Ver. 12. “For our wrestling is not,” saith he, “against flesh and blood,462 but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness, in the heavenly places.” Having stimulated them by the character of the conflict, he next goes on to arouse them also by the prizes set before them. For what is his argument? Having said that the enemies are fierce, he adds further, that they despoil us of vast blessings. What are these? The conflict lies “in the heavenlies”;463 the struggle is not about riches, not about glory, but about our being enslaved. And thus is the enmity irreconcilable. The strife and the conflict are fiercer when for vast interests at stake; for the expression “in the heavenlies”464 is equivalent to, “for the heavenly things.” It is not that they may gain anything by the conquest, but that they may despoil us. As if one were to say, “In what does the contract lie?” In gold. The word “in,” means, “in behalf of”; the word “in,” also means, “on account465 of.”466 Observe how the power of the enemy startles us; how it makes us all circumspection, to know that the hazard is on behalf of vast interests, and the victory for the sake of great rewards. For he is doing his best to cast us out of Heaven. He speaks of certain “principalities, and powers, and world-rulers of this darkness.” What darkness? Is it that of night? No, but of wickedness. “For ye were,” saith he, “once darkness” (Eph. v. 8.); so naming that wickedness which is in this present life; for beyond it, it will have no place, not in Heaven, nor in the world to come. “World-rulers”467 he calls them, not as having the mastery over the world, but the Scripture is wont to call wicked practices “the world,” as, for example, where Christ saith, “They are not of this world, even as I am not of the world.” (John xvii. 16.) What then, were they not of the world? Were they not clothed with flesh? Were they not of those who are in the world? And again; “The world hateth Me, but you it cannot hate.” (John vii. 7.) Where again He calls wicked practices by this name. Thus the Apostle here by the world means wicked men, and the evil spirits have more especial power over them. “Against the spiritual hosts of wickedness,” saith he, “in the heavenly places.” “Principalities, and powers,” he 462 [“Flesh and blood, i.e. ‘feeble men,’ just as in Gal. i. 16, and Matt. xvi. 17. The word πάλη, which means nothing else than a ‘wrestling,’ is specially chosen by the Apostle (who elsewhere uses ἀγών or μάχη), in order to bring out the more strongly in connection with πρὸς αἷμα καὶ σάρκα the contrast between this less perilous form of contest and that which follows.”—Meyer.—G.A.] 463 ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις. 464 ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις. 465 [“The word ἐν does not mean ‘for’ or ‘on account of,’ and the phrase is here local (i. 3.).”—Meyer.—G.A.] 466 τὸ ἐν ὑπέρ ἐστι, καὶ τὸ ἐν, διά ἐστιν. 467 κοσμοκράτορας. 296 Ephesians 6:5-8