Building up believers and the New Testament church

The Secret of His Purpose

Chapter 10: Principle and Pattern

Every privilege brings with it a corresponding responsibility. So far in Ephesians we have been concentrating on our spiritual privileges. From chapter four to the end, Paul deals with our responsibilities. Truth is meant to be obeyed, and if faith remains untranslated into practical living, it is worthless. As James so pointedly reminds us, "Faith apart from works is dead" (James 2:26). In chapters four to six Paul ranges over practically every aspect of human relationship, demonstrating how the life of Christ must radically affect our walk. First of all, however, he deals with the working of the church. This important section extends to the sixteenth verse of chapter four.

As we have already seen, Christ's life must be practically expressed through His body which is the church. Principle and pattern are both important in the fulfilment of God's aim, so it is fitting that, after expounding the spiritual principles which underlie all of God's dealings, we should move on to a consideration of the pattern which gives them expression. We should note that Paul deals with the principle first and the pattern afterwards. Unless there is a firm basis of spiritual life and understanding, the pattern can be worse than useless. Man's tendency is to work in the opposite direction, and even the persistent question, "But how does this work out practically?" can be dangerous if, as it so often does, it fixes our concentration upon the mechanics of church building instead of upon the Lord. The New Testament pattern for the church is not something that can be applied by anyone with the technical 'know-how.' It is something that grows in the Spirit in proportion to light and obedience. Erecting a building or establishing the observance of the Lord's table or a certain mode of gathering has never yet made a church. Without a burning vision of the Lord's way, and the urge of the Spirit to obey, any pattern will remain but an empty sham.

If therefore, the work of the cross has gripped us, the work of personal regeneration, the work of reconciling the irreconcilable in the assembly, the prospect of Christ's glorifying Himself in the midst of His people--if that is so, the apostle would tell us, then walk and strive in that light. "Walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called" (ch. 4 v. 1).

Walking means effort and exercise, but it produces health and stamina. This is equally true of physical exercise and the spiritual walk. The young Christian who learns early to practice and witness to what he knows of Christ will quickly develop; otherwise he will remain a spiritual weakling. But above all else, the walk in the Spirit means a fixed purpose. Already we have seen something of this in considering the hope which is so essential a part of spiritual progress. Yet so many believers have little or no conception of the purpose of their salvation. How our lives need to be vitalised afresh by an understanding of the great goal which lies before us, and by that resolute determination in the Spirit to press on towards it. "This one thing I do....I press on toward the goal," writes the apostle Paul (Philippians 3:13) in what, for all he knew, would be the last letter he would ever write, cast into a Roman gaol to wait the call of martyrdom.

Then follow some of the characteristics of the spiritual walk: lowliness, meekness, longsuffering and love. They were characteristics abundantly portrayed in the life of the apostle himself. How Paul emphasises the need for humility, not only in this epistle, but throughout his writings, for well he knew that the root of every carnal division, every dissension, every evil, is pride. "Put on....humility, meekness, longsuffering," he exhorts the Colossians (Colossians 3:12). The force of these exhortations comes out as we go on to consider God's order for the assembly with which Paul deals in succeeding verses. If humility is absent, the whole of God's order becomes a mockery or a shambles. The testimony of a humble life pursuing the goal of God's glory in the church will do more by far to promote the divine order for the assembly than all the self-assured, though accurate, declarations of scriptural principle. Paul never shunned a forthright proclamation of the message committed to him, nor hesitated in a downright condemnation of error wherever he encountered it, but he knew that unless, first of all, the vitality and fellowship of the church was declared by his life, or his life itself was a judgement of any sub-spiritual standard in the assembly, his preaching would simply produce hypocrisy, and his judgements would produce a like censorious and bitter spirit which would rebound on him again.

Humility and love are inseparable. A proud spirit is immediate death to mutual forbearance, love's practical expression. This is the reason for the order in which Paul mentions the graces of verse two. It is all the more important to recognise this when we understand what love really entails. Love is not simply a blind acceptance of one another which overlooks every sin and weakness. On the contrary, love must have as its background a standard of the character of God, and have as its aim that one another be conformed to that standard. Love entails judgement as well as grace. Thus the gospel of redemption means not only the salvation of those who accept Christ, but also the judgement of those who reject. Love, at one and the same time, means the exaltation of good and the condemnation of evil. Paul explains this precisely to Timothy when he writes, "But the end of the charge is love out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned." That means to say, love must be the product of a heart free from self and pride and any ulterior motive; it must be the product of a conscience which will be satisfied with nothing less than the righteous standard of a holy God; it must be characterised by strength and persistence of faith to see that standard realised, whatever difficulties may be encountered. Nothing less will maintain life and stability in the assembly.

Paul was well aware that the unity of the assembly would be contested by Satan with every means at his disposal. He also fully recognised that the unity of the Spirit is not something which is automatically preserved. Our individual spiritual lives, or our relationship with one another, are not in the nature of a machine which God winds up and mechanically ticks over till it runs down. In every sphere of life God's order is that the full realisation of His purpose should be found in co-operation between man and Himself. A simple flower growing wild on the hillside can be developed into something of exquisite beauty through the co-operation of man with nature. Similarly in the spiritual realm, the practical realisation of the church and the maintenance of its oneness requires effort and the very fullest co-operation by God's people in His purpose. "Giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit," says Paul (v. 3). If God's people were only more aware of the importance of the church and the Satanic opposition arrayed against it, they would be in a much better position to resist the subtleties of the accuser of the brethren.

It is significant that the occasion for the writing of so many of the epistles was the threat of actual division, if in fact division did not already exist, at least in heart. Corinth, Philippi, and the assemblies of Galatia were all assailed in this manner. Another significant fact is that Paul should have thought it necessary to give such an elementary warning to the assembly at Ephesus which was probably one of the strongest and most mature of all. In doing so he gives salutary recognition to the insidiousness of the enemy who is not deterred from his efforts to foster division even by the strength and solidity of the children of God. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall" (I Corinthians 10:12).

In vs. 4-6 Paul deals with the unifying factors of the body, beginning with its heavenly and eternal aspects, and then coming down to the practical working of the body in its local character on earth.

We have already emphasised that the only church known upon the earth to the New Testament is the local congregation of believers. Similarly the body, in its earthly expression, is local and practical. "Now ye are the body of Christ," says Paul (I Corinthians 12:27), writing to the company which gathered in the Greek city of Corinth. Yet, another fact which has also been mentioned already, the church or the body transcends time. It is a great heavenly and eternal fact which it has pleased God to express upon earth. The church or body, therefore, upon the earth, is not earthly; it is the expression of something whose origin is in heaven--the incarnation, as it were, of the eternal body, just as God's people are meant to be the incarnation of the indwelling and eternal Word, Christ. If we recognise this clearly, we shall be kept from falling into the fatal error to which so many children of God are a prey, that of regarding the body as purely spiritual, a tie of common allegiance which theoretically unites those in Christ, but has little, if any, practical expression.

From the heavenly view, God's view, there is one body, and included in that body is every regenerate soul of every age. On the other hand, wherever that heavenly body is expressed on earth in the gathering together of God's regenerate children, there is still one body. This expression of the body is local, real, practical and complete. It is not less than the body; it is the body. For the human mind to reconcile completely these two aspects of the church is impossible. We must accept them as another of the great paradoxes of Scripture, just as we find it impossible to reconcile God's foreknowledge and man's free will, yet must agree that both find an unmistakable place in the Word of God.

Our recognition of the heavenly body has a very decisive effect upon our outlook within the local church. "There is one body," says Paul (v. 4) and that means both that there is one heavenly body and also that there is one legitimate expression of that body upon the earth. It will be noted how Paul links together the fact of the body and the Spirit. The Spirit of God is a person and indivisible, and cannot be the originator of a divided testimony. The work of the Spirit is, on the contrary, always to unite. "In one Spirit were we baptised into one body," we read in I Corinthians 12:13, and Paul recoils at the very thought of the divisions of Corinth portraying a Christ who is divided. The consciousness of the life of the Spirit, as we have seen in so many different ways, is the ground upon which the church is established, and all who belong to the heavenly body should find their place in that practical expression of the body upon the earth. The church must always be looking beyond the circle of its gathering to those who are unquestionably part of the eternal body and who, therefore, ought to be part of the local expression. With all who are alike bought with the precious blood of Christ we are one; we belong together. But that is not sufficient; we must also be together, drawn into oneness by the power of the Spirit in the joy of the possession of a common life.

In Ephesus we find this practically worked out. There, there was one church established upon the basis of life in Christ, and no other, for God neither knows nor recognises any other. Paul vividly demonstrates this in writing to the Corinthians who were divided over their allegiance to different teachers or doctrines. His point in writing was not that what Apollos, Peter or he himself had taught was wrong (I Corinthians 1:12-13) but that none of these things were a legitimate ground for Christian gathering. Paul, therefore, condemns the whole situation in the strongest possible terms. The spirit of sectarianism or denominationalism can never contain the body, neither can it contribute anything to the building of the body, for it is the complete antithesis of the spirit of life in Christ. Once we have known something of the vision of the body, the spirit of 'my fellowship,' 'our group,' or differentiating between the Lord's people becomes abhorrent. To those who have tasted the fellowship of the church, sectarianism and the constrictions of denominationalism are intolerable. The basis of the church is the consciousness of a common life in the Spirit, and the Spirit gathers together on no other ground.

Denominations cannot be organised together to make the body, neither can rival factions in what was once a church be cajoled into uniting on a basis of life. The establishing of the church is, from the first to last, the work of God through the Spirit, and the church exists where men and women know they have received spiritual life and for that reason alone come together, welcoming all whom the Lord should add unto them as part of the eternal body and, therefore, belonging to its one expression upon the earth, the assembly. There is one body, vitalised and united by one Spirit. Are we part of that expression of the heavenly body? This is the question we must ask ourselves. To come onto the ground of the church is our foremost privilege and responsibility. Then we must see God add to the church. It is not the commission of God's people to try to change into expressions of the heavenly body the multifarious groups that men have built, any more than it was the duty of the disciples to make assemblies out of the congregations in the synagogues of their day. The Lord is the founder and builder of His church; our part is to be labourers together with Him in it.

In the final section of v. 4 Paul further adds, "Ye were called in one hope of your calling." Already we have seen something of the importance of hope in the life of God's people and of the assembly. Our hope, the consummation of our redemption, is directed to that day when God will have fulfilled in us all that He has purposed in order that we might be fitted to share His glory. Our hope is the final emergence of the new man in the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, or as Paul says in writing to the Thessalonians, "that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and ye in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ" (II Thessalonians 1:12).

But as the body is one and the Spirit is one, so also is the hope. There is but one hope, vitalising and unifying, which must be found within the assembly. This alone is a resounding condemnation of sectarianism, for all sectarianism is based upon some objective which is secondary to the hope to 'win Christ' which was the passion of the apostle Paul and of the early churches. Those secondary aims may not, of themselves, be wrong. On the contrary, they may be completely worthy and scriptural objectives, but how often they form within devoted groups of God's people an occupation with something good which hinders the attainment of something higher. The good is often the greatest enemy of the best. In the church there is room for all that is of the Spirit, be it an emphasis on holy living, the constant need of the Spirit's working, the testimony of baptism, or a multitude of other precious truths, but immediately people start gathering round one of the facets of the faith, and consider their particular gathering as a special testimony to a particular truth, the expression of the church as the body of Christ becomes impossible.

From these three great and eternal facts--one body, one Spirit, one hope--which give the church its inner power and impetus, Paul moves on in v. 5 to three things which characterise the church's outward life and testimony--one Lord, one faith, one baptism. In chapter two we have seen how surrender to the lordship of Christ is one of the prerequisites of new life. Here we see that a life lived in constant surrender to the lordship of Christ is a mark of the assembly. Peter, in his sermon on the day of Pentecost, significantly gives precedence to the title 'Lord' when he says, "God hath made Him both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36). Every aspect of our spiritual lives, individual or corporate, is dependent upon our recognition of Him as supreme, and where Christ is owned as Lord there is no room for any display of human ability. The lordship of Christ should so overshadow the life of the church that the humble dependence of God's people upon Him should be an open testimony before the world. In a surrendered will we have the essential basis of spiritual progress. "If any man willeth to do His will he shall know of the doctrine," said Christ (John 7:17). We are in a position to discern the things of the Spirit and to respond to God's revelation in faith only when our wills are subjected to Him. Faith, therefore, is a direct result of yielding to the lordship of Christ.

Faith is the manward side of our relationship with God. It itself is a gift, as Paul has already told us in ch. 2 v. 8. The writer to the Hebrews tells us (Hebrews 12:2) that God is its author and perfecter. The confidence of faith should characterise our every action. This is the meaning of what must appear to some to be one of Paul's most sweeping statements, "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23). Here is the point at which faith becomes a testimony. To act in faith is simply to do something implicitly believing that God will honour what has been done. We can easily see how practical an effect faith should have on the smallest details of daily living. How many of our actions would stand condemned if we were to apply the simple test, "Is this being done on faith?" Yet a walk characterised by this faith should be the normal experience of the church. Besides this, faith is spoken of in the Scriptures as the source of boldness in witness (II Corinthians 4:13), as the exclusion of all pride and boasting (Romans 3:27), as our victory over the world (I John 5:4), and as our protection against Satanic wiles (Ephesians 6:16). Each and all of these, the fruits of faith, are a testimony to the world around of a life on a higher plane.

A recognition of the lordship of Christ and the resultant walk of faith leads naturally to the third characteristic of a Christian testimony, 'one baptism.' Baptism, of course, means much more than the outward symbolic rite. The rite of itself is pointless unless it leads to a deeper understanding of its meaning and implications. We know that baptism speaks of identification with our Lord, death to the old ways, burial, and resurrection in newness of life, but what does that mean in terms of our practical, everyday walk?

A number of times our Lord spoke to His disciples of His baptism, meaning not the ceremony which he had accepted at the hands of John, but signifying His rejection and suffering. "Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with?" He asked them. "And they said unto Him, We are able. And Jesus said unto them, The cup that I drink ye shall drink; and with the baptism that I am baptised withal shall ye be baptised" (Mark 10:38-39). The life of our Lord was the scene of an implacable spiritual conflict. His subjection to the will of the Father and faith cut across every standard of the world, and the resultant baptism of rejection and suffering was inevitable. The divine life of Christ meant spiritual warfare. Our identification with Him will mean the same. "Think ye that I am come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division," He said to His disciples (Luke 12:5). The work of Christ both unites and separates. It unites those who are in Him; it separates His own from the world. 'One baptism' implies the readiness of the church to be separate, identified with her Lord in His rejection and conflict with the forces of earth. It implies also a willingness to be identified with Christ in His victory over carnal forces which would divide and would bring the differences of earth right into the midst of the assembly. "As many of you as were baptised into Christ did put on Christ. There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female: for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:27-28). To cling to the distinctions of community and class which the world holds dear, or to plead these distinctions for some temporal advantage, is a sin against the cross of Christ, and a denial of the very life which we have in Him. As Paul so emphatically tells us, in Christ there are no such distinctions. The work of the cross has banished them all and brought victory by fusing the children of God into one man in Christ Jesus. To stand firm on that ground will, without doubt, bring the condemnation and rejection of the world, but there is no other stand possible for the redeemed, and 'one baptism' signifies that we are ready to stand just there, with Christ, outside the camp, bearing His reproach and shame and, if need be, His sufferings also.

Verse 6 brings a further echo of this same subject, demonstrating the sheer impossibility of God's people giving any recognition to human distinctions in the fellowship of the assembly. There is 'one God and Father of all.' God, the creator, made this world a harmonious whole for the revelation of His glory. This harmony was destroyed at the fall, but is restored in the new creation in Christ. The church, the manifestation of the new creation, should exemplify the harmony of God's creation which was His original purpose. Anything which tends to disharmony is abhorrent both to God and to the purpose of the assembly. It is a denial of the whole intention of God in making this world. Similarly, the fatherhood of God unites us in relationship to Him, and the acceptance of human distinctions is a denial of the relationship we profess to own. Where this is not clearly recognised and accepted as an intrinsic part of our spiritual lives there can never be blessing within the church. The Lord is over all, and through all, and in all, but this pre-eminence of the divine will in every aspect of our being is possible only on the basis of our recognising 'one God and Father of all' with all that implies in our relationship with one another as God's people.

The latter section of v. 6 gives remarkable testimony to the sovereignty of God, dominating also the external circumstances which affect the church's testimony. Gamaliel, in advising the council on their treatment of the apostles, aptly warned them that it is impossible to overthrow the purposes of God (Acts 5:34-42). To this testifies the history of the church over nearly two thousand years, in spite of the persecutions and trials to which the church has constantly been subjected, and to which it continues to be subjected in different parts of the world. God rules the world in the interest of His church. He is above all, and nothing can ultimately thwart His plans. Neither are the circumstances of our daily walk beyond His control. "A man's goings are established of the Lord" (Psalm 37:23). This is the divine principle, whether it be in the life of the individual believer or in the life of the new man, the church. The answer to many of our problems comes when we reach that place where, in however adverse circumstances, we can say with assurance, "The Lord has brought me here for His glory. What does He want to teach me in this trial?" The presence and purpose of the Lord is manifest 'through all.' Furthermore, He is in active control of our beings, our inner sufficiency, whenever we recognise the total bankruptcy of self. "Our sufficiency is from God" (II Corinthians 3:5). Thus the life of the assembly is conditioned to perform its function in the world, pervaded, taught and protected by the Spirit of God in His own eternal interests.