We saw in chapter two that the gifted persons were produced by the Head of the Body in His resurrection. They were once captives in the hand of Satan. Through His death and resurrection, Christ rescued them from Satan’s hand. These rescued captives, through the process of Christ’s full redemption, have been constituted into persons who are gifts. He brought them with Him in His ascension and presented them as gifts to the Father. The Father returned these gifts to Christ, who then gave them to His Body to perfect the saints for its building up.
We need to realize that the gifted persons do not build up the Body directly. Even the Head of the Body, Christ, does not build up the Body directly. In Matthew 16:18 He said, “I will build My church.” Yet in the real practice of the building of the church, Christ as the Head of the Body does not do the direct building work. The gifted persons have to perfect the saints. To perfect the saints is to build them up, to equip them, and to furnish them with whatever they need for their work. Then the saints do the direct building work. Neither the Head nor the gifted persons do the direct building work.
The gifted persons perfect the saints to do what they do. The saints are perfected to do the work of the ministry, the ministry that builds up the Body of Christ. The apostles perfect the saints to function as apostles. The work of the prophets is to perfect the saints to speak for God and to speak God into people. To prophesy is to minister Christ, to dispense Christ, into God’s chosen and Christ’s redeemed people. The evangelists perfect the saints to do what they do in the preaching of the gospel. The shepherds and teachers perfect the saints to shepherd with teaching. When we teach we shepherd, and when we shepherd we teach. Shepherding and teaching should not be separated; they must go together. First Corinthians 12:28 says that God has placed all these gifts in the church. Throughout the centuries of church history, Christ has given such gifts to His church again and again. Even today He is doing the same thing.
If there are some saints meeting together as a local church, there must be some among them who are the Christ-given gifts. Some of them know how to do the apostles’ work. Some know how to do the work of the prophets. Others know how to do the evangelical work. Still others know how to shepherd and teach. Not only should they function in these areas, but they should also spend their time and energy to perfect the saints. They should be like the professors in a teachers’ college who produce more teachers, more professors. This should be the situation of a local church. A group of gifted persons who have been given by the Head to the Body should not only do the work themselves but should also perfect others to do what they do.
Acts 13:1 says that there were prophets and teachers in the church in Antioch. The book of Acts also shows us that the apostles continued to go back to the churches after they had established them and had appointed the elders. They visited the churches or communicated with them by writing in order to perfect the saints. Through the perfecting work of the gifted members, all the members are equipped to carry out what the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers do for the building up of the Body of Christ. The Lord has shown us this, and we have to take this as our goal.
This perfecting work should be going on and on until we all arrive at the three items listed in Ephesians 4:13: the oneness of the faith, a full-grown man, and the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. We need to arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God. The faith comprises the full redemptive work of Christ and the all-inclusive, wonderful person of Christ. This faith is the very contents of the New Testament teaching. The entire New Testament presents us with a picture of the incarnation of Christ through His resurrection, ascension, and second coming, issuing in the consummation of the local churches, the New Jerusalem. This is the faith in which we believe.
Some may say that their belief is Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Catholic, or Baptist. For Christians to have different kinds of beliefs means that they have different faiths. There have also been many councils throughout church history that have resulted in many creeds, or statements of belief. Every creed is a belief, so the many creeds indicate many beliefs. But the New Testament tells us that there is only one faith, the unique faith (Eph. 4:5; Titus 1:4). There is no other faith. A creed is not the faith. Only the reality of the contents of the entire New Testament is the faith. In Galatians Paul tells us that the law was everything in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament the faith has come to replace the law. Today we are not under the law, but we are in the faith, which is the very New Testament reality composed of Christ’s work in redemption and His person as the embodiment of the Triune God.
Paul said that the gifted persons are to perfect the saints until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith. Paul said this because even at his time there were other beliefs as substitutions for the unique faith. This is why the gifted persons have to work on the saints by perfecting them until the saints and all the perfecting ones, the gifted persons, arrive through a journey and at a goal. This goal is composed of the three items in Ephesians 4:13. The first of these items is the faith as the very essence and element of the oneness. We all arrive at the oneness of the unique faith composed with Christ’s work and person.