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Scripture Reading: Eph. 4:29-30; 5:18-27; 6:10-11, 18
The last portion of the book of Ephesians is instruction concerning the practical church life. We should remember that after the apostle Paul gave a full vision of the church, he offered a prayer at the end of chapter 3 specifically that we would be strengthened into our inner man that Christ may make His home in our heart, that is, that He may spread into, take over, and occupy our whole inward being (vv. 16-19). This is a very basic prayer for the church life. The church life is not merely outward in practice. Rather, it is something inward. We need to keep in mind that we have an inner man, a human spirit. Our inner man must be strengthened; then all our inward parts will be taken over, possessed, by Christ, and He will make home and settle down in our whole being. Eventually, we will be filled unto all the fullness of God; that is, we will be fully mingled with God. This is very basic to the church life. We can never have a church life by ourselves, in ourselves, or with ourselves. The church life must be a life of our being mingled with God, in which our inner man, our spirit, is strengthened.
Our inner man needs to be strong. Our greatest need for strengthening is not in our body or even our soul—our mind, will, and emotion. Our spirit must be the strongest part. It must be prevailing, having the first place, so that our entire being comes under the inner man and Christ has full control of it. Then there is the possibility for us to be filled unto the fullness of God. This means that we are thoroughly, wholly, and fully mingled with God. It is in this mingling that we have the church life. This is a very basic matter, and we cannot stress it too much. We need to give message after message to stress this one matter—that our inner man must be strengthened and that Christ must take over our whole being so we can be mingled with God and filled unto all the fullness of God.
After the prayer in chapter 3, the writer goes into the details of the practice of the church life in chapter 4, which are mainly a matter in spirit. The first item of the practice of the church life is to keep the oneness, which is a matter of the Spirit (vv. 3-6). The last three chapters of this book do not give the ground to mere teachings or doctrines. The church life is not a matter of teaching or doctrine. It is a matter of being in the spirit. If we are in the spirit, we have the oneness, but in doctrinal teachings we have only divisions. We can never be one in doctrines. Not even a brother and his wife can be absolutely one in doctrinal teachings. We can never be one in teachings, but there is a real oneness in spirit. If we would forget about our natural mentality and reasonings and take care of the spirit within, we will be one with all the saints who are in spirit.
The genuine oneness is the oneness of the Spirit. Therefore, we must be in spirit. When we are out of the spirit, we are in division. In so many matters we are simply different. Therefore, we must learn to be in spirit. Arguing gets us nowhere; it only causes divisions. The situation of Christians today is like a honeycomb, full of divisions and compartments. Whenever we are out of the spirit, we are in a compartment, a small division. The genuine oneness is of the Spirit, so we need to learn to be in spirit. Almost the entire first part of chapter 4 of Ephesians is an instruction on the way to keep the oneness. The way to keep the oneness is in the spirit.
This spirit is the mingled spirit. The divine Spirit and the human spirit are now one. It is this mingled spirit that saturates and takes over our whole being. When our spirit spreads into our mind, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind (v. 23). The only way to be renewed is for the spirit to get into our mind to saturate, take over, possess, and occupy it. Our mind predominates our whole being, so the spirit must take control of the mind. In this way our whole being is renewed.
Moreover, this renewing has much to do with putting on the new man. Strictly speaking, the new man is the Body (2:15-16). Therefore, to put on the new man is simply to put on the Body. This is to have the church life in practicality. Many Christians today talk about the church life, or the Body life, but where is the Body life? The practical Body life is in the renewing in the spirit of our mind. As we are being renewed in the spirit of our mind, we are gradually putting on the new man; that is, we are gradually coming into the practice of the Body life. We began to practice the church life in Los Angeles a few years ago. Now we can check with ourselves. How much church life we have had depends on the degree to which we have been renewed in the spirit of our mind. If we have only a small amount of renewal in the spirit of our mind, we have only a small amount of church life. The church life we have cannot exceed our being renewed in the spirit of the mind. This is not a mere doctrine; it is very practical. The oneness is in the spirit, and the putting on of the new man, the Body life, is also in the spirit.
Verse 30 of chapter 4 says, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.” In his writings the apostle Paul was very careful in using words and terms. This verse speaks of the Holy Spirit of God. It seems that there is no need to use the word Holy; we may simply say, “the Spirit of God.” However, holiness is the very nature of God, which relates to the previous verse. Verse 29 begins, “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth.” Different versions translate corrupt in various ways. Corrupt may mean “rotten, unwholesome, filthy, foul, polluted, or unhealthy.” The Greek word has all these meanings. We must not let this kind of word proceed out of our mouth. This kind of communication is not holy; it has not been separated and does not fit the holy nature of God. Today the Spirit of God within us is the very Holy Spirit. If we speak in a corrupt way, we will grieve the Holy Spirit. According to these verses, to grieve the Holy Spirit has much to do with our speaking. Verse 29 tells us not to speak in that way, and the following verse tells us not to grieve the Holy Spirit. If we speak unhealthy, unwholesome words, we will grieve the Holy Spirit.
The rest of verse 29 says, “But only that which is good for building up, according to the need, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Conybeare’s translation of this verse reads, “From your mouth let no filthy word come forth, but such as may build up the Church according to its need, and give a blessing to the hearers.” According to Conybeare’s realization, building up refers to the building up of the church. His footnote for the phrase build up says, “Literally, such as is good for needful building up (‘building’ always implies ‘the Church’ or something equivalent), that it may give a blessing to the hearers.” Conybeare’s understanding is correct. What was in the mind of the apostle was the building up of the church. Colossians 4:6 says, “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.” We need to speak words that minister grace to others. This kind of speech has very much to do with the building up of the church, the Body. We need to speak in a way that takes care of the building up of the church.
Ephesians 4:29 says that our speaking should be “according to the need.” Need may also be translated as “occasion,” or “the need of the moment.” Whenever we speak with the brothers and sisters in the church, we must take care of the present situation of the church. We must speak in a way to meet the need of the occasion for the building up of the church. We may illustrate this in the following way. If a brother comes to talk with us, we may realize that he has a certain problem with the church, the sisters, the elders, or the young people. This is his present situation, which has much to do with the building up of the church. At this point we are put on the spot. Our proper response depends on how we speak with him. There is the need to speak something to him to meet the present situation for the building up of the church. We may talk to him in a negative way, saying, “I agree with you. I am also unhappy with the sisters.” This is sufficient to “tear down the wall” in the church. At the least, this brother will be torn down. However, if we are in the spirit and under the control of the spirit, our spirit will have the anointing and the wisdom to speak with him. We will speak in a proper way to meet the need of this occasion for the building up of the church. After our talk, this brother will be more built in and built up into the church.
There are two possibilities for our speaking. One is to tear down, and the other is to build up. The proper meaning of verse 29 is that we must always speak in a way that meets the need of the present occasion for the building up of the church. The Berkeley Version says, “But only what serves well to improve the occasion,” and the Interlinear Greek-English New Testament says, “To improvement of the need.” This is meaningful. Building up implies the improvement of the present occasion. When the brother mentioned above comes to speak with us, he presents a need of the occasion in that he has a problem with the church. His situation is poor, and it needs to be improved. The improvement depends on how we speak to him. We may speak in a way to improve the occasion or to make the occasion worse.
This kind of speaking must be in the spirit and must go along with the inner anointing (1 John 2:20, 27). Otherwise, we will grieve the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit who is holy. In order to speak with others in a proper way, we need to take care of the inner anointing. We should check to see if we have the inner anointing with peace and joy while we speak. If we have the inner anointing with peace and joy, it is good to continue our speaking, but if we have the inner feeling that the Holy Spirit is checking us from within, and we do not have peace and joy, we are grieving Him. Our speaking has much to do with whether or not we grieve the Holy Spirit.
We must admit that many times we have grieved the Holy Spirit in this way. Many times we are careless about our speaking. We may have felt that we should not speak in a certain way, but we still spoke in the way of causing damage to the building up of the church. Our speech, our word, must be good to meet the need of the present occasion for the building up of the church. Otherwise, our word will be unhealthy and unwholesome. This kind of word damages. We are here for the building up of the church. If we were not for the building up of the church, there would be no need to meet together. Our purpose in being here is the testimony of the church life. The subtlety, the stratagem, of the enemy is simply to tear down this building. There is a real struggle between the building up and the tearing down. We are not complaining against any persons; we are accusing the enemy, Satan, who is doing his best to frustrate the building. Many of us are careless and unaware of how much Satan has used our mouths to tear down. We need to learn the lessons.
We have the oneness of the Spirit, and we have the renewing in the spirit of the mind. Now we must also have our speaking in the spirit. We must learn to speak, to communicate, with the saints in the spirit, under the control of the spirit, and under the anointing. If we have the peace and joy, we should continue to speak. Otherwise, we should stop.
Ephesians 4:29 continues, “That it may give grace to those who hear.” Our word, our speech, can minister death and damage, or it can minister grace and life to others. The extent to which we minister grace is the extent to which the church is built up. If we minister death by our speaking, the building up of the church will be damaged, but if we minister grace and life through our word, it will be a great help for the building up of the church.
Word in Greek here is logos, implying not only a short speech but a longer one. We need to be careful about our longer speaking. Whenever the enemy does damage to the building up of the church, he likes to use long speakings. There is a natural temptation within us in the flesh to listen to long speakings on negative things. Sometimes the more negative something is, the more we like to hear it. This kind of logos is not a short word but a lecture. The enemy likes to give a longer word, even for two or three hours, and we may have the inner desire to listen to it. Some even do not grow tired or hungry when they listen to this kind of word. They are so willing to listen, to hear, and to know more. Whenever this happens, we must realize that this is the tearing down by the enemy.
Someone may come and say, “Do you know what happened recently between two brothers?” Right away our ears may be attentive. If our wife calls us to breakfast, we may tell the brother, “Forget about breakfast. Tell me what happened.” There is a desire within us to know these things. On the other hand, someone may read Revelation 21 in the morning and tell us that the New Jerusalem is wonderful, but we may not be impressed. When our wife calls us to breakfast, we may say, “Let’s go eat,” but we may have no appetite to hear about the New Jerusalem. We have a great appetite for gossip, especially gossip about the church. When we gossip about other things, people may not pay much attention, but whenever we gossip about the church, every ear is attentive. I learned this through many confirming experiences in the past. This causes much damage and tearing down. I say again, we are not complaining against any persons. Rather, we hate the enemy, and we hate to see how he utilizes the careless mouths to tear down the church.
Not only does this kind of speaking tear down, but it also spoils the materials for the building. We cannot use pieces of broken glass to make a cup. Once the material is broken, it is finished. We may not realize that some material has already been damaged by us, and it may never be recovered. The building has been damaged, and some material has been broken. This is why the apostle Paul spoke such a word in both his Epistles to the Ephesians and to the Colossians. We must be careful with our speech, with our logos. Our speech must be good to meet the need of the occasion for the building up of the church by ministering grace to the hearers. This also is a matter in the spirit.
We find the spirit again in Ephesians 5:18-21. These verses say, “Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissoluteness, but be filled in spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and psalming with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks at all times for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to our God and Father, being subject to one another in the fear of Christ.” According to the grammar of this sentence, being filled in spirit is related to speaking, giving thanks, and being subject to one another.
Verses 22 through 24 continue, “Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord; for a husband is head of the wife as also Christ is Head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the Body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also let the wives be subject to their husbands in everything.” It is by being filled in spirit that we can submit one to another. When we are in spirit, we are willing to be subject to one another. In the self no one submits to others. Submission is in the spirit. According to the context of these verses, if we do not speak, sing, and thank the Lord, we will never be subject to others. We need to be happy in the spirit. Otherwise, we will only be rebellious.
This passage mentions four things: being filled in spirit; speaking with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; giving thanks to the Lord; and being subject to one another. Without being filled in spirit through praising and giving thanks, no one can be subject to others. Only when we are happy can we be subject. When a sister is angry, she will not and cannot submit to her husband. A husband knows not to expect submission when his wife is angry. If he is wise, he will check to see whether or not she is happy and wait until her mouth is full of thanks and praises. Then she will submit.
Submission comes from being filled in spirit. When we are filled in spirit, we are full of praise and thanks to the Lord. At this time we are able and willing to submit to everyone. In the church there is the real need of submission. A building must be vertical, not flat and horizontal. If I say that I do not want to be under you, and you say that neither do you want to be under me, then we are “flat,” and there can be no building. In order to build up something vertically, there must be submission. I must be under you, you must be under someone else, and he must be under yet another person. This is the proper submission. Some may ask, “Why must I be under that person?” To ask this is to produce a question mark, which is the form of a serpent when it rises up. Question marks in the church life are the sign of the serpent. This is a real damage; it is poisonous. In the church life there is the practical need of subjection. When we are subject to one another, we are able to be built up.
Verses 25 through 27 say, “Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her that He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of the water in the word, that He might present the church to Himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that she would be holy and without blemish.” Verse 26 speaks of the washing of the water in the word. It is by this washing that the church is sanctified and cleansed, and all the spots and the wrinkles are purged away. In the church life today stains and dirtiness do not cause much damage. It does not matter if my hand is dirty or has paint on it, because I can wash this away in a short time. However, spots are something of the natural life, and wrinkles are related to oldness, so not even the best soap can wash them away. Today the enemy causes many spots and wrinkles in the church. He does his best to cause a great amount of oldness. We have been meeting together for only two and a half years, but some may already have become old. Nothing but the inner life can deal with all these spots and wrinkles.
Sanctifying and cleansing are a matter of the word. The washing of the water in the word is a matter of the life ministered to us by the word. In the word of God there is always the element of life. When we are in spirit and reading the word, the word ministers life to us, and this life is the water that washes away all the spots and wrinkles. When we take the word by our spirit, it becomes life, and this life is the washing water. The word can be life to us only when it is in the spirit. In John 6:63 the Lord said, “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” When the word is received in our spirit, it becomes spirit to us. Then it ministers life to us, and this life within is the washing water, sanctifying and cleansing us of all the spots and wrinkles. All this is a matter in our spirit.
If we have a problem with a brother, we can never solve it by talking and reasoning. We may think that we should clear up the misunderstanding, but the more we try to clear it up by talking about it, the more complicated it will be. We can never explain anything clearly enough once a problem occurs. Rather, that is the human concept, even the temptation from the enemy. The only way out of this situation is to forget about our reasoning and turn from our natural mentality in the soul to the spirit. Then the spirit will work something out. As long as we are in the mentality, reasoning, arguing, and trying to convince others, the Lord’s word will not be life to us when we read it. Regardless of how many chapters we read, there will be no life. It is only when we turn to the spirit and then come to the word that we receive life. Therefore, the way to help others is to help them to turn from their mind to the spirit.
If someone comes to us to reason and argue, we may be tempted to convince him by our own reasonings. If we do this, we will be trapped by the enemy. This is the natural, wrong way. We need to learn the lesson how to help this kind of person. Once we realize that he is in his mind, we should help him to turn from his mind to his spirit. If he turns to the spirit and then comes back to the word, the word will give life to him. Then this life will wash away the spots and the wrinkles. Spots and wrinkles can be washed away only by life. In this way the church will be sanctified and cleansed from all spots and wrinkles because all death will be swallowed up by life. Then the church will be holy and without blemish. This again is something in the spirit.
Verses 10 and 11 of Ephesians 6 say, “Finally, be empowered in the Lord and in the might of His strength. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil.” Then verse 18 says, “By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this in all perseverance and petition concerning all the saints.” The last aspect in Ephesians is the spiritual warfare, and the key, the secret, of this warfare is the spirit. We need to know how to pray in spirit. If there is a problem among the saints, we should not deal with it directly. Rather, we must learn to pray in spirit to fight the battle. It is by means of all prayer and petition in spirit, not by talking and reasoning, that the problems are solved.
We need to pray in spirit. When we confront a difficult situation, we should keep ourselves entirely away from the problems there. Even if people come to tell us the problems, we should shut our ears and not listen. That is the best way. However, again there is the natural temptation to dig out all the problems. When we go to a certain locality, we may like to know everything. This is a real temptation, and it is no help to ourselves or to the church there. The more we become “deaf, blind, and dumb” in a situation, the better it is. Our spirit needs to be strong. If it is, there will be no need for anyone to tell us the problems. We may not know the details, but in our spirit we will know the situation in principle.
We can never solve problems by talking them over. In my whole life I have never seen one problem solved by talking. This only wastes our time and gets us wrongly involved. The only way to fight the battle is to pray in the spirit. This is why whenever I go to other places, I shut myself off from hearing the negative things. I do not like to hear and know these things. We cannot help people by the way of listening to this kind of speaking. Sisters, if you know that certain other sisters have a problem, do not go to talk with them. If you go to talk with them, you will get involved. Let them talk among themselves. When their talk burns up all their natural fuel, the fire will stop by itself. Do not add yourself to the fire as more fuel. It is foolish to jump into their fire as more material to be burned. Many who do this are still not satisfied. They call in other saints to foolishly jump into the fire with them. Then instead of three pieces of “firewood,” there are six or seven. Then when the first three are burned out, the fire keeps burning with new material, and you yourself become the material to burn. This is a real problem in the church.
Keep yourselves away from this burning. Let the “firewood” burn itself. This kind of talk cannot last very long. After a few years those involved will see the need to stop. I have learned this secret in the past, so I am passing it on to you. Do not be fooled. We can never solve the problems by talking about them. Do not waste the time, and do not damage yourselves by becoming material for the fire. Rather, we need to pray in the spirit.
We need to keep the oneness of the Spirit, be renewed in the spirit of our mind, and not grieve the Spirit, but rather speak things that are good for the building up of the church. Moreover, we must be filled in spirit to be subject to one another and pray in spirit to fight the battle. If these five points were removed from the last three chapters of Ephesians, these chapters would be meaningless. These five points related to the spirit are vital to this portion of the Word, which speaks about the practice of the church life. This proves that the church life is entirely a matter in the spirit. If we are truly practicing the church life, we all need to learn the lesson of turning to the spirit, both by ourselves and with others. It is only in the spirit that the church life can be realized and all the problems can be solved. There is no other way.
We must learn to be in the spirit, exercise the spirit, and speak in the spirit. We also need to learn to forget about our natural mentality, our reasonings, and our talking. The fallen mind and the mouth work together too much. We must learn to divorce these two. Then we will know how to exercise the spirit, and the gossiping mouth will become a praising and thanking mouth. Our mouth will be full of psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, and giving of thanks. We can testify from our experience that the longer we talk in a gossiping way, the harder it is to preach. After two hours of talk we may not be able to pray for a few days. However, the more we stop our talking and forget our reasonings and our fallen mentality, the more we are full of praises. Sometimes we may even praise with tears and say, “Lord, praise You. Hallelujah!” Then we will also pray, not mainly for ourselves but for others and for the church. We will genuinely be in the spirit. We all need to see that the church life is a life not of teaching or reasoning but a life in the spirit. We cannot get through our misunderstandings by reasoning. If we learn to turn from our mind to the spirit, everything will be cleared up, not through the mind but in the spirit. We all need to learn this.
I would ask you to spend some time with the Lord to review all the matters concerning the practice of the church life in the last three and a half chapters of Ephesians. Also, you should pray much while you read these chapters from Ephesians and the messages we have spoken here. This will become a great help to us, and others will be helped through us. Then we all will realize the proper way to practice the church life. These messages are in the way of instruction that we may see the proper way to have the church life. We must be strengthened into the inner man. This is the basic foundation for the church life. Then the spirit will spread into our mind to renew us, and we will learn how to speak with others under the control of the spirit, not grieving the Spirit but building up the church.
From now on, whenever we speak something damaging to the building up of the church, we must feel that we are grieving the Holy Spirit, and we should not have peace. Now more than ever we need to take care of our speaking. We must never speak anything that may cause damage, even if it seems good in some way. It does not matter whether something is good or bad, or right or wrong. What matters is whether it builds up or tears down. Our speaking must be for the building up. If we speak in this way, the Holy Spirit within us will be happy; otherwise, He will be grieved. Moreover, we must learn to be filled in spirit and to have praises, thanks, and subjection to one another from the infilling Spirit. Finally, we need to learn to pray in the spirit.
All of the above are the key passages in the last part of the book of Ephesians, showing us the proper way to have the church life. If we neglect these few points, we will not have the way to build the church, regardless of how much we know. Furthermore, we must remember that neither of the two important books that deal with the Head and the Body—Colossians and Ephesians—stress mere doctrines, forms, or gifts. Rather, they stress the strengthening of our inner man, the renewing of the mind by the spirit, walking and speaking in this spirit, and being filled in spirit. This is a matter of the inner life. It is in this way that we have the church life.
