(2) Breastplate of Righteousness

Here we are presented with a second piece of armour, commended to, and charged upon, all Christ's soldiers - a "breastplate", and the metal it is to be made of - "righteousness". "And having on the breastplate of righteousness …" And the righteousness which is here compared to the breastplate is the righteousness of our sanctification, which I call "a righteousness imparted" or a righteousness wrought by Christ in the believer.

It is a supernatural principle of a new life planted in the heart of every child of God by the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit, whereby they endeavour to approve themselves to God and to man, in performing what the Word of God requires to be performed to both.

It is a principle of new life, I say; the Spirit's work was not to recover what was swooning, but to work a life anew in a soul quite dead: "You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and in sins." Ephesians 2:1. And no sooner is this principle planted in the heart, but the man rises up to wait on God and to act for God with all his might and main. The seed which the sanctifying Spirit cast into the soul, is not lost in the soil, but quickly shows it is alive by the fruit it bears.

As the "breastplate" preserves the principal part of the body of the soldier - the breast, where the very vitals of man are closely couched together, and where a shot or stab is more deadly than in other parts that are remote from the fountain of life, therefore, we are exhorted to have on the "breastplate of righteousness." A man may outlive many wounds received in the arms or legs, but a stab in the heart is the certain messenger of death approaching. Thus righteousness and holiness preserve the principal part of a Christian - his soul and conscience.

Satan's designs are as much against the saint's holiness, as God's designs are for it. He hath ever a "nay" to God's "yea". If God be for holiness, he must needs be against it. And what should be our chief care to defend, then, but that which Satan's thoughts and plots are most laid to assault and storm? No gain comes to the devil's purse, except he can make the Christian lose his holiness; so, let us stand, "… having on the breastplate of righteousness."

William Gurnall.