<p>6:17 <i>And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God</i>- &quot;Take&quot; as in :16 really means to receive or &quot;accept&quot; (GNB); see note on :16. We are to take the defensive armour of the Spirit. It is the Spirit which will keep us from falling; the helmet guards the head, the mind, the thinking, which Paul presents as the essence of Christianity. The Spirit is the guarantee that we will be finally saved, it is the earnest of the possession yet to be received in final salvation (1:14; 2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5). Believing this will keep our minds in peace; if really we are persuaded that we shall eternally live the spiritual life, we shall not give in to petty temptation now. But we must clothe ourselves with that as a helmet, just as we must of our own volition clothe ourselves with Christ in baptism. We receive not 'the-sword-of-the-Spirit', but the sword which is the Spirit or given by the Spirit. &quot;The word <i>rhema</i> of God&quot; is not necessarily the Bible from Genesis to Revelation; for not all the Bible had then been written. Paul in Rom. 10:8,17 understands this term to mean the Gospel. And the Spirit is available from believing the Gospel. And the <i>rhema</i> of God is likewise understood as the Gospel message in Acts 10:22 and often. The <i>rhema</i> of the Lord is specifically stated to be the promised gift of the Spirit in Acts 11:16. Experiencing the <i>rhema</i> of God was to experience the Holy Spirit (Heb. 6:5). The grammar requires that the sword and not the Spirit is the word of God. The Spirit therefore gives us God's word; it is incorrect here to draw a direct equivalence between the Spirit and the word. The Spirit can give help through God's word- Bible verses can be brought to our mind in the battle against temptation. But the &quot;word&quot; in view is, as suggested above, specifically the word of the Gospel, the good news of the Spirit's help to us in times of need. This is the nourishment and strength ministered to us by the Lord Jesus, &quot;the Lord the Spirit&quot; (2 Cor. 4:4), in our times of spiritual crisis (Heb. 4:15,16).</p>