Ephesians - Lesson 23

So a question that we want to think about, I think, is what is he doing with this passage? Now, there's a lot of discussion today about the use of the Old Testament in the New. There's also a discussion about the use of the Old Testament in the Old, but there's discussion about use of the Old Testament in the New. I'm interested in this question somewhat as it relates especially to Galatians.

I'm actually thinking through writing through a book about Paul's use of the Old Testament in Galatians, but here we have to ask ourselves a question about what is he doing. Now, there are many things that I could say. I think at the very least, what he is doing is he's offering us an inspired interpretation of the psalm, and what I mean is he's giving us a Christological reading of it.

So there's some other things that people can say that can explain what he's doing, but if what he's doing is consistent with what he seems to do with other Old Testament passages, he's offering now a post-resurrection, Spirit-empowered hermeneutic by which to read the Old Testament so that what he is saying is, I think, that Jesus is included within Yahweh's divine identity, drawing that language from a scholar, and he's identifying Jesus as the one who is ascending triumphantly after the resurrection, and he's giving gifts to people in the church to build up the church in full maturity. So here's a question that, I mean, all sorts of questions can be asked of my reading of it, however, but here's a question that I think is more fundamental. Why does he choose this psalm? It seems to me the reason why he chooses this psalm to make this point is because of the language of ascending, I think, because in chapter 1, Jesus ascended, right? He's exalted.

God raised him from the dead. He's ascended at God's right hand. Also, I think, he perhaps is choosing this psalm because you have the idea of ascending linked with captivity, right? Who are the captives or who is the captive or who are the captive ones? I suppose it's the question.

My major is non-English, obviously. The captives seem to be not us in the psalm. The captives seem to be the ones whom God has conquered and triumphed.

This fits with what Paul has already said. Let me remind you, go back to chapter 1, verse 20, it says that God worked in Christ when he raised, now it's a different verb, it's a different verb from to ascend, but the resurrection assumes the exaltation for the ascension. He raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.

So there's ascension language in my view. That God raised Jesus from the dead and he seated him at his right hand, Psalm 110, verse 1, and God and Jesus are reigning victoriously over all things in the heavenly places. Now, as I said, in the heavenly places here refer to God's comprehensive rule over everything, which includes over the heavenly places beneath God's comprehensive rule over everything, wherein the powers of darkness have sovereignty given to them by God.

So Jesus and God are reigning over, and the Spirit, of course, are reigning over everything in heaven and upon the earth, including the heavenly places where God reigns and the heavenly places where the anti-God powers reign, and we reign with them in Christ. That's right, as I argue, because it says God raised him far above all rule, all authority, all power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come. And he, verse 22, put all things under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church.

So going back to chapter 4 then, who are the captive ones? The captive ones are the ones over whom Jesus Christ is reigning after he ascended at God's right hand. Furthermore, his ascension, remember, is proof that he has conquered all the anti-God powers, triumphed over them. I mean, Paul hints at this in Colossians chapter 1 when he talks about God disarming the anti-God powers through the crucifixion of Jesus.

I think Paul assumes the resurrection there. And so the cross and the resurrection and the ascension are the moment in history where God is triumphing and conquering all the anti-God powers, subjecting them to God's comprehensive authority beneath the feet of the risen, crucified and risen and exalted Messiah. And this comprehensive rule over them, conquering them, holding these anti-God powers captive is good news for the church.

Another reason why he seems to choose this passage is because he's exhorting the church to walk a certain way. And now he's going to say God gave gifts to the church to enable them to do that. Now, remember back as well to chapter 1 verse 23, when he said that what? That the body of Christ is the church and that the body of Christ, the body of Christ is the fullness of Jesus who is filling up the body of Christ continually.

His sovereignty, that is, Jesus's sovereignty over everything, including over the captives, is good news for the church because Jesus himself is the sovereign one who is growing the church up by the spirit in full maturity. But how does he do it? Not by means of Lone Ranger Christianity, by means of giving the church gifts. So he links the exaltation of Jesus with Psalm 68 in order to emphasize the fact that Christ's exaltation is a sovereign act of God over the anti-God powers to keep them subjected to the church through teaching and preaching, gifts that come from God, more specifically from Christ to the church.

At the very least, that seems to be what he's doing with the psalm. Now, we could ask all sorts of hermeneutical questions as to whether that's right. I think it is right because I'm an errantist, so therefore I think whatever he's doing, he's not violating the text.

But to support that reading might be on the right track, notice what he says next. He's going to lean into the ascension language and the gift-giving language. So the gifts that God gives to the church, here's some good news, they come from an exalted Christ and are a means by which the church triumphs over the anti-God powers.

So verse 9, he's going to offer an explanation for us here, Paul it is. In saying he ascended, what does that mean? My answer is, I don't know, Paul. It's pretty hard, but he's going to help us.

What does it mean? But that he had also descended into the lower regions and the ESV says, namely the earth. We pause there for a moment and say, I think he's talking about the descent here refers to the incarnation because he's just emphasized the ascension. In chapter 1, he emphasized the ascension, and so it seems to me to be a right interpretive move on my part that when he talks about descending, he's not talking about descending into the lower regions underneath the earth, although certainly, I shouldn't say certainly, it's reasonable to think that his Greco-Roman audience would be aware of this Greco-Roman view of the underworld that would have been in these mythologies about these gods.

But it seems to me the most natural way to read it, I could be wrong, but it seemed the most natural way to read it is since he's already mentioned the ascension, exaltation, that to descend into the lower regions, the ESV is right. The lower regions, namely the earth. In other words, there is a contrast between the heavenly places where God reigns over everything and the earth, which is ruled by the anti-God powers.

Does that make sense? So that heaven and earth, you see this in other places in the Bible. One of my colleagues wrote a whole monograph on heaven and earth in Matthew's gospel. You see that often when the Bible talks about the earth, it's not just simply talking about creation, it's talking about a realm that is on the side of the anti-God powers and that needs to be redeemed and taken back by God.

Of course, God is sovereign over the world and the anti-God powers, but my point is the world is still subjected to death, for example, and the rule of the anti-God powers. So what Paul seems to be saying is that he descended, that is, he became a man, he became incarnate, he came to the world. And then verse 10, he who descended is the one who also ascended.

So notice how he moves from ascent, descent, back to ascent again. And where did he ascend? Well, he said the same thing he says in chapter 1 verses 20 through 22. He ascended far above all the heavens that he might, look at this, that he might feel all things.

You see that? That language of feeling all things, it's a verb here, but it's related to the noun used in chapter 1 verse 23, fullness. So the noun for fullness is pleroma. The verb for to feel here is plerao.

In chapter 1 verse 23, the church is the pleroma, the fullness of the one who is filling up. The tepleroma, and then the form of the verb that's used is plerao in 1 verse 23 to refer to Jesus filling up all things, filling up the fullness of the body. Jesus is filling up the church with into maturity because of his comprehensive and sovereign power.

But he's doing that by means of giving gifts in part to the church. So here he says that he might fill up all things. So then from that reading of Psalm 68, he now tells you how, in part, he's filling up all things.

How is he maturing the church as he's reigning comprehensively and sovereignly over all things in heaven and the earth? How is he making sure every ligament and joint is knitted together and fitted together? How is he doing that? By means of the spirit, yes, but how is he doing that by means of equipping the church or saints for the work of the ministry? He's doing it by giving gifts, verse 11, and he gave, look at that gift giving again, he gave. He gave the apostles, the prophets, the apostles being probably here, not only the original 12, but also others who would be apostles of the churches. He gave prophets.

Of course, he gave Isaiah and others, but he also had those who were prophesying in the early church. Gave the evangelists, those who are heralding the good news, teachers of some sort. He gave the shepherds and the teachers.

The shepherds are teachers. I mean, it's hard to know if he's talking about shepherds teachers or shepherds one group and teachers another group, but they could be linked together possibly here. That those who are doing the shepherding are those who are doing the teaching that these two are gifts.

Now, question for us, why did God give these gifts so that these gifted people can do all of the ministry, right? Because that's what they get paid to do. No, he gave these gifts, verse 12, for the equipping of the saints. So the equipping of the saints in verse 12 modifies or relates to the verb he gave.

He gave all of these gifts, these gifted people to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Now, it's a quick word about gifts. These aren't the only gifts God gives to the church.

We look at 1 Corinthians. We look at Romans. He talks about other gifts, but here he's talking specifically about these particular gifts that were foundational in the movement of the early Christian movement with respect to the teaching.

So he gave them for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry to build up the body of Christ. To equip the saints for the work of the ministry is to help the church grow into maturity. Practically speaking, once again, trying to be really practical, churches that do not emphasize the importance of teaching, for example, are not helping equip the saints for the work of the ministry.

You can get coffee anywhere, and if your church is known for selling great coffee but no Bible, that's not a good thing. Having coffee is great. I don't drink coffee, but having coffee in church is great.

But if you're more excited about the coffee on Sunday morning than you are about the preaching, that's a problem with your heart. But if you're more excited about the coffee than you are the preaching because you don't hear preaching and teaching, that's a problem with your church. So to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, look at that.

Every believer is in the ministry, not vocationally. We're all in the service of Christ. Thank God He creates opportunities for churches to be able to pay a pastor or multiple pastors and other staff.

Thank God for churches that have that privilege to do that, to free people up vocationally so they can devote themselves to full-time ministry because ministry is hard no matter if it's part-time or full-time. But if you're working as a bivocational minister, and I'm pro-bivocational ministry, that is really, really hard because you've got to work within two different worlds and try to figure out how do you work full-time for the church and nothing is ever part-time in the church. How do you work full-time in the church and get paid part-time and have this other full-time job that you have to pay the bills? Praise God.

I love you bivocational pastors. I love all pastors, but bivocational pastors, you are a gift because you juggle so many things. So I want to honor those brothers who are working in bivocational ministry.

That is a noble calling. It's hard, but pastoral ministry in general is hard. But my point here is thank God for churches that can afford to pay people to work full-time and make sacrifices to do that.

It's important. But here's the point that I also want to press into is that whether you are a vocational minister as your job, your career or not, every single believer is in service of Christian ministry, like it or not. The question is, are we good Christian servants or not? Not are we servants.

And these gifts were given to equip the saints for the work of ministry. I have no category in my mind for people who do not want to serve in ministry in church. I don't get it.

To go to church and just want to sit and do nothing. Oh, I'm sorry to sit and complain, but not want to serve. But here's the thing.

If you're not equipped to serve, it's hard to know how to serve well in ministry as a believer. And one reason God gives us gifts, or here he says the reason these gifts he's mentioned is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. God has not called me to do all of the work in the church as a minister.

It's not my calling. He has called me as a minister to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. He's called every person who's gifted as a teacher and a preacher to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.

And one thing I'm speaking practically here, I'm sorry if I'm mixing my practical application with my exegesis here and I'm confusing you, but in my view, some churches need to have a category shift in their thinking about what it is the ministers and the teachers should be doing. And what I mean is what ministers should be doing most of the time is teaching their people how to do ministry. That's what they should be doing and praying and reading the Bible and loving their families well.

Yes, yes, and amen. But this whole idea that, well, we pay a minister to do all the work, so he needs to do that. I'm not going to do anything except sit and complain.

That is not Paul's vision for the church. It's not God's vision for the church. It's God's vision for the church for every single believer to sit under equipping so that he and she can go out and serve the body in ways that help it grow up in full maturity.

That's what he's leaning into here to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. He says it for the building up of the body in Christ. Christ is filling up all things or filling up the church with his power, maturing it.

How by a sovereign power? Yes, but also by means of and being equipped with these gifts. Now, verse 13 is tricky. That verb there until I'll calm down now and stop preaching 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 fullness of Christ.

Now, let me just stop for a moment. There's a lot here, but let me interpret this word until. Okay, here's the question exegetically.

Does the word until modify he gave? Back up in verse 11. Is it saying he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers until we all attain? That is that apostles and teachers and shepherds and so on and so forth are still operating until this happens. So did he give until this or is he saying he gave to equip, to equip until see the difference there? He gave until or to equip until.

So it seems to me what he's emphasizing here is, is that the equipping would take place until the full maturity is realized. Do we all attain to the unity of the faith? What's the unity of the faith? It doesn't mean that we're all going to agree, but it doesn't mean that we're all of the same mind with respect to what the spirit has done in our hearts through reconciling Jew and Gentile to one new man and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood. Now that translation there, manhood, it could be translated this way, to a full grown man or to a complete man.

So the image here is the image of a body growing and then the image of a man developing into maturity. Of course, the church is filled with Jews and Gentiles, male and female, but he's using a metaphor here to talk about the growth of the body into healthy maturity is the idea that's supported by what he says in verse 13, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. See, I'm going to need to be equipped in the church until I die or until Jesus comes back first.

God's vision for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry is to be worked out in the context of the church. I teach at a seminary and I am committed to theological, biblical education until I die. I love to have a ministry where I'm training men and women for the work of the ministry.

But my role as a seminary professor is not to replace the church. Seminaries serve or should, I should say, should serve the churches. Come alongside of church and say, hey, here are a few things that we can do to equip you for the work of the ministry a little bit better than what your church can do because we have some more resources devoted to specializations, like teaching the biblical languages, for example, or specializing in other aspects.

But the seminary does not replace the church. The equipping plan takes place in the context of the church. Thank God for all kinds of ministries like seminaries and other ministries, this ministry as well, that helps equip people for the work of the ministry.

But the purpose of this ministry and the purpose of seminaries is to help people, help equip people in the church. When I graduated from seminary, I didn't say, well, you know, I have my degree now. I'm just going to go sit alone by myself and read the Bible the rest of my life and just go about my business.

I thought, OK, I want to serve people in my church a little bit better than I did before. So God gave these gifts for that end. But he's continuing to talk about why is it necessary to relate it to an earlier conversation that we had about anti-intellectualism, the Christian faith.

I do not understand it, in part because there are so many ideas that are pining after our souls as believers. And Paul says, God did this for the equipping of the saints, for the equipping of the saints, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine. You know why you need teachers in your churches to equip you for the work of the ministry? To protect you from falling away from the gospel.

That's one reason why. To protect you and me from becoming heretics. That's why.

To protect you and me from becoming apostates. That's why. To protect you and me from being grabbed by the latest trend, even trends in the Christian circles out there, things that are cool and cute and hip.

We need to be anchored in God's redemptive plan from Genesis to Revelation. And to be helped by people whom God has gifted to teach us these things so that we're not tossed about, that we're not shipwrecked in our faith by every wind of doctrine. That word for doctrine there is simply a word that means teaching.

In the pastoral epistles, Bill knows way more than those than I know, but in the pastoral epistles, Paul emphasizes in 1 Timothy, teaching, teaching, teaching, and character, of course. Character in those qualifications for pastors are most the character qualities, what he talks about the most. But my point is, throughout 1 Timothy, he emphasizes, and 2 Timothy, teaching sound doctrine, teaching sound doctrine.

Yes, be godly, guard your character, but teach sound doctrine, orthodoxy, orthopraxy, teach sound doctrine. You can't practice orthopraxy unless you have orthodoxy. You need sound doctrine, you need teaching, and you can't know what false teaching is unless you know what sound teaching is.

When you get sound teaching, you can smell false teaching coming after you and resist it with sound doctrine. And he describes this sound or false doctrine as by human cunning or trickery, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. To quote one person, frankly, some people are just straight-up hustlers when it comes to teaching.

They use the Bible to say whatever they want to get money or a following or a platform or a book deal. And Paul is saying, you need teachers who teach the right thing so that you won't be tossed about by this nonsense. People who will deceive you.

Now, of course, here's the reality. The most faithful person who teaches will misinterpret Scripture. I misinterpret Scripture, not on purpose, but I do.

So he's not saying, well, your teacher's going to always get it right. That's not the point. There are things that people teach when they study the text.

They really believe they understand the text the right way. And they're not heretical or intentional false teachers or cunning or schemers. They just simply misread text.

We all misread text. Paul's talking about people who are more deceitful. They don't have, as he says, they don't have good intents here because he calls them cunning, crafty, deceitful and having schemes.

That's very different from someone who sits down and analyzes the Bible and interprets the text as best as he or she can and just simply misinterprets the text. That's different from someone who is scheming and creating things that are not in the text for the purpose of building up his own platform or filling his life with his own satisfactions and using the people of God to be people on whose backs he's trying to get rich. You want teachers to help you avoid that, rather speaking the truth in love.

Notice he says truth in love. You can't speak the truth in love unless you know the truth. And one reason God gives these gifted people to the church is so that the truth will be taught.

Practically speaking, I know not everyone who's watching this lecture is a pastor or will be a pastor or is a teacher formerly in the church. I just want to say a word to pastors here who's watching it. If you do not preach the Bible to your people, you are not loving them well.

Now you love them by how you teach and you love them in ways beyond teaching, but we need to divorce from this idea that we can love our people without teaching them the truth from God's Word and giving them what they need to hear instead of what they want to hear. Even if that means that what they want to hear might cause them to respond to you in ways that are not godly. Because every pastor, every teacher, but every pastor will stand before God and give an account for everything that we say to our people or things that we chose not to say because of fear even though it was in the Bible.

So don't you believe for one moment that you're loving your people if you are a pastor if you refuse to speak the truth of God's Word to them in love. Now I want to say in love here and maybe you're thinking well you don't sound very loving right now. I am being loving, I'm just passionate.

Being in love is very important. How we communicate truth is important. Not every truth needs to come with thunder, but truth needs to come always with love.

And sometimes that does mean we raise our voices because it's so important. If my son and I were on the street and I saw him walking in front of a truck, I'm not going to say to him now son there's a truck coming you need to get out of the way. I'm going to raise my voice and try to avoid destruction.

There are moments where we have to look people in the eye from pulpits still applying this to preachers and raise our voices and preach and sweat will fly and spit will fly and passion will come out. That is all appropriate, but everything we say needs always to be done with love no matter how we accent the truth. Speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head that is into Christ.

That word head pops up again for the second time related to the church speaks to Christ's sovereignty I think authority because Christ is exalted over all the principalities and powers of the air. Verse 16 from whom the whole body that is from Christ the whole body of Christ is joined and notice that Christ uses means to join the body. What's the means? Teachers.

Are you seeing this? He's using means by which to develop us into full maturity and the means is teachers, shepherds, those whom he's given to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. The church is held together joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped. There's that word again or different word but same idea when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds up in love.

God uses means. He is comprehensively sovereign over everything but he uses means. You know one means by which we love, one means by which we walk with humility and patience and compassion and gentleness.

One means is the teaching of the word of God and the preaching of it and I don't mean that okay every time I hear sermons I'm just automatically transformed in that moment. Sometimes something happens when I'm listening to a sermon in that moment and something's always happening to somebody in the moment of preaching. Preaching never falls on dead hearts when the spirit works but the hearts will not become alive until the spirit works but the spirit might not work in the immediate moment when the sermon is preached or the lesson is taught.

The spirit might choose to begin the process of helping a person think about why he or she needs to take the steps toward what the sermon is calling that person to do and then in time as there's reflection and prayer the spirit awakens the heart because of the preaching and the teaching and the person who had a hard time being patient and loving and walking in a manner worthy of his calling is now able to lean into that more with joy because he has been taught by those who are gifted to equip as the body is being built up in love. So one practical application I'll offer and then take some questions is let's pray, let's pray for our churches that God will strengthen our teachers, our pastors, our preachers, help us and help them to be faithful and let's pray that God will keep raising up faithful teachers and preachers for churches in our communities and throughout the world. Questions? You know the until phrase? Does that ever come? Until we reach to the fullness? Isn't that kind of like yeah until but you're never going to hit it? Yes, that's a great question.

I think I think it's a word that's there to help us realize this is going to be necessary until Jesus returns. Yeah, so full maturity is not realized until he comes from heaven to earth which is why we need to keep teaching, keep teaching, keep equipping. Yeah, that's a good question.

So I come originally from a denominational background that has sort of fallen off the edge of the world because they have promoted unity at the expense of truth and as they did that and they fell away from preaching the gospel, fewer and fewer began to attend those churches because they're not getting fed and it seems like there are then there are those churches that will teach the truth sometimes at the expense of unity, but it's a fine line. Well, it's not really a fine line, but it's just something I've observed in modern day denominational. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, but yeah, that's good.

Yeah, there's another saying that I've heard people say that truth unites and truth divides and so we want to be faithful to the truth even if that means we might have to part ways with people in terms of changing churches or denominations and we never want to sacrifice truth on the altar of love, but we don't want to be people who are truth tellers that have no love. So, it's a balance I think where we have to constantly recognize that telling the truth is a loving thing, but there are unloving ways that we can communicate that truth and so I want to be able and I'm not saying I'm there, but I want to be able to be at a place where I can be faithful to the truth and yet still recognize that I'm called to love my neighbor as myself even when we disagree and how to do that in a way that doesn't violate conscience, doesn't compromise the truth of the gospel, but yet recognizes I too see through a glass dimly and I could be misunderstanding things that I'm even passionate about, but I don't want to ever go along just to get along. And nor do I want to be the kind of person who goes around causing division all the time and creating controversies because I love the truth when really I'm just a divisive person.

Paul says this in the pastoral, I can't remember the verse off the top of my head, but I think it's in Titus emphasizing the importance of, maybe it's in 1 Timothy, living a peaceful and tranquil life, avoiding, 1 Timothy, avoiding these foolish debates and controversies, speculations, correcting, yes, protecting doctrine, yes, but not being the kind of person that is more energized by divisiveness than by unity in the gospel. Yeah, that's hard. I think that's hard.