The Helmet of Salvation

Take the helmet of salvation…

Ephesians 6:17

The figure of a helmet suggests that this is something designed to protect the mind, the intelligence, the ability to think and reason. This helmet can keep our thinking straight and preserve us from mental confusion and darkness. As you look at the world in which we are living, is there anything more desperately needed than this? Was there ever a time when men were more bewildered than they are in our day, or when statesmen were more openly confused and honestly admitting it?

What is this helmet, this protection, which keeps our thinking straight in the midst of a very confused world? It is the helmet of salvation. He is not talking about the salvation of the soul. He is not referring to salvation as regeneration or conversion. He is not speaking of salvation as a past decision which was once made, or even as a present experience, but he is looking on to the future. He is talking about a salvation which will be a future event. It is exactly what he is referring to in Romans 13:11 when he says, our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. This helmet is further defined for us by the apostle in his first letter to the Thessalonians, But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet (1 Thessalonians 5:8).

Here, salvation is a hope, something yet in the future, something as yet not possessed or entered into fully. Paul is talking about the day of resurrection, the day of the coming again of Christ, the day when creation will be delivered from its bondage, when Christ returns to establish his kingdom. This helmet is the recognition that all human schemes to obtain world peace are doomed to fail. But through these failures, Jesus Christ is working out his own plan which will culminate in his appearing again and the establishment of his own reign in righteousness on the earth. That is the helmet of salvation which will keep your thinking straight in confusion and darkness.

The Christian has a helmet of salvation. He has an understanding that God is working out his purposes, and therefore he is not disturbed when human programs go wrong and everything fails. The Christian has learned to expect wars and rumors of wars to the very end. He expects false teachings and false philosophies to abound. He knows also that we are living in a mad world, a world which is deluded by silken, subtle, satanic lies which are deliberately designed to end up in the mangling and mutilating of the bodies and souls of men.

Father, thank you for the certainty that I stand in the power of God and in the strength of his might, and that my hope is not in the flimsy constructions of men but in the eternal purposes of a living God.