The Armour of God (Part 6)

The Helmet of Salvation

‘And take the helmet of salvation.’ Ephesians 6:17.

A helmet protects our head and brain or, spiritually and emotionally speaking, our mind. Paul writes a lot about the mind throughout his letters and shows us how it can determine our allegiance to either God’s or Satan’s kingdoms. This is most notably explained in Romans 8:5-7:

‘For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God.’

Our mind is the primary space where Satan launches his attacks. It’s where he causes us to compromise the truth, question our righteousness, hesitate in spreading the good news, lose our peace to conflict, and doubt our faith.

All such attacks begin with a single thought that he may slip into our mind so quietly that we think it’s our own. That way we don’t suspect him and chase him out. He may tell us, for example, that because we have failed at something we are a failure. If we choose to dwell on that thought, we begin to believe and feel trapped by it.

But what we think on is a choice. Peter tells us to ‘gird up the loins of your mind’ (1 Peter 1:13), reusing the metaphor to show us that we need to make the active decision to protect our minds from unholy thoughts. He also tells us that ‘we have the mind of Christ’ (1 Corinthians 2:16) and that it is the ‘renewing of the mind’ that transforms us from worldly people to godly ones (Romans 12:2).

Isaiah wrote that we remain in perfect peace when our mind is stayed on God (26:3). That is, when we actively cultivate godly thoughts. Jesus asks, ‘which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?’ and later exhorts us to ‘take therefore no thought for the morrow’ (Matthew 6:27, 34). He encourages us not to worry, which begins and ends with the thoughts we choose to dwell on.

Essentially, the ‘helmet of salvation’ points to the fact that our minds are protected from Satan’s attacks through the knowledge that we have salvation in Jesus Christ.

At the beginning of the passage on the armour of God, we remember that Paul began by saying we need to ‘put on’ the armour as an active choice and decision. This is especially true of the helmet. We have to actively take charge of our mind rather than simply letting Satan set up home there and believing everything he tells us. This is not an area where we can afford to be passive.

Without the helmet of salvation—the sound belief and hope that we belong to God—our mind is left unprotected. The best way to counter Satan’s attacks on our minds is by thinking on the Word of God and on such things that fits Paul’s list in Philippians 4:8. This is, in fact, our best and most powerful weapon, and one we'll explore in the next and final part of this series.