We’ll continue our study of this important passage in the first section of Ephesians chapter 4. Here Paul, having urged the Ephesian believers to walk in a manner worthy of their calling and to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace explains how Christ has placed ministry gifts within his body, to bring the people into this radical unity, so that they shouldn’t be like children, easily distracted by every novelty tat comes along, but should ‘grow up … into Christ.’
If you missed the first teaching on Ephesians 4: 1-6, then check that out before moving on to this.
Ephesians 4: 1-13
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. 8 Therefore it says,
“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”
9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Let’s continue in Verse 7:
vv.7-10
But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. 8 Therefore it says,
“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”
9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)
In v.7 all the words are very simple, but their meaning is a bit obscure.
Is he saying that Christ’s gift is ‘measured’? According to what criteria? Or is his point that the ‘measure’ is really infinite?
- Is God’s grace really infinite?
Let’s unpack it a bit.
Here he is talking about each one of us (including himself) as individuals; previously he has been talking about the church as a whole. So, while grace is poured out—'lavished’ (Eph 1: 7, 8)—on the whole world for salvation, here the same grace is being given much more precisely to individuals (compare Romans 12: 3).
Actually, I think Paul is still talking about the church as a whole. In v.8 Christ is ‘giving gifts to men’ and in v.12, 13 these gifts are to ‘build up the body of Christ’ to the ‘measure … of the fulness of Christ’—so, the context is still the whole body.
These gifts are dispensed, as God sees fit, to individuals, as Peter explains in 1 Peter 4: 10:
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace.
So, certain people within Christ’s body, are given particular gifts to ‘build it up’ (v.12) and to ‘equip’ it for service. These are not ‘qualifications’ for leadership, nor are they ‘offices’ in the church. They are gifts given by the grace of God for the service of the body of Christ.
(Though, as we will see, they do confer a certain measure of authority to the recipient.)
- How are we to understand these ‘ministry gifts’ within the body of Christ?
v.8 is a paraphrase of Psalm 68: 18:
You ascended on high,
leading a host of
captives in your train
and receiving gifts
among men…
…the picture is of a conquering king returning home with captives from the city he’s conquered. Everyone showers him with gifts because he’s a hero.
But Christ is different, and the image is flipped upside down. He returns to Jerusalem, ascending the Temple Mount, maybe—think of the Triumphal Entry, which is a similar image—but here he’s the one giving the gifts.
The parenthesis in vv.9 and 10 gives a bit of a commentary on it. Where did he go to conquer? Well, he’s ‘ascending’, so he’s been somewhere ‘low’. The lower regions, which could either mean earth or Hades, and both ideas work (we’ve already mentioned Philippians 2: 5-10). Christ was born in the likeness of men, yet still became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
We could talk about where Jesus went when he died, but it would be a digression too far, at this point.
It is enough to say that he descended to the lower regions, and on his return brought captives in his victory procession—not those whom he has captured, but those released from captivity, and who have been captivated by his love. From there (v.10), he ascended to the highest place, as we have discussed.
The men [i.e. the humans] he gives gifts to are those he has released from bondage and death. They are both the booty he has seized from the enemy and the recipients of that treasure—and that is the ‘measure’ of his grace.
So, what is this treasure that he has seized? These gifts that he brings?
vv.11-13
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ,
These are ministry gifts, for the purpose of making known, as Paul himself is doing here, the mysteries of God, so that his people will be suitably equipped to serve him in a hostile world.
As we mentioned, they are not ‘offices’ or some kind of hierarchy within the church. It’s a bit like the court of a mediaeval king where Christ is the primus inter pares, the ‘first among equals’ among his nobles. Christ is the head, we are the other parts of his body.
The apostles. The word means ‘sent out’ and was used elsewhere of people like ambassadors. ‘Apostle’ is a Greek word (from stellō = I send); ‘emissary’, or perhaps ‘missionary’ are cognate Latin words (from missio = I send).
Jesus selected twelve men to be ‘apostles’, whom he trained and then ‘sent out’ into the world. Paul came along later, also selected and ‘commissioned’ by Jesus.
Others, selected and commissioned by the church were also recognised as apostles, and these included: Barnabas (Acts 14:4, Acts 14:14); James, the brother of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:7; Galatians 1:19); Silvanus (‘Silas’ 1 Thessalonians 2:6), and also Andronicus and Junia (who was a woman Romans 16:7).
One of the things we can say about apostles is that, with the exception of the Twelve, whose ministry was a bit different, they were ministers of the church and accountable to it—and this is the context of Paul’s teaching here. When Saul and Barnabas undertake their mission to Asia, sent by the church at Antioch (Acts 13: 1-3), they later report back to it (Acts 14: 27, 28). In other words, as apostles, they keep accountability to the leaders of their ‘sending’ congregation.
Where people are identified with this ministry gift today, it seems essential that this is in the context of the church congregation that first commissions them and then keeps them to account.
The prophets.
In Ephesians 2: 19, 20, we saw that
… the household of God, 20 [is] built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.
We said that ‘apostles and prophets’ there were the equivalent of Jesus speaking to his Jewish audience of the Law and the Prophets, for example in Matthew 7: 12.
Much of New Testament teaching is rooted in the Old Testament Prophets, and there were also prophetic gifts in the church (that is, New Testament prophets)—and Acts 13: 1 makes it seem as if these were quite prolific.
Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a member of the court of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
Evangelists are never given a job-description, but the word seems to be self-explanatory. These are people who take the good news, the evangel, and make it known.
Two people in the NT are specifically called ‘evangelists’: Philip ‘the evangelist’, who led the Ethiopian eunuch to Christ in Acts 8 and is seen preaching in Samaria, and than later in Azotus and Caesarea, where he apparently stayed.
Paul instructs Timothy, among other things, to preach the word and to do the work of an evangelist (2 Timothy 4: 2 and 5).
Timothy, after his early journeys with Paul, appears to have had a settled ministry in Ephesus, whereas Philip, at some point, at least, seems to have been itinerant.
Shepherds (or ‘pastors’) and teachers may refer to the same people (it appears so from the grammar of the passage).
These may have had the most important role in the congregation as the anchors, holding the people of Christ fast to its foundation through patient and unglamorous ministry as they faced the many challenges of their life as Christians in the Roman Empire.
Teaching in the time of Paul (and for a long time afterwards) could not rely on printed texts—or even hand-written ones, since these were rare and extremely costly. So, the word must have been taught mostly by word of mouth, apart from a few much-passed-about letters and gospel books.
Since most of the early Christian converts came from Greek and Roman paganism, they would have known literally nothing about the word of God, except that Jesus Christ had laid hold of their hearts. These teachers had to open out the gospel to them.
They were also shepherds or ‘pastors’—and it would be a good study to follow the imagery of shepherds, sheep and flocks through the Bible.
The picture of the ‘shepherd’ is indelibly written through scripture like Blackpool Rock. The shepherd cared for the sheep and led them into safe places; he was the one who went after the sheep who wandered away.
The shepherd of God’s people carries them on his heart, feeds them with good food, and defends them from all that would hurt their faith.
- I’ve gone some way towards making the case that the church should have a ‘flat’ structure without a ‘hierarchy’. Is this right?
While, at some level, every Christian believer should be a shepherd to his or her brothers and sisters, it is a particular responsibility of the elders within the congregation. Paul wrote to the Ephesian elders:
Acts 20: 28
Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.
v.12
As we mentioned previously, the purpose of these ministry gifts is to: equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ
As I mentioned before, these gifts exist in the context of the whole church, to make sure that it is fit for its purpose and function and to build it up—Paul appears to mix the two metaphors he used previously of the church as Christ’s body and as a holy temple.
The word he uses, and applies to Christ’s body, for build up is oikodomeō, which is specifically to do with building temples or sacred places.
v.13 is one of the most extraordinary verses in this letter:
until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ,
It has been said—a quotation attributed to lots of people:
Jesus did not come into the world to make bad men good. He came into the world to make dead men live!
This is the point. The purpose of the message of Christ is not to make us more effective or satisfied in our lives. Jesus did not come to improve us.
He came to transform us. To raise us to new life.
What Paul is pointing us to here is the image of God that we see in Genesis 1 before the Fall, where the man and the woman were in unmediated fellowship with God and—with him—in dominion over the created world.
This is our destination.
I have, says David in Psalm 16: 6 a beautiful inheritance!
The measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
- What does the ‘fulness of Christ’ look like for us?
But notice that this amazing fulness in Christ is predicated on unity. We will remain in spiritual infancy unless we understand and embrace the essential unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
This is uncompromised teaching; it does not hold back.
In the words of Freda Hanbury Allen:
Within the Veil, for only as thou gazest
Upon the matchless beauty of His face,
Canst thou become a living revelation
Of His great heart of love, His untold grace.
Our aim, the quest of our lives, can only be to seek Jesus out; to meditate on him and to gaze on him, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith and that we may grow up to maturity in him.
This gives us a sense of perspective as we Walk with Christ. A sense of the journey. It stabilises us.
vv.14-16
so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
And this is it—Paul summarises the teaching.
Wherever we are, in age or maturity, or disposition, we should approach the things of God with seriousness … otherwise we will allow ourselves to become side-tracked by novelty, a good worship band or some fad in teaching. We will remain children in some ongoing adolescent state, led by our hormones.
And Satan is quite happy for that to happen, for us to fall out over doctrinal or political arguments, or over church governance, or whatever.
Some of these things are very important, for sure, but they are never the main thing.
We speak the truth to each other in love, not in some passive-aggressive way (“a word in love, brother”), but to hold ourselves accountable, in honour preferring one another (Rom 12: 10). If I have a problem with gambling, and she has a problem with drinking, and you have trouble controlling your temper, then let this be the basis of our unity. We are sinners, saved by grace—this is his gift. The only qualification for being in Christ if having come to him broken.
We are his body. The body of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was broken because we are broken, and he gives us his life and fulness, whether we are Evangelicals or Charismatics, whatever our doctrinal or church stance. There is level ground at the foot of the cross.
Conclusion
What God is doing through Christ and in the church in chh1-3, in exalting him over the world and the Spiritual Powers, and devolving this authority through the church, is precisely this: that, in our ordinary lives, in our relationships, families and work; right where we are, we are being transformed into the fulness of Christ.Through the spiritual gifts that he has secured for us and imparted by his grace, we are growing up into him, into maturity—into Christ.
This is a demonstration, a testimony to the world that Jesus is Lord, and he has done, and is doing, extraordinary things.
We will not be shaken; we will not be moved or distracted, but we will be built up—edified—in love.
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