LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS
Spiritual Gifts
Ephesians 4:7-16
INTRODUCTION
Before launching into the more practical section of this letter, Paul first deals with the topic of spiritual gifts. Normally whenever we discuss Paul's views on spiritual gifts, we turn to 1 Cor. 12-14, especially chapter 12. No doubt 1 Cor. 12-14 has something significant to say about spiritual gifts and their purpose. Ephesians, though, which was written towards the end of Paul's ministry, takes the same topic to new heights here in Ephesians. 1 Cor. 12 is important for any discussion of spiritual gifts; however, this passage is undoubtedly the loftiest understanding of spiritual gifts found in the entire Bible.
THE GIFT AND THE RECIPIENTS (Eph. 4:7)
| But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. |
As Paul claimed in 1 Corinthians, each Christian receives a spiritual gift from God. The truth is that one of the ways you can determine whether or not you are truly a Christian is by checking to see whether or not you have a spiritual gift. If you have a spiritual gift, then the Holy Spirit lives in you. If the Holy Spirit lives in you, then you are a Christian because the Holy Spirit lives only in Christians.
The Holy Spirit Himself at the time of our salvation enters our hearts and makes us a part of Christ: His hand, His eye, His ear, His foot. Now all parts of a body are important. Just as what seems to be unimportant or unseemly in the human body actually can be very important, so the seemingly unimportant member of the body of Christ/the church is very important. (Ask any pastor how important the maintenance man is on a cold winter Sunday or on a hot Sunday in August. When the temperature in the Sunday School class rooms are not at the right temperature, the pastor's sermon is not going to be much help!
Paul, though, goes much higher in his description of spiritual gifts in Eph. 4:7. The spiritual gift is not simply some ministry or function or power that Jesus gives us. The spiritual gift is actually Jesus Himself. When He gives a person the gift of teaching, that gift is nothing less than Jesus Christ Himself within that person doing the actual teaching. When Jesus gives a person the gift of healing, that gift is nothing less than Jesus Christ Himself within that person doing the actual healing. Jesus and not some one thing is the gift. This is another instance of Ephesians claiming that whatever else Christianity is about, it is always foremost about Jesus.
THE SITUATION (Eph. 4:8-10)
| Therefore it says, "WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES, AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO MEN." (Now this expression, "He ascended," what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.) |
So why would Christ give Himself to us as a gift? Because of what has just taken place. Even in today's society we give gifts at certain times: birthday parties, graduation, weddings. In the ancient world, one event especially meant the giving of gifts: the triumphal procession of a warring conqueror. (If you saw the movie Gladiator, you will remember the scene in which the pretender Commodus enters into Rome as a conquering Caesar by means of a triumphal procession.)
In the triumphal procession would march the soldiers who fought for the commanding general, the slaves the army conquered, and the conquering general/military leader himself. As the procession wound its way through the streets of Rome, the conquering general would have servants throw coins and precious trinkets to the crowds lining the processional. This is the scene Paul is depicting here.
In Paul's description of the heavenly processional, the following characters are in the scene:
All this is to say that Jesus achieved a great victory on the cross: "Disarming the rulers and authorities, He publicly exposed them to disgrace as He triumphed over them by means of the cross" (Col. 2:15). Satan and the Jewish religious thought that if they humiliated Jesus by hanging Him on the cross—an act which would show God actually cursed Him, then they would have defeated Him. Little did they realize that God in fact did want to curse His Son so that He might place our curse upon Christ and Christ's blessing upon us. Little did they realize that in order for Jesus truly to be the Messiah and achieve this victory, he had to rise from the dead. In other words, he had to die in order to be the Messiah. He had to be humiliated.
How does Jesus' humiliation affect His exaltation? To the extent that Jesus was humiliated, to that extent He was exalted. As a result, because Jesus was humiliated to the greatest extent—"to the lower parts of the earth," to that extent He was exalted—"far above all the heavens." His triumphal procession begins at the lowest, most humiliating point on earth--the cross--and ends at the highest point in all creation--to the right hand of the Father. Because of that triumphal procession, WE who believe in Jesus receive gifts from Him, the gift being Jesus Himself.
THE GIFTS OF JESUS (Eph. 4:11-13)
| And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. |
Gifts Emphasizing the Word (4:11)
In verse 7 we saw that the gift which Jesus gives us is actually He Himself. Although Jesus lives in each Christian, He does not function the same way in each Christian. In some Christians He preaches; in others He teaches; in others He emphasizes caring for the sick and the poor; in yet other Christians He administers the ministries and finances of the church. The same Jesus but Jesus functioning differently in each Christian.
The gifts Paul zeroes in on here in v. 11 are the gifts which focus on the Word of God: "And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers." All of these gifts focus on the Word: the apostles and prophets who actually wrote the Word; the evangelists who preach God's word of salvation to the lost; and the pastors and teachers (literally "the teaching pastors") who weekly share God's Word from the pulpit. Not only here but also in 1 Cor., Paul lists these gifts as the most important gifts in the church because of their attention to God's Word: "And God has appointed in the church, FIRST apostles, SECOND prophets, THIRD teachers, AND THEN [in no particular order] miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues" (12:28).
In both the 1 Cor. 12 and Eph. 4 list, the gifts which focus on the Word are primary. The Word is paramount, not healings, tongues, administrations; all these are necessary but the Word gifts are foundational. If the foundation is bad, no matter how expensive the rest of the house is, it is going to collapse. To make this point even plainer, Paul states that the ministers who focus on God's Word should actually receive double the pay the other ministers make (1 Tim. 5:17—the word "honor" here has our idea of "honorarium," that is, money).
Gifts Develop ALL Christians (4:12)
The reason God gives these gifts to the church is that the church may grow and develop, not necessarily numerically, but definitely spiritually: "for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ" (4:12). The role of the ministers (especially those who focus on the Word) is to equip the saints for the ministry God has in store for them.
Notice two teachings in verse 12:
The same joke about a football game can be made about the church too: a football game is played by 22 players who are in desperate need of rest being watched by thousands of spectators who are in desperate need of exercise.
Two often we hear people complain that God is not real in their lives. They go to church all the time, but He just doesn't seem to be vibrant in their lives. Well, you need to ask them, "Are you ministering?" Christ came to live in you to minister through you. If you are not ministering, then He is not living through you.
I know that when I teach (the spiritual gift God has entrusted to me), I sense His presence in a way I don't experience when I am not teaching. I have really tried to immerse myself in God's Word for the past 38 years. Scripture memory has been huge for me. Memorizing Scripture and Bible study don't quite do it for me; HOWEVER, whenever I teach and Christ operates through me, it is really exciting to sense His presence and then for Him to draw upon the years of Bible study and Scripture memory I've been engaged in. This same kind of experience is what God is wanting to offer you, regardless the specific ministry He has called you to.
Just exactly what gift does Jesus want to perform through you? I don't know; however, there is one He wants to work through you. If there isn't one, then He probably doesn't live within you and you are probably not saved. It is that simple.
Ultimate Purpose of the Gifts (4:13)
When it is all said and done, although individual believers enjoy the benefits of exercising their spiritual gifts, the fact is that the ultimate goal is not simply to build up the individual believer; the ultimate goal of the spiritual gifts is to build up the entire church, the entire body of Christ: "to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ" (4:13).
The clause "until we all attain" is important for this discussion. The literal meaning of this clause is "until we come to meet." Markus Barth (pron. Bart) claims that the Greek word translated "come to meet" (katatesomen pron. kah-tah-tay-SEW-min) is a technical term referring to the villagers going outside the city to meet the king who is coming to the village or city. What is important about this meeting is what it produces in the lives of the villagers. When they go out to meet the king who is at the head of the processional, they are filled with joy and enthusiasm. That is what the meeting produces in their lives.
As we saw in verses 8-10, Jesus, the Messiah-king, is at the head of His procession. We are to go out to meet Him. Although we will be filled with joy upon meeting Him, something even greater is going to happen to us. Our meeting Him will make us into mature men, people filled with the fullness of Christ, people who are just like Jesus.
Too often when people claim they have met Jesus, they say that they were filled with joy—which is good or that they had a major spiritual feeling upon meeting Him. Those may accompany meeting Jesus. HOWEVER, if a person has truly met Jesus, then he will be transformed, he will be like Jesus. Anything less means that they may have had a spiritual encounter; however, it was not with Christ. Meeting Christ means we will be like Him: "We know that when He [Jesus] appears, we will be like Him because we shall see Him just as He is" (1 John 3:2).
RESULTS (Eph. 4:14-16)
| As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. |
If we hold true to what the apostles and prophets have told us, then we are not going to be cast about by the theological waves of relativism and secularism which are running rampant in our day. You don't believe me? Ask most young people if right and wrong truly exist, and they will tell you "No," that right and wrong are purely personal opinions. Ask people what the church stands for, and they will say: "Loving people where they are forgetting," forgetting that the goal of the church should be transformation into the image of Christ without engaging in a ministry of condemnation. Ask people today if it is OK for ministers to divorce and remarry--something which goes totally against 1960 years of church teaching and practice, and they will think you are out of touch. Ask people if the men should be leaders in the home and they will think you are a caveman.
We laugh at people who are "narrow-minded"; however, the Protestant church which is enmeshed in relativism is in serious decline (even the Southern Baptist Convention which declined 2% last year), while the "narrow-minded" Roman Catholics who are holding to traditional Christian values—even with their sex abuse scandals—are going in numbers. Relativism is a raging sea, turbulent, destroying ships sailing on their waves. The church of the apostles, though, according to Paul is this passage, is like the might rocks of the cliffs facing the sea which break the waves crashing upon them. If we don't want to crash upon the rocks by sailing upon the waves of relativism and "progressivism," then we need to be part of those massive rocks, formed by the teaching of the apostles.
In holding true to the apostles' teachings, we are not to be condemning. Rather, we are to "speak the truth in love." It may be tough love—tough love for those who wish to sail upon the waves of relativism; however, it must be done in love. As Markus Barth writes: "Where there is no love, the truth revealed by God is denied. Equally, without 'truth' there may well be a 'conspiracy' that aims to subjugate men to human 'opinions' ([John] Calvin), but no solid unity and community.
For the entire church to become like Christ, for the entire church to become the mature Man filled with the perfections of Christ, ALL church members are needed to fulfill their function: "the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love" (4:16). In this verse the members of the church, the members of the body of Christ are the joints, are the individual parts. As a result, all members of the body of Christ are to be like Christ. All members are to use their spiritual gifts, let Christ work through them to develop the entire body into the image of Christ. When YOU are not being like Christ, when YOU are not using your spiritual gift the way Christ wants to use it through you, then YOU are preventing the church, the body of Christ from reaching its goal--becoming completely like Christ. YOU are that important.