for the perfecting of the saints; with a view to [the] work of [the] ministry, with a view to the edifying of the body of Christ;
Ephesians 4:11 lists the gifted people Christ gave when He ascended; verse 12 tells us what He gave them for. It names more than one aim, and how those aims relate shapes how we see all Christian service.
The Greek uses one preposition for the first clause and a different one for the two that follow, which sets the first aim apart as the goal and the other two as the means.
The primary and full object was the perfecting of the saints — their being formed and fashioned according to the pattern of this fulness and into it; but there was a formal and instrumental object as the medium of this. As to this in its twofold character, the Greek preposition is changed, and the article omitted: "for [pros] the perfecting of the saints; with a view to [eis] the work of the ministry, with a view to [eis] the edifying of the body of Christ." This ministerial work was clearly merely ancillary, and the edifying of the body of Christ, for the perfect enjoyment of the fulness by the saints, is the direct and positive object.
The ESV translates this word as "equip." Elsewhere the same word covers mending, restoring and fitting together.
There is another word, katartizo, which is sometimes translated "makes perfect" or "perfection." In other places it carries the thought of "mending" nets (Matthew 4:21). Christians were to be "perfectly joined together" (1 Corinthians 1:10). Someone caught in a fault was to be "restored" in a spirit of gentleness (Galatians 6:1). A body was "prepared" for the Son (Hebrews 10:5). The worlds were "framed" by the word of God.
Two of the three aims are personal and one is collective, and the order matters.
Here in Ephesians the individual saints are the first object: "for (pros) the perfecting of the saints." Then it adds, "for (eis) the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ." The first thing is that each saint should grow up to Him who is the head, that is, Christ. There are three objects... You must not lose sight of the individual when you get into the body.
Christ Himself gave these gifted people. Who gave them decides who they answer to.
This affords us a most important principle. The gifts were not bestowed upon the Church, but upon men for the benefit of the Church. So those who have received them are responsible for their exercise, not to the Church, but to the Lord. So it is impossible for the Church to appoint pastors and teachers, or any of the gifts named. The Church's responsibility is to receive the ministry of everyone the Lord has qualified to build it up.
The first aim is Christ's own. Its outcome does not rest on how well His servants do.
The gifts are for the perfecting of the saints. The ministry may fail, but the Lord never fails in accomplishing His end. It may happen in a slower way, and some of it may be very weak and even distressing. But He accomplishes His purposes... These two latter clauses come in as subordinate to the first. It is a wonderful thing to see the saints acting together. But the work of the ministry may fail or be spoiled in man's hands. The great end that the Lord commits Himself to, and for which He gave these gifts, is carried through despite everything.
This verse says what Christ is doing now. It also shows what He is not doing.
The object that God had in committing all this administration to Christ is at the present time the perfecting of the saints. If you understand that, you will see that Christianity did not come into the world to make the earth better. The whole service of Christ now, and His whole administration now, is for the perfecting of the saints, not for the improvement of the world. The way He carries it on is by constant ministry from Himself... The evangelist is just as much for the perfecting of the saints as the apostle. The evangelist who thinks he is only there to save souls is mistaken... If there were no evangelists there would be no saints to perfect.
Not all New Testament gifts work the same way. The gifts named here come with a promise attached.
There are two kinds of gifts entirely distinct... when I come to Ephesians 4, I find no gifts that are signs at all. After the foundation of apostles and prophets, I find evangelists, pastors and teachers — those the Lord uses to build up His church, "until we all come." I see Christ caring for His own body to build it up, and also the plain statement that these gifts go on to the end.
- Source. Christ ascended and gave the gifts to men, for the church's good. So those who hold them answer to the Lord, not to a committee.
- Goal. The leading aim is the perfecting of the saints — mending, restoring, fitting together.
- Means. The work of ministry and the building up of the body are the channels Christ uses to reach that first aim.
- Reach. Each believer growing up to Christ comes first. The growth of the whole body follows, and no individual is lost in it.
- Result. Ministry can falter in human hands. But Christ carries His own aim through, and the gifts continue until we all reach full growth.
until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at [the] full-grown man, at [the] measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ;
Paul has just listed the gifts the ascended Christ gave to His people, and here he names the goal of all that ministry. Three questions follow: which unity does he mean, what is "mature manhood," and when do we reach it?
The word "until" fixes how long Christ's gifts to His people last. One writer argues that no one can claim we have reached the goal, so the supply has not stopped:
His ascension to heaven did not interrupt these gifts. Ephesians 4:8-10 shows the opposite: only from Him on high were they given, and given until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God… to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. No right-minded Christian will claim we have reached this yet, so neither should he doubt the unfailing grace of Christ… the love of Christ cannot refuse all that is needed for the perfecting of the saints, for ministerial work, for building up His body.
"The faith" here means a body of truth, and the unity it produces is not one that people arrange:
The faith the apostle speaks of is the whole system of Christian truth. The unity is not agreement on a creed, and not an alliance that people arrange. It is a unity of mind and heart, produced by grasping the truth as God teaches it in His word.
Another writer marks off this unity from the unity of the Spirit:
The unity of the faith, in verse 13, is another matter. The activity of the gifts has the building up of the body of Christ in view, to this end: "Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God." We must not confuse the two. The unity of the faith is objective — something the saints are to arrive at. The unity of the Spirit is more subjective, and involves the living oneness of the members of the body of Christ.
The verse joins the faith to a Person, and the knowing it asks for is acquaintance, not information:
This knowledge is not a mere taking in of truth. It is a personal acquaintance with the Person of the Son of God. And it is knowing Him not only as Saviour, but as Son of God. The world will know Him as Judge and King, the Jew as Messiah; our special privilege is far above their knowledge. Take any gathering of believers: where you find some measure of this knowledge of the Son of God, you may be sure there is a matching measure of the unity of the faith.
Does this mean every believer must first become perfect? One writer answers no:
I do not think that means until every person is perfect. The point is not that I become a perfect man on my own. It is the full-grown man: the one body, made up of all its living members, grown to its fullest extent, so that it gives a full and well-proportioned picture of the life of Christ.
Why does Paul add the knowledge of the Son of God? Kelly answers that, and names the standard our growth aims at:
Adding the knowledge of the Son of God was necessary, because it is up to His stature, known in this way, that we are to grow… The perfect man simply means the state: a full-grown man. But the measure of the stature of a full-grown man in Christ is Christ Himself. All the fulness that is in Him is worked into the soul, and the soul takes its shape from it. The soul becomes like Him and is filled with Him in all its thoughts. Christ's outward fulness measures and forms the soul's inward state, so that there is no mismatch and no separation from Him — the believer grown up to Him in everything.
Commentators differ here. Some read the goal as a maturity possible now, in contrast with the childishness of verse 14:
The perfection spoken of here seems not to be perfection in glory, where all will no doubt be according to Christ. It seems to be a state of full growth on earth, in contrast with the infancy and weakness of verse 14.
Others hold that only heaven can answer to the words:
The gifts will continue until the Church is complete in heaven, and until the building up of the body reaches its finished state: the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. No partial perfection reached before then can fill out the meaning of this verse.
- Gift — Christ gave ministry from heaven, and "until" keeps the supply coming while the goal is still ahead.
- Faith — the first target is one mind in the whole body of truth, formed by God's word, not by human arrangement.
- Knowledge — that truth is not a subject but a Person; the aim is personal acquaintance with the Son of God.
- Man — the outcome is one full-grown man: the whole body showing Christ, not a crowd of people each finished on their own.
- Measure — the standard is Christ's own fulness worked into the soul; writers differ on whether we reach it on earth or only in glory, but nothing less than Christ is the aim.