We may apply this principle to today’s Christianity. There is nearly no church flow on earth today because most Christians have been carried away by different teachings. Some, for example, have been blown away by the teaching regarding immersion. Every denomination is founded upon a certain teaching, and that teaching always becomes a strong wind. The Southern Baptist Church has twelve or thirteen million members. What a big wind this is. The charismatic movement is another wind. Some in that movement teach that we must all speak in tongues, without caring whether the tongue is genuine. Some tell you not to speak your native language, but to make some peculiar sounds. And they claim that this is tongues! I am familiar with this because I was once a leader in that movement. The situation of today’s Christianity is one of division. Now you can see why we say that those in the divisions are not the church. They are in divisions, not in the church flow. Many of us were in that situation, but the mercy of God reached us, and we saw that what we were in was not the church in the flow.
At the beginning of Ephesians 4 Paul speaks of the unity of the Spirit (v. 3). Every regenerated person has the unity of the Spirit. However, the winds of teaching spoken of in Ephesians 4:14 have carried most Christians away from the unity of the Spirit, producing division after division. In Ephesians 4:11 and 12 Paul says that the apostles, prophets, and other gifted persons should perfect the saints. To perfect the saints means to help them grow until they arrive at the unity of the faith (Eph. 4:13). The faith in Ephesians 4:13 is the object of our belief; it is what we must believe in order to be saved. This faith mainly includes the Person of Christ and His redemptive work. Of course, it does not include circumcision, Sabbath keeping, and dietary regulations. It does not even include such things as head covering, foot washing, immersion, and speaking in tongues. Those who have been carried away by these things need to turn to the flow, where they can receive the help to grow in life. With some growth, they will drop the “toys.” Their “toys” are their teachings. By God’s mercy, some will be convinced and turn to the church flow.
This is what Ephesians 4:13 means by arriving at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. To arrive at a full-grown man is to be no longer children. According to Ephesians 1:23, the fullness of Christ is the Body. Ephesians 4:13 does not merely say “the fullness of Christ,” but “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” that is, the measure of the stature of the Body.
These examples of the divisions in the history of the early church will help us see the difference between the church and the denominations. Once we have seen the vision of these things, we shall be kept in the flow. Those in the divisions even denominate themselves as certain kinds of divisions. The Lutheran “church” and the Baptist “church” are both denominations. They even put the words Lutheran and Baptist before the word church. This is serious.
Christians are divided because they are childish, immature; they are lacking in growth. Moreover, they see nothing of God’s eternal purpose and do not know what God’s economy is. Although many of them love the Lord, they love Him in an ignorant way. Consider the example of Saul of Tarsus. When he was opposing the Lord Jesus and persecuting the church, he surely must have thought that he was serving God. He was zealous and on fire for God, but his zeal was blind. For this reason, when the Lord knocked him down on the way to Damascus, He caused him to be blind, making him realize that he was blind, in darkness, and needed someone to instruct him so that the scales might fall from his eyes. Brother Ananias came to fulfill this task, saying, “Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou earnest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight” (Acts 9:17). After Ananias said this, “immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith” (Acts 9:18). Saul made a radical turn. Many Christians today have a heart for the Lord, but they are blind and in darkness; they do not have the heavenly vision. Later, Paul could say, “O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19). From the day Paul saw this vision on the way to Damascus, he never disobeyed it. In principle, it is the same with us. We have seen something. If you have not seen this vision, perhaps now is the time for you to see it. It is not adequate simply to be religiously zealous for God. Many of the persecutors of Jesus and of the apostles were zealous for God. They even sentenced the Lord Jesus to death in their zeal for God. But their zeal was utterly blind and in darkness.
Praise the Lord that we have an open heaven with a clear view! We have seen that the proper church is the flow. Thus, we must not care for divisive teachings, but turn to the unity of the faith. In the past many of us were carried away by various divisive teachings, but by God’s mercy we have turned from them. We have forsaken the winds of teaching, and now we are for the flow. We are in the flow and the flow is in us.