After receiving all the captives as a gift from the Father, the Son transformed all these captives in His resurrection life, making every one of them a gift (Eph. 4:8b). Paul was made such a gift, and we also were made such gifts. Then Christ gave these gifts to the church. Thus, Ephesians 4:11 says that "He Himself gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as shepherds and teachers." We are all gifts given by Christ to the church. The church has many gifts. Every member in a local church is a gift to the church.
Before he was saved, Saul was a captive of Satan. But after being saved by the Lord, Paul became a gift. We too were once Satan's captives. Then Christ defeated Satan and captured us and brought us to the Father; and the Father gave us to the Son. The Son made us a gift by transforming us with His resurrection life. Have you not been transformed? We all must confess that we are different today from what we were before we were saved. Now, instead of being captives of Satan, we all are gifts to the church.
Ephesians 4:12 tells us that it is by the perfecting of the saints as gifts that the Body of Christ is built up. This building up is the unique work of the New Testament ministry. My burden is not to annul you by making you a layman in a system of clergy and laity, but to develop and perfect you as a gift to build up the Body of Christ.
We need to learn to see the invisible things behind the visible scene. Behind the visible scene there is another scene that is invisible to our physical eyes. But those who have spiritual eyes can see the invisible scene behind the visible. Isaiah 53:12a shows us the invisible things that took place in the invisible scene behind the visible one. Through the window opened up in this verse we can see that in His death on the cross Christ was a Warrior who was fighting a war. When He was dying there, He was fighting. According to Colossians 2:15, while Christ was fighting on the cross, the Father joined the war, and the evil angels came to frustrate the Father. The Father stripped them off and made them a public display to shame them, thus triumphing over them. That was the war fought during Christ's crucifixion. Then, 1 Peter 3:18-20 tells us that after He died on the cross, Christ went to Hades to proclaim to the evil angels God's victory over Satan and his power of darkness through Christ's death on the cross. That too was part of the invisible scene.
After the war, Christ the Son resurrected, and in His resurrection He gained the victory. He captured all the captives of Satan and led them in a triumphal procession, and He brought them to the heavens and presented them as a gift to the Father. Then the Father returned them as a gift to Him, and He accepted them and made every one of them a gift. According to Isaiah 53:12a, in the heavens there was a demonstration of Christ's victory. In that demonstration the Son and the Father shared the prey. The Father acknowledged the Son's victory and divided to Him a portion of the spoil. There Christ enjoyed a portion of the spoil, the captives, with the Father as the Great and the Strong. This was a demonstration of the Son and the Father in the enjoyment of Christ's victory.
Neither the Father nor the Son received the ultimate benefit from such a demonstration. Eventually, the Body of Christ, the church, gained all the gifts, all the spoil. Both the portion divided to the Father and the portion divided to the Son were given to the church as gifts. Such good news as this should cause us to rejoice. Hallelujah, we were saved out of the hand of Satan and brought to the heavens, and we were given by the Son to the Father as a gift. The Father was pleased to receive such a gift, and He returned us to the Son, and the Son made us a gift through transformation with His resurrection life. Then He gave us as gifts to the church in our locality to do the work of the New Testament ministry, that is, to build up the Body of Christ.
Although we are here on earth, we can see the scenery in the heavens. We are now seeing things that are absolutely invisible to the earthly people. While they are enjoying the worldly entertainments in their visible scenery, we are enjoying the heavenly things in our invisible scenery.