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Scripture Reading: Eph. 4:4-16; Col. 1:27; Eph. 1:18; 1 Cor. 1:30
In the previous two chapters we covered the first half of the book of Ephesians, from chapter 1 through chapter 3. In this chapter we will cover the first half of chapter 4. This is one of the deepest and most mysterious portions of the New Testament.
Ephesians 4:4 begins, “One Body and one Spirit.” We all know that this one Body refers to the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is something mysterious. No one can clearly understand it. Even with our physical body, there are many things that medical doctors cannot explain. Our physical body has its outward appearance, and it also has its inward and intrinsic parts. But within this wonderful body there is something even more mysterious; it is an abstract, invisible, and untouchable matter called life. No one can define life. Life is within the body, yet if we try to cut up the body to find this life, life is gone.
Although we cannot see life, every life has its expression. The plants and flowers in the Amazon River region of South America have many beautiful colors, shapes, and designs. Yet all of them come from small seeds. When the life in the seeds grows and blossoms, there are the marvelous expressions of life.
In the Body of Christ there is the divine life. This life is a life that is one with the Spirit. Hence, in Romans 8:2 Paul calls the Spirit “the Spirit of life.” Life, the Spirit, and God are one. On the one hand, life is the Spirit, and the Spirit is God. On the other hand, God is Spirit, and God is also life. This mysterious life as the Spirit is the intrinsic content of the Body of Christ.
When this life is expressed, we have the oneness of the Body. Oneness is something that is altogether impossible in human society. The United Nations was formed to help the human race to be united, but it has not accomplished its purpose. In the Body of Christ we may be of different colors and races, but we all are one. We are not merely united as in a union; we are one as the Body of Christ. In a credit union the members are united together by money. But in the Body of Christ we are made one through the one Spirit.
As human beings, we all tend to love some people and dislike others. The Chinese may not like the Japanese, and the Texans may not like the New Yorkers. Even among the Chinese, the southerners may not like the northerners. But in the Body of Christ we all have become one. We love all the saints. The Spirit is the unique factor that unites us. Christ as the Spirit is the very oneness among us. We can have such a oneness because we have the Spirit. This is why Ephesians 4:3 calls this oneness “the oneness of the Spirit.”
In this oneness there is the mingling of the Spirit with the Body of Christ. In this mingling there is a divine dispensing. Whether we realize it or not, this dispensing is going on all the time. It is like the digestion and assimilation of food in our human body. Every day digestion goes on without us realizing it. It is only when our stomach is sick that we have any feeling. When our digestive system is working properly, we do not feel anything.
The Spirit is dispensing, moving, anointing, and operating within us all the time in a smooth way. When He is dispensing, we may not feel anything. But if we do not go along with Him, He will be grieved. This is why Ephesians 4:30 says that we should not grieve the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit is grieved, it means that He is frustrated from working within us. The Pentecostal Christians consider the experience of the Spirit as something extraordinary, but actually, the dispensing of the Spirit works in a very normal way.
This Spirit is the intrinsic essence of the Body of Christ. As such an essence, He is sealing us day by day (1:13; 4:30). We are not only sealed by the Spirit but are, even more, sealed with the Spirit. The Spirit is the sealing ink. He is not only the One who seals but also the ink with which we are sealed. This sealing ink never dries. It remains wet within us all the time. As it is sealing, it is also saturating and permeating. We are like a piece of paper. Day by day the Spirit as the essence is saturating us. His saturating is His dispensing. This dispensing continues quietly within us until we are fully permeated by the Spirit.
This kind of dispensing of the Spirit brings in a hope (Col. 1:27; Eph. 1:18). This hope is the redemption of our body, in which our entire body will be soaked and permeated with the glory of God. Today Christ is hidden within us as our life. But in that day the hidden Christ will become manifested as our glory (Col. 3:4). He will permeate from our spirit, through our soul, and to our body. That will be the aggregate and the totality of God’s divine dispensing in us.
Ephesians 4:5 says, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” This verse shows us the Son’s mingling with His Body in the dispensing of the Divine Trinity.
The Spirit is the essence of the Body, and Christ is the element of the Body. There is a difference between essence and element. For example, wood is a kind of substance. This substance is actually an element. A wooden stand has wood as its substance. Wood is the element of the stand. But within this element there is an essence. This essence is the “spirit” of the wood. Christ is the element, the substance, and the sphere of the Body of Christ. Within this Christ there is the Spirit, who is the essence of the Body.
We can illustrate this matter with a watermelon. The entire melon is the substance of a watermelon. When we cut up the melon into slices, we can see the element of the melon. When these slices are pressed, we have melon juice, which is the essence of the melon. Christ is the element of the Body of Christ, and the Spirit is the essence. To have only Christ without the Spirit is like having only the melon without the juice. We need the melon with the juice. When we have the juice, we have the essence of the melon. Christ is the element of His Body, and the Spirit is the essence of His Body.
When we hear the gospel and exercise faith to believe in the Lord, the Spirit enters into us. At that time an organic union takes place between us and Christ (1 Cor. 1:30). The result is that we become an organism. This is why when Christians come together, regardless of their nationality, race, and color, something within them responds to each other. Through faith in Christ, we the believers are organically united with the Son and with one another to become a living organism.
Formerly, we were linked to our old ancestor Adam. But through baptism our connection with Adam was cut. Baptism also cut us away from the world. After we rise from the water of baptism, our taste for the world is gone. Formerly, we might have been a person who loved dancing, going to nightclubs, dressing up, and wearing makeup. But through the one baptism we no longer have a taste for these things. Now we love only Christ. We love to call on His name. Whenever we go to the meetings, our spirit rejoices and leaps. Baptism is something we cannot explain, but it is a fact in our experience.
When we baptize people, we do not need to preach or to explain very much to them. Instead, we need to exercise our spirit and our faith to give others the command to believe in Christ and to be baptized. We should tell them that it is Christ who has sent us. While we are speaking in this way, the living Christ who is within us will honor our words. If we say that Confucius or Abraham Lincoln has sent us, no one will respond. This is because these men are dead and buried in tombs. But the Christ who has sent us is a living person who has come out of the tomb and is now in resurrection and even in ascension with all authority. When we mention His name, He is with us and honors our words.
In Ephesians 4 we have first the Spirit’s dispensing in verse 4, then we have the Son’s dispensing in verse 5, and finally we have the Father’s dispensing in verse 6. This threefold dispensing is like a three-way lamp, which has a threefold intensification.
With the Father also we have a threefold dispensing (v. 6). First, He is over all the believers to overshadow them; then He is through all of them to take care of them; and last, He is in all of them to indwell them. As the One who is over all the believers, He is the Father as the source of the divine dispensing; as the One who is through all the believers, He is the Son as the course of the divine dispensing; and as the One who is in all the believers, He is the Spirit as the reaching of the divine dispensing.
Every day this threefold dispensing is going on within us. The dispensing Triune God will never leave us or allow us to take a leave from Him. We may leave Him, but He will never leave us. Our God is a God full of patience. To Him a thousand years are like one day. Even if we forget about Him for a time, eventually He will still cause us to turn back to Him. It is impossible for a real Christian to give the Lord up, because he has the threefold dispensing of the Triune God, with the Father overshadowing him, the Son taking care of him, and the Spirit indwelling him all the time.
Today many Christian workers talk about the building up of the church. Some say that Christ is the One who directly builds up the church. Others say that He builds up the church through ministers and preachers. But this is all human talk. The real way to build up the church is revealed in Ephesians 4:7-16.
The way Christ builds up the church is by the giving, or dispensing, of the divine grace according to the measures of the gifts of Christ, who are the persons constituted with Christ’s life and element through the dispensing of the Divine Trinity (v. 7). Each gifted person has a measure, and the divine grace is given, or dispensed, to him according to that measure.
The short portion of the holy Word from verse 8 to verse 11 shows us that the Lord first accomplished incarnation, and then He went into death. Through His death He went down to Hades, to the lower parts of the earth, and rose again from that place (Acts 2:24, 27). Then He ascended to the heavens (1:9). Through this wonderful journey He captured us, the sons of Adam, taking us out of Satan’s hand. We were fallen and were the captives of Satan. Christ died on the cross not merely to take away our sins but also to destroy Satan and to capture us, the captives of Satan. Then in His ascension He brought this train of redeemed captives to the Father and gave them as a present to Him. The Father accepted them and returned them as gifts to Christ (Psa. 68:18). Christ in turn passed on these gifts to His Body. These gifts then became the gifted persons in the churches.
Today in the Body there are gifted persons. Some are apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers. Although we may not realize it, the Lord is working unceasingly to produce many gifts for His church. He, as the Head in His ascension, is still giving the church these many gifts, who exercise their ability and capacity to perfect all the saints.
All the saints who have been perfected become the able members of the Body. Before being perfected they were not able, but they are made able through the perfecting of the gifted persons. All the able members can do the work of the New Testament ministry, which is to build up the Body of Christ. For example, through the summer school for the young people, many have been perfected to do the work of the New Testament ministry. My speaking of these messages is also a perfecting that enables the saints to build up the Body of Christ directly.
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. This 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 system of error (Eph. 4:13-14).
The perfecting by the gifted persons is for the direct building of the organic Body of Christ by the members of the Body. In order to be built up, first we must grow into the Head, Christ, in all things (v. 15). Although some of us may love the Lord very much, we may still hold on to many things that the Lord does not want. As we are being perfected and while we contact the Lord day after day, He will require that we give up some of these things. It may be a certain pair of shoes, a certain haircut, or makeup that He requires us to give up. If we want to have a part in the work of the New Testament ministry, we must grow up into Him in these things. Before we go to the barbershop, put on a dress, make any decision, or do anything, we need to pray to the Lord first. In this way we will grow into Christ in all things.
After we have grown up into Christ, something out from Him will be produced. This rich supply out from Him will be dispensed into us and will make us either a joint of the rich supply or a particular functioning part in the Body (v. 16). Our human body needs many joints. We can stretch our arms and legs in a flexible way because of the many joints in our arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet, and toes. In addition, there are the many parts between the joints to function together according to their own measure. Although the arm may have a large measure and the little finger may have a small measure, every member functions according to its own measure. In the same way, in the Body of Christ there are many joints of the rich supply who are joined closely together. There are also many operating parts who are knit and interwoven together.
While the joints are supplying and the different parts are functioning, there will be the growth of the Body. This growth of the Body equals the building up of the Body directly by itself. The Body is not built up directly by the Head, nor is it built up directly by the gifted persons. It is built up directly by the perfected and functioning members. The work of the Head and the work of the gifted persons are indirect; the direct work is done by the members. As these members function, the Body grows, and this growth is the building up.
It is by the way of dispensing that the church as the organic Body of Christ is built up. The Father is dispensing, the Son is dispensing, and the Spirit is dispensing. Furthermore, all the gifted ones are dispensing, and all the perfected ones also are dispensing. It is through this dispensing of the divine life that the Body grows and builds itself up.
