The armour of God

The Shield of Faith

Ephesians 6:16 · The whole armour of God · Ephesians 6:10-18

The shield of faith in Ephesians 6:16 is the piece Paul says to take up above all, because with it a believer can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Like the great door-shaped shield of the Roman soldier, faith is a covering that can be raised over the whole body, catching and putting out the flaming arrows of doubt, fear, and temptation. Faith holds because of the one it holds to. Its object and its strength is Jesus Christ.

Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.Ephesians 6:16 (KJV)

The soldier's shield: what Paul actually pictured

The shield Paul names is the large Roman shield, not a small round buckler but a tall curved rectangle about four feet high, shaped like a door. It was made of layers of wood bound together and covered in leather, and before battle a soldier would soak that leather in water. This was deliberate. The enemy's arrows were often wrapped in pitch and set alight, so that they burned as they flew. A dry shield might catch fire; a soaked one caught the flaming arrow and put it out with a hiss.

Paul writes that above all we are to take the shield of faith, by which we can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. He says above all because the shield is the one piece that can be moved to cover any other. Held high, it protected the head; dropped low, the legs; and men could lock their shields side by side into a wall that no arrow could pass. Faith is the covering that goes wherever the attack comes.

What the shield represents

Faith, in Scripture, is not a vague hopefulness or a leap in the dark. It is trust in God grounded on his revealed word, taking him at his promise when everything visible says otherwise. The shield of faith is that trust actively raised: not merely believing that God is true in general, but lifting his particular promise between yourself and the particular attack aimed at you.

This is why faith can quench the fiery darts. Every flaming arrow the enemy sends carries a lie meant to catch fire in the soul, doubt about God's goodness, fear of the future, the sudden hot suggestion to sin, the accusation that you are finished. Faith answers each not with willpower but with what God has said, holding the promise up so the arrow strikes the truth and goes out. The shield does not depend on the strength of the arm so much as on the soundness of what the arm holds.

This is a great relief to the believer who fears that his faith is too small. The question the passage presses is not chiefly how strong your faith is but what it is resting on. A weak hand holding a strong shield is safer than a strong hand holding nothing at all. Jesus said that faith the size of a mustard seed is enough, precisely because the power was never in the size of the faith but in the God it lays hold of. A trembling faith that hides behind Christ is still hidden behind Christ, and that is what quenches the dart.

Why we need it: the darts are on fire

Paul's image is exact and sobering. The enemy's attacks are called fiery darts because they are not only meant to wound but to spread, to catch and burn. A single doubt, a single fear, a single lustful thought, left unquenched, can smolder and set the whole soul alight. This is why faith must be ready before the arrow comes, not scrambled for afterward.

And notice the promise: faith can quench all of them. Not that no arrow will be shot, for the picture assumes a real and constant assault, but that there is no dart the shield cannot catch. There is no fear so large, no temptation so hot, no accusation so heavy that God has not spoken a promise sufficient to put it out. The believer's danger is never that the enemy has an arrow faith cannot answer; it is only that we leave the shield down.

Notice too that the arrows are aimed, not scattered at random. The enemy studies each of us, and the darts he sends are chosen for the person: the particular fear that unsettles you, the particular sin that has a history with you, the particular accusation that lands because part of you already half believes it. This is why a borrowed faith and a general optimism will not do. You must know the specific promises of God well enough to raise the right one against the arrow that was made for you.

How to put it on and use it

Taking up the shield is a deliberate act, done in the moment of attack. When the fiery dart flies, doubt, dread, the pull toward sin, you do not argue with it in your own strength or try to feel differently. You raise a promise of God against it. To do that you must know his promises, so the shield is prepared long before the battle, in the daily reading and remembering of the word until his assurances are near to hand.

Then you hold. Faith is often not a single heroic act but a refusal to lower the shield, a standing firm on what God has said while the arrows keep coming and the feelings have not yet changed. And the shield is not carried alone. Roman soldiers locked their shields together, and believers are meant to stand faith to faith, holding one another up when a brother's arm grows tired. Say the promise aloud to a friend under fire; raise the shield over one another. Faith held in company is far harder to break.

It is worth naming that faith and feeling are not the same thing, and the shield is often raised in the teeth of feeling. There will be mornings when God's promise seems thin and the dart seems solid, and faith on those days is simply the decision to treat God's word as more real than your mood. Feelings usually follow, though not always at once. The soldier does not wait until he feels safe to lift the shield; he lifts the shield, and safety follows the shield.

How it is found in Christ

The strength of a shield is never in the wood but in what it is made of and who stands behind it, and the strength of faith is entirely in its object. Faith saves not because believing is a powerful feeling but because the one believed is a mighty Savior. John writes that our faith is the victory that overcomes the world, and that the one who overcomes is the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.1 John 5:4 (KJV)

Hebrews describes faith as the assurance of what we hope for and the evidence of what we cannot yet see, and everything hoped for and unseen is found in Christ.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.Hebrews 11:1 (KJV)

So the shield of faith is, once more, Christ. He is the promise every promise rests on, the faithful one whose word does not fail, and even the faith with which we hold him is his gift. To take up the shield is to hide behind Jesus, and no fiery dart has ever passed through him.

So when the arrows come, the wisest thing a believer can do is not to look harder at the dart but to look again at Christ. Faith grows not by staring at itself and measuring its own strength but by fixing its eyes on its object, on the one who has already overcome the world. The more clearly you see him, the higher the shield rises, almost without effort, for faith is finally just the eye of the soul turned toward its Savior and refusing to look away.

A note for all traditions: the armour of God is not a magic ritual or a formula of words, and the battle is not a spectacle. Paul writes soberly to ordinary believers about standing firm in Christ against real temptation, deception, and discouragement. Every piece is his gift and points back to him. The one Lord of the whole armour is Jesus Christ, and the strength to stand is his, not ours.

Related: The gospel of peace · The helmet of salvation · The whole armour of God · Spiritual warfare · Who is Jesus?