THE first and principal object of all ministry is “the perfecting of the saints.” It is not the will of God that His saints shall remain in an infantine condition, not knowing their privileges and blessings and His thoughts concerning them, but that they should make progress and grow in the knowledge of Himself and of His grace. It is not enough that all is ours in Christ Jesus, and that what grace has given can never be forfeited because the fruit of divine counsel and founded upon Christ's work; but God would have His saints know and enjoy all that has been granted. This thought is immensely higher than the general notion of even good men in Christendom to-day. With many the principal object is the salvation of souls, at best the blessing of the creature rather than the glory of Christ. This is to serve on low ground, however little intended, the aim being distinctly beneath the declared aim of our God. The unhappy result is that numbers of souls stop short at the knowledge of forgiveness, or of security from judgment, with feeble thoughts of divine righteousness, and little or no knowledge of union by the Spirit with a risen and exalted Christ on high. It is, of course, freely admitted that souls must be won for Christ by the gospel before they can be perfected; but forgiveness of sins is but an initial blessing. The soul is by Him introduced into a large place, where unbounded grace may be learned and enjoyed. And let it not be supposed that the evangelist's work has nothing to do with this. His work is included in the statement, “for the perfecting of the saints.” He declares the gospel, and thus performs the first great office; the pastor and teacher follow up the work, the labors of each and all tending in the one great direction. An understanding of this will preserve the evangelist from labor of an independent character. His work, of course, lies not within the assembly, but in the world of the ungodly; yet he goes forth from the bosom of the assembly, and into that circle he gathers souls, that Christ the center may be glorified in them. Thus are the further objects of the giving of the gifts secured; the work of the ministry is accomplished in all its branches; and the body of Christ, which the Spirit of God came here to form, is edified.
Before passing from this important subject, it is of moment to press the direct responsibility of every servant to Christ. Let us note well the principles of this chapter. Evangelists, pastors, and teachers, are gifts from Christ ascended, as truly as apostles and prophets: the church has no place but as a receiver. The notion of officials or the church appointing ministry is not found here, nor elsewhere in scripture. I am aware that elders (or bishops) and deacons were appointed by an apostle or apostolic man so commissioned like Titus; but such were ordained for rule not for the ministry of the word. The first class (always in the plural) were set to watch over the spiritual affairs of the saints in the towns where they dwelt, their authority not extending beyond those limits; deacons were appointed to serve tables or analogous work. In some instances, persons of both classes possessed ministerial gifts also, Stephen and Philip among deacons being cases in point; but this was altogether distinct from their local responsibilities. They were appointed to local office: as evangelists, &c., they were the gifts of Christ. Therefore, evangelists, pastors, and teachers being Christ's gifts, to Him they are responsible in the exercise of their service, and to no one else. When the Corinthians were disposed to judge Paul, they only drew forth from him a sound rebuke; and were told that to him it was a small thing to be judged by them, or by man's day—his judge was the Lord (1 Cor. 4:3-5). Had the apostle been speaking of discipline in the assembly, he would have spoken differently; a minister, if convicted of immoral ways, or unsound doctrine, being as much amenable to discipline as any other professors of Christ's name. But in the ordinary exercise of their gifts all such are responsible to the Lord alone, at Whose judgment-seat they and all will shortly stand.
We now come to the duration of the gifts; “till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” The perfection spoken of here seems to be not in glory, where all will doubtless be according to Christ, but a state of full growth on earth in contrast with infancy and weakness as in verse 14.
Even in Paul's early day, corrupt men bearing the Lord's name were active in seeking to ensnare the unwary and the simple, and lead them astray from the faith. God would have His saints firmly established in His grace and truth, and in the knowledge of His Son, that they may be proof against the ever changing wiles of the enemy. It is deplorable to observe saints tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, apparently at the mercy of the foe. Is this God's will? Nay, but their establishment and blessing. And inasmuch as the church of God will never be without souls needing to be helped on to full growth, the ever faithful Head will continue the gifts of His grace until the end: “till we all come.” Note, gifts are not given to make the saints helplessly dependent on them, but the reverse; by means of the gifts the saints become firmly rooted and grow up into Him Who is the Head—Christ.
Verse 15 is rather “being truthful in love “; the truth not only influencing our speech, as the Authorized Version would indicate, but all our ways, having its true place in our inward parts.
Verse 16 completes the circle of the provision of the Head for the edification of His body. Here we get not only that which is general, the body compacted and fitly joined together by that which every joint supplieth. It is an important principle surely: no member of the body is irresponsible” unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ” —and all must be in exercise that all may be blessed and edified, and the Lord glorified.
In verse 17 the practical exhortations take a different shape. In verses 1—16 the instruction affects more particularly our collective walk as one body; here we have that which is individual. A becoming and separate walk is pressed. The apostle puts it solemnly: “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord.” He knows the dangers to which the saints were everywhere exposed, and that the Load's honor was bound up with them; therefore the peculiarly impressive tone.
He exhorts them not to walk “as other Gentiles walk.” They used so to do, as chap. ii. 1-3 shows; and at that time they were children of wrath even as others. But grace makes a difference, and would have the difference to be seen by men among whom we walk; not indeed that we may be praised, but that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ. The exhortation is similar to 1 Peter 4:3— “The time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles” —only there the apostle of the circumcision was writing to believing Jews, who had in their former days sunk to the level of the Gentiles around.
Paul depicts in dark colors the condition of the Gentiles who know not God; minds vain, understandings darkened, hearts hardened, alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them. This is true of all, whether philosophical or unlearned. Man's mind cannot find a true center or object, if it knows not God; nor can his understanding find the enlightenment. See the solemn confirmation of this in Rom. 1:21, 22, and recall the apostle amongst the “wise” at Athens. In the latter place he could only speak of the most elementary things; the creatorship of God, the unity of man, the folly of idolatry, &c.; for what does man's mind become when he shuts God out? True, all may not sink to the level of verse 19, “being past feeling” &c.; but the unregenerate heart, wherever found, is capable even of that. But we have not so learned: How sweetly the apostle expresses our present path here Not set as those in Judaism to obey a code of laws, but to learn and hearken to a Person—Christ. Would the law, if kept, make a man heavenly? No, it suits men in the flesh, acting as a curb and as a plummet; but it could never make a man what a Christian ought to be. The Christian's standard is immeasurably higher. “But we know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully, knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man” (1 Tim. 1:9); and this the believer is, in virtue of Christ's death and resurrection, for we have been made the righteousness of God in Him.
The truth is, that a new nature, a new life (from which the Gentiles, as such, are alienated) has been imparted, and the new life has an object presented to it—Christ; and it is the believer's delight to study Him. “I have heard Him and learned Him.” In measure as our hearts are occupied with Him, we become changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit. And when we look at His blessed ways here, when manifested, we see how we should shape our steps, for in Him the life of God was displayed in perfection among men below. This, I conceive to be the force of “as the truth is in Jesus” —all was to be seen perfectly exemplified there. Moreover, we have put off (past tense, not as A. V. or R. V.) concerning the former conversation (behavior) the old man; and have put on the new. Both are described: the old man is “corrupt according to the lusts of deceit.” (The meaning of the word “corrupt” here is “ruined” (we get a different word in verse 29, “putrid,” “rotten”): the old man is past all repair. God has disowned him, we have put him off— “our old man is crucified with Him.” But the new man is according to God created in righteousness and holiness of truth. Note the word “created “; God has caused to exist in me what was not there once. See Col. 3:10, the new man is “renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him.” The word eminently suits Ephesians; for here man is viewed as dead. But we have been quickened—quickened together with Christ: there is therefore a new creation, “we are created in Christ Jesus unto good works” &c. I have said the new man is described: he is created “according to God.” The new man loves righteousness and holiness of truth, never loving to wallow in the mire; and the practical display of these characteristics is the proof of life.
The apostle proceeds to details: falsehood (meaning more than lying actions as well as words) is to be put off; truth is to be spoken, for we are members one of another. The motive stated is an exalted one: I am not merely to scorn falsehood from a sense of honor, which an upright man of the world may do, but I am a member of the same body with my brother; if I act or speak falsely to him, I do so to myself, and more solemn still, to Christ. Anger is to be watched, that sin may not result, and that the devil may have no place. Anger in the sense of indignation against un righteousness and iniquity, is all well and of God—we find God often angry in the Old Testament and Christ moved with anger in the New—but our hearts are treacherous, and we have to watch it.
The thief is to become a laborer and even a giver, for grace transforms. The law required the thief to make restitution but grace makes him positively benevolent.
And if the hands are regulated in verse 28, the tongue finds a place in verse 29. What do we emit from our lips? The Spirit in James devotes a whole chapter to the unruly member; instruction always needed and wholesome. Is our conversation “corrupt,” or is it “good to the use of edifying, ministering grace unto the hearers. Of Christ we read; “Grace is poured into Thy lips” (Psa. 45).
The Holy Spirit of God dwells within; the temple should be kept pure, that He may be ungrieved. There are two great principles in these verses, a new nature, a positive life imparted, and the indwelling of the Spirit. By Him we are sealed unto the day of redemption. “Grieve not” is here said to the individual, “quench not” in 1 Thess. 5 to the assembly.
God's ways are to be seen in us, and all bitterness, wrath, put far away. The kindness and tender-heartedness of God to us are to form our ways. He in Christ has forgiven us, the spirit of forgiveness is to reign amongst the saints. “Until seven times?” Nay, but “until seventy times seven” (Matt. 18).