of God is «the sword of the Spirit» (Eph 6:17), but the line of thought is different: Christians are called upon to grasp that sword to use it in their spiritual struggle «against the Spirits of evil» (6:12). In our text, on the contrary, it is the Christians themselves who are implicitly under the threat of that sword. Its penetration is fearsome, since it is capable of dividing off the soul, the principle of physical life, from the spirit, the principle of spiritual life, and of reaching the joints,