12. we are wrestling not with
blood and flesh. Lit. “Our struggle is not …” A rather impressive textual
tradition has, “your” struggle. It is more likely that the unexpected pronoun
“our” was changed to “your” by mistake or for the purpose of uniformity with
the context than that an original “your” was converted into “our” (Abbott).
While it is clear that palē
(“struggle” or “wrestling”) is used in a spiritual sense, the metaphor has been
explained in various ways. A hand-to-hand fight is designated by the Greek
word, not struggle or conflict in general (as in the English adage, “life is a
struggle”). If a sport contest is in mind, then the form and rules of the
ancient pagkration may apply; this
was an “ ‘all-in’ contest in boxing and wrestling.” But if hand-to-hand
fighting “in battle” is meant, no means of inflicting wounds, pain, and death
are excluded. No doubt Eph 6 describes a “spiritual war” and “spiritual
weapons”; but rather than use the term “war” (polemos) Paul chooses a concept that originally denotes the
activity of an athlete. The emphasis placed on “peace” in 2:14–16; 4:3 and 6:15
may have prevented Paul from speaking in this epistle of an ongoing war. Just
as, e.g. Plato and Philo mixed metaphors of sport and of war, so Paul appears
to have conflated them. Again, the effect of Paul’s choice is an antidote
against a tragic-dualistic world view. Life is not by definition a battle, war
is not the father of all things. But the attacks extended against the Christians
require that they stand their ground as “good sports” and soldiers. While in
the Pauline description of the Christians’ internal battle in Galatians,
Romans, and II Corinthians the “flesh” is the opponent, and in 1 Peter 2:11 and
James 4:1–2 the “desires” are the adversaries, Eph 6:12 describes another
fight: a struggle “not with blood and flesh.” “The contrast … between human and
superhuman powers” is meant (Abbott). A reason why the formula “flesh and
blood” (meaning humanity in its frail and perishing aspect, or in rare cases,
the outstanding sacrificial elements)35 is reversed here has not yet
been found, as Dibelius observes; see also Heb 2:14; John 1:13. Perhaps “blood”
substitutes for “soul” or “life”; for “the life of the flesh is in the blood,”
according to Lev 17:11. In this case “blood and flesh” is a synonym of “soul
and body.”
with the governments, with
the authorities, with the overlords of this dark world, with the spiritual
hosts of evil in the heavens.
The first two of these four terms resume the diction found in 1:21 and 3:10.
The other two contribute information about the nature and history of all evil
powers. As in 2:2 where the air or “atmosphere” was the location of the devil’s
reign, now “the heavens” are mentioned as the seat of all powers, i.e. one
region of heaven which is to be clearly distinguished from others. See Comment
IV for details and variant interpretations. (Markus Bart, Ephesians:
Introduction, Translation and Commentary on Chapters 4-6 [AYB 34A; New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2008], 763-64)
