What is the Goal of the Meeting of the Church?
Ephesians 4:12–13
Ephesians Lesson #148
May 8, 2022
Dr. Robert L. Dean, Jr.
www.deanbibleministries.org
Opening Prayer
“Father, we’re thankful for all that You have given us in Your Word, that Your Word is that which You have revealed, overseen and providentially superintended as You breathed it into and through the human authors, the human writers, of Scripture.
“That as such, these are not the words of men, but the words that You have intended for us to study and to learn. There is a power inherent in them because they are the truth. They are the absolute truth and the Scripture is infallible, and without error.
“Father, we are thankful that You have given us Your Word, and part of its power is that it is the means by which You have determined that we would be sanctified. As Jesus prayed, ‘Father sanctify them in truth. Thy Word is truth.’
“Father, we pray that now, as we take the time to study Your Word and reflect about what You have said, that God the Holy Spirit would make it clear to each of us how we are to apply these things in our lives, making Your Word the centerpiece of our spiritual life and our spiritual growth, for that is what You have intended. We pray this in Christ’s name, amen.”
Slide 2
Open your Bibles to Ephesians 4, continuing our study. Part of what I thought through last night as I was preparing was the need to look at what we have come to understand already in this passage. Looking at what we have in front of us in Ephesians 4, we have a paragraph or section that begins in Ephesians 4:7 and goes through Ephesians 4:16.
Slide 3
What is of interest and that we should pay attention to is that when we come to Ephesians 4:11, we see that a new sentence begins, “And He Himself gave.” That is the main clause. For those of you who are grammar challenged, that means everything else is related primarily back to that statement that Christ gave something, and everything else flows from that.
It starts with this fact that Christ has given the church something, He gave gifted individuals in Ephesians 4:11. Ephesians 4:12 describes their purpose and the ultimate goal, in Ephesians 4:13, is what I will focus on this morning, kind of an overview. Because what you should notice is that though this sentence begins in Ephesians 4:11, it ends at the end of Ephesians 4:16.
That’s a complicated sentence, and a sentence is the basic unit through which we express a thought. That’s just a basic definition from any fifth-grade grammar. A sentence expresses a thought, but sometimes there are subordinate thoughts to the main idea.
The main idea is Christ gave these gifted people, then Paul says a lot about them. Paul is one who is known for very, very long sentences. Ephesians has four or five of the longest sentences in his Epistles, and it takes a lot of time to break them down. Many of the scholars who have written commentaries struggle with and disagree with each other as to how these subordinate clauses should relate to each other.
It’s not like, “Oh, that’s just a grammar exercise.” No, it’s not, because those terms, those phrases, those clauses and how they relate to each other are fundamental. And they have serious implications on what we believe, what we do in church and understanding why we as believers are to be involved in a church that follows a biblical pattern.
We live in a world where many churches—I would say the vast number of them—only give a superficial nod to the Scriptures. They have ideas of what churches should do that are based on psychology and sociology rather than on what the Word of God says.
This is a crucial passage for understanding not just why we go to a certain church and what the goal of the ministry is, but it directly relates to our own walk with the Lord, how we are to live our lives and what God has provided for us in that spiritual life.
Ephesians 4:11–13 talks about what Christ gave, “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers [then the purpose, which we talked about last time and will review it again] for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry …”
“… for the equipping of the saints” should be understood as the primary immediate purpose. The result of that is “the work of ministry,” so “work of ministry” comes as a result of “equipping of the saints.”
How do we equip the saints? The word for equipping has various forms. One of the forms is used in 2 Timothy 3:16–17, that it’s the Word of God that prepares us, that equips us, to live the spiritual life.
“… for the equipping of the saints …” and the purpose for that is “the work of ministry” or service, serving one another in the local church. Then the long-term result is it “edifies [builds ups or strengthens] the body of Christ …” continuing … the sentence isn’t over with yet, “till we all come to the unity of the faith …”
What is that? I thought he said we already have unity back in Ephesians 4:3. We are to endeavor to keep the unity that is already there. This is part of that process of how we do that.
“… and of the knowledge of the Son of God …”
Those two things are directly connected to one another. What I’m going to show you is the “and” there should not be translated as “and” because that indicates you’re coupling two equal things together.
Often “and” has what grammarians call an ascensive use. That means that it should be translated that this is “coming to the unity of the faith even the knowledge of the Son of God,” so it connects that.
The concept of “the faith” is specifically targeted to be related to the “knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” A mature person is reflecting the character of Christ.
Slide 4
That all seems pretty simple, but there’s so much here that we just have to take it apart. What I want to do, first of all, is review us on what we are learning about the church. Just think of this is a pop quiz. I want you to think about the questions that I’m asking.
Slide 5
There has not been a church all through history. It began at a specific time, and it will end at a specific time, so there’s something unique and distinctive about the Church.
Slide 6
1. When did the Church begin? When will the Church end?
The Church began in AD 33, 50 days after the crucifixion, on the Day of Pentecost, described in Acts 2.
It will end at the Rapture of the Church, 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18, when the Lord Jesus Christ
“… will descend from heaven in the clouds with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds. And thus we shall forever be with the Lord.”
That happens before that horrible period in the future known as the Tribulation, Daniel’s 70th week, or the Time of Jacob’s Wrath.
In Matthew 16:18 Jesus talks about the fact that He will build His Church, so we know that it didn’t exist then, it was in the future. The word “church” isn’t used until Acts 5:11 in the Book of Acts where it is already established. So we know that the church began somewhere between those two references.
That means you don’t have a Church in the Old Testament. That’s very important because a lot of people confuse Israel with the Church. (That’s my opening point, and when I get to #11 in the review, you’ll see why that’s important.) This shows that Israel and the Church are distinct. God’s plan for Israel and God’s plan for the Church are completely distinct.
Slide 7
2. What’s the distinctive sign of the Church?
Slide 8
The distinctive sign of the Church is the baptism by the Holy Spirit. Prior to Acts 2 there is no baptism by the Holy Spirit. And after the Rapture there will not be any baptism by the Spirit because the baptism of the Spirit is designed to create this new distinctive people of God that we refer to as the Church.
Galatians 3:27–28, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ [It happens at the instant of salvation]. There is neither Jew nor Greek” [up until the Day of Pentecost, there is a distinction between Jew and Greek. God has a plan for Israel and Gentiles were part of that plan, but in a secondary way.
It’s not until after the resurrection and ascension of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit that Jew and Gentile are now united together in one body], “there’s neither slave or free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
This new unity in the body of Christ is a result of the baptism by the Holy Spirit. That did not happen at all throughout the Old Testament. There are people who believe that and teach that, but they’re not paying attention to what the Scripture says.
Slide 9
3. How and when does someone enter the Church?
Slide 10
You enter the Church through salvation. In all ages, salvation is the same: it is faith in the saving promise of God.
Before the Cross the saving promise of God was “I will provide a Savior in the future who will pay the penalty for sin.” They anticipated the fulfillment of that promise, they looked forward to it, believing that one day God would send a Savior, the Messiah.
Once the Messiah had come and died on the Dross, paid the penalty for our sins, we now look back to that finished, completed event that occurred in AD 33. We must recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and as John puts it, that we are saved by believing on Who He is and what He did for us. That’s the meaning of believing in His name.
Slide 11
Since that point, with the beginning of the Church Age, anyone who believes in Christ as Savior is instantly baptized by the Holy Spirit, which means we’re identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, and instantly we are in the Church. Everyone who believes in Christ from that point until the Rapture is a member of the Church, the body of Christ.
Slide 12
4. Whose Church is it?
Slide 13
It is not your church, it’s not my church; it is not some denomination’s church. It is Christ’s Church. He died, He paid for our sin; we have been bought with a price, so that we are Christ’s. We are His body; that is a glorious thing! A Church, therefore, is under the authority of Christ.
Slide 14
5. Who is the Head of the Church, the ultimate Authority over the Church?
Slide 15
The ultimate Authority over the Church is Christ. The ultimate authority comes from Him and He tells us how the Church is to function, why it is to function. He tells us what the goal of the meeting of the Church is. And we are not to make it up as we go along.
But if you look across the scene in the world today, you find that a lot of churches are doing just that. They’re making it up as they go along. They’re not paying attention to what the Scripture says, so these are not true biblical local churches or congregations.
Slide 16
Scripture says Christ is the Head of the Church, stated in a number of passages, Ephesians 4:15; 5:23, and Colossians 1:18, “And He is the head of the body, the church [the Church is called ‘the body’ in that phrase], who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead [Christ is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead], that in all things he may have preeminence.”
He is the focal point of the meeting of the Church. It is not about me. It is not about how the music makes me feel. It is not about the ambience of the church. The big joke is how many churches have fogging machines. I had no idea there were churches that used fog machines until a few years ago—because they define worship as a certain feeling, and they have to create that feeling.
You can’t create that feeling. Worship is a response to the Word of God. If you’re not teaching the Word of God, then people are not going to have that kind of response, so you’re just trying to manufacture it through these artificial devices. That’s not spirituality. That’s just human effort to try to counterfeit what the Holy Spirit does.
Christ is the Head of the Church, and He tells us specifically in Scripture what the Church is all about.
The Church is further defined as His body in these passages: Romans 7:4, 12:5; 1 Corinthians 10:16–17, 2:12–27; Ephesians 4:4, 4:12, 4:16, 5:30; Colossians 1:18, 24; Colossians 2:19, 2:29, 3:15; and Hebrews 13:3.
These are all the passages that talk about the fact that we are members of the Church, the universal Church, the body of Christ, and that He is our Authority. And that is mediated through a local church pastor who’s an under shepherd.
Slide 17
6. The Church is the mystery that was unknown in the Old Testament.
There was nothing known about the Church at all in the Old Testament. They didn’t have a clue; it was all about Israel. [Point 1, there’s a distinction between Israel and the Church.] The Church did not begin until after the ascension of Christ. Israel was the focal point of God’s plan in the Old Testament.
The Church is a mystery, it’s unknown, unrevealed in the Old Testament. It’s revealed only in the New Testament as a new people of God, composed of a unity of Jew and Gentile together.
Slide 18
Ephesians 3:5–6, which we’ve spent a lot of time studying, Paul says, “which [that is related to the Church] in other ages was not made known to the sons of men [it’s not made known they didn’t know it] as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets [it’s not even revealed until after the Day of Pentecost. What’s revealed is] that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs [or joint heirs] of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel.”
In the new entity, there’s no ritual significance to being Jewish. Now Jew and Gentile are in this one new body, the body of Christ.
Slide 19
7. What sorts of churches are there?
There are three different ways in which we talk about the church.
Slide 20
a. The universal church: refers to all believers from the Day of Pentecost until the Rapture.
The ones that haven’t been born yet aren’t part of the Church. They have to wait till they’re born and trust in Christ. The universal Church is all of those believers who have already died and all the ones who are alive. We’re all equally members of the body of Christ. It’s not related to denomination. It’s not related to geography or ethnicity. We’re all one in the body of Christ.
Slide 21
b. The visible church.
If you drive through Houston or Dallas, you see all kinds of churches. Dallas is really heavily churched. You can go from one subdivision to the next and in every corner just about in some places there’s a church. That’s the visible church. Some of those people are saved, some of them are not saved, some of them don’t even have a clue, but that’s the visible church.
Slide 22
c. The local church.
This is a particular assembly where you have your primary and sustained relationship, where you go to study the Word of God and to learn and grow spiritually. A local church may be comprised of believers and unbelievers. I don’t know everybody that’s here this morning, not everybody may be a believer, most people probably are believers, but you just don’t know.
I can’t look at somebody and tell whether they have trusted in Christ or not. The local church may be composed of believers and unbelievers, but the ministry of the local church should be handled by those who are believers in Christ.
Slide 23
8. What is the nature of the universal Church?
Slide 24
The gifted leaders that we learned about in Ephesians 4:11—especially the evangelists and pastor-teachers which are the only ones who continued past AD 100—are given to the universal church.
Slide 25
They are not given to a local church; they’re given for the edifying of the body of Christ. Not the edifying of West Houston Bible Church or First Baptist Church or Second Presbyterian Church, they’re given to the body of Christ for the edification, the building up, of the body of Christ.
Slide 26
9. What is the nature of the local church?
Slide 27
The local church is just the visible manifestation of the body of Christ meeting in a local assembly led by the pastor-teacher who’s aided by deacons and other leaders in the local church.
Some churches use the term “elder,” others use the term (in a different sense than the Scripture does) “bishop.” But we studied the passages that show that “bishop” (EPISKOPOS) and elder (PRESBUTEROS) were used synonymously: they were to feed the sheep.
The word for “feeding the sheep” is the verb form of the word for pastor, which is the function of the leader. It doesn’t matter whether you call the leader of the congregation a pastor, bishop, or elder, it’s what they’re doing. They are to be feeding the sheep the Word of God.
Slide 28
10. Who supplies the leadership of the Church universal and the church local? Who is it that provides that?
Slide 29
It is Christ. He is the One who gave these gifted people in Ephesians 4:11. That’s the background; Christ supplies the leadership.
Side 30
11. How is the Church related to the kingdom?
Which is really the point of great confusion today. I hear this so often, “Well, do this for the Kingdom.” “We need to add to the Kingdom.” Scripture talks about the fact that we are citizens of the Kingdom, but that’s our destiny. That’s not where we are today because the Kingdom isn’t present today. So we have to understand something about what is the nature of the Kingdom.
First of all, the Church is not the Kingdom. The Kingdom relates to Israel. Remember Point 1? Israel and the Church are distinct. All of the promises related to the Kingdom were codified in covenants God gave to Israel.
For example, the Davidic Covenant, the King will be a physical descendent of King David from the Old Testament, and because He’s a physical descendent of King David, He has a claim to the throne of David.
In order to have a kingdom, what do you need to have? You have to have a king, you have to have a territory, a piece of land, and you have to have people. To those three things some would add a constitution. But you have to have at least those three things.
The King is promised and prophesied in the Old Testament to be a descendent of David, and He is going to sit on the throne of David. But that doesn’t happen until Jesus Christ returns to the earth. You don’t read of Him being called the King of kings and Lord of lords until He returns to destroy the armies of the Antichrist at the end of the seven-year Tribulation period.
Until then—we studied this in detail when we went through the ascension in Ephesians 4:7–10—Christ is now seated at the right hand of the Father. Jesus speaks of it as being seated at the His Father’s throne in Revelation 3:20. He’s not seated on His throne, He is seated on His Father’s throne.
It’s really a distraction, a misnomer, leading to some real problems in theology if you think we’re in the Kingdom now and you talk about Jesus all the time as the King. He is not the King yet. He doesn’t receive the crown until, as Daniel 8 says, He goes to the Father during the Tribulation period when it’s about over.
Then He is given permission to come to the earth and take the Kingdom, but not until then. He came the first time offering the Kingdom. It was rejected, so the Kingdom offer was rescinded and Jesus was crucified. It’s not until Jesus comes back that He will establish the Kingdom.
Right now, we have to recognize this distinction—the Church is not the Kingdom, the Church is the bride of Christ who, when Christ comes, will come with the King. We will rule and reign with the King in the Millennial or Messianic Kingdom.
Slide 32
12. How is the Church related to this Kingdom?
a. “Kingdom” is used in a broad sense as the universal rule of God over all of His creation. God is referred to as the King in the Psalms, but it’s not referring to Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity; it is referring to God who is the Creator.
b. The theocratic rule: THEO meaning God, “cratic” meaning God’s rule over Israel according to the Mosaic Law. That is no longer in effect once the Law ended.
c. The future coming of the Messiah to establish His Kingdom and regather all the regenerate Jews back to Israel and establish the Kingdom. That hasn’t happened yet.
Slide 33
Ephesians 4:12, which we studied last time, simply reads, “… for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ …”
The problem is that the English preposition “for” is used three times there, but in the Greek text the first preposition is PROS and the second two are EIS, which indicates there’s a structure here.
I went through all the options last time, and this was the option that best fits the situation: that Christ Himself gave gifted leaders first of all for the immediate purpose of the equipping of the saints.
That’s why He gave the leaders. My job is to equip the saints to do the work of ministry. That’s the immediate goal tied to the first statement. We are to equip the saints for the goal of the work of ministry.
The ultimate goal is that it edifies or builds up the body of Christ. That is the mission statement, as it were, the job description of the pastor-teacher. I pointed out it’s not a pastor-motivator, it’s not a pastor-encourager, it’s not a pastor-evangelist, it’s not a pastor-entertainer, it is a pastor-teacher.
Too often today there are those in these various churches, and they’re entertainers, they’re motivators, they’re encouragers, but that’s not what the Scripture says the pastor is supposed to be. It is only through teaching—the instruction of God’s Word—that we become equipped to do the work of the ministry, which in turn will bring edification and strength to the body of Christ.
Slide 34
I translated Ephesians 4:12, “For the immediate purpose of training all Church Age believers to do the work of service for the ultimate goal of spiritually strengthening the body of Christ.”
Ephesians 4:13, continuing this long sentence, “… till we all come to the unity of the faith of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;”
Ephesians 4:14, another result clause, “that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,”
Ephesians 4:15, “but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—
Ephesians 4:16, “from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies [every believer], according to the effective working by which every part does its share causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”
What does that tell us? What’s the most important aspect of this from Ephesians 4:12, which talks about edifying or building up the body, to the last line of Ephesians 4:16, for the “growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love”?
Ultimately, the purpose of the church is to spiritually strengthen the individual believer, so that he can grow to maturity.
I want you to notice that to understand Ephesians 4:13, we have to look at it in the context which is a contrast with Ephesians 4:14, “till we come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man …”
Ephesians 4:13 says our goal is maturity, in contrast Ephesians 4:14 says, “… that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine.”
It’s contrasting a child who’s unstable and living on a lot of deception versus those who are mature and stable. The role of the pastor-teacher is to bring them to maturity.
When I read this, I’m often reminded of a statement I heard from Dr. Earl Radmacher, who’s now with the Lord, but he was the president of Western Conservative Baptist Seminary. He spoke at a one of our pastors’ conferences about 30 years ago and made the point that the evangelical church is largest nursery in the world.
It is composed of nothing but spiritual babies in diapers, and the nursery workers—the pastors—don’t have a clue how to get them out of diapers. What you get is all of these huge churches with a lot of babies who get tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, because they’re never taught any level of discernment.
Slide 36
Ephesians 4:13 gives us the goal that we are to come to this point of the unity of the faith, which we will translate “even the knowledge of the Son of God.”
That’s the first part; next time we will start looking at the details of what’s involved in that and just what that’s talking about in relation to our personal spiritual growth and maturity.
Closing Prayer
“Father, we thank You for this opportunity to study these things and be reminded of the fact that Christ has given these gifted people to the church, the whole body of Christ, for the purpose of our spiritual growth, our edification, our maturity.
“That we should not be like babies, we should not be deceived and tossed about by every wind of doctrine. Yet when we look at the scenario in our world today, we see these examples of children, of babies, of childishness because there’s a failure to learn Your Word and apply Your Word and grow spiritually.
“Father, we pray that we might not take for granted our own spiritual life and not take for granted the provision that we have through solid biblical teaching, living in a world today where there’s more available in terms of solid biblical teaching to the everyday believer than ever before in this Church Age. And yet there’s more immaturity and selfishness and self-centeredness just like a spoiled infant.
“Father, we pray that we might not lose heart, but that we might persevere and that we might stay the course to grow to spiritual maturity.
“Father, we pray too for anyone who may be here who has never trusted Christ as Savior. Maybe they don’t really understand salvation or maybe they have, but they’re just foggy on the concept. But salvation is a free gift, and all we have to do is take that free gift, accept that free gift, and we do that by trusting or believing that Christ died for our sins.
“He paid the penalty for our sin, so that the issue is not our sin, the issue is trusting in Christ; and therefore, the gospel is that Good News that by trusting in Him we’re forgiven, we’re cleansed, we have a new life in Him that can never be taken away. Father, we pray that You would make that very clear to each one that is here.
“Father, we pray that You would strengthen us, and that You would give us an increasing hunger to know You, to know our Savior, and we do that through knowing Your Word. We pray this in Christ’s name, amen.”