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Scripture Reading: Eph. 4:8-16
In this chapter and the next, our burden is to give a clear and concise presentation of the goal of the God-ordained way and the necessary steps for its practice. For this reason we must speak for the Lord according to the high standard of the Bible. We need to use our spirit and our sober mind to understand and receive these words. We look to the Lord for His grace that we would be able to present the new way clearly and completely.
We have been speaking concerning the God-ordained way for more than three years. This way is the ancient way in the Bible. It was practiced by the apostles two thousand years ago in the early church. However, when the church became degraded, the church gradually fell into the world, left the scriptural revelation, and practiced what we call the old way. After we saw the light in the Bible, we were willing to receive the Lord’s grace to recover the way that was lost. Hence, in the Lord’s recovery this is what we call the new way. The new way that we are recovering is actually the church’s practice from two thousand years ago; it is the way ordained by God according to His eternal economy.
The new way is clearly revealed in the New Testament in a gradual way. Our natural concepts, however, prevent us from seeing the new way when we read the New Testament. When we read the Bible, we are usually impressed with the things we already know, and we respond to them, but we are unable to understand the things concerning God’s heart, even after we read them numerous times. For example, there are many deep points in Ephesians 4:8-16 that we do not understand. Therefore, when we read these verses, we must look to the Lord to give us revelation and light so that we can see the deep things of God in this portion of the Word.
Ephesians 4:8-16 speaks mainly of the building up of the Body of Christ, which is the goal of the God-ordained way. It seems as though our initial speaking about the new way gave the saints the impression that the goal of the new way is to knock on doors. However, preaching the gospel through door-knocking is not the goal of the new way. The home meetings, group meetings, and district meetings are also not the goal of the new way. The goal of the new way is the building up of the Body of Christ. We preach the gospel by knocking on doors because we want to obtain the materials necessary for the building up of the Body of Christ.
We preach the gospel for people to be regenerated and become materials for the building up of the Body of Christ. The home meetings are for the perfecting of the new believers so that they can function in the meetings. The further step of group meetings provides the saints with mutual fellowship, mutual care, and mutual edification. The district meetings help the saints enter into the church life and function organically by supplying and building up one another through their speaking. These four steps are for the building up of the Body of Christ.
Every person has a physical body; Christ also has a Body. The Body of Christ is the church (1:22-23). On the surface, our body seems to be made up of different members and parts that are joined together in an organized way. However, when we make a chair by joining different pieces of wood together in an organized way, we get something very different from a body. A chair is a lifeless composition, but a body is an organism, a living composition. Any part of a body, regardless of how big or small it may be, has the sense and function of life. Similarly, the Body of Christ, the church, is not an organization but an organism. Hence, when we build up the Body of Christ, we are not building up a society, an organization, or a group.
The traditional way of Christianity does not emphasize the Body of Christ; it emphasizes only outward organization. In Christianity a person is encouraged to believe and then become a member of a group. Then elections are held, a board of directors is chosen, and people are selected for different kinds of services. This is not the Body of Christ; it is an assembly. The Body of Christ is composed of a group of people who have repented and have received Christ as their life and their Savior; these people are regenerated in their spirit, and the Holy Spirit operates within them and fills their being for their transformation and growth in the divine life.
If I do not have an organic body to cooperate with the life of my person, I cannot express myself when I speak. The Lord Jesus is the One who fills all in all; therefore, He needs an organism, His Body, for His expression. However, He does not yet have His Body, the proper church on the earth today. Even though we have been in the Lord’s recovery for many years, and there are now more than one thousand one hundred local churches on the six major continents, we lack the element of the organism of Christ. We are short of the organic expression of life; hence, our situation is mainly one of organization. This is the result of the old way. Therefore, we need to turn to the new way in order to develop the organic function of all the members so that the Lord can obtain an organic Body.
To build up the Body of Christ, we need Christ as the Head. A body must have a head, and Christ is the Head of the Body of Christ. Christ’s being the Head is an indication of His victory and of His passing through death and resurrection. On the cross the Lord destroyed “him who has the might of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14). The Lord then entered into Hades and overcame death by coming out of Hades. Then He ascended into the heavens. Through the victory of His death and resurrection and through the exaltation in His ascension, Christ led captive those taken captive and gave gifts to men (Eph. 4:8).
Even though we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world (1:4), when man fell, he became a captive of Satan through sin and death (2:1). However, God did not abandon us. He was incarnated, and He passed through death, resurrection, and ascension to solve the problem of sin, to destroy Satan and death, and to deliver us from the authority of Satan so that we could sit with Him in the heavenlies. We were redeemed and regenerated, and we obtained the life of God and the Holy Spirit. Now we are being transformed and are growing in life to be gifts to the Body. The apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers are examples of gifted members (4:8-11). The Lord gave these gifted members to His Body. He did this in the age of the apostles, and He continues to give gifted ones to His Body. The Lord made every believer a gift to His Body, and He made some believers apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers so that they can be given to the church for the building up of the Body of Christ.
The gifts—the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers—are produced by the Head for the Body. The work of the gifts is not to build up the Body of Christ directly; rather, their work is to perfect the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ (v. 12). Even though these four groups of people work in different ways, they all have one goal—the building up of the Body of Christ.
The gifts do not build up the Body of Christ directly; instead, they perfect the saints to build up the Body of Christ. In the old and traditional way of Christianity the pastors, the clergy, give sermons and do the work of God. Only the clergy build up the church; the congregation does not build up the church. The God-ordained way is different. In the God-ordained way the church is not built up directly by a small group of gifted believers; instead, the gifts perfect the saints so that everyone can do what the gifts do. Everyone can do the work of the ministry, which is to build up the Body of Christ.
The main thing accomplished in the new way is the perfecting of all the saints. In the old way the saints were only required to listen to messages in the meetings. We practiced this for decades, but we did not perfect many saints. It is as if we conducted classes to spiritually educate the saints for decades, but no one graduated, and we did not produce many teachers. It was, therefore, difficult for the church to increase and spread. This situation proves that there is a problem with our practice. We must change and take the new way in order to perfect the saints.
Although the gifts work in different ways, the goal of their work is the perfecting of the saints. The apostles do three things: they preach the gospel in new areas to lead people to salvation, they establish churches, and they define and expound the truth. The apostles, however, also need to perfect other believers to do these things. This also applies to the prophets. They should not merely speak for God and speak forth God; they should also perfect others to be prophets. We also need the evangelists to perfect the saints. The evangelists need to know how to lead the saints, who are learning to preach the gospel by knocking on doors, to go into the midst of wolves and find the sons of peace (cf. Luke 10:3, 6). The brothers and sisters need to be perfected in all these areas. In addition, we need the shepherds and teachers to care for people by shepherding and teaching the saints. They also need to perfect the saints to be able to shepherd and teach others.
Hence, the new way allows the gifts in the church to perfect the saints. They perfect the saints to preach the gospel and lead people to believe in the Lord. They also perfect the saints to establish meetings in the homes of the new ones and to lead the new ones to testify for the Lord, to read the Lord’s Word, and to speak for the Lord. The saints also learn to care for one another, to nourish one another, and to function organically. If we are willing to humbly learn and faithfully exercise to do these things according to the way revealed in the Bible, we will be able to build up the Body that God desires. In other words, all the gifts—the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers—must lead and perfect the saints to do these four things. Then there will be apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers among the saints, and the church will receive a great blessing.
For the building up of the Body of Christ, all the perfected members need to hold to truth in love (Eph. 4:15). In other words, we need to hold to God, Christ, the Spirit, life, and the truth, the things that are true. When we hold to truth in love, we will grow up into the Head, Christ, in all things. We will also have something that is out from the Head for the building up of His Body. Every joint will be of the rich supply, and each one part will operate according to its measure so that the entire Body is joined and knit together. This causes the Body of Christ to grow up and expand—to build up itself in love (v. 16).
When all the members are perfected to grow in life and to function organically, they will be joined together and built up as one Body, and the Lord will have an organic Body for His complete expression. That will be a glorious and blessed situation. May all the saints clearly see this vision and pray for this vision so that they become blessed people in the God-ordained way, people who manifest their organic function and are being built up in the organic Body of Christ.
When we have this desire, we will enter into many things, and we will learn to pray, to speak for the Lord, to care for other believers, and to perfect them to do what we do. In addition, some saints will learn how to preach the gospel in new places, establish churches, and rightly expound the truth. This is how the believers who take the God-ordained way will function. They will be able to speak for the Lord, to preach the gospel, and to shepherd and teach others. They will also be able to perfect others to do the same thing. The church will spread, and the Lord will obtain a built-up organic Body. May we all have a clear seeing of the goal of the new way, and may we labor with one heart to diligently learn to walk on the God-ordained way.
