| Next to the Person of Jesus Christ the church has been, and continues to be, the great battleground of history. So much so is this the case that an ever-increasing number of books, journals, periodicals, “Councils”, “Convocations”, discourses, etc., are occupied with this matter as a primary concern. But most of all this is controversial, thus justifying the phrase “the battleground”. This is all very significant, indicating that it is a primary matter, and that it is something which does hold a position in the forefront of accountability. Rightly it does, and perhaps much more so than all this writing and talking understands. It is a primary concern in the whole cosmic realm, the super-mundane sphere, if we are to take both the practical evidence and the definite New Testament statements seriously. |
12 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 high places.
10 To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,
17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: 18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
16 To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:
25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
38 This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us: