EPHESIANS 4 (READING AT TEIGNMOUTH, 28 AUGUST 1923)
EPHESIANS 4 (READING AT TEIGNMOUTH, 28 AUGUST 1923)
CAC How very important it is for us that we should have the Lord before our hearts as the ascended One. I have no doubt that we all accept as a fact that He has ascended, but one would desire to have a greater impression on one’s heart of Christ as ascended. It is not the same thought as we get at the end of chapter 1, where we read of the mighty power of God which raised Him from the dead, and “set him down at his right hand ... above every principality, and authority, and power, and dominion”; that is not at all the same as His ascension. In chapter 1 it is what God did with the One whom He raised from the dead; He set Him at His own right hand: that is what God did. But the ascending is what Christ did. That is the difference between the way it is presented in Mark and Luke, and the way it is presented in John. In Mark we are told He was taken up, and in Luke we are told He was carried up. In Acts 1 He was taken up, and in Luke 9 we read about the days of His receiving up, but in John He says, “I ascend” (chapter 20: 17): it is not what is done with Him. “I ascend” is in the majestic dignity of His own Person, just as His rising in John 2: 19 is in the dignity and power of His Person. It is not God raising Him; He says, “I will raise it up”; it brings out the dignity of His Person as the Son of God. I think it is of immense [p. 53] moment to see this. When He ascended it is what He did Himself; it is His triumphal return from the accomplishment of the mighty victory which has changed everything for God and man.
Ques Why does it say, “Wherefore he says”?
CAC It is referring to the testimony of the holy Scriptures, (Psalm 68). In that Psalm it is God’s victory; the Psalm begins, “Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered”. It is God’s victory, but when we come to the New Testament we see that God’s victory is accomplished in a Man. That is very precious; it is a Man who has led captivity captive, and that is the very One who could go up in His own dignity and power.
I have thought a good bit lately of His death as it is presented in John, “I lay down my life”. John’s gospel brings out the dignity and glory of His Person as the Son of God: as the Son of God He ascends triumphantly. In the beginning of Hebrews we read He “set himself down” (chapter 1: 3). It is the greatness of the Son there, One who could make purgation of sins and set Himself down. It is all accomplished in a Man; it is God’s mighty victory over all His enemies, but it is accomplished in a Man, and the results of it are for men. One feels the importance of not passing over it in a cursory kind of way.
Ques Does that give character to the gifts?
CAC Yes, I think so, because the gifts show how the victory becomes known and its fruits available. We see the mighty Victor returning from the battlefield carrying, as it were, all the spoils of victory. He has led captivity captive and the question is, if He has gained such a victory for man, how is the fruit of it going to be known and enjoyed? Well, it is through the gifts. We do not see the power of Satan and all his hosts overthrown publicly; they are not overthrown in relation to the world, but they [p. 54] are overthrown in relation to Christ. As that Person is before us we are in the good of the divine victory. What a blessed thing, in the midst of a scene where evil predominates on all hands, to be able to look up and see the victorious Christ; He has gone above all heavens, above every created position, however glorious.
Rem The next part of verse 10 leads to what is future.
CAC Yes, I think so; He is going to dispossess everything else; that is the result of His descending into the lower parts of the earth. He is going to be the theme of every tongue. It is a wonderful thought that all is to be filled by that blessed Man, and if He is going to fill all things presently, He is able to fill them now. The body is the first thing to be filled. There is that on this earth now that stands in relation to the One who has ascended up above all heavens, His body, and that body is the first vessel to be filled.
It is very blessed that the thought of His ascending suggests the thought of His descent, and that He has gone to the utmost limit of the enemy’s power. He has gone to the lower parts of the earth; it is lower than Philippians 2. He has linked the two extremities, i.e., the summit of His glory and the lower parts of the earth. It was not sufficient that He should go to death, the death of the cross. The obedient One goes to death, even the death of the cross and He is highly exalted. That is the path of the obedient One to accomplish the will of God, and He is highly exalted. But here He has descended — going to the full extent of the enemy’s power.
Ques Would that be connected with the enemy’s overthrow?
CAC I think it is so. In Matthew the Lord speaks of being in the heart of the earth. He not only goes to death — it is a blessed thing that He goes to death — but He goes farther. He lies three days and three nights in the heart of [p. 55] the earth, and He dispossesses the enemy of all his weapons: He leads captive all the power of the enemy. Every evil power has become the witness of the victorious power of Christ.
Rem That, I suppose, is connected with His having led captivity captive.
CAC Yes, the moment you look at the power of evil in relation to Christ you see how completely everything has been subjugated. Satan’s power is here, death is here; everything is in moral confusion. The important thing is that the ascended One should fill our souls. The gifts are all in the power of that. How should we know about the victory of Christ so as to be in the gain and value of it but for the gifts? None of us here would know anything about the ascended One if He had not given gifts: it is through the gifts that He has been made known for nearly two thousand years. The prowess of Christ has been made known in that way.
Ques Will you open that out a bit?
CAC Well, we should not have known anything about the victory of Christ if He had not given gifts, if there had not been apostles and prophets. All that we have in the New Testament Scriptures is through the exercise of the gifts of the ascended Christ. The gospels and the epistles were written by men who were the gifts of the ascended Christ, and they have made known to us His victory and how every power of evil is completely subjugated if looked at in connection with Christ. The apostles and prophets are the foundation, but what the apostles taught has been handed on. What Paul said to Timothy he was to pass on to others, and in that way the wonderful account of Christ reaches down.
Ques Would it be right to say that the gifts with which the assembly is endowed will last as long as the assembly is here?
[p. 56] CAC Yes, I think so. The persons are the gifts. They are not like gifts deposited in a man with which the man is not in accord; it is what the man is that constitutes the gift.
Rem I suppose it would not be of much value otherwise.
CAC No. I think it is the impression of Christ made on a man that tells. One would like to have a more profound sense of being livingly connected with Christ in heaven.
The twelve apostles were sent by the Lord in the days of His flesh. They were men amongst whom the Lord had gone in and out in the days of His flesh, and who were specially witnesses of His resurrection. Peter says, ‘There must be twelve witnesses of His resurrection, and they must be men who had been with the Lord from the days of John the Baptist until He was taken up’. The witness-bearing of the twelve concerns all that transpired from the ministry of John the Baptist until the day that the Lord was taken up. I daresay many of us stand a little in the good of that ministry, the witness-bearing of what Christ was in the days of His flesh and as risen. What we get here is another thing, the ascended One gives gifts; they come down from a glorified Christ in heaven, and they are connected with the body here.
Ques Would Paul be a good illustration of what was received from the ascended One?
CAC I thought so. Paul presents in a very distinctive way the character of the gifts that come from Christ ascended.
Ques With regard to the lower parts of the earth, was it there that the members of the body were formed? Psalm 139: 15 says, “When I was made in secret, curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth”.
CAC I think everything was disclosed at the lowest [p. 57] point that was necessary to form the members.
Ques Did I understand correctly that you said the lower parts of the earth refer directly to the burial of Christ?
CAC I think it does. The Lord Himself speaks of the Son of Man being three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. When Paul speaks of the gospel he insists upon what is often left out by preachers: “That Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he was raised the third day, according to the scriptures”, 1 Corinthians 15: 3, 4. Paul makes His burial an essential point. In connection with the gospel it involves the complete disappearance of all that for which He went into death sacrificially; it is buried; it is not only that He died but He was buried. So christians are buried with Him; it is good for us to learn what this means. It means that we are to disappear as to any place or importance that we might have thought attached to us as men in the flesh, that we might come into view in another character in newness of life.
Rem The lower parts of the earth are brought in here as the utmost limits of the enemy’s domain.
CAC I thought so. He must go to the extreme limit of the enemy’s power. He must come down from the summit of divine glory and go to the lowest depths. The result is that as to all the powers of evil they are just a horde of captives dispossessed, only remaining as trophies of His victory; He goes back triumphant, and that is how we know Him. We know Him far above all heavens.
The evangelist goes out that the triumphs of Christ may be made known, “even for the rebellious, for the dwelling there of Jah Elohim”, Psalm 68: 18. It has been said that what we see in Christ is God’s thought for men accomplished. The evangelist’s mission is universal. The [p. 58] work of the evangelist is to bring in men, and then that they may be built up. The gifts are for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. It is that which is in view.
The apostles and prophets are clearly the foundation, chapter 2 makes that plain: “Ye are fellow-citizens of the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets” (verses 19, 20). The apostles and prophets are foundation: stones and we have their ministry in the Scriptures so that everything now must be substantiated by Scripture. The Lord may still in sovereignty give gifts that are of apostolic character — men sent with a distinctive mission to the whole church, like Luther. There have been times of great crisis in the church, and men have been raised up with a distinct mission. In the fourth century God raised up Athanasius and gave him a distinct mission, and the truth of the deity of Christ was re-established, and there have been other instances in the history of the assembly when men have been found whose service had such a universal and special bearing that the gift seemed to partake of apostolic character. Of course such men have had to prove everything from Scripture; they had not apostolic authority or inspiration. I am only referring to the special character and scope of their mission. They were given in the power of the ascended Christ to establish some great truth for the assembly that had been lost sight of.
Ques So has the truth been unfolded and maintained in that way up to the present time?
CAC I think so. The Lord has not failed to raise up men who have been distinctive gifts from Himself in heaven.
Rem You would not hesitate to say that J. N. D. was an apostle.
CAC I believe he was distinctly sent to restore [p. 59] the truth of the headship of Christ and what stands vitally connected with it; and that his mission was universal in its scope, an apostle in that sense, if you like.
Ques Have we not rather confined apostleship to the twelve?
CAC I think we get in the twelve what marks apostleship in the principle of it. With the bringing in of the apostle Paul there was a distinct movement in the unfolding of the truth; and it is by the gifts of the ascended Christ that His victory and its fruits are made known so that the saints may be perfected and spiritual service carried on, so that the body of Christ may be edified with a certain object in view. How it all brings before us the love and faithfulness of the One who has ascended above all the heavens! I do not suppose that any of these gifts have been withdrawn; they were given to operate “until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God ..”. It is very blessed to note what is in view.
Ques What do you mean by the reference to prophetic ministry?
CAC Things were communicated to the saints at the beginning by prophetic gifts as well as by apostolic gifts. There were prophets in the assembly by whom revelations were given. The assembly was founded upon the ministry of the apostles and prophets; the mind of God was declared in that way.
Speaking of the edifying of the body, it says, “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”. That is what is in view, and if that blessed end were reached there would be no need for the exercise of the gifts any longer; the body would be capable of edifying itself without gifts. It is the end that is in view but we have not arrived at it yet.
[p. 60] Ques Is there anything in the order in which these gifts are given here?
CAC I thought that the foundation gifts came first, and then evangelistic gifts to make Christ known in the world in His victorious power, and then the shepherds and teachers to care for those who have believed.
Ques. What are prophets?
CAC I thought it referred to those by whom the mind of God was revealed in the early days. It is very comforting that nothing has been lost; we have the inspired record in the Scriptures of what the apostles and prophets made known. It is there for the body of Christ still, and that body is also the vessel of the Holy Spirit. However great the power of evil may be, even in the church, divine activities are still going on “until we all arrive at the unity of the faith ..”. (verse 13). The faith would include all that God has made known; the whole system of divine truth would be summed up in the faith. The centre of it all is the Son of God. The edifying of the body of Christ is going on in spite of all the inroads of the enemy at the present time. It is most touching to consider the character of the gospel of John. John was kept in reserve until the ruin of the church was fully manifested and then at nearly one hundred years of age he sits down to write a gospel. One would have thought that an apostle writing in such conditions would have a great deal to say about failure and ruin: he does not say a word about it! He writes about the Son of God; that is the kind of ministry for the day of ruin. He brings in a glorious Person who is unchanged and unchangeable, and he sets before us the blessed possibility of having life in His name. God would not have us fretting our souls about evil. The evil is there and it is right to feel it, but God would have us on the line of life in the name of His Son.
Ques Would you mind [p. 61] continuing the thought of what there is for us to arrive at?
CAC The result of arriving at the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God would be that we should arrive at the full-grown man. The saints collectively would be adequate to express the stature of the fulness of the Christ. It is the whole company of saints, the body, brought to be adequate to express the stature of the fulness of the Christ; the assembly will be seen as “the fulness of him who fills all in all” (chapter 1: 23). The gifts are all working with a view to bringing that about now, bringing it about morally. It will be brought about eventually by divine power so that collectively there will be an expression of Christ. That is the divine mind. But this scripture evidently has in view its being reached now, because it goes on to show what the results will be, that we should be no longer babes, that we should not be led about by evil teaching and systematized error. The saints, as having been brought up to the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ would not be carried away by winds of doctrine, “but, holding the truth in love” would “grow up to him in all things, who is the head, the Christ”.
Rem I think you have said that there were gifts given that are not available.
CAC Well, it should be an exercise with us all, if we have anything that is given for the body, that it should be put into circulation. Every saint has an impression of Christ, but I think there is a great power of Satan at work amongst us to hinder the communication of what is divinely precious. Instead of communicating what we are enjoying of Christ we are often diverted to talk of odds and ends that are of no encouragement or help to anybody. It is necessary to pay attention to the gifts which have been conferred. It speaks here of every joint supplying something; “each one part” is to supply something.
That is “first works”. The Lord says to Ephesus, “Repent, and do the first works”. For every joint and every band and each part to be supplying something for the encouragement and building up of the body would be “first works”, which go along with “first love”.