29d (edited) • Bible Study & Stories of Faith
đź“– Breastplate of Righteousness
Read: Ephesians 6:14, Isaiah 59:12–21
The second piece of armor that Paul brings to light is the breastplate of righteousness. During this time, Roman soldiers wore a breastplate as an essential piece of armor, which protected the chest and vital organs, so this would have been another familiar piece of armor for Paul’s audience. This piece of armor was typically made of iron or bronze. Many pieces of metal overlapped to connect the front to the back, while round pieces served to protect the shoulders. The breastplate usually hung from the shoulders and rested on the hips. The overlapping pieces allowed for mobility and flexibility, so a soldier was not walking around like a tin man during battle. This important piece of armor provided defense for the heart and lungs of a soldier. If the enemy lunged with a sword, the breastplate could protect the vital organs from being punctured, which could save the soldier’s life.
Righteousness brings significant defense against the attacks of the evil one. We read in Ephesians 6:14 that we are to wear it “like armor on your chest.” It serves as our breastplate, our shield. Proverbs 11:4–6 assures us of its protection: “Wealth is not profitable on a day of wrath, but righteousness rescues from death. The righteousness of the blameless clears his path, but the wicked person will fall because of his wickedness. The righteousness of the upright rescues them, but the treacherous are trapped by their own desires.” To be righteous means being in perfect standing with God, blameless, and walking in obedience. Scripture affirms, “Happy are those...who practice righteousness at all times” (Psalm 106:3). However, this does not mean we will always feel happy by the world’s definition of the term, for we still face trials of many kinds, even as we walk with the Lord. Yet as we trust Him and walk in His ways, the Lord blesses us — He strengthens us and gives us grace upon grace through every season. Our happiness must be founded in Christ alone, and in there we find true joy in what He did for us on the cross so that we could receive His righteousness.
Paul draws the reference of the breastplate of righteousness from the description of the Lord, our divine warrior, in Isaiah 59:17–20. This Old Testament chapter holds a description of God’s promise to His people, Israel, to deal with sin, the enemy of their souls. God requires obedience. Israel disobeyed, turned away from God, sought idols and worthless things, and deserved the wrath of God. Their iniquities separated them from God and gratified the schemes of their greatest adversary. They were incapable of delivering themselves, and they should not only have been defeated but should have faced the wrathful judgment of God. Yet the Lord fought for their righteousness. He made a promise to defeat sin and bring redemption. A promise of a righteous Savior was given — a sacrifice would be made on behalf of God’s unrighteous people. He would sacrifice His one and only Son, who would suffer the wrath of God as payment for the people’s sin.
This redemption is offered to us as well. Our inclination toward sin gets in the way of our desires for living a perfectly upright life. We are imperfect people, like the Israelites, and we fall short of God’s standard of perfection when we stand upon our own merits. Our righteousness is as “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). So, how can we put on the breastplate of righteousness in the way Ephesians 6 calls us to do? God made a way for us to put on this righteousness through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ: “He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). He attributes His righteousness to those who place their faith in Him, for He took our sin upon Himself on the cross. There, in our place, Jesus bore the wrath of God for our unrighteousness. But God also makes a way for us to live out that righteousness by making us more into the likeness of Jesus as we grow in Him and in our faith. Therefore, we see righteousness in two ways: positional and conditional.
- Positional righteousness comes through salvation and affirms that we have been saved through faith — not by our own works — and raised to walk in the newness of life with Christ.
- Conditional righteousness comes through sanctification (the process of becoming Christlike) and God’s recreating us into the image of Jesus by changing, shaping, and enabling us by the power of the Holy Spirit to imitate Jesus. This conditional righteousness pours out of our lives as an overflow of our positional righteousness.
Our positional righteousness secures a place for us in eternity with God, while our conditional righteousness equips us in our Christian walk on earth. Satan will attack both elements. He is our greatest accuser, and he will capitalize on every possible moment to condemn us for our unrighteousness and lead us to doubt our positional righteousness before God. Furthermore, he will lead us to doubt God’s work in our lives and aim to redirect our efforts away from daily growth into the likeness of Christ.
We must hold fast to the truth that our righteousness is secure through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ — His life for ours. This great exchange equips us to live out His righteousness. In doing so, we are called to reflect our new identity as Christians, desiring obedience and walking in faithfulness unto the Lord. Such a pursuit serves as a great insult to Satan and blesses us in our daily efforts.
A desire to walk in accordance with God’s Word provides protective parameters for life in this world. Scripture instructs us to follow in the footsteps of Christ, the One who daily defeats sin and teaches us to say “no” to ungodliness and worldly passions. He instructs us to live upright, self-controlled, and godly lives (Titus 2:12). The Lord equips us to fight against the seemingly small, everyday temptations, asking that we place our hope in the One who has also been tempted and overcome those temptations. God knows best how to fight and flourish in the world He created for us. He knows best how to prepare us for the battle. In doing so, He does not leave us with a faulty protection of our own best efforts, but through faith in Christ, He adorns us with a perfect breastplate of righteousness.
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đź“– Breastplate of Righteousness
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