In the previous chapter, we saw from Ephesians 4 that the church is one unique Body which is built up by the one New Testament ministry. To participate in this building up ministry we need to live a life that is full of God's reality and God's grace. Reality is God realized by us in the Son, and grace is God in the Son as our enjoyment. We need to live a life of reality and grace through which we can build up the Body of Christ. To live such a life we must realize that through baptism we have put away our old man, which is being corrupted according to the lusts of the personified deceit, Satan himself (Eph. 4:22), and that we have also put on the new man which according to God was created in righteousness and holiness of the personified truth, the Triune God Himself (v. 24). We need to be daily and continually renewed in the spirit of the mind, the wonderful mingled spirit which fills, occupies, and directs our mind (v. 23). Daily and hourly we should be under this renewing, that we might be transformed to be the proper materials for the building up of the Body of Christ.
Ephesians 4 also shows us that such a life requires that we no longer walk in vanity (v. 17) and that we give no place to the evil one, the Devil (v. 27). We also should never grieve the Holy Spirit, who fills us and is continuously sealing us, making us full of the very nature of God and causing us to bear the very likeness of the One whom we love and to whom we belong (v. 30). Such a life is always willing to forgive others, to forget others' trespasses or offenses toward us, just as our Father God in Christ has forgiven and forgotten our offenses (v. 32). Such a life qualifies us and enables us to participate in the building up of the organism of the Body of Christ.
The book of Ephesians tells us that the called ones of God as a congregation are the church (1:1, 22), the assembly, and that this church is God's kingdom (2:12-13, 19), God's family (2:19), and God's temple (2:21), His dwelling place (2:22). Moreover, the church is the Body of Christ (1:23; 4:4) and the new man (2:15). Eventually, the Body of Christ and the new man become the bride of Christ (5:23-32). The assembly and the kingdom apparently are not something organic. But the family, the Body, the new man, and the wife, the Bride, are all organic. For the church to be the Body of Christ there is the need of life. In the Body the most crucial matter is life. When life is gone, the Body is finished. For the church to be the new man there is the need of a person. A man must have a person, and the person of the new man is Christ Himself. Furthermore, for the church to be the bride of Christ, there is the need of love. For a wife, a bride, the most important thing is love. Christ is our love because He is our husband. He is our life, our person, and our love.
Each chapter of the book of Ephesians unveils the mystery of the Body of Christ as the organism of the Triune God from a particular point of view. Chapter one shows us that the Body of Christ is the issue of the dispensing of the divine Trinity. Chapter two shows us that this Body is a masterpiece as the new man. In chapter three Paul unveils that we are supplied with the riches of Christ to be the fullness of the Triune God. In chapter four is the one Body built up by the one ministry. In Ephesians 5 Paul goes on to tell us something further concerning the Body of Christ from another angle or point of view. If we read Ephesians 5 in a superficial way, we will not be able to see its point of view. We must dive into the depths of the truth unveiled in this chapter to see something further. This chapter reveals the children of light for the preparation of the bride of Christ. The children of light and the bride of Christ are the two crucial matters in Ephesians 5. To be the children of light who walk in love and light is to be prepared to participate in the bride of Christ.