Ephesians 4:14 - No more infants...?

"...in order that no longer we may be infants, being sea-tossed and being carried about [by] every wind of the teaching in the trickery of the men, in craftiness toward the deceitful scheming."

-Infants.  Completely lovable, brimming full of potential, but far, far from complete.  Absolutely helpless, these, not helpful in the least.  They neither serve nor build up.  Not only do they require constant care and time and effort, but they have no ability whatsoever to stand on their own, totally subject to the whims and vagaries of those around them.  It is not a bad thing in the least to be an infant - the gift of life, the miracle of new birth, whether physical or spiritual (as in this case) is one of the most marvelous phenomena in the universe.  But something is seriously wrong if one were to remain an infant.  There is a time to be an infant, and then, no more...

-Maturity and infancy in fact are polar opposites.  Mature, full-knowledge of Jesus Christ stands steadfast, flying dead in the face of teachings and influences which might otherwise pull me away from any all-out full-on following of Jesus Christ and from faithful service and commitment to oneness in His Body.  The imagery here is of one who has no firm root (Luke 8.13), no sure foundation (Matthew 7.25-27), no anchor whatsoever (Hebrews 6.19).  The winds and the waves of false teaching and life are able to just push and blow them haphazardly in any direction.  Need an anchor, desperately...

-Know for sure that there are false teachers, treacherous tricksters, deliberately and deceitfully leading the faithful astray from white-hot devotion to Christ and to one another.  But there are other deceptive influences in play for the believer, hindering that healthy, steady pressing-on towards maturity.  The deceiver, that notorious enemy of our souls is on constant prowl, of course.  The whole world system is designed to get me off track - no talking head required.  Circumstances can conspire to throw me off as well.  And of course, when I am being deceived, I will most likely be rather oblivious to what is transpiring.  Then of course there are other teachers, influences - friends, family, other believers - often well-meaning, but who can be off-track in some way, having unknowingly embraced and prioritized things like materialism, retirement, expanding resumés and portfolios, open-concept living areas, safety (and the illusion thereof), philosophies of relativism and modernism and universalism.  We pay attention to these at our peril, and due in part to all these influences and many more, not to mention the flesh, the Church is chock full of these infants in Christ, the same ones to whom Paul was writing in 1Corinthians 3.1.  Fleshly.  Worldly.  Mere men, and spiritual infants.  No more...!

Ephesians 4:13 - We and Jesus vs the infinite abyss

"...until the all should arrive unto the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, unto a man complete, unto a measure of stature of the fullness of Christ..."

-Oneness.  Remember - oneness of the Spirit, one Body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God Who is in all.  Our serving and building continue unrelentingly towards this goal of oneness, cooperating precisely with and enhancing what the Spirit is already producing around the clock.  Our serving in the Body ultimately results (or should) in oneness.  One and the same Body, same faith, same Lord - oneness of knowing the same One True Son of God, coming to really and truly and more fully know Him together.

-So what does this look like?  Oneness does not mean uniformity.  Rather it is diversity expressing itself in unrelenting love.  Faithfulness.  Encouragement.  Sharing.  Sticking together and doing life together.  Oneness of faith is inextricably tied to knowing Christ better, as He is the Object of our faith.  The better we know Him, the stronger our faith.  And so we are journeying on together with the faithful, faithful to one another because we are all faithful to Him, and making it our highest goal to know Him (John 17.3, Philippians 3.8-10).  Yes, we are pressing on together to know Jesus.  We are not getting caught up in fine points of Greek grammar or eschatology or sidetracked by carpet colors or music styles.  We are not engaged in an intellectual study of facts about this only begotten of the Father - there are places for these things (or most of them anyways), but they are never to supplant the supreme priority of oneness and of knowing Christ.  The better part, this.  We are steadfastly striving together to know Him on a deep, personal level.  Just like Mary (Luke 10.39-42).  I.e. as we come together whenever we come together one of the things we do, we MUST do, is to point one another to Jesus.

-Paul describes this oneness in the body as a place of completeness and perfection, of fullness, the fullness of Jesus Christ manifested and made real in our world.  Because let’s be honest, everything else is emptiness, right?  That’s what the preacher said.  All of life is emptiness, vanity, and this fact is the vanity of vanities (Ecclesiastes 1.2), a fragile flower that blooms for a brief season and quickly fades.  It’s the Law of Futility (Romans 8.20) - nothing in this world ever satisfies, ever fills the bottomless hole in my soul (Ecclesiastes 4.8, 5.10).  It is the infinite abyss.  All is empty - apart from our Creator.  Life lived to the full, as it was meant to be, will only be found within the full and complete expression of the Body of Christ in communion with Him.  We’re not talking about me and Jesus.  Not ever.  It’s we and Jesus.  A communal shared experience of life so rich, so joyfully full and inexplicably intoxicating that it looks to those outside like so much drunkenness (cf Acts 2.12-13), and if you ever manage to get a really good draught you will be hooked forever.

Ephesians 4:12 - The magnificent mother of all construction projects

"...towards the equipping of the holy ones unto work of service, unto the building up of the body of Christ.'

-These gifts, these teachers and shepherds and evangelists and prophets and apostles, these were given by Christ to the Body of Christ in order to (better) equip each and every follower of Christ - TO SERVE.  Service - it is not a gift confined to only a few or a handful within the Body.  It is not something that only some are cut out to do.  It is THE NORM.  It is part of the job description for each and every Christian.  To be sure there is in fact a gift of serving (Romans 12.7), but the work of serving is for every saint, every person who names the Name of Christ, this One Who was among us as One Who served (Luke 22.27, Matthew 20.28).  ‘to serve’ simply means to do something for someone else, i.e. NOT yourself.  Unfortunately me-first happens to be the default position of the world - coming to Christ therefore means a complete reprogramming of our innate predisposition, all our natural tendencies to look out for numero uno.  When we place our faith in Christ, He brings these gift(ed one)s to bear on our lives and His Spirit comes into our hearts and gradually He begins to transform us into - wait for it - servers.  Spiritual waiters and waitresses - that is honestly the best picture of a saint - a person whose job it is to serve.  Of course, a server in a restaurant is focused on serving people, and there are myriad ways to serve within the Body of Christ, in a local assembly, some of which are more people-oriented and some which are less so.  Serving others is liable to be thankless work, possibly dirty, certainly incessant, as the needs of others are unabating, but the picture here is the church FULL of servers, people waiting hand and foot on ONE ANOTHER.  

-But thus we see that the sum total of all Christian teaching and evangelistic and church-planting efforts should result in the production of servants.  We are (or should be) ‘outfitting’ believers to become (more) suitable servants.  This is the word used for mending a fishing net, and to the extent our people aren’t learning to serve, there are indeed holes in our nets.  There is more to it than this of course, but this is the yardstick, it begins here.

-This service we render in turn is for building up the Body.  The word is used for the construction of a house, a barn, a tower, a tomb, a temple, but only Paul uses it to picture this magnificent mother of all construction projects, a metaphysical temple (Ephesians 2.21, 1Corinthians 3.9) uniquely designed and dedicated for the celebration and showing off of God’s breathtaking goodness, whose Cornerstone (and Master-Builder) is Jesus Christ (Acts 4.11) and whose building blocks happen to also be the worker-builders.  Each and every person who has trusted in Christ for eternal life has been (re)created to be a part of this building process, the Spirit of Christ actively working (or desiring to do so) in and through the life of every believer to make this temple, this Body of Christ, both bigger and stronger.  If I have trusted in Christ, God has entrusted to me some level of responsibility in the building process - via serving, some way, somehow.

-So, the question is, if I am a believer in Christ, am I serving? Am I helping to make this Body bigger and stronger in some way?  Am I serving?  If not, I need to get up off my donkey and get in the game...

Ephesians 4:11 - The Original Charismatics

"...and He Himself gave on the one hand the apostles, on the other hand the prophets, and the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers..."

-Back on track, Paul proceeds to unpack the ‘gifts’ - at least some of them - which Christ gave to men (Ephesians 4.8), this measure of charis (grace) which He gifted to each one of us who trust in Him and who are thus a part of His body (Ephesians 4.7).  Elsewhere these gifts are actually called charismata (grace-gifts) as opposed to domata (thus we are talking about the original 'charismatics').  The list of specific gifts Paul mentions here is different than the other notable lists of charisma we find in the NT (Romans 12.4-10, 1Corinthians 12.4-13, 1Peter 4.8-11) - we’ll consider this further in the next verse, where Paul indicates that the gifts he mentions here are training/equipping gifts.

Apostles - sent away ones.  God sent Jesus (verb form found in Matthew 10.40, Luke 4.41, John 3.17, John 17.3).  He sent John the Baptizer (Matthew 11.10, John 1.6).  He sends out spiritual harvesters (Matthew 9.38).  Jesus specifically chose and sent out the twelve (Matthew 10.5, Matthew 10.16, Luke 6.13) - those who had been with Him and who became actual witnesses of the resurrected Lord.  He also sent out seventy others (Luke 10.1-3), but in the early days of the church in Jerusalem, the twelve were a distinct group (Acts 1.2, 1.25-26), gifted in various ways (teaching - Acts 6.2, miracles - Acts 2.43, 4.33, 5.12).  Then we see in Acts 14 on their first missionary journey that Paul and Barnabas are called apostles (Acts 14 4, 14.14).  They were not at that point belonging to the twelve, but we do see God using them to teach and perform miracles (Acts 14.3), just like the twelve.  After this we also see the twelve functioning in Jerusalem alongside elders (Acts 15.2), but then at some point when Paul reports to Jerusalem he meets not with the twelve but with ‘James (brother of Jesus and not one of the twelve) and the [rest of the] elders’ (Acts 21.17-18).  Where are the twelve?  The lines blur still further in Paul as he calls others ‘apostles’ who were not at all of the twelve (Romans 16.17, 1Thessalonians 2.6).  The twelve appear to fade into the background.  We do see them accorded some further distinction in later epistles by Peter and Jude, where the words of the twelv (or at least some of their writings) are elevated now to the level of Scripture, right on par with the holy prophets (2Peter 3.2, Jude 17)(not to be confused with the prophets who operated in the NT - see next word).  One is left to wonder somewhat to what extent this was an exclusive gift given only for a season to a few (specifically to the twelve, plus aul - cf Gal 2.8, 2Cor 12.12, Rom 1.5), or perhaps broader than that.  Some maintain that this gift (if not the office) still operates today, albeit ostensibly in a somewhat-watered-down form, God’s Spirit gifting some to operate sans-miracles (at least in the west) in the realm of entrepeneurial start-up pioneering (launching things/ministries, planting churches, etc), but in light of the context it makes sense to conclude that Paul here most likely has in mind the twelve (plus-one-or-a-few) who were specifically used to plant the church in various places during its 1st century infancy.

Prophets - declaring forth ones.  Traditionally, prophets spoke for God, declaring His word to the people.  They spoke of misdeeds and of things to come (destruction, Messiah) - ‘thus sayeth the Lord’.  At certain times there was only one prophet for the entire nation (think Moses, Eli, Samuel, Nathan), and at other times you would not find even one.  There was a season leading up to the exile where a small handful were operating, warning God’s people of coming judgment for their unfaithfulness.  And in that season, one prophet did prophesy of a day when God’s Spirit would indeed be poured out on all mankind, and that sons and daughters would speak for God (Joel 2.28 and referenced by Peter in his pentecost sermon - Acts 2.16-18).  Did prophets function in the NT?  Clearly (Acts 11.27, 13.1, 15.32, 19.6, 21.9-10; Romans 12.6; 1Corinthians 11.4-5, 12.10, 12.28-29, 14.1-6, 14.24-25, 14.29, 14.31, 14.39; 1Thessalonians 5.20; 1Timothy 1.18, 4.14).  What we do observe is functioning more on a congregational than a national level, not speaking words of canonicity (that would be included in the canon of Scripture) but rather communicating more specifically to a local assembly and to individuals therein.  Ranked second by Paul in order of significance, this, yet since the #1 gift, apostle, was restricted to the twelve (plus one-or-a-few), Paul holds up prophecy as the gift to be most valued/desired by believers.  Do prophets still function today?  Are there speaking-forth ones in local assemblies?  Sadly they appear to have passed out of existence in the modern west, at least in ‘mainline evangelical congregations’, the world to which this writer has been confined, but I wonder if one might still find prophets operating in charismatic congregations and in other assemblies in the two-thirds world where ‘less-educated’ believers simply believe God’s Word and put it into practice?  Paul says we should eagerly desire to prophesy, that a prophet speaks for exhortation and consolation and to build up believers, and that we should let two or three prophets take turns speaking (to the assembly) and the assembly should pass judgment on what they have said.  But ‘MEC’s pretty much do none of this.  There are some who describe a modern-day 'prophecy-lite', where God’s Spirit gifts some people to be wired to call out things that aren’t right.  No doubt there are people who do indeed seem to have a predilection for doing this.  However, on whether or not this is a spiritual gift or more of a natural bent God’s Word is silent...

Evangelists - good news ones.  Another uncommon occupation in the history of God’s people, this word is actually used only three times in the entire NT.  Philip is the lone person who warrants this title (not the one of the twelve in Acts 1.13 but rather the one of the seven in Acts 6.5) - the better part of the 8th chapter of acts records the early exploits of this man who was supernaturally gifted by God to proclaim the Good News about Jesus.  It is notable that so compelled was he that he is the first disciple we see crossing cultural boundaries with the Gospel - outside the comfy confines of traditional jewish-dom to both Samaritans (Acts 8.5) and to Africans (Acts 8.27ff).  The work of declaring the Good News about Jesus is entrusted to all who follow Him (cf 2Timothy 4.5, Matthew 4.19, Matthew 28.19), but according to this there are ones who, having received a gift - a supernatural enabling - in this regard, will be more eager and more fruitful in helping others begin to follow Jesus.  No doubt at least some of the apostles had this gift as well?  Paul, certainly...

Shepherds and teachers - protecting/caring and impartingknowledge ones.  The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, no? (John 10.11).  Sheep need to be watched and protected (Zechariah 11.16) and they need to be fed (cf Jeremiah 3.15).  The good shepherd cares about every sheep, tender & gentle (Isaiah 40.11), leaving the flock to go find even one that is lost (Matthew 18.12)(in fact, it is safe to say that NOT losing any sheep is pretty high up on a shepherd’s priority list - cf John 18.9).  Being a shepherd is deemed a lowly (even loathsome - Genesis 46.34) occupation, but God Himself is not ashamed to be our Shepherd (Psalm 23.1).  Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd (John 10.14).  King David cut his teeth as a shepherd (cf 1Samuel 16.11, Ezekiel 34.23).  The challenge of course is that tending sheep can be hard work, done best by those who are ‘cut out’ for it.  Watching over and feeding souls should really be left to the one who is supernaturally gifted by the great Shepherd of the sheep Himself for such a task.  That doesn’t mean others cannot try their hand at it, but invariably they will be less effective, less eager, and less able to keep at that work.  Teaching - feeding the sheep, imparting knowledge about God and His Word - could be construed as loathsome as well, or at least as somewhat undesirable (James 3.1).  In spite of being somewhat warned away by James, the fact is that each Christ-follower is indwelt by a built-in Teacher, and can be expected to grow in knowledge about the Lord to the point where they can teach and impart this knowledge to others (cf John 14.26, John 16.13, 1John 2.27, Hebrews 8.11, Colossians 3.16, Hebrews 5.12).  Teaching clearly appears to be much more accessible and more widespread gift than the other gifts - Jesus was a teacher, as were the apostles (Acts 1.1, 2.42).  There would have been teachers in every assembly (1Corinthians 14.26, 1Timothy 5.17).  Nevertheless, it is ranked third in the 1Corinthians list (1Corinthians 12.28)(even before miracles and healing!), and Paul raises a standard of teaching that should be not only healthy (1Timothy 1.10) but beautful (1Timothy 4.6 - kalos).  to be sure, every bonafide Christ-follower is able to (and should) impart knowledge to other believers as it pertains to following Christ (and about life in general), but there are some who are specifically gifted to function more fruitfully in this capacity on a more regular ongoing basis.

-But so, we have these gifts in the Body.  So what?  To what end?  Next verse...

Ephesians 4:10 - The Ultimate Descent

"The One having descended, He is also the One having ascended far above all the heavens, in order that He should fill up the all."

-Paul’s tangent away from the point he had been making about gifts that contribute to the oneness and growth of the body of Christ raises a question about to where and from where exactly did Christ descend?  Clearly the same person is doing both the descending and the ascending, as well as the filling, so it is unlikely that Paul is thinking about the Holy Spirit descending at this point (altho technically Christ filling all is tied to the concurrent ‘descent’ of the Holy Spirit).  Very likely he is repeating the same thoughts he shared earlier in Ephesians 1.20-23.  We see the exact same phrase - Christ ascended ‘far above all’, pretty much far above everything, in location and most definitely in station.  And His ability to fill all things is clearly tied to this ascending above all things.  Christ Himself said He needed to return to the Father in order that He could send the Helper, the Holy Spirit Who would not only dwell within and fill each and every believer but also bring conviction of sin and righteousness and of judgment to the entire world (John 14.16-17, 14.26, 16.7-11).

-For this writer, the passage does not actually require one to determine where Christ descended, whether to earth or to the grave or even further to the place of the dead.  But taken as a whole, when we have Christ filling all and ascending far above all, it makes sense to regard the place to which He descended in the extreme sense, as low as He could possibly go.  He ascended as high as high can be, having descended as low as low can go, to sheol, the place of the dead awaiting judgment, where He preached to them the Good News and set them free.  He led forth a host of former captives, having freed them from the power of death even as He conquered it Himself, and led them up to heaven.  Again we read about this in 1Peter 3.19-20 and 4.6.  We don’t have precise details as to the timing, like did Christ do all this in spirit while His body lay in the tomb?  For how long would He have been in sheol?  When exactly did He lead out the host of captives?  Clearly there are questions left unanswered - it would be simpler to simply maintain that the descent was merely from heaven to earth, as many modern commentators are wont to do.  But in spite of raising questions, it makes sense to consider an extreme descending as part of a broader subjection and filling of all things by our exalted Head and Lord Jesus Christ.  Yes, He is exalted on high, far above all, and our response, all particulars aside, is not to wrangle about unanswered and unnecessary details but rather to descend ourselves, the ultimate descent, to our knees, in humble submission and adoration.

Ephesians 4:9 - Descending into confusion...?

"But the “He ascended”, what is this, if not that also He descended unto the lower parts of the earth?"

-What we have here is a bonafide Pauline tangent.  He’s talking about gifts and how they relate to the overall oneness of the body, and yet Paul feels compelled to unpack a nuance of the verse from Psalms which he just quoted.

-Unfortunately, there are multiple ways to understand what Paul is attempting to clarify at this point, several more-or-less satisfactory interpretations (clarity thus becoming somewhat elusive).  The primary question concerns what precisely Paul is thinking about in saying ‘He descended’.  One version has him talking about how Christ after He died descended into Sheol (i.e. the lower parts of the earth).  This explains the leading forth of captives mentioned in Psalm 68.18, Old Testament saints who would have looked forward to a future coming of God’s Messiah providing the perfect atonement for their sins (and also is consistent with ideas found in Acts 2.31; 1Peter 3.19-20, 4.6) - in this case the descent would have taken place prior to the ascension.  Another way of understanding the descent is to suggest that Paul here is referring to the incarnation, when Christ descended from His place in the heavenlies and lowered Himself both spatially and personally by taking on flesh in the form of a suffering servant.  Another interpretation has the descent as simply Christ being buried, going from the cross to the grave.  For both of these one could still account for a leading forth of captives taking place subsequently at the time of the ascension.  Still another version suggests that Paul is referring to Christ’s Spirit descending to fill all believers at Pentecost.  Apparently Psalm 68 was associated with Pentecost in traditional Jewish liturgy.  This fourth explanation can mesh well with verse 10, but is somewhat less satisfying for this writer, because it certainly seems as though Paul has the same Person doing both the ascending and descending.  

-Whether one opts for a descent to earth or to the tomb or to the place of the dead depends on what one thinks is meant by the phrase, ‘the lowers [i.e. lower parts] of the earth’.  In fact this is the only place the Greek word ‘katotera’ appears in the entire NT, but it is used in the OT to translate the Hebrew word for ‘depths’ (Psalm 63.9, Psalm 86.13, Psalm 88.6, Psalm 139.15).  It can certainly refer the place of the dead, but can also mean a hidden place or a place of despair.  The next verse may provide some greater clarity, but the point here is that there is no ascension (anabas) without a prior descension (katabas).

Ephesians 4:8 - Gifts and the harvest...

"Therefore He is saying, 'having ascended unto height, He led captive captivity, He gave gifts to men.'"

-The ‘it’ (which most translations have as the pronoun), which Paul says is saying something, is God’s Word, Psalm 68.18 to be exact.  Yes, Paul here quotes one of the Psalms.  But thus God is the One Who actually is speaking, not some impersonal ‘it’ (and from the original Greek you could translate either ‘it’ or ‘He’).  Fascinating indeed to find an Old Testament passage which speaks to the fact of Christ ascending back to heaven, taking (former) captives with Him and distributing gifts to those who remain behind.

-The primary point, however, at least for Paul in this context, is that the Scripture substantiates the point he is making that Christ has indeed given gifts to His people.  These He gave at some point after He "ascended on high".  The Ascension we know came 40 days after the Resurrection and some 9 days before the Feast of Pentecost.  Pentecost was that great Jewish feast celebrating the end of the early grain harvest, also known as the Feast of Weeks, coming exactly 7 weeks after the Feast of First Fruits, which incidentally coincided with the resurrection of Christ (note in Leviticus 23.12-13 how the Feast of First Fruits involved the sacrifice of a male lamb and the offering of bread and wine - the very symbols which Jesus used to recall His sacrifice).  But then, as we learn elsewhere, the gift of the Spirit and His diverse manifestations were first bestowed on that climactic, consummational day of Pentecost right after Jesus did ascend back to heaven, that day when God finally and permanently poured out His Spirit on His people, brought in a harvest of some 3000 people into His family in just a single gathering and inaugurated the assembling of a body of Spirit-drawn-and-gifted Christ-followers which continues unabated to this day.  But the salient point being, each of us has a charisma, a gracious grace-gift.  And clearly this gift is tied to the harvest.  The question is, what is the gift and to what end exactly was it given?  Read on...

Ephesians 4:7 - An overflowing heaping helping of undeserved divine favor

"But to each one of us was given the grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ."

-So for all who truly trust in Christ, we were all called into one body, one Spirit - all the oneness Paul has just described and which we are to guard vigilantly with all humilty and forebearance, etc.  But no homogeneous cookie-cutter outfit, this.  We are not talking about a mass of monkey-see monkey-do sycophants who are supposed to all look and talk and live and be indistinguishably identical.  No, there is dazzling beauty and creativity and individuality to be expressed in and through our oneness.  

-On each one of us individually God has lavished grace, freely gifted, copious amounts of it, an overflowing heaping helping of undeserved divine favor.  And to be sure, part of the grace we have each received is what covers our enormous individual need for forgiveness.  Total indebtedness, in fact - "for whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all" (James 2.10).  United we are in the fact of our sinfulness and separation from the God Who made us, but the road back, that road less travelled, the journey on which we each embark towards heaven via Calvary is one-of-a-kind.  We each bring a different set of baggage, warts, and missteps to the table.  Every one of those who have come to Christ has a wonderfully different story to tell about how God reached down and stepped in to meet our deepest need and rescue us from ourselves.  But wait - there’s more!  As we will find, equally as individually, God has gifted each and every believer with a grace-gift, a charisma if you will (the Greek word for grace - which Paul uses here - is charis).

-Yes, we were called, and grace was given.  God did it, to be sure.  And specifically here Paul calls it the gift of Christ.  It could be that Christ IS the gift, which of course He is (cf John 3.16), but as we will see, in this case it is God the Son Who is actually giving gifts to God’s people, and that in different measure, in differing amounts (Romans 12.6).  Yes, in one respect some of these gifts will prove to be more fruitful than others (Matthew 13.23), and yet in all things we will one day see that in and through it all the Spirit of Christ was energizing each gift and bringing the increase in whatever way He so desired (1Corinthians 12.11), all to show off and increase the celebration of how breathtakingly good God really is.

Ephesians 4:6 - THE Be-All-End-All and God's Plan A

"...one God and Father of all, the {One} over all and through all and in all."

-Far greater still is the One God and Father of all.  He is over all - both sovereign and omnipotent.  He is through all - omnipresent, everywhere present in all His unlimited power and authority.  And He is in all - immanent, specifically dwelling in and (potentially) filling each and every born-again believer with all His power and love and patience and humility and forbearance.  He is all, He is THE Be-All-End-All.  And in the end, and from the very beginning, it is always all about Him.

-Yes, He is over all.  Every believer, every church, every organization, every single person place and thing on planet earth.  He is in charge, never out of control or caught off guard in the least.  He raises up empires and kings and puts them down again.  He raises up mountains and levels them.  He flung the stars throughout the universe, ignited and fuels the spark of nuclear energy inside each and every atom.  He breathes and sustains the breath of life inside each and every person who has or ever will live.  And He founded and animates the church, drawing people from every nation tribe and tongue to come together to celebrate and spread the knowledge of His breathtaking goodness to every corner of our planet.  We are one church, one body, one holy family, one indivisible people united under God, not some localized social club or temporal political entity but rather a living organism created and joined together forever by the one-and-the-same Creator.  He is our federal Head, and we all follow where He goes, in the same direction.  The unity and bonding which should exist as a result often gets lost when I forget that my fellow believers are not the enemy.  Mine is not to pass judgment on them or to regard them with contempt, to look down on them and criticize or to hold onto grudges and wounds and to foster a festering bitterness.  Instead I hold onto my brother or sister as if somebody’s life depends on it (which, in fact, is true).  I am not in any way better than them, they are not the problem, and dividing from them is not the solution.  Most likely the log in my own eye is a much bigger problem.  But we all have the same Boss, the same Father, the same Master - we each report to Him.  In this arena the priority and primacy of the vertical relationship both trumps and strengthens my horizontal relationships.  God comes first - I put Him before everyone else, even my own family, but even as I put Him first I then strengthen my connection and obligation to all others who likewise put Him first.

-And before I decide to not continue holding towards a fellow believer in grace and long-suffering and charity, I must consider whether or not our Father, the Lord Who is over all and through all and in all is not actually in this and intending for this situation, this person, to work some greater good in my life.  Make every effort to keep guarding the oneness, Paul says.  I may think I need to get out, to get away, but that is never God’s Plan A, not for His people.  I may think there are greener pastures next door, across town, in another city, with a different spouse, a different pastor, a different group.  Better by far to hang in there and let God teach me something, show me (and others) something about His heart to hang in there.

-But that person who annoys the snot out of me?  The one who has made what I think is such a terrible decision, who has wounded me - not only are they following the same Master, they are indwelt by the Same.  The very same God Who lives IN ME, LIVES IN THEM.  He IS in all, constantly everywhere present and at work with all His grace and fulness and mercy and love and leniency and gentleness and faithfulness and forgiveness.  We each and all constantly get this from Him (or should) and the expectation is that since He is in all of us, we can and should and will channel all this grace and mercy and love and faithfulness to those He has sovereignly put in our lives.  We are one, constantly and enduringly, because He is One, and He is in us.  And in the end it is all about Him, and when we make it all about Him, we stay together.  We are faithful and we stay together, because that’s how He rolls.  We don’t leave, cuz He don’t leave.  At least, that's the plan.  Where we get off the rails is when we make it more about the people and the things around us.  Lord help us...

Ephesians 4:5 - A triple-decker oneness sandwich?

"...one Lord, one faith, one baptism..."

-Variation on a theme this, and yet so much more.  One Lord - Jesus.  One faith - in Jesus.  One baptism - in to His Body.  Each and every person who is in Christ has trusted in the exact same Lord with the exact same faith and received the exact same baptism in the same Name into the exact same body, the one body which is the body of Christ, Who is the one Lord in Whom we all have placed our fiath for the forgiveness of sin.  Paul here takes the oneness to an even greater level, that which unites us being far more elemental and pervasive than what he had just mentioned.  Three layers of oneness, in fact - a triple-decker oneness sandwich!

-The very core of our faith rests on only One, the Lord Jesus Christ, our risen Lord.  This One Who is the One-and-Only Way and Truth and Life distinguishes Christians from the world and from all the followers of every other religious system - He is the One Who thus makes us one.  He is the Head of the body and the sole object of our faith, drawing us together across all lines and potential barriers of ethnicity and language and personality and class and socio-economic status.  Even today, with this global body fragmented and splintered perhaps beyond repair, the Lord Jesus stands above as the One in Whom all Christians trust.  He paid the price, the penalty for our sin, He shed His blood on the cross - there is no one else.  This is the fountainhead of our faith, and if Jesus is your Lord and mine, if we both name Him as Lord, then we are one because of that.  Or should be...

-Because there is just one faith.  This is not the faith as in the body of doctrine which has become as variegated and mottled as the confusing mess on the back of a tapestry.  No, there’s just one faith by which we can be saved.  No need to believe the particulars of Calvin or Wesley or Luther in order to be saved, nor the emphases of Rome or England or Constantinople - we simply put our trust in Jesus.  Any and every man woman and child who simply believes in Jesus as their Savior, that He died for them, to pay the penalty for their sins - that’s all they need to do to make it to heaven.  Think about it.  The thief on the cross, possibly had never met Jesus or heard any of His teaching, but he hung there, watching Him die, and he put his faith in Jesus.  ‘Jesus, remember me,’ he said.  ‘Today you will be with Me in paradise,’ Jesus said.  That’s all we know, that's all he believed.  But it’s enough.  Jesus + nothing = enough.  Right then and there he gained entrance into heaven.  He knew nothing of sacraments or icons, of creeds or councils, of reformed theology or papal infallibility or second baptisms.  Just Jesus.  Just faith in Him.  And if you and I have faith in Jesus, just like that thief, then we’re in, we're family, right along with that thief, and that’s all that matters.  Or should be...

-And speaking of baptism, one might ask which baptism the thief received.  If there’s just one baptism, is Paul talking about water baptism after putting your faith in Jesus?  The thief didn’t receive this.  Or is it Spirit baptism, which arguably didn’t happen until the resurrection (Acts 1.5)?  The thief apparently didn’t get this either.  If anything the thief was baptized into the body of Christ right then and there by Christ Himself, this One Who came to baptize not with water but with the Holy Spirit (Luke 3.16, John 1.33, 1Corinthians 12.13).  He was not clothed with power per se, but he was indeed clothed with a washed-whiter-than-snow robe of righteousness, embroidered as it were with the family crest of heaven.  And if one is inclined to take issue with the notion of the Spirit being given at all prior to Pentecost, we could fast forward a few weeks and apply the one-baptism motif to every single Christ-follower from that time forward until the time when Paul wrote this letter and then for every day since.  One baptism.  And if one is still further inclined to suggest (as some do) that Paul here is definitely referring to water baptism, I would point out that the sacrament of baptism, while expected to be common to every believer (Acts 2.38, Matthew 28.19), is a function performed by man.  This section however focuses first on the Spirit then Jesus and finally on God the Father, and on the work that these Three-In-One are doing in calling together and uniting people from every tribe and tongue into this one body.  It makes more sense to this reader to understand this one baptism in the context of all the Godhead is doing towards producing one single united body of Christ-worshippers.  That which makes us one is far greater than anything that might put us asunder...

Ephesians 4:4 - On family and Methobapterianism...

"...one body and one Spirit, just as also you [all] were called in one hope of your calling..."

-One body. One body. There is only one body of Christ. And there is only one Holy Spirit.  This One Spirit draws and convicts and regenerates people into just one body. We are so bewitched and befuddled because of the preexistence of denominations and all the multitudinous flavors of Christianity in our society. If we could somehow hit the rewind button, go back to the beginning, or possibly just go to plant the Good News in some unreached region of the globe, like Paul did, get to a place or time where there would be no divisions whatsoever in the body, we would most likely find that we would not give one rat's petootie about what flavor of methobapterianism to which the locals would subscribe. we would simply point people to Jesus, first and foremost. Get em saved, trusting and following Jesus.  Think about it - say an alien showed up, and read what Paul here is saying about one body and one Spirit, would he expect to find what we see today?  Entire congregations of professing Christ-followers who meet regularly right next to each other yet who don’t ever talk to one another or even know one another?  They probably have nothing to do with one another and most likely don’t even like each other.  Where is the love?  Where is the oneness?  This is nothing that has been made by the One Spirit of Christ.  If one hadn’t grown up in the midst of this unbiblical dysfunction, he would never ever envision that the biblical model of the body of Christ would wind up looking like this.  But we were born into it and don’t know anything different - completely acclimated, we are.  And so we just accept it, not even giving it a second thought.  But no, family is forever.  One body, begat by one Spirit.

-And more than this, we all have the one and the same exact hope.  Every single one of us who name the Name of Jesus have been called by this same Jesus to believe in and follow the same Jesus and one day we will all worship and celebrate forever - together - the exact same Jesus.  Our hope of eternal life is a shared, common hope.  We’re all traveling in the same direction, on the same path, carried by the same Savior, all covered and cleansed by the same precious Blood.  That which unites us is far greater than whatever might conspire to separate us - and yet to this we have succumbed in spades.

-But let’s say we were to allow that this problem will not easily if ever be solved this side of heaven, broken people and leaders and organizations being what they are.  What if we simply start with the one local body to which we do (or should) presently belong.  Let’s begin there.  It is one body, and there is one Spirit, and everyone there has been called with the exact same hope.  We then proceed with lowmindedness and gentleness and long-suffering and a steadfast holding-towards one another.  We are family.  We are one.  Divorce is not an option (certainly not a biblical one - Malachi 2.16, Matthew 5.31, Matthew 19.8, 1Corinthians 7.11-12) - we make every effort to work it out.  Yes, the world leaves - that’s what they do.  But that’s not what God does, nor is it what His people do.  At least we are not meant to.  Sadly, for far too many of us, working it out is barely a blip on our radar.  God have mercy on us and help us to rise above our worldly instinct to leave, to let go of the things which aren’t really necessary, and like Mary to find and choose the good part, which will never be taken away from us (Luke 10.42).

Ephesians 4:3 - The Great Unifier

"...making every effort to be keeping the oneness of the Spirit in the joint bonds of peace."

-One.  One-ness.  Eight times in these next 4 verses, Paul will use this word, this number which is the great unifier.  Even our English word ‘unity’ comes to us from the latin ‘unus’ - one.  There is no more, nothing else, that’s all there is, no other possibilities, no other versions.  Only one.  Oneness then is the state of being one, one entity, one group, one whole over and above whatever individualities might exist.  There is togetherness, sameness, singleness, integration, amalgamation - many diverse parts merged and fused into one unified whole.  This is the Body of Christ, a work (ongoing) of His Spirit, and one is the only-est number that we should ever do, as we will see.  But this oneness is naturally produced by the Holy Spirit between true Christ-followers.  From the moment we believe it is the Spirit who fills each believer with an awareness of being a genuine child of our heavenly Father, causing our hearts to cry out, ‘Abba Daddy’ and giving us an internal sense of being related to one another as fellow members of a heavenly family, siblings - brothers and sisters forever.  Then as we spend time together, loving and serving and sharing with one another and serving others together, the Holy Spirit naturally causes that oneness to grow even deeper and stronger.  This oneness is irresistably attractive to unbelievers (if and when they ever get a glimpse beyond a Sunday go-to-meeting)- by design, so much so that God’s people are repeatedly admonished to expend every last resource and ounce of energy and do whatever it takes to constantly guard and maintain this oneness, to protect it - from the forces of brokenness which naturally encroach on all earthly relationships, as well as against the schemes of a scheming enemy hell-bent on doing whatever he can to break down this oneness and break up the Body.  Vigilance.  We are vigilantes (or should be), hot and zealous and ever on the lookout for ways to preserve this divine oneness (and to be proactive in restoring it whenever necessary).  

-This is precisely where the humility and gentleness and long-suffering and holding-towardness come into play.  We go low and let go - of our rights and our wants and our preferences and petty differences, and we hold on.  We hang on to love - love in spite of - and to one another.  These are the bonds of peace.  Peace is the essence of the Good News, is it not?  Peace on earth - AMONG MEN (Luke 2.14).  indeed, blessed are the peacemakers, the true sons of God (Matthew 5.9).  Ours is not the absence of conflict, but rather the ongoing (and vigilant) resolution thereof.  And it is more - no doubt Paul has in mind the Hebrew concept of shalom, a completeness and wholeness, an overall wellness and prosperity which derives from a state of harmony and unity.  In pursuit of this lofty call we suffer long and bear with one another’s weaknesses and warts and faults and missteps with grace and mercy and love - exactly the way God deals with us.  We forgive.  We bear with and let go of all the bad.  And we hold on to each other for dear life.  That’s what the ligaments in our bodies do - the forces exerted on the bones by our muscles would forcibly rip them apart were it not for those ligaments.  Precisely the word Paul uses here, and precisely what the Spirit has in mind for us, constantly cooperating with Him to do whatever it takes to spread shalom in the body and to guard our oneness at all costs.

-Unfortunately, this is no longer the way the Body of Christ functions in many places.  We have been allowing division and differences to creep in and separate us for centuries.  Partisan denominationalism, petty preferences, power struggles, competition - all compounded by gross worldliness and abuses and unrepentance, fueled by arrogance and unforgiveness - all these have reduced the Body of Christ to a fructured bloody mess in many places, particularly where the phenomenon of Christendom has held sway.  The worldly power and affluence accorded the Church in these places has invariably corrupted its leaders and spoiled its members, infecting the Body with rampant schismatiism and rendering us largely impotent and increasingly irrelevant.  We are but a shadow of the glorious bride we are meant to be.  God help us.