When the Lord ascended, on His way up, He was a conqueror in triumph, leading captivity captive. But when He reached His heavenly seat, He became a crowned priest, and sent down coronation gifts to His Church, by the ministry of which He is either forming or strengthening the union between Himself and the members here, and their union among themselves. These ministries thus act like the joints and bands in the human body; and all other ministries the Apostle sets aside as “rudiments of the world,” fitted to those who are alive in the world, but most unsuited to those who are—as the Church is—dead and risen with Christ (see Eph. 4:16; Col. 2:19-23).