Kosmokratoras; “A Man May Do Both”
Ephesians 6:12 - For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
When I was a child, I read the book Runaway Ralph, a story about a mouse who rides a motorcycle. Ralph winds up sharing a cage with a hamster named Chum, who tells Ralph he is a philosopher. “I am a philosopher. Which means I think about life.” Let’s play Chum the philosopher and think about life for a moment: what is reality? This question has plagued philosophers like Chum for centuries on millenia. Naturalism says that reality is anything we can experience with our senses. Buddhism says that disconnecting from the desires of this life will help you reach the reality of nirvana (true peace). What should Christians say reality is? I reckon that if you asked a hundred strangers who identify as “Christian,” they would answer with something incredibly similar to the former two, that this life is reality, and that beyond this life lies something of a mirage entirely different from it, only somehow more… spiritual?
I beg the opposite. What if reality actually was that mysterious spiritual realm, and this life was the mirage? Paul seemed to think so as he wrote Ephesians 6:12. It was not merely the soldiers of the age or the Jewish oppression of The Way that Paul considered his adversaries, it was primarily spiritual forces. In the Greek, the word κοσμοκράτορας (kosmokratoras) appears in the text, which is often translated as “cosmic powers,” in this context of an evil sort. Evil, cosmic powers set their will against us, here in this life on planet Earth. That creeping naturalist in us cringes at the thought of mysterious, dark forces that we cannot necessarily experience with our senses, and disconnecting from the woes of this life to seek inner peace simply will not do if it is true that there are forces outside of this life working against us. It’s almost as if we must walk with one foot in either place.
In The Two Towers, Aragorn has an exchange with the Rohirrim when they laugh at him for describing the Hobbits, whom they believe to be mythical.
“Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?'
“A man may do both,” said Aragorn. “...The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!”
A man may do both, and a man of God must do both. Human strength is simply insufficient against such a foe. Right after verse 12, Paul describes what he calls “the armor of God,” a list of the things we need to wrestle against such an enemy. He instructs us to gird ourselves with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the Word of God. Then he gives us a battle plan in verse 18. “To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints…” He tells us to pray.
Life may feel like war at times. You may feel like everyone and everything in your life is working against you and nothing you can do matters. You may lose loved ones unexpectedly and feel lost. You may encounter relentless illness or depression. You may suffer under the heavy thumb of governments influenced by and for evil. You may be tempted to sin, and you may even give in to it. And so long as you insist on depending on your own strength to overcome it all, you will certainly be crushed beneath it, because you will be fighting in the mirage, not in reality. Equip yourself with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the Word of God. Enter the battlefield on your knees in prayer. And like the saints that came before us, persevere until the end. When the dust settles, you will see the truest reality: that Christ has already overcome it all.
Brian, and the elders