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 heavenly places.
All Commentaries on Ephesians 6:12 Go To Ephesians 6
John Chrysostom
AD 407
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; 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 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 account of. 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 you were, says he, once darkness Ephesians 5:8; 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 he calls them, not as having the mastery over the world, but the Scripture is to call wicked practices the world, as, for example, where Christ says, They are not of this world, even as I am not of the world (John 17:16). 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 hates Me, but you it cannot hate (John 7:7). 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 special power over them. Against the spiritual hosts of wickedness, says he, in the heavenly places. Principalities, and powers, he speaks of; just as in the heavenly places there are thrones and dominions, principalities and powers (Colossians 1:16).
