The theme of unity runs through the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus. Chapter One of the letter described God’s plan of uniting lost humanity to Himself through the victory of His Son Jesus. Ephesians 2 continued the unity theme by showing that the death of Jesus accomplished the divine goal of creating in Jesus “one new man from the two (Jew and Gentile), thus making peace” (2:15). Ephesians 3 built upon the unity of Jew and Gentile in the body of the Messiah (the church) in making known the manifold wisdom of God (3:10). The focus on unity came to a climax in Ephesians 4:1-6 where it is manifested in how followers of Jesus treat one another.
While emphasizing unity through 4:6, Paul shifted his attention to how spiritual leadership operates in Christ’s body for the purposes expressed in Ephesians 4:13-16. In those verses “the unity of the faith” is found “in the stature of the fullness of Christ” and “the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”
Thus, unity of and in Christ does not diminish nor negate each follower of Jesus with our individual experiences of grace.
Paul began this section with the affirmation that “to each of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift” (4:7). He expressed that grace was given “to each of us.” This means that every born-again believer receives a measure of grace that is unique and sufficient for us in the assignments and relationships the Holy Spirit gives us. For most of us the “body of Christ” is experienced in a local congregation. But the body of Christ has spiritual implications extending beyond what we naturally experience in a local congregation. Our participation and support for local and global ministries goes beyond what we can observe. Our prayers extend to heaven and through the Spirit to the ends of the earth and future generations.
What we receive is “grace,” the charis (χάρις)” that we experience as divine gifts. Keep in mind Paul’s comments about grace throughout this letter: “glory of His grace,” “the riches of His grace,” “by grace you are saved,” “the exceeding riches of His grace,” “the gift of the grace of God” (Ephesians 1:6, 7; 2:5, 7; 3:7).
How is this divine grace revealed in our lives? For John Wesley it was “prevenient grace,” that “grace that attends us and awakens our attentiveness. The initiative comes from grace preparing us (prevening) prior to our first awakening to the mercy and holiness of God. Preparatory (or prevenient) grace elicits ‘the first wish to please God, the first dawn of light concerning his will, and the first slight transient conviction of having sinned against him.’ Grace works ahead of us to draw us toward faith, to begin its work in us.”[1]
Expanding on this pre-conversion manifestation of grace, Thomas Oden wrote, “Prevening grace leads towards convicting grace, which begins not with our self-initiated determination to repent but by the grace that awakens a determination to repent. Prevenient grace brings us to the exact point of attentiveness to our own personal responsibility for sin.”[2]
Convicting grace leads to justifying grace and then sanctifying grace. As Wesley wrote, “By justification we are saved from the guilt of sin and restored to the favor of God; by sanctification we are saved from the power and root of sin and restored to the image of God.”[3]
It is within this larger context of divine grace that we understand the gifts of grace that are given to “each one of us.” These gifts are the spiritual gifts, the charismata described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12-14 and Romans 12:3-8. Every born-again believer is given gifts for the edification of the body of Christ.[4]
In Ephesians 4:7 Paul emphasized that “to each one of us grace was given” and in 4:11 Paul remarked that “He Himself (the Messiah) gave some” the gifts enumerated in verse 11. Paul’s point was that while all disciples receive some measure of grace as gifts, there are some disciples who receive the gifts named in 4:11.[5]
The clause in 4:7, “according to the measure of Christ’s gift” has three important aspects. Working backwards in the sentence, we begin with the Messiah, the Christ.[6] The focus is not on us, our abilities, our faith. The focus is on the Anointed One, Jesus, who has triumphed over sin and death. In Ephesians, Jesus, the Anointed One revealed part of His strategy for His body, the church, to announce in human history the victory He won at Calvary.
Second, it is the Messiah’s gift (dorea, δωρεά). The word “gift” is feminine singular. It is appropriate that the “gift of Christ” is for His Bride, the church. The image is of a husband giving his bride a gift conveying his love and she cherishes it as an expression of his love (a metaphor that points towards Paul’s view of marriage in Ephesians 5:22-33). Notice that the Messiah’s “gift” is viewed as a unity, it is one gift manifested in multiplied ways through “each of us.” Dorea, gift, implies the bounty of Christ and that He gives it undeservedly to us. We do not earn the spiritual gifts God graciously bestows upon us. Rather, we celebrate the diversity of the Messiah’s gift among us with the humility described in Ephesians 4:1-6.
Third, the Messiah’s gift has its own measurement, metron. This word referred to “an instrument for measuring, of measures of capacity.”[7] Paul used the same term in Romans 12:3 to refer to the “measure of faith” God has given to each of us. This phrase introduced the spiritual gifts named in Romans 12:4-8. In Ephesians 4:16 the same word is used again to describe how the whole body of the Messiah is filled with love for the glory of God.
Thus, in our unity there is diversity in how the Messiah’s gift is manifested. There is liberty in that diversity enabling us to rejoice in what the Holy Spirit is doing in others. We do not measure ourselves against the gifts of others. To do so invites jealously, envy, the works of the flesh that destroy us and those whom we serve. Rather, we seek the fullness of Christ’s love in the church so that the fruit of the Spirit controls our relationship with Christ and others.[8]
The significance of Ephesians 4:7 is magnified as we view what Paul did in the following verses quoting Psalm 68:18. Here is Psalm 68:18 as usually translated from the Hebrew text:
“You have ascended on high, You have led captivity captive; You have received gifts among men, Even from the rebellious, That the Lord God might dwell there” (New King James Version).
Here is the same passage in Ephesians 4:8, “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.”
The italics are places where the Apostle Paul changed the personal pronoun and the verbs “received” and “gave.”[9]
The question before us is “why did Paul change the pronoun and the verb?” Part of the answer lies within the entirety of Psalm 68 in its context. I encourage you to read the entire Psalm and notice several themes:
- God arises and defeats His enemies (Psalm 68:1, 2, 12, 14, 21)
- God cares for and defends those who are powerless (68:5, 6)
- Moses at Mt. Sinai (the giving of the Ten Commandments) is emphasized (68:7, 8, 17).
- God is worshipped and magnified at His place of worship (68:24-27)
- The nations will worship the Lord God of Israel as the One True God (68:29-35)
In the Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, Frank S. Thielman, New Testament professor at Beeson Divinity School, gives a detailed history of the interpretation of Psalm 68 and the Apostle Paul’s use of that Psalm.[10] For the purposes of this essay, the following stands out from Thielman’s analysis.
- Jewish interpretation of Psalm 68:18 focused on Moses as the one who ascended on high (Mount Sinai) where he received the law, that is, took captive the law, and it was Israel who received the law from God through Moses. Judaism considered the Feast of Pentecost to be when Moses received the Law at Mount Sinai.[11]
- The only Jewish tradition that changed “received” to “gave” was a Targum from the fourth or fifth centuries after Christ. If that Targum had any influence on Paul, it probably was through an oral tradition which Paul may have known.[12]
- Thielman concludes that Paul reinterpreted Psalm 68:18 from his understanding of the victory of Jesus the Messiah. Thus, Paul took Psalm 68:18 as a prophecy fulfilled in Jesus. It was Jesus who “ascended on high,” referring to the Cross and/or a reference to His Ascension.[13] The “captivity” referred to the spiritual darkness that held humanity in its grasp, a darkness that was defeated on the Cross.[14] The phrase in Ephesians 4:8 of “gifts to men” leads to the gifts and persons named in 4:11.[15]
In Ephesians 4:9, 10 Paul gave his interpretation of Psalm 68:18. He did this by focusing on the meaning of Jesus “ascending” and “descending.” This language, with ascending mentioned first, reminds us of Genesis 28:12 where angels first ascend then descend on a ladder between earth and heaven in Jacob’s dream. Jesus used the same language in John 1:51. The passage in John is an interesting contrast with Genesis. In Genesis Jacob is a deceiver. He manipulated his brother Esau and deceived his father, Isaac. In John 1:43-51, upon seeing Nathanael, Jesus said to him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit.” There was a purity of heart in Nathanael that Jesus said was not in Jacob. The fact the angels are first ascending means they are already present with us, not dependent upon our purity of heart, but by divine grace ready to enter heaven for us (intercede) and then descend with God’s provision of mercy and grace.
Paul used the language of “ascended and descended” in 4:9, 10 to describe what Jesus did in His Incarnation. Jesus is “with us” as “the Word made flesh.” Before Jesus could “ascend” to the right hand of the Father with the victory of the Cross, He had to “first descend into the lower parts of the earth.” Where was “the lower parts of the earth?” Most commentators take it to mean the realm of sin and death from whence pours forth the demonic spirits that control our fallen world. Jesus, who became sin for us, entered that realm and conquered it. As Revelation 1:17, 18 expressed it in Jesus’s words, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.”
It was Jesus, not Moses, who sent the lifesaving, life-transforming Holy Spirit at Pentecost. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3:6, “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
Thus, the One who descended into the depths of human depravity came forth victorious and is “far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things” (Ephesians 4:10). Remember in Ephesians how Paul referred to Jesus as present in “heavenly places” in 1:3, 20; and 2:6. Also remember the fullness of divine love described in Ephesians 3:17-19 and God “who is above all, and through all, and in you all” in 4:6. It is this triumph that Paul has in mind when he closed 4:10 with this phrase, “that He (the Messiah) might fill all things.”
[1] Thomas C. Oden quoting John Wesley’s sermon, “On Working Out Our Own Salvation.” Google this sermon for the full manuscript. The citation in this essay comes from Oden’s John Wesley’s Teachings, Volume 2: Christ and Salvation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012) p. 142, 143. For a fuller discussion of Wesley on God’s providence see Oden’s Volume 1: God and Providence.
[2] Oden, Volume 2, p. 143.
[3] Oden, Volume 2, p. 144
[4] I will not deal with all the gifts named in the Romans and 1 Corinthians passages. I refer you to the late Bishop B.E. Underwood’s Spiritual Gifts: Ministries and Manifestations (Franklin Springs, GA: Advocate Press, 1984). Underwood described the gifts named in Romans 12 and Ephesians 4:11 as Ministry Gifts. The Ephesians 4:11 gifts are equipping ministry gifts and the Romans 12 gifts are body ministry gifts. The gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, 14 are described by Underwood as manifestation gifts. For another IPHC perspective see Noel Brooks 1988 lectures published by Holmes Memorial Church (Greenville, SC) titled Charismatic Ministries in the New Testament. See Doug Beacham, Plugged In To God’s Power (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2002) pp. 117-137.
[5] Paul’s Greek in in 4:11 is αὐτὸς ἔδωκεν. This should not be interpreted to mean the Ephesians 4:11 gifts establish a hierarchy whereby some people are “greater” than others. More about this in the next essay discussing the 4:11 gifts.
[6] I remind you that Christ is the Greek for anointed, which is the translation from Hebrew anointed one into Greek. Thus, the name Jesus Christ means Jesus (the second person of the Trinity) is the anointed One from heaven. As I’ve noted in earlier essays, I often prefer to use “Messiah” in place of “Christ” to remind us of the Jewish roots of Jesus and our faith.
[7] Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, ILL: The University of Chicago Press, 1957), 516.
[8] Galatians 5:19-21 works of the flesh and Galatians 5:22-26 fruit of the Spirit.
[9] The LXX reading of Psalm 68:18 is the same as the Hebrew text. The Hebrew text is often called the Masoretic Text (MT).
[10] G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson, editors, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007) pages 819-826.
[11] For more on the Pentecost connection, see Doug Beacham, Rediscovering the Role of Apostles and Prophets (Franklin Springs, GA: LifeSprings Resources, 2003) page 118.
[12] Targum were Jewish interpretations of Hebrew text into Aramaic, a process that some scholars believe in the time of Ezra but more likely in the First Century of the Christian era. See the article Targum, Targumim in The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, edited by John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010) pages 1278-1281.
[13] Notice in the Gospel of John the references to Jesus being “lifted up” on the Cross (John 3:13-17; 8:28; 12:32-34). The Ascension of Jesus is described in Luke 24:50, 51 and Acts 1:9-11.
[14] These are the “principality and power and might and dominion” Paul mentioned in Ephesians 1:21. Jesus is seated “far above” all these in His victory on the Cross and His ascension.
[15] It was widespread practice for military leaders to lead their captives in a procession of triumph and give the booty of the victory to their soldiers or to the home population. A good description of this is found in The Twelve Caesars by the Roman historian Suetonius. In Chapter XXVI of his account of Julius Caesar, Suetonius wrote, “With money raised from the spoils of the war, he (Julius Caesar) promised the people a public entertainment of gladiators, and a feast in memory of his daughter, such as no one before him had ever given.”
