The gifts in Ephesians 4:8 are the gifted persons listed in verse 11. Ephesians 4:11-12 says, “And He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ.” In these verses we see the perfecting of the saints by the gifts. The gifts are the gifted persons—the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers. These persons are the particular gifts, the top gifts, that the Lord Jesus as the ascended Head in His ascension gave to His Body for the building up of His Body. We need to realize, however, that these dear ones, these gifts, do not build up the Body of Christ directly. They perfect the saints, and the saints do the direct building work. These particular gifts are relatively small in number. If they are the only ones working and serving, they surely will become a clergy. Furthermore, this clergy will spontaneously become a hierarchy. These gifted persons, who are small in number, should perfect all the common saints.
According to Ephesians 4 every believer, every common saint, should be perfected. This is just like saying that all American citizens should be educated. The educational system in the United States has the goal of training, or perfecting, the American citizens. At least, all Americans are encouraged to graduate from high school. As a result, many Americans are able to read, write, and be active, functioning, and productive members of society. Suppose that in the United States only a very small number of gifted persons were allowed to be educated. If this were the case, the United States would be in a poor situation. Just as people in society should be educated, trained, and perfected, we believers also need to be perfected to function in the Body of Christ. Perfecting implies teaching, instructing, and educating.
All the believers in Christ need to be perfected by the gifted persons so that they can do the work of the gifted persons. This is revealed in the Bible, but it is not practiced today in Christianity. The practice of Christianity is to educate only a small number to be the gifted persons, and these gifted persons become a class of clergy. This clergy spontaneously becomes a hierarchy while the rest of the common Christians become the laity. Today in Christianity there is the clergy-laity system.
Some denominations refer to some of their members as “lay preachers.” This is altogether unscriptural. It is poor to refer to a believer in this way. This terminology should be abandoned. In the Lord’s recovery we should have neither the clergy nor the laity. We should not have professional preachers nor lay preachers. All of the common saints should be equipped and enabled to do the work of the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers. This is not my teaching, but Paul’s teaching, the Bible’s teaching.
The Lord gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers for the perfecting of the saints unto, resulting in, the work of the ministry. The work of the ministry is the work of the priests of the gospel of God (Rom. 15:16). According to the grammatical construction of Ephesians 4:12, “unto the building up of the Body of Christ” is in apposition with “unto the work of ministry.” Therefore, the building up of the Body of Christ is the work of the New Testament ministry, and this ministry is the gospelizing of the New Testament priests. Even our preaching of the gospel is a part of the building up of the Body of Christ organically.
The apostles preach the gospel, establish the churches, and give the definition of the truths. An apostle should at least do these three things. Furthermore, an apostle also perfects others to do what he does. We need those who can establish the churches. If four families migrate to a new city, they may wonder how they can set up the church in that city. This question can be asked because we did not practice adequately the perfecting of the saints. The saints need to be perfected to do the work of the apostles. The ones among us who are apostles, need to perfect the saints year-round. If we are perfected adequately by the apostles, we will know how to establish the churches. When we migrate to a new place with some other families, we will know how to set up a church.
The practice of the perfecting of the saints by the gifts is absolutely different from the practice of Christianity. In Christianity, they ask people to devote themselves, and they send these people to seminaries to study and learn the Bible. After their graduation, they become pastors who have been instructed to establish churches in an organizational way. One person told us that our way of spreading the gospel was the best. Within twenty years, we spread the gospel to all six continents, yet we did not have formal missionaries or a mission board. We did not have any formal fund raising. In spite of this, churches have been set up. These churches were set up by some saints who had been perfected. This shows us the great need for the perfecting of the saints by the gifts. I feel that Southern California is very good for the church life because there are so many small cities there. In every small city, there is the need of a lampstand. In principle, we should not always stay in one city. After seven years, we can move from one city to the next city to establish a church there.
In addition to preaching the gospel and establishing the churches, an apostle should be able to give the definition of the truths. He should know the difference between truths such as justification and reconciliation. If we do not know how to give the proper definition of the truths, we are not qualified to set up a church. This is because when a church is set up, there are many questions concerning the divine truths.
We need to ask the Lord to make us willing and ready to be perfected. We need to be taught the truths concerning the incarnation of Christ and the all-inclusive death of Christ. We need to be taught concerning the forgiveness of sins, the cleansing of sins, justification, and reconciliation. We need to be taught concerning regeneration, sanctification, metabolic transformation, conformation to the image of Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God, and glorification, the redemption of our body. We need to know the truth concerning the renewing of the mind so that our soul can be transformed. We need to know the truth concerning the Triune God. What does it mean to say that God is triune? What is the divine Trinity? We must be able to explain the relationship between the Father and the Son. Why do we only have one God but three persons? If we cannot give the definitions of these truths, we are not fully qualified to set up the churches. We have many things to learn. We need to be perfected. I believe that after six months of being under a proper training, many of the saints will be able to define the truths.
I expect to see that the practice of the church life among us will be fully revolutionized. The church life is not merely a matter of attending corporate meetings week after week with no issue or result. In the past, the saints mostly heard general teachings concerning matters such as the cross, resurrection, and ascension. Many times the saints were stirred up, but to stir up the saints without their gaining something solid is meaningless. In Christianity they always like to pray for revivals, but revivals do not last that long. In the church practice, there must always be something solid imparted into the saints. When children go to school, they always gain something solid in knowledge year after year. Month after month the teachers render the students something solid. The teachers are not there merely to stir up the students who have a willing heart to study without giving them anything solid. If the teachers only stirred up the students, they could never be perfected. With the proper teaching, every lesson of the class imparts something solid.
We are short of this kind of perfecting in the churches. I know some saints who have been meeting with us in the Lord’s recovery for close to forty years. They have been growing in the Lord, and they may be more spiritual, but they have not been perfected. If you ask them to share something concerning what it means to be sanctified, transformed, conformed, and glorified, they cannot do it. Even though they may have heard many messages on certain truths, they are not able to share these truths with others. They may even feel that it is not their job but the job of certain gifted brothers to know these truths and to share them with others. In the past we may have preached to the saints and taught them time after time, but there was very little issue from our teaching. The issue of our teaching must be the perfecting of the saints. After someone listens to me for five years, he should be able to do the same thing that I do. He should be able to preach the gospel, to set up the churches, and to define the truths.
The Apostle Paul taught Timothy. He told him in 2 Timothy 2:15, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, an unashamed workman, cutting straight the word of the truth.” He told Timothy that he needed to learn to cut straight the word just as in carpentry. I am not a carpenter, so if someone asked me to cut a piece of wood properly, I could not do it. I would not cut the wood straight. Instead, I would cut it in a biased way. When a proper carpenter cuts wood, he cuts it straight. Paul told Timothy that he should learn to cut the word straight, that is, to define the truths rightly and straightly without distortion. Many preachers do not know how to define the truths properly. To them there is little difference between reconciliation and justification and between the forgiveness of sins and the washing of sins, but there are differences between these truths. Our sins may be forgiven, but we need the washing of our sins to wash away the stain of our sins. Forgiveness releases us and deals with the condemnation, and washing takes away the stain. To teach the truths rightly and straightly in such a way without distortion is to cut straight the word of the truth.
We all need to give ourselves to be perfected. We should not be Christians just in name but Christians in reality. Every Christian is a gift. The heavenly Head, Christ, constituted Paul the apostle a gift to the Body, and He made Paul an apostle directly. The Lord, however, constituted Timothy a gift to the church in a different way. One day under His sovereignty, He placed Timothy under Paul, and Paul taught Timothy and perfected him all the time. As a result, Timothy became an apostle, but he was not an apostle appointed by the Head directly. He was an apostle under the perfecting of the directly appointed apostle. This shows us that the gifted persons should bear the responsibility to perfect all the saints to do what they do.
Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2, “And the things which you have heard from me through many witnesses, these commit to faithful men, who will be competent to teach others also.” The verb perfect is a synonym of the verb teach. Paul charged Timothy to commit what he had heard from him to the faithful ones, who would be competent to teach others. In other words, Paul perfected Timothy, and he charged him to teach others, which means to perfect them. Then these faithful ones would also teach others, perfect others. Paul perfected Timothy, Timothy perfected the faithful ones, and the faithful ones bore the burden to perfect the other saints. Eventually, the entire church would be perfected in this way.
Before this kind of perfecting work, one brother may have been the unique person who knew how to set up the churches, how to preach the gospel, and how to teach the truths. If a brother goes to a place to preach the gospel and to set up the churches, he must perfect some “Timothys” there. Then his “Timothys” will perfect some competent ones, and these competent ones will perfect the other believers. Eventually, all the believers there will be able to do what the gifted brother can do. Then instead of being the unique one among them who can preach the gospel, set up the churches, and give the definition of the truths, he becomes one among many who can do the same work. Therefore, there is no clergy and no laity. Because there is no clergy, there is not the possibility of building up a hierarchy. Instead, all the saints are enabled to preach the gospel, teach the truth, and set up churches.
We all have to be perfected to do the work of the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers. The saints may feel that they cannot do this work, but this is why they need the perfecting. After being perfected, the saints can say, “Hallelujah! I may not be an apostle, but I surely can do the same work that the Apostle Paul did.” The apostles perfect all the common saints to do the same work that they do, but is this the situation today? We cannot see such a thing on this earth. Therefore, the perfecting of the saints by the gifts is a big “missing.” We need to praise the Lord that today He is recovering Ephesians 4:11-16. The Lord is speaking something that is altogether not seen on this earth.