Throughout church history two of the main ways the church has been referred to is the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant.
The Church Militant refers to the Bride of Christ as she currently is on earth, in the midst of spiritual warfare, evangelism, missions, suffering, and perseverance. It’s the church in this life actively engaged in the struggles and challenges of the Christian life as Christian soldiers seeking to trust and obey and bring all things properly under the Lordship of Christ.
The Church Triumphant refers to the Bride of Christ in heaven—those who have died in faith and are now in glory with Christ. Though the Church Militant is currently seated with Christ in the heavenly places and rules and reigns with Him, the Church Triumphant currently rules and reigns in heaven with Christ in a way that we do not. They have entered into a level of victory over sin and death, glorification, and eternal celebration that we have yet to experience. The triumph of Christ has now become their unhindered reality.
Our current reality is militant, and understanding who we are as the Church Militant helps us understand how to rightly apply the Bible. For instance, there are times where the Bible is clearly calling us to fight, come what may, and other times where the Bible calls us to resist the urge to fight, come what may. But if we understand who we are and our role as the Church Militant we can make sense of how to do both of these at the same time. What I mean is, there are times and places where we should be fighting and times and places where we should be resisting the urge to fight.
Onward Christian Soldiers
Romans 8:13 is a good example of God calling us to always be fighting in this life. There God’s Word says, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Putting to death the deeds of the body is an ongoing battle against temptation and sin. John Owen said, “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.” And this is what he had in mind. Putting to death the deeds of the body is an ongoing fight in this life that does not stop until the temptations and sins that flow from the flesh are dead, or we are. In this sense there is no peace in this life. We remain at war. And it’s not just the passions of the flesh we are at war with, but all who are on the side of such things.
In Ephesians 6:12 God’s Word says, “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.” This tells us that our battle goes far beyond just a battle with self. We are at war with spiritual forces of evil and real power and powers in the heavenly places, as well as right here in this world. We know this because before this in Ephesians 2:2 God’s Word says that sinners outside of Christ are under the power of the spiritual forces of darkness. So the evil we see around us is tied directly to the spiritual forces of darkness. They are under the power of the prince of the air, the evil one whose mission it is to steal, kill, and destroy.
We are in a constant battle in this life against the flesh, the world, and the devil. But as God’s Word says in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ…” Notice that we battle to destroy strongholds, not to destroy the flesh or the world. When we are dealing with temptation and sin within ourselves we are not seeking to destroy self, but to die to self. We are to battle for self-control, to bring ourselves rightly under the Lordship of Christ. We are seeking to take our thoughts captive to obey Christ, which implies not just our thoughts but the words and actions our thoughts give birth to. We want our thoughts to lead us to obedience, not disobedience.
But this isn’t just how we wage war against our own sin, this is also how we wage war against the sin and evil in the world. Just as we seek self-control, that is self properly under the Lordship of Christ, so too do we seek to take the world captive to obey Christ. We want to destroy the stronghold of the evil one over the world, not the world itself. We want to see the enemies of Christ repent and believe and become children of God. We want to see those who have been taken captive by evil be taken captive by Christ to trust and obey Him. So in this sense we want to battle for the world, not just against it. We want to destroy the foolishness of sin and evil, and lead others to a right knowledge of the Lord, and the path of righteousness and glory. We want to destroy sin and Satan, but not ourselves or the world. We want ourselves and this world to live, to truly live in Christ.
In this life, in one way or another, we are always in a spiritual battle. The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. And though that’s true that doesn’t mean that we don’t have to wage war according to the flesh, that is in physical manners as well.
We will often suffer in this life in ways that are very much physical, and we must persevere in that suffering… Sickness, loss, pain, death, and all sorts of physical and emotional struggles come for all of us in one way or another, but we must hold fast, come what may. And holding fast and being faithful doesn’t always only mean mere perseverance and endurance, but sometimes it means actually battling physically as well.
Though we want to win the world, not destroy it, biblically there is such a thing as just war, self-defense, and defending others. Though it is good and right to turn the other cheek at times after being struck on one cheek, there are also times when its wrong to do so. Husbands must protect their families. Magistrates must protect their people. The strong must protect the weak. Indeed, as the command not to murder implies, we must seek to protect life, and justice must be done. Sometimes physical warfare is necessary. Sometimes enemies must be actually physically destroyed. And in all these ways we find ourselves in actual war in this life, which is why we are the Church Militant.
Peace and Love
I said earlier that there are times and places where we should be fighting and times and places where we should be resisting the urge to fight. Now that we’ve thought some about when and how to fight, let’s consider when not to fight.
In Ephesians 4:1-3 Paul says, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Paul is calling the church, within the body, to fight for unity, but that fight is a fight against pride, not one another. Though there are ways in which the passage applies to how we deal with all people, Paul is especially calling us to treat one another, to treat our brothers and sisters in Christ with gentleness, patience, and forbearance in love. We are to seek to maintain unity and peace, not wage war against our brothers and sisters in Christ.
There’s a lot that can be said about how to do that, but what I want to focus on for now is that, though the church is at war, we are not at war with one another. The church acts as a home base for us in our war efforts. The church is our place of peace and unity, our place of love and joy that equips and encourages us to press on in the fight of faith. If we are constantly fighting amongst ourselves we will never be effective in the true war that we are called to.
Imagine a group of soldiers getting ready to storm the beach at Normandy, but the whole way there they are fighting amongst themselves. By the time they hit the beach they are sitting ducks for the enemy because all the fight they had was wasted on themselves. Instead of helping the cause they hindered it. Their pride got in the way of their mission. And this is what so many of us do in the church. We don’t extend trust to one another, we don’t give each other the benefit of the doubt, and instead of being gentle, patient, and forbearing with one another we are harsh, impatient, and intolerant, nitpicking our brothers and sisters in Christ, and causing fights within the body. And this should not be.
Our fellow Christians, our brothers and sisters in Christ are not our enemies, they are our allies in the war against the flesh, the world, and the devil. We have a mission that we are to be engaged in—pushing back the darkness and advancing the Kingdom by bringing all things under the Lordship of Christ. If we are constantly going after one another, nitpicking one another, and battling with one another we will be worthless in the true battle, if we ever engage in it at all.
On more than one occasion I’ve seen people who talk about being passionate about our mission and waging war against our enemies, but instead they hinder the mission by waging war against their allies. How can we fight the enemy if we’re too busy fighting one another? No doubt, our inward focus is a tactic of the evil one that keeps us from engaging in meaningful warfare. Instead of treating the church as our home base to be prepped for mission, we treat it as a battlefield and thereby hinder the true mission and set the church up for failure in the true battle. We become our own worst enemies. And this must stop.
The mission, along with the church and our lives as a whole are not about us. The point is Jesus. This is why Ephesians 4 starts with Paul reminding us that he’s a prisoner for Christ, implying that Jesus is worth it. Faithfulness to Jesus is worth it, come what may, because Jesus is worth it, come what may. And then following that Paul says that we are to walk in a manner worthy of our calling, we are to embrace our mission in all humility. We are to be gentle, patient, and forbearing in love with one another, seeking to maintain unity and peace in the church, so that we can walk in a manner worthy of our calling in Christ and for Christ, embracing our mission for Christ in all of life. In order for us to engage in warfare faithfully for Jesus, we have to be able to come together with the body of Christ in love, in true unity and peace, to be equipped and encouraged to fight the good fight.
Now, notice how humility is at the heart of this. And this makes sense given that the point is Jesus, not us. C. S. Lewis once said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less.” But humility is a reflex to pursuing something great. Only God can make us truly humble. So the key to humility is not trying to think less of yourself, nor trying to think of yourself less; it is thinking of Christ more—seeking to know Him more, love Him more, and live for Him more. It’s getting our mind and heart off of our self and onto Christ. And when we do this it enables us to live in unity and peace with our brothers and sisters in Christ, even amongst disagreement and shortcomings. Because the point is Jesus and not us, we can die to self and live for Christ… We can get over ourselves and put God’s church and Christ’s mission above our own preferences and issues. We can be gentle, patient, and forbearing, even when it’s really hard to do so, because it’s not about us. Jesus is the point, not us.
C. S. Lewis also said, “Lose you life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death to your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” And you see, this is what the Christian life looks like… And this starts in the church… And living this way in the church equips us to be the Christian soldiers we are called to be in life.
Conclusion
We are the Church Militant. We are in a war against the flesh, the world, and the devil. But one Day we will be the Church Triumphant. And even now our membership in a local church is a foretaste of the Triumph to come. We gather with our brothers and sisters in Christ, not to fight amongst ourselves, but to be and experience a heavenly embassy, where we can be equipped and encouraged for our everyday battle.
So may we commit ourselves to not fight each other, but to fight our real enemies. May we commit ourselves to humility and love, so that we can walk in a manner worthy of our calling—embracing our mission, not hindering it. May we commit ourselves to reading and applying our Bibles rightly, so that we wage war when we’re supposed to, and seek peace when we’re supposed to. And may we remember that even our everyday warfare is a part of seeking peace as well. Though we want sin, Satan, and death destroyed, we want ourselves and the world won to Christ. And along with this, our gathering with the church in unity and peace for worship is a great act of warfare as well. Coming together in Christ for the glory of Christ is like taking a battering ram to the gates of hell. Worship itself is warfare. But that stresses the point that the last thing we want to do in the church is distract each other with our issues with one another. We just need to die to self and trust and obey Christ. We need to humble ourselves because we want the church firing on all cylinders so that the gates of hell would come crumbling down.
Whether war or peace, our aim is the glory of God, the good of His people, and the life of the world. That is our mission as the Church Militant. May the Lord help us accomplish our mission.
In Christ’s service and yours,
Nick Esch