The Spiritual Unity of the Conquering Christ’s Body (Ephesians 4:4-10)
Introduction
A man named Dan Steel wrote a book called Wise Church Planting: Twelve Pitfalls to Avoid in Starting New Churches. It’s a helpful book. We would not agree with everything in it, but he does give some helpful insights into the common reasons why church plants struggle and fail. He surveyed a large number of church planters—some successful, some not—and attempted to lay down a number of principles, backed by stats and stories, to help understand why church plants fail. Among the twelve pitfalls was disunity. Steel tells the following story:
John was thrilled at the beautiful diversity of the core plant team. The town they were prayerfully planning to plant into was the next one over from their sending church, with not much by way of gospel witness for a city of that size. With a university right at the center, as well as areas of deprivation and new flats for those in the business community, their prayerful longing had always been to gather an initial group that would, as best they could, reflect the diverse reality of the area. Which, ideally, meant a mix in economic educational and ethnic terms. Add to that a number of people already living in the area, who, when they heard on the grapevine about the plans quickly jumped on board (some quickly jumping ship from their churches) and there was a healthy-sized base to start from. It was stunning to show a cynical watching world something of the uniting power of the gospel, to show that Jesus is for all kinds of people.
Fairly soon after the project though, the daily challenges of a diverse community began to take over. There were some theological questions, but the disagreements were mainly cultural. It turns out everyone seemed to have an opinion on everything; service style (structure or freedom) music (too loud, too quiet, too traditional, too contemporary, it has drums, it doesn’t have drums), food (gluten free, vegan), or dress-code (formal, smart, or casual) to preaching style (how long, how big are the words, not enough illustrations, not deep enough). All too quickly the dream of a beautifully diverse-but-unified body ended up being more of a nightmare with different factions all eventually turning on the planter. Things did not end well.
The story of John is too frequently played out in churches and church plants alike. In fact, of all the pastors that Steel interviewed (around 80), 63 percent of them stated that disunity was a problem in their church. That 63 percent covered 4 main areas of disunity in the church:
· 13% over ministry philosophy
· 18% over authority
· 36% over theological issues
· 42% over relational problems
Disunity is a big problem in the church generally, and especially in church plants specifically. In light of what we’ve been learning from Ephesians, this should be no surprise to us. In fact, the more I have contemplated this issue of unity in the past weeks, the more I have become convinced that the singular most beautiful, most illustrative, most attractive element of a healthy church’s life is its unity. In fact, from one perspective, the unity of the church is the whole game.
Remember, this has been Paul’s point all along. If the goal of God the Father is to “unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth,” then unity matters deeply to the Father. God seeks to glorify himself through his Son to the extent that his Son unifies the fractured creation. He binds it together in him. And again, as we’ve been emphasizing all along, the church is designed to point to that future. Jesus will unify this fractured creation, and we know that because he has unified a once-fractured humanity in the church.
And remember that Satan is the one who introduced divisions into humanity. By tempting the Woman and inciting the Man’s rebellion, he divided them from each other, and subsequently divided families, and eventually divided all mankind into nations. Satan was the one who fractured the world. And Jesus displays his power and wisdom over Satan by reuniting the world in himself—particularly through the church. Which is why Satan hates the unity of the church, and why we need to be on constant guard against the disunifying, whispered lies which tempt us towards pride, harshness, impatience, intolerance, and slothfulness in maintaining our relationships with each other. Satan does not want you to get along with the other people in this room. But Jesus desires to display his wisdom to the whole angelic realm—Satan not least of all—through our conduct as a church, and through the mundane relationships of the church.
But the temptations to unity usually come at the fissures of our differences. Sinful humans do not often have much problem with each other where they are the same. It is at the point of their differences that disunity becomes a temptation. Thus, the unity of the church can be described thus: binding together diverse people with diverse gifts in the common bond of a common salvation. God takes different people, saves each of them, gives them different gifts, and deploys them to serve the church in different ways. And yet, those differently gifted people serving in different ways are nonetheless bound together through their common salvation. The church is both one and many. We have unity and diversity.
This traffics in the very helpful illustration of the human body. Ephesians 1:23 has already called the church the “body” of Christ. In this passage he will call the church a body once again—and that is no accident. The Church is a body—an organism. The church, like a human body, is a joining together of different parts which all must work together in harmony at the same time in their respective functions in order for it to live. My brain needs my stomach, and my stomach needs my brain, and they both have to work together at the same time in their respective functions. And so it is with the church. I need you and you need me, and we both need to do what God has called us to do at the same time in harmony with each other in order for the church to work. And you see the same dynamic in our passage: Eph 4:4-6 emphasizes that the church is one. 7 times it repeats the word “one.” But then in verse 7, it says, “But [contrast] to each one…” There is unity, and there is diversity. There is one church, and that one church has a bunch of “each ones.”
Now, we saw last week that the church’s unity is a fact created by Jesus work. We do not create or fabricate unity. Rather, we express, preserve, and promote unity in our church. We are one, and therefore we are to act as one. Thus, Paul commands us to “preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” And he further instructs us that if we are going to preserve that unity, we need to go about the business of the church by fostering virtues in ourselves and in one another which serve to promote and express the unity we already share in Jesus: humility, gentleness, longsuffering, tolerance, and conscientiousness/zeal.
But there is something more fundamental than these practices. These practices are supported by the deeper realities of what he is about to discuss. We are bound together by our common bond to one, Triune Creator and we are gifted by Christ in diverse ways.
I. We Are Commonly Bound to One, Triune Creator (4:4-6)
Having just discussed the fact that we posses a “unity of the spirit in the bond of peace,” Paul now proceeds to explain the basis of that unity which rests in God himself. The basic reality is that the Triune God is the basis of the unity of the church. Notice the structure of these three verses: the Spirit in verse 4, the Lord in verse 5, and the Father in verse 6. And notice further how each person is connected to a unique aspect of the church. Verse 4: the Spirit is connected to the reality that the church is a body and that it has one hope that belongs to its call. Verse 5: the Lord Jesus is connected to the faith of the church and the ordinance of baptism. Verse 6: the Father is connected to his fatherhood of all believers and his universal fatherhood over all creation.
Now, stop to appreciate: the unity and diversity of the church has its origins in the unity and diversity of God. Remember, God is a unity. He is one. The Lord our God is one. And yet, God is also a diversity of persons—Father, Son, and Spirit. Thus, God is one as to his essence and many as to his persons. It would then make sense that his works would also be one and many at the same time. And that is what we see in the church—the church is one, and the church is many.
Now, each of the three persons of the Trinity has a unique relationship to the unity of the church:
The Spirit unifies the church as a body by the inward call to future hope, of which he himself is the foretaste. We have made this point before, but the Spirit is uniquely connected in Scripture to the idea of Christ’s body. Nearly everywhere that Paul discusses the body of Christ, he does so in connection to the Spirit. For example, 1 Corinthians 12:13 says that “in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” The body is created by the Spirit of God. It is through the common breath that the human body is unified. And it is through the common possession of the Spirit—the living breath of God—that we are united into one body in the church.
And nearly everywhere the body is mentioned, it is mentioned in relationship to spiritual gifts—that is, gifts empowered by the Spirit of God. It is mentioned here in Ephesians 4:7—“But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” He elaborates again in 1 Corinthians 12:11, “All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.” The various gifts in the church are all given by one Spirit, and thus every member of the body has a function which they are to perform, which is what they are gifted to do. Thus, Paul says, there is “one body and one Spirit.” One living organism, which shares one common life. That is the church.
But the manner in which we are brought into that body and possess that spirit is “just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call.” Now, we’ve already spoken about the call. It is mentioned in 4:1 there is a “calling to which you have been called.” And that call is into the future world. It is, as Eph 1:18 says, “the hope to which he has called you.” God has called us, 1 Peter 2:9 “out of darkness into his marvelous light.” And the light into which he has called us is the hope of the future. That is the day when Jesus Christ will make all things new, unite all things in him. Our oneness of body and oneness of Spirit accords with, is of a piece with that hope we all share.
In other words, what makes us all one is that we know we’re all going to the same place. We have “one hope” that belongs to our “call.” We have been called to heaven, called to a new way of life, called to be part of the perfect eternity which God will create on this earth. And we all share that common call, and therefore we all share our common hope. And we know we have that hope because we have the Spirit, who is, as Ephesians 1:14 says, “the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” And that Spirit is what makes us one in one body. And again, we come to the idea of membership: the way I know that I belong to the future world is that I am “part”—a “member”—of the body of Christ by the Spirit. And so we are one in the Spirit.
Jesus unifies the church as the Lord to whom we are united in common faith. Jesus is the unity of the church. Notice how the Spirit is related to our hope and our body life, but the Lord is related to our faith and our baptism. Each of these three things bind us together in unity.
We have one Lord—that is, one master. We all take our orders from the same guy—and it’s not me. It’s Jesus. He is the Lord. He is the one to whom all obedience must be rendered. And he is the one Lord of the church. There are no other Lords of the church—and our unity as a body revolves around the fact that we all follow the same Lord.
We have one faith. Now, the idea of “faith” can have two aspects. On the one hand, it can have an objective aspect—it is what we believe in. We see that very clearly in 4:13, where it says that we must attain to “the unity of the faith.” This is, of course, the basis for any trust we have in the Lord—it needs to be based upon the sound teaching about him. But what Paul has in mind in v5 is the subjective aspect—not what we believe, but our personal exercise of faith. We believe in the Lord. And what he’s saying here is that all our faith is of a piece. We are share one faith—both because we confess one Lord and because we have all trusted wholly and only in that Lord. There is one faith. The faith of the church binds it together in unity.
And we have one baptism. There are places where baptism is a “wet” baptism—the actual dunking in water. And there are places where baptism is a “dry” baptism—usually a baptism into Christ’s death or into Christ or into the Spirit. Here, I don’t think Paul is trying to distinguish between the two, because the “wet” baptism is what expresses the “dry” baptism. We all share one baptism. We have been baptized by one Spirit, but we also have all been baptized with one baptism.
This is why it is so encouraging to witness baptisms. When we see someone else being baptized, we see our own baptism reflected in it. We remember the faith we professed at first, and our desire to follow Jesus in obedience, and then we rejoice that they are entering into that same baptism, expressing the same faith, submitting to the same Lord, possessing the same Spirit, marching toward the same hope, belonging to the same body.
The Father unifies the church as a family and as the sovereign Re-Creator. And thus we are part of the new family of God. There is “one God and Father of all.” What does that mean? He is the God and Father of all believers—Jewish believers and Gentile believers. He is the one Father of both, and therefore Jews and Gentiles are part of one spiritual family. We are “members of the household of God” (Eph 2:19). We have “adoption as sons” (Eph 1:5). Which means that we are family. That’s why our Sunday evening meetings are called family gatherings. We have one Father.
But our Father is not just any Father, but that Father is “over all and through all and in all.” He is “over all” in the sense that he is transcendent and reigning over everything. He is “through” all in the sense that he pervasively works through all that comes to pass, and he is “in” all in the sense that he is intimately and immanently involved with his creation. He rules, he works, and he is present. And particularly with relationship to the Church. He rules over us. He works through us. He resides in us, and therefore we are one together in him.
II. We Are Diversely Gifted by the Ascended, Victorious Christ (4:7-10)
However, even in the unity we have by our common bond to the Triune God, we have a diversity: “But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” Whereas before Paul emphasizes that we are “one” (7x), now he says we are “each one.” Our unity is expressed through a diversity of gracious gifts. That’s what he means by “grace.” The undeserved, gracious gift of the Father, which in reality is nothing more than the presence of God in us working out his salvation through us. And it is “according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” Christ has not gifted every person the same way, nor to the same degree. There is a “measure” of gift which he gives. So, in Romans 12:5-6, “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.”
It's healthy to acknowledge that we are not all gifted in the same way. And even those who have the same gifts, we do not have them to the same degree. Christ has measured out those gifts according to his grace. None of them are deserved, whether big or small. There might be two teachers in a church, but one is more gifted than the other at teaching. Or they might be more gifted at teaching in different contexts. There might be two people gifted at helping—but they help in very different ways. That is the measure of Christ’s gift. (It’s important not to play the comparison game. To compare your gift to others and then to complain that you didn’t get the measure they did is just to grumble against Christ’s grace. Even the gift you have is not deserved.)
Now, what follows is a very confusing and difficult passage. But it all boils down to this: Christ conquered the old world and its ruler by his saving work. And his conquest has earned him the spoils of war. And those spoils of war are people, which he gives to the church, and then gives those people his Spirit to empower them to do the work he has for them to do.
Paul cites Psalm 68:18 here. And I want to give you a taste of what the Psalm is talking about and how Paul is using it here. Psalm 68 presents a kind of panoramic display of God’s redeeming work. It’s all about God defeating his enemies by saving his people. Vv2-3: “the wicked shall perish before God! But the righteous shall be glad.” Vv4-6 – he reveals his name by doing this judgment and by settling his people in a home. Vv7-10 – when he leads them out the earth quakes and rain falls (a sign of blessing) and the flock dwells in peace and security. Vv11-14 – the victory is so complete that the women divide the spoil while the men sleep in the sheepfold. God scatters kings there, meaning his is the only reigning king. V15-16 he taunts the mountains of Bashan metaphorically taunting those who look down on God’s city, Jerusalem, and Mount Zion, the mountain of salvation. He will level them and dwell forever in Zion. So, v17, the Lord assembles his angel armies, and is among them, and brings Sinai itself into the sanctuary of God. And then v18, God ascends on high—he ascends mount Zion, and “leads a host of captives” behind him. The conquered men, now servants of the great king. He “receives” gifts, even as a king would do when he conquered. Even the rebellious give him gifts and his name dwells in Zion.
This means that God “is our salvation.” Marching into Zion in victory with captives in his wake, and that amounts to v21, “striking the heads of his enemies,” language borrowed from Genesis 3:15, where God promised he would crush the head of the serpent. And so God v24 processes through the city into the sanctuary. And as a result, kings come to him and give him gifts (v29, 31) and he tramples underfoot those who rebel against him (v30). And now, because God is in his sanctuary, v35, “he is the one who gives power and strength to his people.” He has ascended, receiving gifts and worship from men, in order to, once he has ascended, give gifts to his people.
And that is precisely the movement we see Ephesians 4:8-10. He says that he, referring to Christ, “ascended on high” and “led captivity captive.” Those who were once prisoners he has made his own prisoners through conquering. And he “gave gifts to men.” Paul does change “receive” to “give,” but the whole thought is the point. Christ has ascended, has received worship and gifts from all mankind, and then turns around and doles out strength and power to his people as the conquering king.
Then he draws out some implications for this. V9 – “In saying “he ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth.” The ESV has the right translation there. If Christ has to ascend, that means that he also had to descend. Where did he descend from? I think the best answer is from heaven. If the “lower regions” are the earth, then it would make sense that the “upper regions” are the heavens—the heavenly places, as Paul has repeatedly said. So, Christ descends from heaven to earth in order to conquer his enemies. And, once he had defeated them through the cross, he then “ascends on high,” leading a host of captives in his train—the spoils of war, the people whom he set free from the old ruler of the earth—Satan. Then v10, “He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.” And here is where Christ ascends to—and notice his precise wording—“far above all the heavens.” This mirrors Paul’s language exactly from 1:20-21: God “raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.” If he has far above the heavens, then he is far above the angels who operate in those heavens. And he does so that he might “fill all things”—that is, that he might fill the earth with his glory in the new heavens and the new earth.
The point is this: “The Christ who in his descent to earth and ascent to heaven triumphed over all his cosmic enemies is the same Christ who from his position of triumph at God’s right hand distributes diverse gifts to his people in order to foster their unity” (to which I add, which is the primary earthly display of his victory over those angelic enemies).
Which means the following:
1. Spiritual gifts are not just magical abilities. They are tokens of the risen Christ’s victory over his and our enemies. We sometimes get so focused on what to do with our spiritual gift that we forget what they are, what they stand for, what they are meant to say. The exercise of spiritual gifts, then, are vital to the kingdom-program of Christ in history. They demonstrate that Christ has been victorious over Satan, that his head is crushed, and that the blessing will be restored.
2. Spiritual gifts are given to the church to foster the church’s unity. All the gifts of the church in their manifold diversity are meant to bind us together in a common life. This is Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 12:24-25, where he says, “But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.” It is an evidence of our remaining twistedness and the lies of the devil that those gifts would then be used to promote divisions in the church!
3. The unity which those gifts are intended to foster is the substance of Christ’s victory over angelic powers. Remember chapter 3? The entire point of making Jew and Gentile one in Christ—making them one body—is “so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” Christ conquers his and our enemies, he gives the gifts of his spoil to his people, those gifts promote the unity of the church, and that unity is the substance of Christ’s victory over his and our enemies.
Thus, by way of application: first, you need to use your spiritual gift. 1 Peter 4:10, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies.” Use it! If you don’t know what it is, just serve, and it will become apparent!
Second, remember what you are saying when you are using your spiritual gift—Christ has conquered. My enemies have been defeated. I am walking in the victory of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has defeated the old ruler of the old world and ushered in a new world, and I am part of that new world, and I will display that by using the gift he has given me to serve my brothers and sisters. Suddenly, unloading a trailer is very significant.
Which means, third, remember what Christ died to win—the unity of the church. He triumphed by making us one—by creating the two into one and reconciling them both to God in one body. If our spiritual gifts are to promote that, then we must use them in a way that promotes the unity of the church. For some that will mean public teaching and exhortation. For others that will mean eldership. For some that will mean gifts of helping. For some that will mean works of administration. But whatever it is, that gift has been given to you to promote the unity and maturity of the body of Christ.
Which, in turn, means that selfish uses of spiritual gifts are utterly out of bounds. Utterly unfitting and inappropriate. We can use our spiritual gifts which violate the virtues of verses 1-3: in ways filled with pride, harshness, impatience, intolerance, and slothfulness. As Paul says emphatically in 1 Corinthians 12:7, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” You are not given your gift to build yourself up. You are given your gift to build the church up, to display the powerful unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace as we grow up into maturity and therefore into “the unity of the faith.”
Conclusion
The unity of the church matters. If there is one thing we should be known for, let it be our unity. Let it be that we celebrate our unity to the Triune God—that we have one Spirit and are in one body and are pressing toward one hope; that we have one Lord to whom we submit, one faith with which we trust in him, and one baptism in union to him; that we have one God and Father of our spiritual family who is working in all things to bring about the purposes of his will. Let it be that we ever march on in triumphal procession, being led about by the conquering Christ as a display of his power. Let it be that we would use our various gifts to demonstrate the unity which Christ has forged in his own blood. And as we do, let it be that we manifest the wisdom of God to men and angels alike.