Calvary Road Baptist Church
“THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS”
Ephesians 6.14b
I used to be an aerospace engineer. I worked for the Hughes Aircraft Company in El Segundo, which won the cold war. I worked in the buildings across the Imperial Highway from the Los Angeles International Airport. Hughes initially employed me right out of Oregon State University to work on a military communications satellite. However, in March of 1974, I came to know Jesus Christ as my personal savior and resigned from Hughes two years later, after getting married to my first wife. We then went off to Bible college to prepare for the Gospel ministry. Forty-six years later, I remain married to my first wife.
After graduating from Bible college and waiting on the Lord for something to happen while serving faithfully at Bethany Baptist Church in Whittier, I went back to Hughes Aircraft Company as a contract engineer while taking graduate school classes at Grace Graduate School of Theology in Long Beach. During my second stint at Hughes, I worked on several commercial satellites. I was involved in designing large reflector dishes designed to beam telephone and television signals to and from planet earth from a geostationary orbit.
The material that we used to fabricate those high-strength, lightweight reflector dishes was some new thing called Kevlar.[1] Although Kevlar was relatively new, it was also used in the manufacture of radial automobile tires. Then, later on, the United States military and law enforcement agencies began to make flak jackets and police body armor from Kevlar.
If you examine a police officer’s body armor, you will see a modern-day version of what the Apostle Paul referred to as a breastplate in Ephesians 6.14. The notable difference between what Paul was referring to in Ephesians 6.14 and the body armor that police officers and soldiers wear made out of Kevlar or some ceramic is not the materials, however, but the fact that Paul referred to that which is used in spiritual conflict. Kevlar and ceramic body armor protect the soldier’s or the officer’s thoracic region from physical assault and injury.
Christian? You are engaged in a spiritual conflict that is far more dangerous and serious than any police officer or soldier will ever encounter. Your conflict does not always contest the lives of individuals but rather the eternal and undying souls of people. Neither are your enemies other human beings but supernatural foes who tirelessly endeavor to defeat you by hook or crook.
Once upon a time, I looked at the whole armor of God with you in messages from God’s Word.[2] I carefully examined the underlying last line of defense against spiritual assault the Christian wears, which is truth, likened by the Apostle Paul to a girdle around the loins. At this time, I will scrutinize one of the most visible and prominent means of defense against spiritual attack, the breastplate of righteousness. That we might establish context, let’s stand and read together Ephesians 6.10-20:
10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
19 And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel,
20 For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
Back in the second half of verse 14, we read about the symbol for Paul’s illustration, which is the breastplate. Note two observations about the breastplate that Roman soldiers typically wore during Paul’s day. First, there is the design of the breastplate.[3] Look at a police officer or a modern member of the armed forces and a Roman soldier of ancient times, each wearing their body armor, and you will be immediately struck by their similarities while noting that they were made of different materials. This should not surprise you. After all, in the 2000 years that have elapsed since Paul’s day, the trunk region of a man subjected to physical assault has not changed. What needed protection then needs protection now. The breastplate, then, was a two-part affair worn to provide substantial protection from the tops of a man’s shoulders to some point beneath the hips.
Police body armor tends to be shorter because police officers spend most of their duty hours sitting in an automobile, which would be very uncomfortable with armor extending below the hips. Additionally, some protection would be afforded to the tops of the shoulders and the sides, but not nearly as much protection as directly in front or behind.
Second is the defense of the breastplate. Note that the breastplate was so named even though it afforded protection both to the front and rear, the breast and the back. No soldier and no law enforcement officer, which Roman soldiers most certainly functioned as most of the time, can guarantee that they will always face their attackers.
The breastplate, then, protects both the front and the back of the soldier. But how does it protect? It protects passively. By its very nature, the breastplate is not an instrument that is in any sense wielded. No skill is required with it. It is simply there. When it is simply where it is supposed to be, it works. When it is not where it is supposed to be, it does not work.
Therefore, you’d better have it on in the event of a surprise attack. By the way, most attacks are, in some way, surprise attacks. Either the direction of the attack, the timing of the attack, or both, are typically unknown until the attack actually begins. So in war and so in spiritual conflict.
Now consider the spiritual aspect of the illustration Paul uses, which is righteousness. Using Paul’s description, righteousness is a passive defense that affords protection in the event of a spiritual attack. But what righteousness is Paul referring to here as a means of defense against a spiritual assault?
Is it self-righteousness? Self-righteousness refers to your efforts to establish your uprightness your moral standing. Could this be what Paul was referring to? Not possible. Christian? How in the world can a person’s self-righteousness provide for his protection during spiritual conflict when he doesn’t have any self-righteousness? Remember, in Romans 3.10, Paul echoed the Psalmist’s sentiments in Psalm 14.1 when he wrote, “There is none righteous, no, not one.”
If the breastplate of righteousness is not a breastplate of self-righteousness, perhaps Paul is here referring to the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. Turn to Romans 4.6-8:
6 Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,
7 Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.
8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
While the person unto whom the Lord imputes righteousness, and unto whom the Lord does not impute sin, certainly is blessed, indeed, we need to ask if this is the righteousness Paul is referring to in Ephesians 6.14 as a defense against supernatural assault from demonic imps. To think this through, consider the word “impute.” To “impute” basically means to charge or credit. So, Romans 4.6-8 tells us that a man is blessed by the Lord when he is charged or credited with being righteous apart from works, and he is blessed by the Lord when he is not charged with sin. The same Greek word is translated “reckoned” in Romans 4.9-10. This is what happens when a sinner is saved.
Though he is not righteous by experience and has no good works to show himself righteous, when a sinner is saved through faith in Christ, the Lord charges or credits that person with righteousness. And though the sinner is most definitely a sinner, the Lord does not charge or account to him sin when he is saved. This imputed righteousness is a wonderful thing, but is it what Paul is referring to in our text for today?
I don’t think so. In Ephesians 6.14, Paul refers to some quality or character trait or virtue that protects the child of God against spiritual attack from the devil or his imps. No child of God is self-righteous, since no one can be saved while deluding himself into thinking himself righteous on his own accounts. But neither does the breastplate of righteousness refer to the righteousness the believer is imputed with at the time of his conversion, in my opinion.
Why not? Paul tells his readers in Ephesus that they need to put on this armor, suggesting that some believers had not yet done so. If this breastplate of righteousness refers to the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, Paul’s statement would be absurd. You can’t put salvation on and off. Either you are saved, and hence righteous by imputation, or you are not.
Therefore, I am of the opinion that Paul is speaking of a third kind of righteousness in Ephesians 6.14, a righteousness that the child of God acquires following conversion. Consider with me. Are good people saved? No. There is none good, Romans 3.12. Can you be saved by works? No. You are saved by grace, by God’s gift, not by doing good deeds, Titus 3.5.
But notice what Paul wrote to that congregation in Ephesians 2.8-10:
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
After one comes to faith in Christ, saved through faith, Paul writes that God puts you to work for Him. We are not created in Christ Jesus to sit in a rocker all day. We are saved to serve. When that happens, you begin to establish, entirely by God’s grace, keep in mind personal righteousness following your conversion.
Righteousness is imputed to you the moment you trust Christ, giving you standing before God. Still, a type of righteousness is added to you after you trust Christ as you live the Christian life and serve the Lord, which provides spiritual protection for you when you are spiritually assaulted.
We now consider Psalm 18.19-20. Notice what David, the same man who admitted that there was none who were good and none who were righteous in Psalm 14, says about himself in this passage:
19 He [God] brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.
20 The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me.
Recognizing that verse 20 has to do with God’s dealings with David after his conversion, we see that the good works David was led of God to do after his conversion is termed righteousness. This is the kind of righteousness I am persuaded Paul was referring to in Ephesians 6.14, the kind of righteousness one acquires by God’s grace after one is saved.
Are you really saved? If you are, and if you expect anyone to believe that you are, then you’d better start acting like a saved person behaves, worshipping and faithfully serving God. One cannot worship and serve God in order to merit salvation, but because you already are saved through faith in Christ, and that apart from works. That subsequent righteousness, established by God’s grace after you have trusted the savior, will serve to protect you when spiritual attacks come your way.
So, every time you pray, every time you read the Bible, every time you attend Church, every time you seek the salvation of the lost, every time you conduct yourself and behave yourself as a believer ought to, after you have been saved, you are putting yourself into a kind of spiritual body armor, the spiritual breastplate of righteousness. The armor that will protect you is a breastplate of righteousness resulting from a life after conversion that is lived for Christ. Since virtually every spiritual assault against you will be a surprise to you in some way, either from an unexpected source, at an unexpected time, or some such thing as that, you’d better have that breastplate already hanging on your shoulders and snugged into place.
You are strapping on the breastplate by being here. Will you strap it on this evening by coming back to Church? Tomorrow, by praying and reading your Bible and witnessing at work? How about Wednesday, by coming to prayer meeting? It is for your own protection from spiritual assault, remember. Make the decision to so defend yourself from spiritual assault right now, just like a patrol officer puts on his body armor, though he might go a whole shift on duty without needing it. When he needs it, he will be glad it is in place.
Shushan the palace, the Persian empire six centuries before the time of the Apostle Paul. As she strode into the presence of the most powerful man in the world, leaving her frightened attendants on the other side of the curtain, the entire court gasped. It happened so very quickly the guards were momentarily paralyzed. But they gathered themselves, drew their swords, and were about to take off her head. “Wait!” The king held out his scepter! “Sheath your swords and return to your posts.”
The life of Esther, wife of Ahasuerus, queen of the Persian empire, and secretly a Jewish woman, was spared. The law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be changed, did not allow anyone to come into the presence of the king unbidden. Had the king not immediately held out his golden scepter toward his wife, she would have been slain on the spot, without a word.
Recognize that righteousness is related to standing. In the Persian court no one who enters unbidden had what you might call standing. Only by extending the golden scepter toward you does the king assign to you standing, lest you die. Recognize that anyone and everyone in that part of the world in those days would completely understand that only the righteous stand before God. Just as only those with standing may come into the presence of the king and live, only the righteous shall stand before God.
A concept easily understood by peoples of other times and other cultures, it is my task to bring you to understand this concept right here and right now. Only the righteous stand before God. Three considerations for you:
First, CONSIDER THE RIGHTEOUSNESS THAT GOD REQUIRES
People these days have such a convoluted understanding of God. You have listened to so much Hollywood movie and Netflix videos industry propaganda about God that you have actually begun to believe what movies say about God more than what God says about God in His Word.
For example: Before I was saved, I remember watching a movie late one night on television. I think the movie was titled “The Bathhouse.” The main character, played by Bill Bixby, later the star of “The Incredible Hulk” television series, had died and gone to a bathhouse. Not heaven, but a bathhouse. The whole television movie took place in that bathhouse, with Bill Bixby’s character standing there in his underwear. Occasionally, another guy would come into the bathhouse, a short Hispanic guy, and mop the floor. Bixby asked him who he was, and he said, “My name is God.” The movie portrayed a small Hispanic custodian as God. Can you imagine how that might influence someone’s understanding of God?
Years later, another, more widely seen, movie came out with George Burns playing the role of God. And if it isn’t a movie, it’s singers and actors and other celebrities making appearances during which they refer to God as the man upstairs, or as she if the celebrity is a feminist. The point being our society no longer has any real grasp of who God is and what God is, or of what He requires from His creatures. You’d better come out of your slumber and recognize a few things. Recognize that God is big, and that God is powerful, and that God is smart, and that God is holy, and that God is eternal, and that God is great and terrible, and that God is righteous.
Because God is righteous, He judges in righteousness and evaluates everything and everyone in comparison to His own perfection in righteousness. What of the righteousness that God demands, then? Psalm 9.8 declares that God shall judge the world in righteousness and that He will minister judgment to the people in uprightness. Psalm 45.7 declares that God loves righteousness and that He hates wickedness. Because God is righteous, He has established absolute standards of right and wrong, righteousness and unrighteousness, which reflect His righteous character, and by which He will judge the world. God is so righteous that He can, and He will, and He must demand from you a righteousness that is equal to His Own. “But that’s not fair.” God is not fair. He is God. He is righteous.
Second, CONSIDER THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF MAN REVEALED
We know what God wants. He wants moral perfection. He demands moral perfection. He demands an uprightness, a righteousness, equal to His Own to have standing before Him. But what of your righteousness in the sight of God? The righteousness of man, which is to say your righteousness, is revealed in three ways:
First, your righteousness is revealed by declaration. Romans 3.10:
“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.”
Does anything more need to be said? God’s Word says there are none who are righteous. Notice, it does not say that there are none who are perfectly righteous, but there are some who are kinda righteous. Righteousness is a black and white issue, right or wrong, you are or you’re not. And you’re not. God demands that you be righteous, will not allow you to stand before Him in heaven unless you are righteous, and you’re not righteous.
Second, your righteousness is revealed by investigation. If righteousness is uprightness, then righteousness in an individual would be revealed by behavior that shows uprightness and moral rectitude. If you were righteous I should expect to find Scripture references to your moral quality, your honesty, your integrity, and such as that. Is that, in fact what I find when I investigate Scripture? Jeremiah 17.9:
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
Romans 1.18-32:
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
It doesn’t appear as though people, either in their hearts, or in their minds, or in their actions, or anywhere in their being, are the least bit righteous, does it?
Third, your righteousness is revealed by application. Application is how Biblical truth is taken to refer to you. The Bible is a timeless book that God uses to communicate to you and me universal truths. This being so, how does what we have learned apply to you? When the Bible says that there are none righteous, that means you are not righteous. You have no personal righteousness of any kind. When the Bible speaks of deceitful hearts that are desperately wicked, it means that all hearts, including yours, are this way. You think you are good on the inside, but God declares and then shows that you are wicked on the inside, and that your wickedness is displayed by observable sinful behavior on the outside. What does this mean for you, my friend? It means that when God judges you, and you will be judged by God someday, we have seen that you will be found wanting. You will be judged to have no standing before God. That is to say, you will be ashamed before God because of your unrighteousness, and you will be banished, condemned forever to the burning torment of Hellfire.
Finally, CONSIDER THE RIGHTEOUSNESS THAT A SINFUL MAN CAN RECEIVE
Please pay attention to my words. I said, consider the righteousness that a sinful man can receive. I recently spoke with someone who is lost, who is unsaved. He expressed confidence to me that he would someday be saved. “On the basis of what Scripture?” I asked him. No answer.
Please turn to Ephesians 2.12:
“That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.”
Paul here explains to the Ephesian Christians that, before they had trusted Jesus to the saving of their souls, they had no basis for any confidence that anything good would happen to them, no basis for optimism. If you are here without Christ, God has made you no promises. You have no guarantees. It’s likely that you will, as well. Furthermore, optimism concerning your future, based on what the Bible says, is absolute folly. You are lost, and most lost people, almost every lost person, even those who hear the Gospel, die and go to Hell forever, and ever, and ever.
But some very few of the unrighteous who populate this earth become righteous in the sight of God. How does this happen? Romans 10.9-14:
9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
Please note that Paul refers to this sequence of events in the reverse order in which they occur. A preacher is sent to tell sinners of Jesus Christ, the savior. Upon hearing, they then believe on Him. Believing, they then call on Him. That’s in verse 14. Those who, having already believed on Him call on Him shall be saved, verse 13. Those who believe on Him shall not be ashamed, verse 11. And if you are one of those who confesses Him and believes in your heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, you will be saved, verses 9 and 10.
Some people think they are saved because they grossly misinterpret verse 9, and think that a person is saved by believing that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead. But millions of lost people believe Jesus was raised from the dead. You don’t believe that to be saved. Want to know how to be saved? Want to know how to receive the righteousness that will prevent you from being ashamed before God on Judgment Day? Look at verse 11!
“Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.”
But who is Him? Him is the Lord Jesus Christ. Believing that He rose from the dead doesn’t save anyone. Why not? Because He is the savior. You must believe on Him. Don’t rest on the accuracy of historical facts to save you. Rest upon the One about whom those facts pertain to save you.
You see, the Gospel, the good news, is this: Jesus suffered, bled, died, was buried, and rose from the dead according to Scripture. When He did that, He satisfied the righteous demands of God the Father that sin and unrighteousness be punished. But for you, the unrighteous, to receive the benefit of what Jesus Christ the righteous did, you must trust Him, you must believe on Him. To those who trust Him, to those who believe on Him, will be imputed the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Thus, you will have standing before God, based not upon your merits or righteousness, but based upon the merits and righteousness of Jesus Christ.
In summation, there are, theoretically, three kinds of righteousness. There is self-righteousness, which is only an illusion, really, since you have no righteousness and since any attempts at establishing your own righteousness are considered by God to be but filthy rags, Isaiah 64.6.
Then there is the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. This is the righteousness of Jesus Christ that every sinner needs since it gives you standing in the presence of God, access to heaven, and all the benefits which the Lord Jesus Christ’s very real righteousness deserves from God the Father. This righteousness comes only by faith in Jesus Christ, and it comes instantly when the convicted sinner trusts Jesus for salvation.
The third righteousness that Paul refers to in Ephesians 6.14, he likens to a Roman soldier’s breastplate. As the Roman soldier puts on his breastplate for protection against attack, so one who is now a Christian, with the imputed righteousness of Christ, can now put on spiritual armor that Paul compares to a breastplate.
It works passively when the Christian is subjected to sudden and unforeseen spiritual assaults. It absorbs the first thrust against you and allows you to mount a defense and then counter-attack. But like body armor, you need to already have it in place, Christian.
And you put it in place when, following your conversion, it is acquired over time as a benefit of living for and serving Jesus Christ. When you wake up and pray, you are putting on the whole armor of God, including the breastplate of righteousness. And when you read your Bible. And when you sit under the preaching of God’s Word. And when you are discipled. And so forth and so on.
So, really, the first kind of righteousness you will never have, since it’s only an illusion and the imagination of a sinful mind. The third kind of righteousness is only acquired after you are saved. But it’s this second kind of righteousness, actually being given the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which results in your sins being forgiven, which results in you being saved, which results in you eventually going to heaven.
And this second kind of righteousness only comes through faith in Christ.
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[1] https://www.dupont.com/products/dupont-kevlar-fiber.html
[2] Sermons Att 58, Sat 18, Sat 19, Cha 70, Cha 71, Cha 73, Doc 112, Sat 20, Doc 113, Sal 74, Hol 25, Sat 13, Pra 14, Pra 15, Pra 20
[3] Images of Roman breastplate designs can be seen at https://www.therecipes.info/roman-breastplate-armor#images-1
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