The Unity of the Faith: Attainable Now (Part 3)

THE NOW VIEW

         The now view is one that views the unity of the faith as something that has the ability to be accomplished before this dispensation comes to a close.  Although the future/now view has many valid points, as its argumentation unfolds it begins to take a future only view.  The writer of this paper prefers a view that the unity of the faith, as stated in Ephesians 4:13, is an attainable goal.  Attainable being something the church can arrive at.  In his commentary The Glory of the Church, Homer Kent summarizes what will follow with wonderful grace:

Every believer…has a service to perform…the ministering by all believers, as they have been equipped by the gifts (of God) is intended to accomplish the building up of the church.  The emphasis of the passage seems to be on spiritual life and its development…there is a unity of the faith already possessed by true believers (4:5), but there is also an experiential development of this faith as believers increase in spiritual capacity.  This is closely connected with the Christians growth in knowledge of the Son of God…although absolute perfection is not achieved in this life, yet there is a relative maturity that is not only attainable but is expected of every believer…the church itself is called the fullness of Christ in 1:23.  In 4:13 Paul speaks of Christ-likeness that every believer should display.  The final achievement must await His coming, when we shall be like Him, but now there is a measure of this Christ-likeness that we should experience and demonstrate.[1]

Kent says very well that although the believer is in a continuous state of being sanctified, there is the ability to attain to the unity of the faith on the basis of God’s gifts of gifted people to His church.

         When God gives gifts He does so perfectly.  Everything He does is “good” as seen in the infant stage of creation in Genesis 1 and 2.  If this is true, which it is, it would stand to reason that the purpose of the gifts of gifted men is for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith (Eph. 4:12-13).  Theologian Millard Erickson, commenting on the unity of the faith, says “one body refers to the church as the body of Christ.  This body must be one since Christ is one, and Christ cannot be divided.  Later in the chapter (speaking of Eph 4), Paul develops the idea of ministry, which has the purpose of building up the church in the one faith.  This guarantees the unity initiated by the one Christ.”[2]  The unity of the church is a theme that is sounded throughout the epistle to the Ephesians.  This being the case, the now view is not too far-fetched.

         The now view seems to have two parts to it.  As mentioned above, Christ and His body is not divided, and in this sense there is already unity.  This begs the question: why is the argument for unity to be not only maintained but a goal?  According to Erickson, the image of the church as the bride will help determine the answer.  From the beginning (Gen. 2:24) marriage is seen and intended to be monogamous.  In Scripture marriage is never anything but one man and one woman.  However the old nature flares up from time to time.  Jesus, speaking on marriage and divorce, says that divorce only comes about because of the hard heart (Matt. 19:8).  It would stand to reason that a hard heart will rear its ugly head on occasion within the body as the body awaits it final redemption.  Nonetheless it is a unified body (now) that is troubled on occasion.

         Having established the immediate purpose of gifted people given to the church, which is the building up of the body of Christ, Paul explains the need for the building up to continue until the measure of the fullness of Christ.  The building up of the body seems to indicate the goal.  Back to the verse at hand, Paul writes “until we all”, which sheds light on who is involved.  The “all” goes back to the “saints” of verse 12, which is “because we are all being prepared for the work of the ministry with the goal of building up the body of Christ which we are all a part of”.[3]  He goes on to say that there are three aspects of the one goal which Paul seems to present a stair-step attainment to the goal.[4]  The goal is the unity of the faith (building of the body of Christ), the first stair-step attainment to this goal is “to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God (Eph. 4:13a).”  The effort is to preserve the unity just like in (4:3) where Paul exhorts believers to preserve the unity of the Spirit.[5]  This is very helpful as preservation is only done on something that presently exists.  In other words if the unity of the faith was not a reality then neither is its preservation.

         In what Hoehner calls the first component of the goal, is also the knowledge of the Son of God.  The word knowledge is interesting.  It is epignwsiV.  Strong’s defines it as “the complete comprehension after the first knowledge of a matter”[6] and Thayer’s says it is “the true knowledge of Christ’s nature, dignity and benefits”.[7]  This seems to be a growing of knowledge, much like Paul who desired to know Christ better (Phi.3:10-14).  He had already met the risen Christ, but he wanted to know more of him – experientially.  Another example is Moses; nobody had walked with God since Adam, like Moses did.  Yet Moses says (Exodus 33) that he desired to know God.  It is knowledge in its fullest sense.  The knowledge Paul is writing of in Ephesians 4:13, is not that the church would come to know Christ, they already do.  Rather that experientially, the church individually and corporately would fall in deeper love with Christ through knowing Him more.  Within this same vein Hoehner brings it closer to home saying “it must be asserted that such knowledge applies not only to individuals but to the body of believers who together come to a unity of the knowledge of Christ.  This knowledge is not an abstract but a concrete knowledge of Christ (the bestower of gifts and gifted persons), which is the opposite of the deceitful doctrines…of (v. 14)”.[8]  Concluding the first aspect of the goal; the unity of the faith and the unity of the knowledge of Christ must go together.  A dynamic faith brings a dynamic knowledge of Christ, which produces more faith (also something that had to begin but can grow).[9]

         The first aspect is to attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God.  The second statement leads to the next aspect in the goal which is to attain to a mature person.  Commentators seem to disagree somewhat here.  This is the place that distorts the various views (future only, future/now, and now).  Kenneth Wuest in his popular and helpful Word Studies in the Greek New Testament says matter-of-fact that “the words ‘mature man’ refer to the individual believer.  The apostle has in mind each individual saint.”[10]  In agreement is Homer Kent who says in regards to Ephesians 4:13 that “the aim of such development in the Christian life is the acquiring of spiritual maturity.  The ‘mature man’ is in contrast to an infant (v. 14).  Although absolute perfection is not achieved in this life, yet there is a relative maturity that is not attainable but is expected of every believer.”[11]  Again, if the position is taken that the “mature man” is the individual believer, then the case is closed.  The individual believer will not arrive at the goal until Christ comes.  However it is the position of the writer that it is not referring to the individual believer.

        The second aspect of attaining to a mature person cannot “have the ethical sense of complete perfection (in its present context) since this only comes at the parousia”.[12]  Understandably it is in contrast to the immature in verse 14, however it is not described in individual terms “but refers to the totality of believers as the body of Christ”[13] much like what is in 2:15.  Hoehner elaborates deeper saying “the context as a whole talks about the body composed of individuals.[14]  Paul in the present context is writing in the singular to refer to a collective body of believers.  The “mature person” must then be speaking of the church.  When the individual believer contributes by exercising, by faith, his God given gifts, the body as a whole can grow.  In the context of Ephesians 4:13 it is the body of believers on earth who are seen as growing into maturity.[15]

         It seems that Paul is building on the first two aspects mentioned above when he writes “to the measure of Christ’s full stature”.  There is some difficulty with the word “measure” which is the Greek word h|likia.   It denotes “age” in the Septuagint and in the New Testament on several occasions it refers to “physical stature”.  O’Brien says that “stature” is more appropriate and Hoehner says that the word connotes “maturity” in the present context.[16]  Although both can be synonyms “stature” seems to fit well, especially in the present context of the whole body, being that the church is already the fullness of Christ (Eph. 1:23; 4:10).  His body is the fullness of Him!

CONCLUSION

         In Ephesians 4:13, is Paul writing of a maturity that occurs presently or one that is eschatological?  Many commentators and scholars take the position that this is a future aspect of maturity.  This is much easier understood if one interprets the context as dealing with the individual believer.  John Phillips seems to do this saying that “the ultimate goal will not be realized until the rapture when all individual members of the body of Christ will be glorified”.[17]  This, however, is not the case because Paul does not have a time frame in mind.  The potential “that it could occur in the present time is real, otherwise, there would be no need for gifts to be given to each believer for the building up of the church”.[18]  The presupposition one should always have is that the work of Christ on the cross and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is sufficient power to accomplish any task.  The potential for a church to be fully mature is real or else Scripture offers false hope.  The Lord is continually striving with His church and will continue until He comes for His bride.  There are many forces at work that try (and are successful unfortunately) and make the church weak and impotent.  Those include but are not limited to carnality, division, doctrinal impurity, immorality and so on.  However, the goal is certainly achievable within the fellowship of any local church.

“Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.”  Revelation 19:7

 

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[1] Kent, Homer A. The Glory of the Church: Studies in Ephesians (Winona Lake: BMH, 1971), 74.

[2] Erickson, Millard. Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 1139.

[3] Hoehner, Harold. Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary, 552.

[4] Ibid., 553.

[5] Ibid., 553.

[6] Strong, James.  Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (Nashville: Nelson, 2001), 1922.

[7] Thayer, Joseph. Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 217.

[8] Hoehner, Harold.  Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary, 554.

[9] Ibid., 554.  The writer paraphrases Hoehner.  It is interesting that one doesn’t say that faith is eschatological, but rather one grows in the faith they already possess.

[10] Wuest, Kenneth. Word Studies in the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 3006.

[11] Kent, Homer. The Glory of the Church: Studies in Ephesians, 74.

[12] Hoehner, Harold. Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary, 555.

[13] O’Brien, Peter. The Letter to the Ephesians, 307.

[14] Hoehner, Harold. Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary, 554.

[15] Ibid, 556.

[16] Hoehner, Harold. Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary, 557.  O’Brien, Peter.  The Letter to the Ephesians, 307.

[17] Phillips, John. Exploring Ephesians and Philippians (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1993), 120.

[18] Hoehner, Harold.  Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary, 558.

The Unity of the Faith: Attainable Now (part 2)

THE FUTURE ONLY VIEW

         Paul, the human writer of Ephesians under inspiration of God writes (4:13) that as the gifts that God has given to the church are used the church will measure up to Christ’s full stature.[1]  This indicates cooperation on the part of the believer individually.  God gives gifts to people they must yield to His perfect will and allow God to work through them.  The problem that this paper is considering is whether or not this has the ability to occur presently or in the future only.  One scholar who takes the position that it is only a future view is John Calvin.  He poses a great question: “but ought not the unity of the faith to reign among us from the very commencement? It does reign among the sons of God, but not so perfectly as to make them come together.  Such is the weakness of our nature”.[2]  It is true that the believer still possesses a sin nature which is coupled with the spiritual nature imparted at the point of justification.  Even the apostle Paul struggled with that constant battle between the Spirit and the flesh (Rom. 7).  It is this that leads Calvin to take a futuristic view.  However the difficulty with this view is that the text (Eph. 4:13) says “until we all”.  This focus is not on the individual believer but rather the corporate body.

         Somewhat of a slightly different approach to this future only view is from Matthew Henry who writes “the gifts and offices which have been spoke of are to continue in the church till the saints be perfected which they will not be till they all come in the unity of the faith”.[3]  The difficulty here is who or what the gifts are.  The gifts are God-given to individuals.  In essence then, the gifts are people, which go back to Calvin’s theory of this call being individual.  But Paul is dealing with the corporate body in the context.

THE FUTURE/NOW VIEW

         The future/now view of the unity of the faith is the most widely held.  It is this view that would naturally be the safest view to take.  In his excellent commentary on Ephesians, Peter O’Brien says that this is “the final goal to which the process of building the body of Christ is to lead is described in terms of attaining to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”.[4]  Within the local context of Ephesians 4:13 one finds a discussion on God’s gifts to the church.  Christ has given ministers to His church (v. 11), along with saints (v. 12) and they are to cooperate as they render their service so that God’s people “might reach this objective”.[5]  Obviously there is doubt in that statement, which leads one to conclude that this is a goal worth striving for but ultimately not achieved until the final redemption of the church.  A.T. Lincoln would agree with the future/now view on the basis of the use of mecri in verse 13.  He says the word “has both a prospective and final force…it is a temporal clause”.[6]  This is a point well made to a certain extent; unfortunately at the expense of neglecting present context.

         Peter O’Brien argues that although the unity being discussed has been inaugurated already in Christ (using Eph. 2:11-12), Paul is exhorting those involved to maintain the unity of the Spirit (Eph. 4:3).  The use of inauguration indicates that what Paul is dealing with is simply something that has been started.  The fact that believers are exhorted to attain to this goal (v. 13) takes the proclaimed fact and now presents it as an endeavor “which can only be reached collectively (great point) and will finally occur at Christ’s coming”.[7]  Although Paul lives in anticipation and expectation of the coming of the Lord, as did all of the early church, it does not seem to be part of his thought process here.  God’s people have been gifted and are moving toward the goal of the unity of the faith; a goal that, although remote, has the possibility of attaining. 

         It is at this point that the future/now view becomes future only as “the eschatological tension between the already and the not yet is present in the second half of (Eph. 4:13)”.[8]  The expression in the “second half” is the unity of the knowledge of the Son of God.  As stated early in this paper, Paul deals with this continual striving of knowing Christ better (Phi. 3:10-14).  The knowledge of Christ has already been revealed to believer’s (Eph. 1:9-10), and then Paul’s prayer is that believer’s might continue to grow in their spiritual understanding on the basis of God’s power given to them (1:17-19; 3:16-19).  It is agreed that individually we are in a continual process of growing and knowing Christ better, however the present context of Ephesians 4:13 is dealing a corporate unity.  Lincoln says “the apostle has in view an ongoing appropriation by believers, in fellowship together…and this goal is to be sought through the proper exercise of gifts”.[9]  It would seem that once “appropriation” and “fellowship” was attained that the unity of the faith could be achieved, which moves naturally into the third view.

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[1] It will be helpful to note that the church is the fullness of Christ; Eph. 1:23.

[2] Calvin, John. Tran: John King. Calvin’s Bible Commentaries: Galatians and Ephesians (forgotten books, 2007), 251.

[3] Henry, Matthew. Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1991), 567.

[4] O’Brien, Peter.  The Letter to the Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 305.

[5] Ibid, 305.

[6] Lincoln, A.T.  Paradise Now and Not Yet: Studies in the Role of the Heavenly Dimension in Paul’s Thought with Special Reference to Eschatology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 21.

[7] O’Brien, Peter. The Letter to the Ephesians, 306.

[8] Ibid, 306.

[9] Lincoln, A.T. 22.

The Unity of the Faith: Attainable Now

The next few days I am going to post some research on the subject found in Ephesians 4:13 – the unity of the faith and whether this is only attained at Christ’s coming or is the possibility now.

INTRODUCTION

         God’s goal for the believer is their sanctification.  The starting point is the believer’s salvation experience; when they are declared justified by God.  At the point of justification the righteousness of God, by faith in Jesus Christ, is imputed to the believer.  Its essence is grace, its source is God, its means is faith, its foundation is the blood of Jesus Christ, its sphere is Christ, its agent is the Holy Spirit, and its evidence is works.  But sanctification doesn’t stop there, for initially the believer is sanctified in a positional sense, which then begins the work of sanctification in the practical sense.  The apostle Paul exhorts the believer (Phi. 3:10-14) to reach toward a goal.  What is the goal?  In order to reach toward a goal one must first know what the goal is.  The goal individually is to become more like Jesus Christ, to know Him better, and be continually transformed into His image.  The goal corporately, is to become unified.  The corporate goal is partially dependent on the individual goal of being in the process of continued sanctification.  In his commentary on Philippians, Dwight Pentecost says that it all boils down to “appetite”.[1]  This is appetite in regards to the believers desire to grow in their faith; being sanctified.  This is a continual process that the believer does not attain until he puts off this body of corruption.[2]  Corporately however, attaining to the unity of the faith (Eph. 4:13) appears to be a point that is possible to arrive.

         The possibility of arriving at the unity of the faith of Ephesians 4:13 is seen by scholars in various ways.  Some say that it cannot be attained in this life while others say that it is possible.  Then there are yet others who take a future/now approach.  This view is one that is widely held.  The context and content of Ephesians 4:13 however, may not support that view very well.  A close examination reveals the possibility of arrival.

CONTENT AND THEME

         The context of Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians is simple.  One of those things is the exultation and summing up of all things in Christ, which is clearly seen.  In this sixth of seven dispensations, God is dealing with man through His church which is seen as the spiritual body of Christ.  Repeatedly “Ephesians draws attention to the sharp contrasts between the believer’s former way of life and their new life in Christ.”[3]  Of the six chapters in the book, the first three have a high theological content while the second three are very practical.[4]  The theological content rightly understood must lead to right living before God.  For God has chosen and saved the believer that they should “be holy and without blame before Him in love” (Eph. 1:4).  It is this emphasis of the believer’s walk and its impact on unity that this paper will deal with.  The unity of believers through love is a major topic in the epistle to the Ephesians. 

         The purpose of Ephesians is somewhat problematic in that Paul does not address explicitly a specific problem.  In Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary, Harold Hoehner states helpfully that “one needs only to observe the differences among commentators and students of Ephesians to see that none of them agree on the purpose of this book.”[5]  This is not the case in regards to the theme of the letter.  Of the many suggestions of the themes most agree is that unity is primary.[6]  The term “unity” is the Greek word e|nothV.  This word is used only two times in the New Testament, in Ephesians 4:3, 13.  It means unanimity and/or agreement.[7]  So the theme of unity is agreed as one of the overwhelming themes and it is used primarily in Ephesians 4:13. The question that needs to be answered is: can this unity of the faith be arrived at prior to the church being taken to glory in the rapture?  The three views mentioned above will be visited tomorrow.

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[1] Pentecost, Dwight.  The Joy of Living (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1973), 138.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Obrien, Peter T. The Letter to the Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 2.

[4] Witmer, John, and Mal Couch.  Galatians and Ephesians: By Grace Through Faith (Chattanooga: AMG, 2009), 108.  Witmer also states well that most stress the theological section and somewhat disregard the practical.  This indicates that for many the theological aspect is more important that conduct.  However a right knowledge of God should lead to right living before God.

[5] Hoehner, Harold. Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 102.

[6] Ibid, 102.  Witmer agrees.

[7] Thayer, Joseph. Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007), 217.