The Body of Christ in Action
Ephesians 4:15–16
Ephesians Lesson #153
June 12, 2022
Dr. Robert L. Dean, Jr.
www.deanBibleministries.org
Opening Prayer
“Father, we understand that Your Word is alive and powerful, that Your Word is Your Word. It’s not our word. It is not the opinion of religious leaders over the years. It is the disclosure of Your thinking about creation, about man, about the problem that we face. Ultimately, it is from all our problems derived from sin and our own sin nature, and Your gracious, magnificent solution is a redemption solution at the Cross. And then the fact that You have gone beyond simply saving us, but You have a plan for us. You have done things beyond anything that we can ask or think, so that we can reflect Your glory to the world around us.
“We don’t think about that enough. It’s not about us and our little petty problems. It’s not about us and the things we want to accomplish in this life. It is about what You want to accomplish in us and through us in this life, especially as it comes to the body of Christ and our relationship to one another.
“As we conclude this little section in Ephesians this morning, it will challenge us because of what is said here in terms of our inter-locking interdependence in the body of Christ. Help us to understand that, that this is something that is vital.
“Father, we pray that You would open our eyes to understand these truths, and we pray this in Christ’s name, amen.”
Slide 2
As I pointed out or referenced, I think it was last week, I’d gotten an email a couple of weeks ago from a friend and someone who listens regularly and said, “I’ve always skipped over that verse. I’ve never really understood it.”
I think that’s true for a lot of people because some of the things that are in this last verse that we’re studying in this section in Ephesians 4:16 don’t quite jive with perhaps how often we think of what we’re supposed to do at church and how the body of Christ functions.
It’s not something that should be imposed by the leadership. It’s not something that should be imposed by the pastor. It is something that is the natural byproduct of believers who are growing in maturity. And as they grow in maturity, what is discovered is that they will function within their spiritual gifts.
There are so many different crazy things that happen in churches related to spiritual gifts. And there are so many shallow superficial and frankly idiotic things that are said by seminary professors and academics about what churches should do, “that if you just discover your spiritual gift your church will grow.”
That’s a major thesis in all of these big mega-churches and the church growth movement. The Bible doesn’t address it that way, not at all. If we grow spiritually, then we will naturally gravitate to doing the kinds of things that God has gifted us to do.
It’s the same way in everyday life. As you grow up, you begin to ask questions like “What am I going to do when I grow up?” Some of you may still be asking that question.
I remember when I was in high school trying to figure out some of these things and going to college and what I should major in and all of these things. So my parents had me go through a battery of these exams to try to figure out what I was inclined to. My impression at that time was these tests reflect what you think you’re inclined to at the time you take the test.
I don’t know how helpful they really were. They did seem to indicate that I might find something to do in the realm of teaching or in the realm of being in Christian ministry. Time will tell.
But what we see in the Scriptures and in life is that as we go through life, we’re going to gravitate to the things that we like to do and the things that we’re good at. It may be working with our hands, it may be working with our minds, it may be being in administration.
Some people are gifted in detail work. I do detail work for 45 seconds, and it’s like I’m hearing fingernails on the chalkboard. I am not a detail person.
So we gravitate towards those things, and as you mature in Christ, maybe you gravitate toward prayer and trusting God. Maybe you gravitate towards administration, and that’s a spiritual gift within the body of Christ. Maybe you gravitate towards evangelism. Maybe you gravitate toward teaching. Maybe you gravitate towards giving. There are all of these different areas in which God has gifted every one of us.
But you don’t get it by sitting down and taking a spiritual gift assessment. Oh yes, they have those things. I took some of them back over 50 years ago, and they’re just psychological batteries that reflect whatever you think about your life and yourself at that particular point in time. I’m convinced they have zero to less value.
But as we grow, that’s the focus of Scripture. You can’t find one Scripture that says, “Discover your spiritual gift and you’ll be spiritually mature.” Maybe it’s in 4 Corinthians, I don’t know. But it’s not what we have. What we do have is the clear teaching of Scripture that we have all been gifted.
In Ephesians 4:7, Paul writes, “But to each one of us …”
The “us” is everybody who is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. The “each” focuses on the individual. “To each one of us,” not each one of us who are the gifted leaders of Ephesians 4:11. But to each one of us who are believers.
“Grace was given …”
The word for “grace” there is often used just as shorthand for grace gift. CHARISMA is the word often translated for a spiritual gift. CHARIS is just the shortened form for grace.
I can take you through passages in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 that demonstrate that, and that’s the focus here.
“Grace—gifts—was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”
In other words, it’s measured out by Christ. I don’t think I’ve made that clear that it’s an awkward way in which this genitive is expressed. But it’s used several times in other passages as well, and it is Christ who measures this out.
What gets confusing for people, we often say that it is the Holy Spirit who distributes gifts because that’s what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12 near the beginning of the chapter. But near the end of the chapter he says God distributes gifts. And here it’s Christ who distributes gifts. If you’re not convinced of the Trinity by that, then I don’t know what’s going to convince you, but the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are each involved in this distribution of spiritual gifts. It’s not just simply one or the other.
So Ephesians 4:7 sort of sets the topic for what comes. Then the next couple of verses deal with the ascension of Christ, picking up that imagery from the Old Testament where God the Father’s ascension up the Temple Mount is a picture of His victory over His enemies. In the passage we looked at in the Psalms, because of the victory, He distributes gifts like a victorious conqueror would do.
That is used analogously by Paul to focus on the fact that Christ, as the One who ascended on high, gives gifts to men. Those are defined then in Ephesians 4:11 as these four gifts: apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers. And that it is for the purpose of the equipping of the saints, that is, the individual believers who make up the body of Christ for the work of ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ.
The emphasis then is on the individuals. It’s on equipping, training individuals to do the work of service, to do the work of ministry. And so he develops that idea out in the subsequent verses and bringing it to a conclusion, as we come to Ephesians 4:16 where we really see the body of Christ in action.
Slide 3
So just to remind you of this context:
Ephesians 4:11, “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastor teachers,”
Ephesians 4:12, “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,”
Ephesians 4:13, “till we all come to the unity of the faith …”
Now that’s an important statement because that talks about our experience. But if we look back at the beginning of the chapter in the first seven verses, Paul is telling what we have in Christ and how we are to walk. (I’ll come back to this at the end.)
We are, according to Ephesians 4:1, “to walk worthy” of that new station that God has appointed us to in Christ; and Ephesians 4:3 says that we are “to be diligent to preserve the unity.” That means the unity is already there.
So we have a position in Christ where we are unified, but that’s not true in our experience. In fact, you can look around and say, “I don’t know that the body of Christ has ever been unified since the Ascension.”
And that’s the difference—positionally we’re unified, we have unity in the body of Christ, but we have to be brought from infancy where we’re still dominated by arrogance and the sin nature and divisiveness to maturity. And it is in that growth process that we should realize more and more unity.
The problem is God doesn’t override our volition, and too many Christians over the centuries have opted for their own uninformed opinion of Scripture, which then leads off into some sideline in one direction or another, and so we don’t have unity.
But the unity comes from the Scripture. It’s a unity of THE faith, not a unity of experience. When you have that article in front of faith, it’s not talking about the act of faith, it’s talking about the content of faith.
That content of faith is described then as the knowledge of Christ in Ephesians 4:13, “till we all come to the unity—‘coming to the unity’ is experiential—of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature—see there’s that word ‘measure’ again. That’s a second time it’s used in this section. And that measure is the distribution of the gifts—of the fullness of Christ—that is, His character.”
Ephesians 4:14, “for the purpose—that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine.—So that’s the negative. Don’t be infantile is the idea there. Don’t be 20 and act like you’re 2—, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.”
Slide 4
The purpose is to grow, and that’s Ephesians 4:15, which we studied last week. “But rather we should be characterized by integrity operating within the sphere of love—for the purpose—that we may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ.”
Slide 5
Now that brings us to Ephesians 4:16. I’m going to start with the end in mind. This is a complex verse. It is complex because it has distinctive, if not unique, vocabulary. That’s always an issue because words mean things. Words communicate ideas. But the ideas are distinguished by even synonyms.
So we have to look at these words. The first two words that we’ll see that I’ve translated “precisely fitted” and then “held together” are words that are rarely used. In fact, the first one is coined by Paul. He only uses it twice. So he sort of makes up his own word to fit the scenario, and that is “according to the working in measure—there’s our third use of this word ‘measure’ that has to do with the measurement of something or the doling out of responsibilities or spiritual gifts—from each individual part doing its share, causes growth of the body to the building up of itself in love.”
It’s the function of the parts that contribute to the growth. That’s not the only thing that contributes to the growth, but often that’s ignored as part of the growth.
What we’re going to see embedded in this is that these first two participles, “precisely fitted and united” or “held together”—those two words, “fitted” or “united” I’m using those as synonyms to help explain that Greek word. What that shows is that it is the body of Christ in contact and connection that is part of this. Without that content and connection, the body of Christ can’t function as God intended it to.
Now as I studied my way through that, I have never dealt with that and understood that in that way. But these are architectural terms that are applied to this growth of the body. And it is saying something that is significant for today in our virtual world, and that is that there is an importance and a significance to the personal interaction of believers in the body of Christ. That means that there never will come a time when it is healthy for a church to just go virtual.
One reason I say that is because I had someone make that comment to me, “Well, that’s the direction everything is moving now is towards distance learning, towards distance business, going into the office once or twice a month.” But this is the body of Christ and God rules that Christ is the Head of the body of Christ, and He’s given the guidelines without which we don’t have the function of the body of Christ.
I never saw that before the last month or six weeks that I started looking at this. It’s not something I’ve read into this. It’s just amazing what this analogy means. That should shape any decisions we have. If there’s ever another lockdown, we will not lock down again. We will never go virtual like we did two years ago when the pandemic first started. That’s a direct violation of the principles in this Scripture.
Now that doesn’t mean you have to come if you don’t want to, but the health of the body of Christ is determined by the Head of the body of Christ, not by bureaucrats in any government.
So I translated Ephesians 4:16 this way first, so we see where we’re going, “From Him—that is, from Christ—the whole body precisely fitted and united or held together through every supporting contact or connection, according to the working in measure from each individual part doing its share, causes growth of the body to building itself up in love.”
Now one of these sort of awkward aspects of the translation of this at the beginning is how do these participles fit together? We’ll deal with it a little more specifically later on. But what this is doing, is the two participles—“precisely fitted and united” is one, “held together” is the other—describe the manner of this action of the main verb here. Adverbial participles are always modifying your main verb, which is here.
The causing of growth is done in the manner which is very close to means, they’re very similar, but it’s done in the manner, you could even say maybe “by means of being fitted and united or held together through every supporting contact or connection.”
That’s one of the reasons that you study the original languages, is to understand the significance of that. If there’s going to be the causation of growth of the body, the way in which that is done, you say, “Well, how does that happen?” Well, according to this verse, it’s the precise fitting.
Who does it? It’s a passive verb, so we don’t fit ourselves together. It is God who’s doing the work, and that’s the process of spiritual growth. That’s the process of sanctification. So it is in the manner of being, God performing the action, “fitted or united or held together,” but He does it “through the supporting contact or connection.” That’s what’s happening. He doesn’t do it apart from that, but through that, “according to the working in measure”—going back to the use of measure in terms of Christ measuring out the spiritual gifts in Ephesians 4:7.
That’s where we’re going. This is a dynamic view of the body of Christ in action.
Slide 6
Now I’ve put my translation up there, and I’m going to give you four other translations. You’ll see that they’re close, and they get across a similar idea. There’s a few things that I think that are wrong exegetically.
The Basic Bible in English translates Ephesians 4:16, “Through whom—that’s Christ—all the body, being rightly formed and united together, by the full working of every part, is increased—that’s how they translated the causation there, which is a bad translation—to the building up of itself in love.”
Slide 7
In the NET Bible, which is interesting. The NET Bible, New English Translation Bible, I have a lot of problems with it at a lot of points, on sanctification especially. It was a product of the New Testament faculty at Dallas Seminary 20 years ago.
Harold Hoehner, who was the head of the department, has written a massive commentary on Ephesians. I don’t agree with him on everything either, but it’s probably the best exegetical commentary on Ephesians—he does not agree with this.
So we read, “From Him the whole body grows, fitted and held together through every supporting ligament—that is not a good translation, but you have it here and in Colossians 2 several times. But we’ll talk about that when we get there.—As each one does its part, the body grows in love.”
So, what you see even though there’s little phrases here and there that need to be maybe modified a little bit, the point of this is it’s the body of Christ in action through its interaction that is part of the process of spiritual growth.
The Holman Christian Standard Bible says, “From Him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament—see that’s a historic way of translating it that’s not correct—promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part.”
Then the ESV (I picked these last two because they’re some of the most recent English translations). “From whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint—now there’s another problem. It translates to ‘joint’ instead of ‘ligament.’ We’ll see in my translation I didn’t do that. It’s every supporting connection. I’m not going to take the hour it would take to explain why that’s an incorrect translation—with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
Slide 8
We start off with this word SUNARMOLOGEO, which is a combination of two Greek words, ARMOS and LEGO. It’s a present passive participle. That means it’s acted upon by someone else—that would be God. And it has a basic idea of something that is joined together. This word is coined by the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
He only used it one other time and that’s in Ephesians 2:21, “in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”
Remember in Ephesians 2:12–22, we have this emphasis that in the body of Christ today, it is composed of those who previously were at enmity with one another, Jew and Gentile, and now we have this. He uses four metaphors: we are a new man, we’re a new body, we are a new building, and we are a new temple, and we are fitted together.
Now what does that mean? Well, in the ancient world they didn’t have mortar to hold stones and bricks together in the process of building. So what would they do? Well, they had various techniques that they would use for sanding down and smoothing out the sides of these stones so that they would fit perfectly together. They would level them out. We don’t know quite how they did all of that, but they did it. So the analogy here is that we are a stone, and God is fitting us together, which means He has to sand down all the rough edges and smooth things out, that kind of a thing.
Slide 9
Now I have some physical illustrations of this. This is from the Western Wall tunnels underneath what was the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Some of these stones are incredibly large. There’s one long one, I’m not showing it in terms of its length, but it’s probably as long at least from the end of this door all the way to the back corner, and it’s about three and a half feet thick. They’ve been able to measure how deep it is, and they estimate its weight as over 600 tons.
How did they move it there? Not only that, but they smoothed out all of the edges. And when you look at it (this one on the right, I think, is the bottom of it), it’s just smooth. They just fit on top of each other. There may be some wear and tear on the edges where you can put a little piece of paper in there, but it’s not going to go in very far. That’s what that looks like.
Slide 10
Here’s another picture of this. In this picture I’m showing that later in probably in the much later period in the Muslim period you had where they rebuilt on top of that, you had these smaller stones that are put in. See they’re using mortar,
Slide 11
But there’s no mortar on the seams of these other rocks. So it’s just very, very smooth. This gives you an idea all the way down to the end, this is one stone.
Slide 12
There’s another view of it.
Slide 13
So this idea is of that which has been joined together. There are various historical Greek inscriptions that relate to instructions to stone cutters at this particular time, and the stones are selected for specific properties.
Now that reminds us that election, same kind of idea, that when we studied election back in Ephesians 1, it wasn’t because we were selected by God arbitrarily. But that God in that selection process, going back to the imagery of Matthew 20 and the banquet, many are available, but fewer choice; many are invited, but fewer choice; many are called but fewer choice.
What makes you choice? What qualifies you? It’s possession of the righteousness of Christ which you’re given at the point of faith in Christ. This isn’t this idea of arbitrary election that comes out of Calvinism.
So that’s pictured in this imagery. The stone cutters would choose the stones because they had certain qualities. And then they were sanded, and they were smoothed out and prepared, so that they would then fit together. Each stone is cut to measure.
In the temple building instructions for some of the pagan temples that we have, the exact measure for each stone was specified. No mortar is used, and the whole process was detailed and elaborate. Special techniques were developed to smooth out the surface to remove all unevenness, so that the stones would fit perfectly together. That’s how God fits us together in the body of Christ.
The second word is SUMBIBAZO here. It also is a passive participle, and it has the idea of being united or figuratively reconciled together.
Slide 14
So it’s held together, reconciled together. And then we come to the next phrase, the prepositional phrase, “through every supporting contact or connection.”
Now this word HAPHE is the one that I could spend an hour on going through all of the history of the usage of this particular word. But this particular word is one that focuses on a supporting connection. You can go back and look at its use and development and explanation in Aristotle. It emphasizes contact, but not just bare contact, but a connection between two things. So it goes beyond just simple superficial contact to connection.
So it is “through every supporting contact or connection.” That concept there is so important, because that tells us that the body of Christ functions through the contact and connection between the parts, the members, of the body of Christ.
You just can’t find some other way to explain that. It’s not a joint or a ligament. That’s different terminology. That’s how it was understood and often translated in the past.
So this very word emphasizes the need for all believers to utilize their spiritual gifts in order for Christ to achieve His purposes in the construction, the building, of the body of Christ.
Now our sin nature is not removed, so it’s not going to be perfect until we are glorified, but that’s the process until then.
Slide 15
Colossians 2:19 uses this same word and its translated “joints,” which is again not the emphasis here. It’s the supporting connections. If you have joints, what about the other parts of the skeletal frame? See, the emphasis in the passage is every part, every believer, has a part, but if it’s just joints, then you’re saying it just applies to a certain number that have a role. But when it’s translated as the various supporting connections and everything else, it’s including every element in the skeletal frame.
Slide 16
So (Ephesians 4:16), “From Him—from Christ—the whole body, precisely fitted and—precisely—united—because it’s that unity in Christ, the theme that’s introduced earlier in the chapter—or held together—or reconciled together—through every supporting contact or connection, according to the working in measure from each individual part doing its share …”
So in this we see that there is this emphasis on each part and what it contributes to the whole of the edification, the building up of the body of Christ.
Then the last clause, “causes growth of the body …” I struggle with this.
Slide 17
Today, when I was studying, I don’t know why I didn’t notice this earlier, POIEO is such a
common word like the English word “do” or “make,” and in so many lexicons they’ll just say “do” or “make.” But I looked it up in BDAG, which is probably the primary lexicon for Greek English studies, and the first meaning listed is “to produce something material, to make, produce, or manufacture.” So it’s a lot more than just doing something. It’s the idea of producing something, manufacturing something.
So that’s where we get the idea of causing growth, manufacturing growth, producing growth “… of the body to—that last preposition I’ve put in there, EIS, indicates the ultimate goal, and that ultimate goal is—building itself up in love—in the sphere of love.”
Now we’re reminded of what Christ said about the mark of the disciple. A disciple is not simply a believer. A believer is a believer, but not all believers are disciples. Believers are saved. But for disciples, the emphasis is on their spiritual growth. Jesus said this is how all men will know that you are my disciples because you have love for one another. That’s the framework within which the body of Christ is healthy, and that’s why this growing to the ultimate end of the edifying of the body of Christ in love is in the framework of love.
Slide 18
This brings us to the conclusion here, but what it emphasizes for us in terms of application is that it is clear that to achieve the unity and the growth of the body of Christ, that it involves the function of the spiritual gifts. On the one hand the spiritual gifts given to every believer, Ephesians 4:7, but they are developed and matured under the ministry of the pastor-teachers and evangelists who equip the saints to do the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ.
We have that same phrase when we get here, that the growth of the body of Christ is built up in love. But that is as a result of the teaching ministry of the pastor-teacher and the teaching and equipping of the evangelists.
If you’ve got the sloppy views of what a pastor does in terms of motivation and exhortation in the typical sermon, none of this will happen. All you’re going to produce is babies who continue to mess their diapers and none of them get spiritually potty trained, there’s no discipline, there’s no growth, it’s just a mess.
That’s what we see today in about 99% of the congregations in this country who call themselves Christian, and it’s gotten worse because about half of them—and I’m talking about evangelicals—have gone “woke.” They’ve turned to Marxism. They’re interpreting too many things in light of a Marxist framework now.
This is a serious problem. What we have to come back to is submission to the authority of the Word of God.
Slide 19
So just in wrapping this up, we go back to Ephesians 4:1. This is the main command, “Therefore, I, the prisoner of the Lord, strongly urge you to conduct your life in a manner worthy of the exalted position to which you were summoned.”
Then in Ephesians 4:2–6, he talks about what we have in that.
Ephesians 4:2 says that walk is to be characterized by “humility, kindness, patience, and putting up with one another in love.”
Then what we have in Ephesians 4:3–6 is what we have positionally in Christ.
Slide 20
Then in Ephesians 4:7–12 what Christ has given us within the body of Christ to be able to achieve that goal. He gave us spiritual gifts for every single believer to operate within that body.
He has given in Ephesians 4:11–12 these spiritually gifted leaders for the “purpose of training all Church Age believers to do the work of service, toward the ultimate goal of spiritually strengthening the body of Christ.”
That’s going to happen when they function together within a local body.
Slide 21
That takes us down to where we conclude, that it is from Christ, as we have matured rather than be children, that “from Him,” then He works and we are “precisely united and fitted” in our spiritual growth “through every supporting contact or connection.” That’s those connections with every believer in the body of Christ, “according to the working in and measure from each individual part doing its share, causes growth of the body to building itself up in love.”
Now what’s going to happen is that in the very next verse, Ephesians 4:17, Paul says, “This I say, therefore …”
What’s the therefore for? (Answer) He’s going to make a conclusion from everything he said in Ephesians 4:1–16. So now we understand what really is going on in Ephesians 3:1–16. He says, “This I say, therefore, I testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk—so that takes us back to that main command which was a positive command to walk worthy, and now he looks at it from the negative—don’t walk like the Gentiles in the futility of their mind.”
Then the rest of this chapter from Ephesians 4:17–32 I think will probably take us as long as it took to do up to this point. Grammatically and exegetically, it’s one of the most complex statements and sentences that we have; and it’s critical. It’s one of about four foundational passages—one of the other ones is coming up in Ephesians 5. But all of this fits together on the spiritual life. And so it’s very important to understand all of these different things. So that’s where we’re headed. It’s just exciting to study the Word.
Slide 22
In closing, remember Hebrews 10:25, “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day—that is the Day of Christ, the Rapture—approaching.”
Closing Prayer
“Father, we thank You for this opportunity to work through this section and how it has opened up our spiritual eyes and our thinking to understand who we are in Christ, who we are as a body of believers, that we are not just individuals isolated from one another, but that we are to be integrally connected. And we have to have integral contact and be connected to one another, and this involves a lot of ministries that are explained throughout the Scripture, that we are to do for one another. We’re to love one another, encourage one another. We are to admonish one another, we teach one another, we are to serve one another, love one another. All of these ‘one another’ passages are so important because that is the function of these individual parts coming together and functioning as the body of Christ.
“Father, we pray that if there’s anyone listening to this message who’s never trusted in Christ as Savior, that they would realize that the only hope for mankind is for a solution to the sin problem. We don’t live in a perfect world. We don’t live in an ideal world. We’re certainly not headed to some kind of idyllic future that we’re going to bring about through politics or government or any other human method. It’s only when Christ returns that we’ll have a perfect kingdom. But because it will be populated by sinners, it won’t be perfect, only the administration.
“Father, we need to understand all of these things. The role that the body of Christ is playing in this dispensation based on these chapters is just fundamental, that should transform our whole understanding of what church is all about.
“We pray that we will be transformed by Your Word. And we pray this in Christ’s name, Amen.”