The Secret of His Purpose

Chapter 12: Unto Edifying

In the plurality of eldership we have an example of the divine wisdom of God's plan for the church, for the working and effectiveness of this scriptural order is completely dependent upon spiritual life. Where carnality enters there will be division, and the whole structure of the church will collapse. "If a house be divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand," said our Lord (Mark 3:25). This, in respect to the local assembly, is precisely what our Lord intended should happen. True and effective fellowship cannot function apart from a continual flow of spiritual life. Where there is no life, there can be no spiritual eldership, and where there is no spiritual eldership there can be no assembly. This is God's order. The great tragedy of Christianity is that so very soon it side-stepped the divine plan. Today the existence of a 'church' is no longer dependent upon God's order being maintained in life. A system has been evolved which will still keep the thing going whether there be life or not. God is gracious, and in spite of an unscriptural order, wherever and to whatever extent He is honoured He will grant His blessing, and there will be an outflow of spiritual vitality though it may be limited in its compass, but the fulfilling of His order means so much more than this. It means a realisation of all with which we are concerned in this Ephesian epistle, and it also means an effective end to a bad testimony when there is no life in the Spirit to maintain fellowship. It means that God will have the opportunity of removing the lampstand when the light has been extinguished (Revelation 2:5).

The different ecclesiastical systems which have emerged down through the centuries have been based rather on convenience than on the Word of God. "But eldership does not work. You need one person in charge," is a common protest. Are we at liberty to disregard God's Word when we feel that its principles are impractical? Is it God's fault? Or do we ever look inside to see whether the fault does perhaps lie in ourselves? Expediency is a most dangerous criterion upon which to judge any action in the spiritual realm, and has been the reason of untold harm to the cause of Christ down through the ages. Again and again when spiritual life has ebbed away and true fellowship has become no more possible man has stepped in with some system of organisation which has served to hold up what God would have allowed to collapse. This, of course, is an innate human tendency. Pride cannot conceive of admitting failure, although it is only on the admission of human failure that God will pour in His life once more. So man conserves what God would reject.

In our consideration of chapter two we saw in the figure of the 'new man' how God, through Christ, has broken down every barrier and fused His people together in the church. God's order for the government of the local church gives yet another opportunity to portray the oneness of the new man. Surely, of all places, it should be portrayed most vividly in the relationship to one another of those of spiritual maturity. One of the conditions of being an elder is that he should not be a novice (I Timothy 3:6). The eldership, therefore, should above everything else be an example of the unity of the new man to the whole assembly. Some may abandon the scriptural principle of eldership as impractical, but if fellowship is impossible amongst those who are supposed to be mature in the things of the Lord, it is difficult to understand how fellowship can be fostered amongst those who are less advanced in the way of truth. God lays down no principle except He also grants the enabling to see it fulfilled. To sacrifice the truth of the Word on the altar of convenience can lead only to spiritual impotency. God's way may seem difficult. It can hardly be otherwise, for the flesh always resists the Spirit, and to walk in the Spirit there is a price to be paid--the price of human pride and self-sufficiency--but it is the way of life.

God is not limited in granting but one gift to each of His servants, yet it is also clear that practically never do we find the three ministries of evangelism, pastorship and teaching equally developed in one man. This is true of the lives of the apostles, each of whom, we can see, was usually specially gifted along one particular line. Peter was an evangelist, John a pastor, Paul a teacher. Again, these ministries overlap, and all three were exercised by all the apostles to some extent, but the full development of each is required if the assembly is to function with full strength and vigour, and this is possible only when God's order is maintained.

While it is true that the three gifts are given to be developed separately in those of the Lord's choice, yet they also indicate a progression in the Christian walk. We enter the kingdom through the ministry of evangelism; we are built up through the pastoral gift; we are led on in maturity through the gift of teaching. We can probably trace this same progression in our own service for the Lord. At the outset of our Christian experience we began by witnessing simply to others of the Saviour we had found. Later we were able to encourage others in their spiritual growth from our own experience. Later still we may have been able to impart some of the deeper things of God. Even then we have not come to the end, for the gifts themselves are not of fixed measure, like the possession of so many gramophone records which can be played over and that is the end. An entrance into an understanding of the deeper things of God will bring us back again to our redemption to see more of its depth and wonder, and will give us a greater insight into the problems of spiritual growth and God's answer to them. So the process of development goes on as the gifts are exercised, and this process of development itself has to take root in the assembly.

Verse 12 tells us the purpose of the gifts, "For the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ." The word 'perfect' is used a number of times in the New Testament and means variously 'full grown,' 'complete' or 'repaired.' A child may have perfect mental and physical health, but he still grows, he still has to be equipped through advice and discipline for the exigencies of living, and when he is ill he has to be cared for and built up into health once more. The gifts are given to cover this whole course of development in the spirit.

Yet there is even more to it than this. The development must be 'unto the work of ministering.' As we have repeated a number of times, one of the salient features of life is that it is reproductive, and it reproduces in its own likeness. The gifts, operating in spiritual life, will reproduce themselves in others; otherwise their real purpose remains unfulfilled. If a child develops normally, there comes a stage where he is able to look after himself, and able also to help those younger than himself in the same way as he was helped. The ministry of evangelism is to produce evangelists. The ministry of pastorship is to produce pastors. The ministry of teaching is to produce teachers. There are, of course, those who are called to exercise their ministries in a special capacity, devoting their lives entirely to the calling, but in another sense these gifts are to be developed in all the Lord's people, and in the whole assembly there should be evidenced the progression from evangelists to pastors to teachers. This is the church in action 'perfected' unto the work of ministering.

This does not, of course, mean that all are going to develop into able public ministers. Those for whom the Lord reserves a public ministry will be comparatively few, but wherever a soul is won to Christ, wherever a believer is comforted or encouraged, wherever a deep experience of Christ is shared with another, there are the gifts of evangelism, pastorship and teaching in evidence. Many and varied are the ways in which they can be exercised.

Many people seem to have the impression that the assembly consists of a few who have all the gifts, and the rest who receive all the benefits, a constant giving out on one side, and a constant taking in on the other, resulting in no more than personal and selfish profit. Nothing could be further divorced from the thought of Scripture. While none of us on this side of eternity will ever outgrow the need of further spiritual ministry, yet we should always be outgrowing the need of that which we have already received. Having heard the gospel and found new life in Christ, we do not expect that we should be the continued objects of the same exhortations to repentance. On the contrary, we ourselves should be exhorting others to turn to the Lord whom we have found. Likewise, there is something wrong with the believer who feels that, year in and year out, he must be receiving the constant attention and encouragement of elementary pastoral care. He has not grown up, or else is spiritually sick. If he has reached any stage of spiritual adulthood, he should be encouraging those who are younger than himself in the faith instead of expecting the attention accorded to a child.

In an assembly where God's order is honoured there will always be adequate scope for the expression and development of the gifts. Through evangelism the Lord will add to the church. Those added will be in need of pastoral care. Those more advanced will profit from the ministry of teaching. And in the exercise of these gifts within the assembly God's people will find within themselves the development of one gift from the other.

The edifying of the body of Christ, therefore, is dependent not only on the exercise of the gifts by a few, but also on the response which their exercise finds in the assembly as a whole. In the church we are dealing not with a machine which is passive in the sense that it can do nothing to aid its own development, but with a body which is active and capable of response, and cannot grow at all unless it does respond. The exercise of the gifts must produce divinely directed activity. This is what Paul means when he writes to the Philippians, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:12-13). Ministry is the source of light and faith, but light must be accepted and walked in, and faith must lead to practice if the body is rightly to express the mind of Christ. This essential relationship between faith and works is the subject of James' epistle. "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves," James says (James 1:22). Knowledge without obedience leads only to deception. Because of what we know we may think we are specially favoured of God and have a special place in His purposes, when in fact, the lack of response to what light we have received makes it impossible for God to reveal Himself through us.

We have already seen that there are two spheres in which the spiritual gifts are to be exercised: the limited sphere of the local assembly where the three ministries are linked with the eldership of the church, and the wider sphere of all the churches of God, wherever there is an expression of the body of Christ. In this latter sphere, evangelists, pastors and teachers fulfil their ministries apart from any local responsibilities of eldership, yet are recognised by the churches because they possess the spiritual authority and insight which are inseparable from a divine commission. It should be understood in this connection that the authority of any of God's servants is spiritual and not legal, and cannot, therefore, stand independently of spiritual life. No servant of God can demand obedience because of his position. If, through humility and subservience to the will of God, he has not earned the right to minister to God's people, and his life, therefore, does not command obedience from those who are truly seeking to walk in the way of the Spirit, the attempt to assert authority because of his position as a servant of God will lead only to confusion and death. The history of the church is a sad testimony to this fact. When spiritual life ebbs away and spiritual authority vanishes, the temptation is always to replace it with a legal system, a system which no doubt works, since flesh in man will respond to the natural when he will cast the spiritual aside, but a system in which the full functioning of the body becomes an impossibility.

Paul now leaves the immediate aim of God's order in the church and points us to the ultimate goal. Verse 13 speaks of that which will be realised not on earth but in heaven, "Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Our life on earth is beset by limitations, yet these very limitations should become less and less through the Spirit's working in us, till one day, the last enfeebling trait will be removed. Two sides of our spiritual lives, mentioned in this verse, are particularly marked by imperfections: our faith and our knowledge. How little we realise the extent to which our faith is mixed with self-seeking, and it is this latter which divides asunder child of God from child of God. Here lies the root of a vast majority of our spiritual problems--lack of full allegiance to Christ--for allegiance to Christ is what faith really is. The day will come, however, when all of God's people will at last recognise that they have but one duty and that duty is to follow Him. Every other loyalty will vanish, and we will stand together as one because Christ alone fills our vision.

How many secondary things claim the faith and allegiance of the child of God! Pride, often religious pride, lies behind them all--pride in a tradition, pride in a denomination, pride in a pattern. The Spirit of God in the fellowship of His people is seeking to wean us away from these things, and He will succeed in doing so only when He has turned the full focus of our attention upon Christ our one and only Head. The measure of the attainment of this undivided allegiance may well be imperfect as long as we remain upon this earth, yet this is God's aim--to establish in us a faith uncontaminated by any mixture of pride or self-seeking. Let us never resist His working in us to that end.

Knowledge may form a basis of unity. Recognising this fact, men have for centuries sought to form a church through uniting people in understanding. This is the basis of the bulk of denominationalism. Assent to a certain interpretation of divine truth or to certain practices is accepted as the bond which unites. Whether or not the interpretation is right or wrong does not affect the point at issue which is, as v. 13 so plainly implies, that if unity in knowledge is the consummation of the Spirit's work to be realised only when we go to be with the Lord, then knowledge cannot possibly be the basis of our unity down here on the earth, and to make it so is to move completely off the ground of the church, which is life in Christ.

One day, however, every limitation of understanding will be removed. "For now we see in a mirror, darkly: but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I have been known," says Paul (I Corinthians 13:12), and with what urge he presses forward towards that day. "Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ," he writes to the Philippians (Philippians 3:8). Not our understanding of Christ unites the church, rather does our lack of understanding join us together in the great hope that is set before us, that one day we will know Him fully.

The removal of these limitations is summed up in the revelation of the 'full grown man,' the attainment of 'the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.' We have already dealt with the subject of the new man in our consideration of chapter two. The unity, the potential of the new man will find its ultimate consummation when all born again of the Spirit of God gather together around Christ. Every vestige of self gone, every limitation removed, the church, the child of God, will have grown up into the glorious image of its divine parent.

"That we may be no longer children," says Paul (v. 14). In some respects this may seem rather a strange exhortation to give to the mature Ephesian assembly, yet Paul was well aware of the inborn childishness and instability of human nature. Children are pliable, and if left without proper guidance, easily imbibe any kind of teaching. It is for this reason that so many political organisations lay such stress on the teaching of children and youth, an emphasis, of course, which has been carried down from ancient days. Spiritually we must grow up if we are to enter into Christ's fullness instead of being 'carried about with every wind of doctrine,' and a prey to every subtlety of the evil one. "Whom will He teach knowledge?" asks Isaiah, "and whom will He make to understand the message? Them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts" (Isaiah 28:9). There is a stage when milk is necessary, but it is not the diet of adulthood. Yet how many Christians never seem to outgrow spiritual childhood. The reason is an unsurrendered will at the outset of their spiritual experiences. A surrendered will is essential to spiritual growth, for it is this alone that delivers us into the hands of God and allows Him to do His work of fashioning and moulding. In the realm of the Spirit we must either be childlike or childish. The alternative to a childlike dependence upon the Lord is a never-ending immaturity.

Nothing is more ruinous to the health of the church than spiritual childishness. We can see something of the havoc it wrought in the Corinthian assembly. To the Corinthians' childishness Paul squarely attributes the strife and division which had rent the church asunder (I Corinthians 3:1-3). But it was the cause of much more than this. It was the reason for the Corinthians' completely misplaced preoccupation with the spectacular, in this case with tongues. "Brethren, be not children in mind," says Paul pitifully, as he exhorts them, "Howbeit in malice be ye babes" (I Corinthians 14:20). Malice or suspicion is foreign to a child; it is a vice which develops only with years, yet suspicion was ruining the assembly as it always does. Unfortunately, spiritual childishness leaves full scope for the evil traits of grown up flesh.

It is significant that Paul should have associated the Corinthian occupation with the spectacular with a childish understanding. One still finds that these two things often go together. The miracles which our Lord wrought were a natural expression of His grace. They were never performed as signs to convince people into faith. In fact, our Lord adamantly refused to grant a sign when asked. "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign," He said (Matthew 12:39). Subsequent events amply justified His attitude. When He raised Lazarus from the dead, the Jews, who had demanded a sign, sought to take His life. The disciples did not follow the Lord because they saw Him perform any miracle. Faith cannot rest alone on an outward sign; it rests on the unseen reality of the Spirit. An occupation with the spectacular is a mark of spiritual immaturity, or spiritual childishness. Offer a small child the choice between a shiny new silver rupee, and a rather grubby ten rupee note. He will invariably choose the former. His sense of values has not been developed. Yet he is sure he has chosen well, for children seldom recognise their limitations. How much damage can be done when a believer, maybe of many years' standing yet with this impaired sense of values, seeks to assert his authority in an assembly in a matter which requires mature spiritual judgement. Discernment comes only with spiritual maturity. "Every one that partaketh of milk is without experience of the word of righteousness; for he is a babe" (Hebrews 5:13). Too often do people assume a place of judgement when, spiritually, they have never grown up. The result is chaos.

The reasoning of a child is based on self; he has to be taught to share and to think of others. This is the very antithesis of the life in Christ. Childhood is also petty. Our Lord brought this out very pointedly in the homely illustration recorded in Matthew 11:16-17. Two groups of children are playing in the market place. "Let's play weddings," says one. "No, funerals," says the other. "That's too sad," says the first group, "we're playing weddings," as they muster the procession and the 'band' strikes up. "Then we're not playing," says the second group, sulking. A little later, the first group breaks in again, "All right, we'll play funerals now," and they raise the funeral wail. "We're not going to play with you any more," says group number two, hurt and unforgiving. We smile at such childish petulance, remembering the time when we ourselves took part in it; but the question is, do we still take part in it? Again and again, we find the life of the assembly characterised by just such pettiness, and fellowship at its lowest ebb. Offence and perversity are both of the flesh. The root of offence is pride because my feeling are hurt, because I do not have my own way, and offence leaves the door wide open for the devil, the accuser of the brethren, to do his worst.

A little boy comes home with the complaint, "Johnnie hit me." Johnnie had been his best friend till today, but that is not the end, "he hit me last week too, and he bullies his little sister, and one time, in school, he stole my pencil, and he always copies from other boys." Johnnie has suddenly become one of the most undesirable youngsters in the neighbourhood. We know it so well, childish offence, but are we ever guilty of the same thing? A little disagreement leads to an offended spirit upon which we allow Satan to work till fellowship has been shattered, and the church has become a shambles. How we need to grow up.

The thought of v. 16 is based upon the attainment of that measure of spiritual maturity which we have just been considering, a life free from that spiritual childishness which is no part of the life of Christ. If we are to develop in subjection to Christ and in His likeness, we must learn to speak the truth in love, and, we may add also, to accept the truth in love. Notice that Paul says, "Speaking the truth in love." A child will speak the truth in order to hurt, or on the other hand, in his affection for an older person, he may not speak the truth for fear of causing hurt. To combine both truth and love requires a little more maturity. "Sanctify them in the truth: Thy Word is truth," prayed the Lord (John 17:17). But the truth of the Word is often unpalatable; it is not always pleasant. "The Word of God....is quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12). Speaking the truth means the pronouncing of judgement upon evil as well as the commendation of the good. This openness and honesty of spirit was alike a concern of God for His people in Old Testament times. Says the Lord through the prophet Zechariah, "These are the things that ye shall do: speak ye every man the truth with his neighbour, execute the judgement of truth and peace in your gates" (Zechariah 8:16). There can be no true spiritual progress unless we are willing to face unpleasant facts along with the pleasant, but if the unpalatable truth is to be ministered in life, it must be ministered in love.

Our Lord was 'full of grace and truth' (John 1:14). His revelation of truth went alongside the revelation of His love. In His dealings with men He was ever straightforward, and His love won a glad and humble response to the truth wherever there was a truly seeking heart. Christ formed in the hearts of His people will use the truth to build up, not to break down, and will accept His revelation of truth without offence. "Blessed is he, whosoever shall find none occasion of stumbling in Me" (Matthew 11:6).

Christ is the Head, and under His control the body 'is fitly framed and knit together' (v. 16). The unity that we enjoy in Him is not a precarious oneness. We are joined together 'fitly.' The spiritual body, as God's creation, is exactly suited to fulfil its purpose of revealing Christ. It is God's order that each part should affect all the others, and that every joint should supply its contribution to the whole. Membership of the body involves each one in a grave responsibility, for the ineffectiveness or immaturity of one member inevitably hinders the functioning of the whole. Paul's writing to the Corinthians (I Corinthians 12:14-27) is a commentary on the declension which follows spiritual irresponsibility in the matter of fulfilling our purpose in the assembly.

The increase which follows upon the effective functioning of the assembly is not only of knowledge, but of love. We learn to appreciate Christ in others when we see the Christ life being worked out in everyday living, and that, in turn, produces the Christ life in us. Love begets love. "If we love one another, God abideth in us, and His love is perfected in us" (I John 4:12). Our expression of love in a concern to fulfil our function in the body is itself the power which 'maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.' Love, the 'bond of perfectness' is reproduced, and the church is established in its indissoluble and eternal unity.

Next: Chapter 13: Walk in Love...Light...Wisdom