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In Ephesians 4:7-16 Christ is presented to us as the Giver of gifts. In order for Christ to be constituted the Giver of gifts, He had to fill all things by passing through the highest and lowest places in the universe. In His incarnation and death, Christ descended from the highest place in the universe, heaven, to the lowest place in the universe, Hades; in His resurrection and ascension, He ascended from Hades to heaven. Through His descending and ascending, Christ became the One who fills all things. Through His descending and ascending, Christ passed through incarnation and crucifixion and entered into resurrection and ascension to conquer all the negative things in the universe such as sin and death. In particular, through His death Christ conquered God’s enemy Satan, destroyed his power of darkness, and captured from Satan’s hand God’s chosen people, those who had been taken captive by Satan in his kingdom. Through His resurrection Christ imparted Himself into them as life, and in ascension He led these captives in His train of vanquished foes, His train of the triumphal procession. By His universal traffic, His victory over His enemy, and His triumphal procession He became qualified to be the Giver of gifts to His Body. Out of this triumphal procession, Christ made many captives as gifts to the church, His Body. Originally these captives were all God’s chosen people. Yet through the fall they became the captives of God’s enemy, Satan. Through His descending and ascending, however, Christ defeated Satan and recaptured these captives of Satan, enlivened them with His resurrection life, and made them His captives in His triumphal procession, a procession celebrating His victory. Christ then gave them as gifts to the Body for its building up; these gifts include apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers.
In Ephesians 4:8-10 we see that Christ is the One who descended into the lower parts of the earth, ascended far above all the heavens to fill all things, and led captive those taken captive. Verse 8 says, “The Scripture says, ‘Having ascended to the height, He led captive those taken captive and gave gifts to men.’” Height in the quotation from Psalm 68:18 refers to Mount Zion (vv. 15-16), which symbolizes the third heaven, where God dwells (1 Kings 8:30). Psalm 68 implies that it was in the Ark that God ascended to Mount Zion after the Ark had won the victory. Verse 1 of Psalm 68 is taken from Numbers 10:35. This indicates that the background of Psalm 68 is God’s move in the tabernacle with the Ark as its center. Wherever the Ark, a type of Christ, went, the victory was won. Eventually, this Ark ascended triumphantly to the top of Mount Zion. This portrays how Christ won the victory and ascended triumphantly to the heavens.
Those in Ephesians 4:8 refers to the redeemed saints, who were taken captive by Satan before being saved by Christ’s death and resurrection. In His ascension Christ led them captive; that is, He rescued them from Satan’s captivity and took them to Himself. This indicates that He conquered and overcame Satan, who had captured them by sin and death.
The Amplified New Testament renders “He led captive those taken captive” as “He led a train of vanquished foes.” Vanquished foes may refer to Satan, to his angels, and to us the sinners, again indicating Christ’s victory over Satan, sin, and death. In Christ’s ascension there was a procession of these vanquished foes, led as captives from a war, for a celebration of Christ’s victory. Now Christ is celebrating His triumph over His vanquished foes and leading them as His captives in a triumphal procession in His move for His ministry to build up His Body.
Gifts in verse 8 does not refer to the abilities or capacities for various services but to the gifted persons in verse 11 — apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers. After conquering Satan and death and rescuing the sinners from Satan and death through His death and resurrection, Christ in His ascension made the rescued sinners themselves such gifts by means of His resurrection life and gave them to His Body for its building up.
In verses 9 and 10 Paul says, “Now this, ‘He ascended,’ what is it except that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended, He is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens that He might fill all things.” Christ has done a great deal of traveling in the universe. First, in His incarnation Christ descended from heaven to earth. Then, in His death He descended farther, from earth to Hades. Eventually, in His resurrection He ascended from Hades to earth, and in His ascension, from earth to heaven. Through such a journey He cut the way that He might fill all things.
When Christ ascended up on high, to the third heaven, that was not the end of His traveling. After He ascended, He descended into our spirit. Therefore, Christ is the One who descends, ascends, travels, and comes to us in gracious visitations. Today Christ is still traveling; that is, He is still ascending and descending. However, now His traveling takes place mainly within us. In our experience we may be up or down. When we are down, Christ comes down to where we are and brings us up to God. Many times during the course of a day we may be brought by Christ into the heavens. From our experience we can testify that within us Christ descends and ascends; He goes up and down. Although He is always steady, He does not stand still. On the contrary, He does a great deal of traveling within us. It is difficult to say where Christ is. Is He in heaven or on earth? If we say that He is on earth, we may have the sense that He is in heaven. But if we say that He is in heaven, we may soon realize that He is on earth. Actually, Christ is everywhere. According to verses 9 and 10, He descended and ascended in order to fill all things. Do you think that Christ will fill all things in the universe without also filling you? Through His descending and ascending, Christ will fill us with Himself.
It is by His descending and ascending that Christ constitutes us gifts to the Body. The more He descends and ascends within us, the more we become gifts. Many believers have very little function in the church because they have not yet been constituted as gifts. They may be good believers, but they are not gifts to the church. But as Christ descends and ascends within them, He captures them, vanquishes them, and constitutes them into gifts to His Body. As a result of Christ’s traveling, they become useful gifts.
Regrettably, however, within some of the saints Christ’s traveling may have ceased. Christ no longer goes up and down within them. We need to be constituted as a gift to the church through Christ’s descending and ascending within us. Christ should have many ups and downs within us. This means that Christ should go down and up within us; Christ should come down to where we are and should ascend with us into the heavenlies. If we try to hold Christ as the Head (Col. 2:19) without allowing Him to descend and ascend within us, we damage the process by which we are constituted gifts. The Lord will constitute us as gifts only through His descending and ascending within us. After such experiences of Christ’s inward traveling over a period of time, we become useful in the church. We should experience and enjoy Him as a descending and ascending Christ.
Our Christ is the all-inclusive, universal Christ. He is far above all, and our Christ is continually descending and ascending within us. Through His descending and ascending, He fills all things — universally, vertically, and horizontally. We need to praise the Lord for His traveling, for the marvelous two-way traffic between heaven and earth and between earth and heaven. It is through such traffic that the gift-making and gift-giving Christ produces gifts for His Body. We should not focus our attention on ourselves but on the all-inclusive Christ. We should not consider how weak or how poor we are. Rather, we should think of Christ, speak of Christ, and look away to Christ. We need to praise the Lord for the revelation of Christ in God’s economy found in the book of Ephesians! This book says little of Christ as the Redeemer or Savior. But it does reveal that Christ is far above all and that He is now filling all in all.
We should consider how the believers are constituted as gifts and presented to the Body. First, Christ is wrought into us to become our life, our person, and our everything. Then we minister to others the Christ who has been wrought into us. We need to see that only the ascended Christ can produce gifts for the Body. Notice that in Ephesians 4:8-11 the gifts are spoken of in relation to Christ’s ascension. The ascension was the peak and the climax of Christ’s work. The other basic steps of Christ’s work are incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Ascension is related to the coming of the Spirit. After Christ had accomplished redemption through His crucifixion and after He had resurrected and ascended to the heavens, He came down as the life-giving Spirit. Through the crucifixion of Christ all the enemies were conquered. Hence, the cross is the center of Christ’s victory. Furthermore, by His death on the cross Christ solved all the problems in the universe. This was the reason that after His crucifixion He could rest in the tomb and thereby enjoy a real Sabbath. Then in His resurrection He released all the divine riches. Following this, He ascended to the third heaven, and all the divine fullness was committed to Him along with all of God’s chosen people. Saul of Tarsus was among these chosen ones given to the ascended Christ. It is important to be clear concerning Christ’s descension as the Spirit after His ascension. According to Ephesians 2, Christ even came to preach the gospel of peace (v. 17). This indicates the coming of the ascended Christ.
When Saul of Tarsus was persecuting the churches, he did not realize that what he was persecuting was related to the heavens, that the church on earth was related to the ascended Christ. The Lord Jesus appeared to Saul of Tarsus, and spontaneously, even in his ignorance, Saul called upon His name, saying, “Who are You, Lord?” (Acts 9:5). Because Saul opened himself to the Lord and called on Him, the Lord with the divine fullness could enter into him and then proceed to constitute him into a gift to the Body. In this way the one who persecuted the churches became one who could perfect the saints. Paul became such a gift, not through human education but by being saturated with the divine fullness. Therefore, Saul of Tarsus eventually became the apostle Paul who could feed the saints, preach the unsearchable riches of Christ, and minister Christ to his fellow believers so that they would be nourished, grow, be perfected, and come into their function.
If we would be perfected, what we need is not doctrine. Rather, we need to be constituted with Christ. Like Saul of Tarsus, we all were once enemies of Christ and persecutors of the churches. But one day the Lord Jesus came to us and captured us. The Lord Jesus came to us, and we were caught by Him. Now we need to take Him into us more and more until we are saturated with Him. In this way we shall become functioning members of the Body, gifts constituted by the Christ who has been crucified and resurrected and who has ascended and descended.
Moreover, Ephesians 4:8 reveals an important principle that it was only after Christ on the cross had defeated and captured God’s chosen people that Christ led them to the heavens as His captives in His train of vanquished foes and made them gifts to His Body. We should apply this principle to ourselves; we should consider in our actual experience whether Christ has defeated us. Experientially speaking, if Christ has not defeated us, we cannot be led in His train of vanquished foes. Because Christ on the cross defeated all His enemies, He is victorious in the universe and has gained the ground to fill all things in the universe. But He may not be victorious in us and may not have ground in us, because we have not been subdued by Him in our experience. In order for us to function as a gift to the Body, we must be conquered and subdued by Christ. It is not until we become willing to be captured by Christ that He has the ground and standing to make us gifts to the Body. We must pray to the Lord from the depth of our being, “I surrender to You. I am defeated by You. I am captured by You.” We all need to be thoroughly defeated, captured, gained, and taken over by Christ. When we are willing to be subdued and captured by Christ, we will give Christ the ground to establish us as gifts to His Body. The more Christ ascends and descends within us, capturing and vanquishing us, the more He fills us with Himself to constitute us as gifts to His Body.
In order for the Lord to establish us as gifts to the Body, we must not only be captured by Christ but also grow in life. The more we grow in life, the more we will receive the life supply and the more this life supply will enable us to function in the Body. Holding to truth in love, we should grow up into Christ as the Head in all things (v. 15). By the growth in life, our function in the Body will be manifested. When we grow in life, we will have the rich flow of life, and this flow of life within us will be the function in the Body. The Lord’s intention is to give us as gifts to the Body, yet for Him to make us as gifts to the Body, we must be fully captured, conquered, and possessed by Christ and grow up into Him as the Head in all things.
Verse 7 tells us that Christ gives grace to each of His members according to the measure of His gift. Concerning the Body of Christ, all the basic elements are one, but the gifts (the functions) are many and varied. Here grace was given according to the gift; in Romans 12:6 the gifts differ according to grace. Grace actually is the divine life that produces and supplies the gifts. In Romans 12 it is the grace that produces the gift. Hence, the gift is according to grace. Here the grace is according to the gift, according to the measure of the gift.
Each member of our physical body has a certain measure. The expression the measure of the gift of Christ refers to the size of a member of Christ’s Body. With every member there is a certain size, a certain measure. Just as our blood supplies the members of our body according to their size, grace also is given to each member according to its size.
The measure of the gift of Christ is the size of a member of the Body of Christ. What kind of member you are depends upon how much of the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ you have (v. 13). If you have a greater measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, you are a bigger member in the church. If a brother gives much ground to Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, he will have a greater measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The more of the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ he has, the greater his function among the saints will be. The function and the size of a member are measured by the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
We also need to see that all the members of the Body are gifts to the Body. Although there is more blood in the shoulder than in the ear, the quality of the blood is the same. Just as blood is the life supply to our physical body, so grace is the life supply to the members in the Body of Christ. We should praise the Lord that all the saints are gifts of Christ to whom grace has been given. Just as every part of our physical body is indispensable, every member of the Body of Christ, great and small, is an indispensable gift to the Body (1 Cor. 12:14-22; Rom. 12:4-5). Therefore, we should never consider ourselves as too small to be a profitable gift to the Body. Rather, we should all declare that we are gifts to the Body.
Ephesians 4:11 says, “He Himself gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as shepherds and teachers.” Each one in verse 7 includes every member of the Body of Christ, each of whom has received a general gift; whereas the four kinds of gifted persons mentioned here are those who have been endued with a special gift.
The first of the four special gifts is the apostles. An apostle of the Lord is a believer who is sent out by Him with His authority to preach the gospel of God, to teach the divine truth, and to establish churches. As long as anyone has the power to preach the gospel, the gift to teach the divine truth, and the ability to establish churches, he is qualified and confirmed to be an apostle sent by the Lord with His commission and authority. Throughout the ages, certain ones have been raised up by God to be apostles and have been given to the church as gifts.
The second category of special gifts to the church in Ephesians 4:11 is the prophets. The prophets are those who speak for God and speak forth God by God’s revelation and who sometimes speak with inspired prediction. In order to be a prophet, one must have the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge. This means that a prophet must have the proper knowledge of the Word and also receive much divine revelation. Without this knowledge and this revelation, we cannot speak for God or speak God forth. A prophet must be one who has the light, the revelation, concerning what is written in the Word. The prophets, therefore, must have the spiritual gift to speak the word of wisdom so that God may be spoken forth and by this speaking be dispensed into others.
The third category of special gifts to the church in Ephesians 4:11 is the evangelists. The evangelists are experts in preaching the gospel, and all the saints need to learn of them. An outstanding example of an evangelist is Philip in Acts 8. Through his ministry and preaching of the gospel as recorded in this chapter, he was manifested to be an evangelist. Because he had an outstanding gift of gospel preaching, he was eventually called “Philip the evangelist” (21:8).
The fourth category of special gifts to the church in Ephesians 4:11 is the shepherd-teachers. According to the grammatical construction, shepherds and teachers refers to a single class of gifted persons. A shepherd should know how to teach, and a teacher should be able to shepherd. Shepherding needs teaching, and teaching needs shepherding. Therefore, shepherd-teachers are one category of persons. They shepherd others in order to teach them, and they teach others by shepherding them.
One crucial key to our becoming apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers is the word of God in the Bible. Day by day we must read the Bible and pray with the Bible in order to digest the word. The word of God will then enter into us and become the Spirit in us; with the Spirit, we will have life, understanding, and utterance. In this way we will be mingled with the divine word and the life-giving Spirit day after day. If our being is saturated not merely with the knowledge of God’s word but with the living essence of God’s word, we will surely be His apostle, His sent one. Furthermore, the extent to which we take the word into us and let it mingle with our inward parts determines the extent to which we can be God’s prophet, His spokesman. When we become the embodiment of God’s word, we will spontaneously become His sent ones, speak for Him, preach the gospel, and shepherd and teach others. If we are filled and saturated with God’s living word, we will be God’s apostles sent to the world, prophets to speak for Him, evangelists to preach the gospel, and shepherds and teachers to care for His people and teach them His economy. The matter of being a gifted person is wrapped up with being saturated with the word of God.
Verse 12 tells us that the gifted ones were given to the Body “for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ.” The many gifted persons in the preceding verse have only one ministry, that is, to minister Christ for the building up of the Body of Christ, the church. This is the unique ministry in the New Testament economy (2 Cor. 4:1; 1 Tim. 1:12).
According to the grammatical construction, the phrase unto the building up of the Body of Christ is in apposition to the phrase unto the work of the ministry. This indicates that both phrases refer to the same thing; hence, the work of the ministry is the building up of the Body. The apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers perfect the saints unto the work of the ministry. The word unto in verse 12 means resulting in, for the purpose of, or with a view to. This means that the perfecting of the saints is for the purpose of building up the Body of Christ. Whatever the gifted persons in verse 11 do as the work of the ministry must be for the building up of the Body of Christ. However, this building up is not accomplished directly by the gifted ones but by the saints who have been perfected by the gifted ones.
The work of the ministry is both of the perfecting ones and the perfected ones; the building up of the Body is the work not only of the apostles and the other gifted ones but also of all the perfected saints. The unique work of building up the Body of Christ is the responsibility not mainly of the gifted ones but of all the saints. Both the gifted ones, including the leading apostles, and all the believers, including even the smallest member, work together to build up the Body.
The gifted persons are for the perfecting of the saints. The gifted persons perfect the saints in the divine dispensing in order that all the saints may be able to do the work of the New Testament ministry, that is, to build up the Body of Christ. The gifted persons perfect the saints by nourishing them according to the tree of life with the life supply for their growth in life (Gen. 2:9; 1 Cor. 3:2, 6). The gifted persons perfect the saints to do what they do for the direct building up of the Body of Christ. The apostles perfect the saints by visiting the churches (Acts 15:36, 40-41; 20:20, 31), by writing epistles to the churches (Col. 4:16; 1 Cor. 1:2), and by assigning their co-workers to stay in certain places to perfect the saints (1 Tim. 1:3-4; 3:15; Titus 1:5). The prophets perfect the saints by teaching them to speak the Lord into people, by speaking in the meetings to set up a model, and by helping the saints to live a prophesying life by being revived every morning and overcoming every day (Acts 13:1; 1 Cor. 14:31; Prov. 4:18). The evangelists perfect the saints by stirring them up to be burning in the gospel-preaching spirit, by teaching them with gospel truths, by training them to preach the gospel, by helping the saints to be equipped with the power of the economical Spirit, and by setting an example of loving the sinners and praying for them (2 Tim. 4:5). The shepherd-teachers perfect the saints by shepherding — feeding and nourishing the young saints and teaching the growing saints (Acts 11:25-26; 13:1). The result of this perfecting is that we will all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, and at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13; cf. John 17:23). This perfecting will cause us to be no longer little children tossed by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching in the sleight of men, in craftiness with a view to a satanic system of error (Eph. 4:14).
In order to be perfected, we must pay attention to life and to function. The way to be perfected is to grow in life and to become skillful in function. The Greek word rendered perfecting in verse 12 also means completing, equipping, and furnishing. To perfect a saint is to complete him, to equip him, and to furnish him. Only by growing in life can we be completed. Not until we become mature will we be completed. As long as, spiritually speaking, we remain under-age, we will not be complete. Mothers perfect their children by feeding them. Furthermore, parents equip their children and furnish them by training them to behave and to speak in a certain way. Thus, children are perfected by feeding and by training. The same is true with respect to perfecting the saints according to God’s economy. The saints need to be fed so that they may grow in the divine life, and they need to be trained so that they may function with the proper skill. We should all pray, “Lord, make me willing and ready to be perfected. I will receive the perfecting from the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers.”
We should not think that as long as a person is spiritual in life, he requires no training. Rather, in spiritual things, as in physical things, there is the need of training. In spiritual things we need the maturity, the growth in life, and we also need the skill. The maturity comes from growth, and the skill comes from training. Therefore, in order to perfect the saints, we need to feed them with spiritual food that they may grow, and we also need to train them to develop certain skills.
All the saints should be building members. The gifted ones mentioned in verse 11 are not high officials with a special rank. Rather, they are given for the perfecting of the saints (v. 12). The saints need to be perfected, equipped, furnished, unto the work of the ministry. The perfecting or equipping is related both to growth in life and to training in certain skills. The work of the building up of the Body of Christ should be carried out not only by the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers but by all the members. Hence, all the saints need to be building members. We should be not only members who have been built up but also members who build up the Body. First, the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers perfect the saints. This means that they build up the saints. Then the perfected saints become the building members.
In verse 16 Paul goes on to say, “Out from whom all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.” Here joined implies the thought of joining by fitting; knit implies the thought of interweaving. The Body causes the growth of itself through the supplying joints and working parts. The expression every joint refers to the specially gifted persons, such as those mentioned in verse 11, and the rich supply must be the particular supply, the supply of Christ. Further, the expression each one part refers to every member of the Body. Every member of the Body of Christ has its own measure which works for the growth of the Body. The growth of the Body is the increase of Christ in the church, which results in the building up of the Body itself in love.
In brief, by His death Christ conquered all the enemies and solved all the problems. Through His resurrection He released all the divine riches, and through His ascension He received God’s chosen people with the divine fullness. From the time of His ascension, Christ has been working to constitute the vanquished foes into gifts for His Body. First, He comes to these vanquished foes and enters into them. Then He gradually fills and saturates them with Himself. Eventually, those who were once His enemies are transformed and constituted into useful gifts that can be presented to the Body. These gifts not only teach others but also transfuse Christ into them. In this way the members of the Body receive nourishment and are cherished. Then they will be sanctified, purified, and transformed to become functioning members. As a result, the whole Body will be fitly framed together and compacted by every joint of supply, according to the operation in the measure of every part. This will cause the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.
