Ephesians 4:8–13

Notice that the Spirit of God, in quoting this passage, has changed and widened its scope a little. The psalm, after declaring Christ's victory, says: "You have received gifts for men," or, "in the man." The apostle quotes it this way: "and gave gifts to men." The Old Testament shows Christ, as man, receiving gifts because of His triumph. But in the New Testament the Holy Spirit applies the passage to show these gifts actually handed out to those for whom He won them… In the epistle Christ hands out these gifts before that reign and that time of earthly blessing begin. He gives them in the sphere of His present interests, "to every one of us."

When the Holy Spirit quotes Scripture in the New Testament, the quotation is as much Scripture in its New Testament place as in its Old. Any change the Holy Spirit makes in the quotation is itself Scripture.

The expression first occurs in Judges 5:12. There it means that Barak was called to lead captive those who had oppressed Israel in their pride. Psalm 68:18 does the same. It celebrates the risen and ascended Lord in the language of war, as victor over the mightiest powers of evil… it says plainly and strongly how completely He beat them. Colossians 2:15 describes the same victory over him who had the power of death, and over his angels… The cross cancels their might. It looked like Christ's defeat, but it is the ground of His triumph.

When He came into this world He found Satan the captor, and man chained, so to speak, to the wheels of his victory chariot. Man was in captivity, led or driven through the scene by the devil. Now the whole thing is turned around… He is risen from the dead, the mighty Victor, and Satan is chained to the wheels of His chariot… Satan beaten, and man set free to become Christ's willing servant.

In ascending, Christ led captive the evil powers that had held man captive before. It had nothing to do with the Old Testament saints or any others. After His death the Lord went to Paradise, where His Father received His Spirit… When the converted robber died, he joined the Lord in Paradise.

Thus exalted, He has received gifts in man, that is, in His human character (compare Acts 2:33). It is in this way, "in man," that Psalm 68 puts it, and the quotation comes from there. Here, having received these gifts as the Head of the body, Christ is the channel of their communication to others. They are gifts for men.

The Lord Jesus led captivity captive, went up on high, and from there gave gifts to men. Psalm 68:18. These were apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the building up of the body of Christ. Here persons are the gifts, δόμα… Another list is given in 1 Corinthians 12, where the word is χάρισμα, "grace, favour."

He makes you the holder of a certain gift, and then He takes you, gift and all, and makes a present of you to His church.

Here is another weighty fact. His going up to heaven did not interrupt the gifts. Ephesians 4:8-10 proves that they were given only from Him on high… Outward power in testimony may not adorn the church when it is unfaithful… Yet the love of Christ cannot refuse all that is needed for the perfecting of the saints.

In Ephesians 4:9-10, the eighteenth verse of Psalm 68 is quoted, and then comes the comment that His ascent means He first descended into the lower parts of the earth. The descent came first in time. But it gets only a passing mention, because His triumphant ascension is the main point before the mind of the Spirit.

To say that He ascended means that He first descended into the lower parts of the earth. The point He departs from here is not heaven but earth. When He came down from heaven He came only as far as earth. He came here to reveal the Father and bring the love of God to men. But when men would have nothing to do with Him, He went down further, even into the lower parts of the earth. He said in the day of His rejection: "For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12:40).

Ephesians 4:9 gives no support to any descent of the Lord to carry the departed saints on high. True, the verse does not speak of His descent as the Son from heaven to become man. It goes no further than His descent to the grave, as a man on earth. He tasted death, truly died, and was buried. Jehovah would not leave His soul in Sheol or Hades, nor let His holy One see corruption. He who descended so low ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.

He had the highest place above, if I may say so, naturally and in His own being. It belonged to Him as the Son of God, who was equal with God by right; yet He stooped to be made flesh. God's purpose required that He should be man. Without His becoming man there could have been no undoing of the whole ruin of mankind, and of the dishonour done to God by sin. There could have been no defeat of Satan, and no full and righteous deliverance for man... To have stooped to become man, and to live as He lived, rejected and humbled on earth, would have been much. But what is that compared to the cross? He went down to the very lowest, and because of that humiliation He is now, as man, exalted to the highest.

This Deliverer has proved Himself not only mighty in this way, but glorious. He fills all things. He has both descended and ascended. He has been in the lower parts of the earth — the grave, the very stronghold of the Captor. He is now far above all heavens... He carried out the deliverance in the lower parts of the earth. Now, in the highest places, far above all heavens, He has received gifts for those who were once the victims of the Serpent. He has handed them out.

Perhaps some have already asked: Will this ever end? Will the assembly one day be left without building up? But then we look into the open heaven and see Christ there. He is still there, and He is still the One who gives the gifts. He so loved the assembly that He descended into the lower parts of the earth. So the ministry which those gifts carry out cannot stop while Christ is there!

This is the One, the same One, the only One. He has left His memorial in "the lower parts of the earth," and borne it with Him upward, "far above all the heavens." He fills all things. God has been here; Man is there. In earlier days faith was told that God was here on earth in full glory — the Son among the children of men. In these days faith is told that Man is now in heaven. He entered there from the slight and the scorn, the weakness and the humiliation of the scene here.

He went down into the lower parts of the earth, the grave, but hades for His soul. He went into the under world, the lower parts of the earth, and then He is far above all the heavens. He has been below creation, for death and hades are in a sense below it. Then He is above it. In this way He fills all things. We see Christ in His redemption power filling everything. All service and ministry have their place in that, and they flow from it.

"Far above all the heavens" is a remarkable expression. In Mark 16 we have the Divine Servant "taken up into heaven." In Hebrews 4 the great High Priest has "passed through the heavens." Here the victorious Man has "ascended far above all the heavens." The very heaven of heavens is His. And it is His so that He may "fill all things" — another remarkable word. Even today each believer should be filled with the Spirit, as we see a little further on in this letter. A believer filled with the Spirit must be filled with Christ, and so Christ comes out of him. The day is coming when Christ will fill all things, and then all things will display Him and His glory. The "all things" spoken of here means everything that in any way comes under His headship — everything within the universe of blessing.

The fullness of Him that fills all in all is not just Godhead, but Christ in redemption. Ephesians 4:10 leads one to this. It is redemption. He who went into the lower parts of the earth is now far above all the heavens.

We may not be able to fathom this profound language. Still, it cannot mean less than this. Because Christ humbled Himself, and because of the work He then carried out to accomplish the purposes of God, He will one day flood the whole universe with His own redemption-glory. And this, and nothing short of this, will be God's answer to the humiliation of His beloved Son.

If Christ has ascended on high, it must mean that He first descended into the lower parts of the earth. He has been into death, and from that lowest place He has ascended far above all the heavens. So He has passed through "all things." In doing so He has gained, as Man, perfect knowledge of every circumstance of life and death the believer may have to pass through... Knowing "all things," He can give gifts that meet our every need as we travel through this world of sorrow and trial on our way to glory.

He has gone right down to the very depths where He overcame Satan, and ascended to God's right hand. His present position and His glory give Him this privilege: He makes those who were Satan's captives the vessels of His power to deliver others... God fills the whole horizon of the soul here with Christ. Look as deep down as you like, He has been there. Look as high as you like, He is there.

The answer is in verse 11 of Ephesians 4: "He gave." Who is the He? The person who ascended and took His seat at God's right hand. And before telling us that He gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, the Holy Spirit turns aside to tell us who this person is — "He who ascended is the same also that descended into the lower parts of the earth, that he might fill all things." Before He touches the question of ministry, He fixes our eyes on this person, on some sides of His divine and moral glory.

I do not know any scripture that gives ministry according to God stronger divine backing than this. All true ministry — that is to say, gifts, persons, remember, not qualifications — flows from Him, the Head in heaven. Notice that Ephesians 4 speaks of persons: "He gave, some apostles." An apostle is a person, a pastor is a person, an evangelist is a person. It is not a question of the qualification at all. He gave the persons.

Why were the prophets given? Because the written Scriptures were not yet complete. Now that they are complete, we do not have such gifts. The apostles and prophets are at the bottom of the building. You do not put the foundation stones of a building in the middle. You put them at the bottom. The apostles and prophets are the foundation — the Church began with them — and Jesus Christ Himself is the chief corner stone. I say this because some people who call themselves Christians tell us they have the power to appoint apostles. They must be false apostles, for you do not find apostles at the top of the building. They are at the bottom.

Evangelists go out to bring others in and so enlarge the building. Pastors and teachers care for what is inside… Clearly the pastor has the people more in view, while the teacher is taken up more with the truth.

Only it is important to see that the pastor and teacher are joined in one person — "some pastors and teachers", not "some pastors and some teachers". It is a double gift in one individual. This matters greatly. Many teachers have almost become mere scholars and theorists, and many pastors almost philanthropists. The pastor's practical work keeps the gift of teaching wise and useful in practice.

They are given for the whole Church, not for one part of it only. An evangelist or a teacher is given for the whole Body of Christ. No denomination can claim them. No local assembly can keep their service to itself. A pastor may never work outside one assembly, yet he is a gift for the whole Body.

But apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are different. They are Christ's gifts and need no permission from man… The evangelists call people in from the world to God, and those people become members of Christ. The pastors and teachers then build them up in His grace and truth, holy and beloved. Notice that bishops or elders, like deacons, are not "gifts" and never appear among them… But the gifts that build up come from the ascended Christ. They are as sure today as on the day of Pentecost, and they last until the last members of His body who need them are brought in.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.