“Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Ephesians 6:17
“Get your helmet on,” the sergeant barked out, and I could tell his patience was wearing thin. I just wasn’t used to wearing it and it felt heavy and uncomfortable. As a brig guard, it was one of only two or three nights I had spent in the field while in the Marine Corps. However, “Every Marine a rifleman” was more than just a slogan and required every Marine to possess at least the basics in combat training, which included knowing the importance of wearing your helmet. They knew that a shot taken to the body was often survivable, but a head was the most often deadly.
The Apostle Paul knew the importance of wearing our spiritual helmet as we face our adversary from day to day. The “Helmet of Salvation” isn’t something Paul wanted us to wear just to show everyone around us that we’re saved, but rather it serves as a way of right thinking.
The Greek word here for “take,” is dechomai, and means “To take hold of, take up, to receive or grant access to, to bring up or educate, to receive favorably, give ear to, embrace, make one’s own, approve, not to reject and to get.”The Greek word here for “Helmet” is perikephalaia, and it means, “The protection of the soul which consists in (the hope of) salvation.”
The word “Salvation” here is the Greek word sōtērios which literally means deliverance, preservation, safety, deliverance from the molestation of enemies, in an ethical sense, that which concludes to the soul’s safety or salvation of Messianic salvation.
Do you see the big picture here? This “Helmet of Salvation is the renewing of our minds in regard to Messianic salvation. What is Messianic salvation? In the 3rd chapter of John’s Gospel we see, in verses 16 and 17, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” Jesus is the Messiah and the word saved here is “Sozo,” which means to be saved, healed and delivered.
Today, let’s renew our minds to the Salvation Jesus has given us and live free from worry, fear and any kind of wrong thinking.