the Lord has a way that it penetrates. Our human clothing does too, even if we are not aware of it. Our clothing is made up of synthetic fabrics that are not organic in nature, and some of them will create an allergy. Our skin has a quality with which it can reach out and analyze and react to what we are wearing.
The lord lays before us a principle concerning the armor of the Lord, if we put it on it will penetrate us. Our loins are to be girded about with truth, which means that His truth will penetrate our emotions. When we put on the breastplate of righteousness, it is not an outward veneer of righteousness; it penetrates the heart.
When we are wearing the armor, we become the judge of principalities and powers; we become the executor in the spirit realm! We become the accuser instead of the accused. Satan the accuser of the brethren is cast down, the roles change and we no longer accept defeat for even a moment.
Satan accuses us when we are falling short, but when we repent, God blots it out; and He puts His righteousness over the whole thing. Satan cannot accuse us then; God has justified us .We not only take on His attributes, we become one of His attributes! Throughout all of the ages of eternity you will be an exhibition of God in every way conformed to the image of His Son. We accept it now as a valid thing that is taking place.
We do not have to manifest the old nature, we are coming forth in the new nature and manifesting the Lord, we need to start thinking free, and walk in that freedom.
When we hunger and thirst for righteousness we will be filled, the principle of intensity brings it into manifestation. This requires a focus of spirit, soul, and body: your spiritual focus, your emotional focus, your mental focus hungering for it. It is as we identify ourselves with the Lord, that He transfers His righteousness to us, and we are filled with the Spirit.
We are commanded to put on the whole armor of God, it is in the aorist tense- a decisive act with permanent results, and it is a climatic experience. It does not involve continuous action. We are to put it on once and for all; it is not to be taken off. It is in the middle voice, which means we do something. The middle voice represents the subject as acting in some way. We identify with Him and He transfers His righteousness to us.
We become righteous in spirit by a new birth, but our soul life has to be sanctified, which is His righteousness being applied. Even in our body, we are aware how forceful are its basic instincts and drives. Either they will predominate in our life, or we will believe for His righteousness to take over until His word and His righteousness are written on our heart, and then we will instinctively respond to righteousness as once we instinctively responded to the flesh.
As we enter into outer warfare we are not warring against people, but we are coming against the principalities and powers that are to be brought down. They are not going to be brought down by the sovereignty of God. They are brought down through the instrumentality of His Body; Satan will be bruised under our feet. It is the purpose of God that through us His manifold wisdom will be manifested. We cannot approach the principalities and powers in our own wisdom; we cannot battle them in our own strength. We must learn how to put on God’s attributes, how to move in His strength, and how to appropriate the armor of God. These are certain things in the Scripture which we must appropriate from the Lord to meet our need.