Ephesians 4 v 8 thru 10 Part 1

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Spent all of last week on verse seven and um just a lot in these verses that are um it's it's just important information uh that we need to make sure we understand and Christ gives us gifts and either next week or the week after when we get to verse 11 uh we're gonna see the list there of what those gifts are and we're gonna talk about uh the the fourfold ministry of the church and um what those gifts are and what they aren't um but this morning we're gonna start with uh verses eight through ten. Um it says, therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. And saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. Let's pray, Father. Thank you for your word today. Lord, may it speak to us, may it convict us, may it draw us closer to you and cause us to be more like Christ. Open our hearts and our minds again, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So the Christian life is not a self-generated pursuit. We we sort of had this conversation um during Sunday school this morning, but the the growth of a believer, the usefulness of a believer, the service in the body of Christ, um, all of those things are rooted in the grace of God and the victory that Christ provides for us. And in this chapter, Paul really turns from the doctrinal riches of the first three chapters to then the practical outworking of that in our lives and what that looks like in the life of the church. And he exhorts us, as we saw in the first verse, to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we've been called, and and and that we are to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. And um again, we talked about last week that that unity doesn't mean uniformity, it doesn't mean we're all a bunch of robots doing the same thing in the exact same way, because we all have different gifts and and different abilities. And so this verse uh we're beginning with this morning, verse 8, really presents Christ as the conquering king. He he ascended in triumph and and he graciously distributes gifts to his people. It draws upon um Psalm 68, verse 18, which celebrates God's victorious reign. And uh Paul applies this imagery to Christ, and he shows that the ascended Lord has triumphed over his enemies, and that um he now blesses his church with gifts that are necessary for the growth and the ministry of the church. They're not just random things that he blesses us with. And if you don't know what those gifts are, you can look at verse 11. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. Those are the gifts that he gives to the church, and he tells us why they're to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the full knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That's a mouthful. But that's the purpose, there's a reason Christ gives these gifts, and and they are necessary gifts. Without them, we would be kind of a self-help, self-effort type of uh organization, if you will. Um, but we we transition in this chapter from doctrine to practice, and um it we we see that the first concern there is the that we are all one, that there's unity in the spirit, and um we have one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, uh one God and Father of all. Uh and the the unity of the church, we said last week, is strengthened through our diversity, through our individuality. Um not that we all have our own agenda, but that we all have individual gifts and we all have individual abilities and talents and and things of that nature that are our strengths that God uses and He gives different gifts to members so that the whole body may be built up. And we talked about how, you know, if you were just an eye, you'd sit right there and you'd see what was right there. You would have no body to carry you anywhere. Uh, if everybody was a hand, you'd have no way to get to anything. Um, if everybody was a foot, you couldn't see where you were going. So we all have different functions, we all have different purposes in the body of Christ. And um so he begins there at verse 8. It says, Therefore it says that, you know, how many times have you heard over the 11 and a half years I've been here, whenever we see the word therefore, we got to back up and see what it's there for. Therefore means in light of what I just said, in light of what was previously presented. Um, it literally means for this reason, because of this. So that's a weird way to start a conversation. So Paul is saying, remember what we said previously. Uh it connects verse 8 with verse 7, showing that the gifts that are given in verse 7 is grounded in the truth of the victory of Christ in verse 8. The phrase it says, it says, therefore, it says, and that refers to scripture itself. And and Paul then speaks and and gives us Psalm chapter 68, and and he tells us that Scripture is living and is active. It is it is speaking with divine authority because he's referring back to. I can't wait. Hopefully, the end of this week. Um, I'm I should be getting a new book in the mail. Carrie's gonna be so excited. I bought another book to add to all the other ones in my office. And uh, but this book is all about all of the quotations or references or inferences to the Old Testament that exist in the New Testament, and and I can't wait to get that book and begin to dig into that. Um because you see all over the place in the New Testament. Um, that's that's why it troubles me when I hear supposed pastors like Andy Stanley say, Oh, we need to unhitch the New Testament from the Old Testament. You can't. You can't understand the New Testament if you don't have some inkling of what the Old Testament says. And the New Testament writers prove that by the way they refer to the Old Testament scriptures over and over and over again. This is what I mean, Paul says he talks about in the first three chapters, he talks about what was hidden before, now revealed in Christ. So it makes sense to refer back to the Old Testament because he says, this is what it says, and here's the fulfillment of that. This is what that means. This is what the writer of Psalm 68 was referring to, and so it's important that we understand that for this reason. This is why it says when he ascended on high, that speaks of Christ's ascension into heaven. I I think I told I believe Amos and I had that conversation, but I don't know if I've told everyone. I think when we finish Ephesians, we're gonna go and we're gonna study the book of Acts and hopefully get a little better understanding of some things that people tend to confuse in the church. But um, the book of Acts, Acts chapter 2, it said talks about the the apostle standing there and watching Christ ascend into heaven. That's what Paul is writing about here when he ascended on high. It is it is a a word that means to ascend. It's an abaino, uh, and it means to go up or to rise or to ascend. And Paul presents Christ as the one who has ascended in triumph after accomplishing our redemption. And and in that we see a crucial aspect of Christ being exalted, Christ being lifted on high. After his resurrection, Jesus ascended bodily, not just spiritually, as folks like um the Jehovah's Witnesses will tell you. He didn't his body didn't rise, only his spirit rose. Well, how was Thomas then directed to stick his hand into the holes of a spirit? That doesn't even make sense, um, among a lot of other things, but um he ascended bodily, and according to Acts 1 and Ephesians 1, he is now seated at the right hand of God, meaning the position of authority, the position of power is what the right hand refers to in scripture. And his ascension signifies his work being completed. Um, we've talked before about how if you look in the Old Testament, as the priests were performing their duties in the tabernacle and in the temple, they never, there was never a place for them to sit because they were always busy doing sacrificing, slitting the throats of animals, letting them bleed, splashing blood, burning meat, all the things that they were required to do. Their work was never accomplished. But we see Christ seated at the right hand of God, indicating to us exactly what he said on the cross. It is finished. The work is done. He doesn't need to be up and moving about, and it he died once for all. That's it. There's no more work for him to do in regard to accomplishing our redemption. And the the uh the reality is that this passage, one of one of my favorite quotes, John Chrysostom said, he ascended not as one needing to be exalted, but as one who had already conquered and now displays his victory. It wasn't that he was ascending so that he could be above and do something. He's saying, Hey, what I came to do is done. See ya, I'll be back. There's nothing more for me to do. And it captures the triumphant nature of the ascension of Christ. He didn't ascend as some sort of defeated or uncertain figure, he ascends there as the victorious Lord, saying, Everything I came to do has been accomplished, so I have to go. It is necessary now that I go, uh, is how he words it in John's gospel. And it says that he ascended on high and he led a host of captives. That phrase means that he literally it says he led captivity captive. It's a Hebrew idiom that is carried into the Greek here, and it emphasizes the completeness of Christ's victory over his enemies, over his adversary. The idea of to take captive or to lead captive means captivity or captives, and so this phrase together, when you take captives and captivity and you put them together, it pictures Christ as a conquering king who is leading conquered enemies in a triumphal procession. It would be the idea that we were at enmity with Christ, but now we are in Christ, we are with Christ, he is in us, and so now here we go with Christ in triumph and in victory. And what enemies has he conquered? Well, primarily scripture teaches us that through his death and resurrection, Christ triumphed over sin, over death, over Satan, over hell, the powers of darkness. Romans 6 talks about that Christ bore the penalty of sin and broke its dominion over believers. We are no longer slaves to sin. Over death, Christ conquered death through his resurrection, according to 1 Corinthians 15. Over Satan and spiritual powers, Christ disarmed the rulers and the authorities and he triumphed over them at the cross, Colossians 2.15 tells us. So he led captives, he took captive captivity or captives. And the idea there is that it is total victory. Augustine said, by his death, he conquered death. By his resurrection, he manifested victory. By his ascension, he entered into the heavenly triumph. So Christ's ascension is not merely a departure from this earth. It is the public declaration that he has conquered all opposing forces. Everyone who was against him, he conquered them. How did he do that? By dying on the cross and being raised from the dead. And it says there, he gave gifts to men. This last phrase in verse 8 reveals the purpose of Christ's victory was to give gifts to men. And literally it means he gave gifts to people. Men as in mankind. And so here we go for your Greek lesson for the day. The verb edoken is in the aorist form of didomi, which means to give, and it refers to the word gifts, there refers to gracious provisions. And in the context of this chapter, these gifts are spiritual gifts that are given by Christ to his people for the building up of the church. I just read that in verses 11 and 12 and uh and 13 as I read those earlier. But Paul he uses wording here that differs slightly from the Hebrew text of Psalm 6818, which speaks of receiving gifts, and the difference is best understood really in light of the context of the psalm. The victorious king receives tribute and then distributes the spoils of victory to his people. Paul is emphasizing the latter aspect of that psalm. Christ having triumphed, now he gives those victories out. He gave those gifts, and those gifts are gracious provisions, and so it is the picture that Christ graciously gave gifts to his people in his ascension, the ultimate victory. John Calvin said that Paul teaches that Christ, having obtained victory over his enemies, enriches his church with the gifts of his spirit. So there's a highlighting here of a connection between Christ's victory and the church being enriched through the gifts given. Every spiritual gift is a gracious provision that flows out of the triumph of Jesus Christ. Charles Spurgeon said that the ascended Lord is not impoverished by giving, rather, he delights to enrich his people with treasures of his grace. Remember, we talked about how Paul uses this phrase over and over, especially in Ephesians, about he gives according to, not out of. In accordance with the riches that Christ possesses, he gives those gifts. He gives spiritual blessings. Christ's gifts are not given reluctantly, they are given in a very generous manner because they're given according to the storehouse of his riches. John MacArthur wrote that Christ conquered sin, death, Satan, and hell. And as the victorious Lord, he now distributes gifts to his church for its edification. So we have in this verse several theological themes. The first is that it speaks of Christ's victory. This verse presents Christ as a victorious king, he's a victorious conqueror. His death and resurrection were not isolated events that were separated from everything else. Rather, they were the decisive victory over the powers of darkness, and his ascension confirms his triumph and his reign as the exalted Christ. Then we have his exaltation. He ascended on high. It talks about Christ's exaltation and that he is seated at the right hand of the Father. He's far above all rule and all authority, according to Ephesians 1, 20 and 21. He reigns as Lord over all things for the sake of his church. Then it talks about Christ's generosity. The fact that he does not keep the spoils of his victory for himself, but he gives them to his people. It is tremendous to me that Christ would pay the price that he paid and then share those gifts. It's the evidence of his grace and his gracious provision for his people. Then we have the building up of the church that these gifts are given so that the body may be built up. And so we can rejoice in Christ's victory. We should rejoice that Christ has triumphed over sin, over death, over Satan, and we don't have to fight for that victory. We don't have to do something to earn that victory because Christ has already completed it. We can also submit to his lordship. We can use our gifts for the building up of the church. We can be faithful in all that he has given us and all that he has done for us. And we're called to use our gifts for the benefit of the body of Christ. And we can trust in Christ's provision. This verse presents to us a tremendous picture of Christ's triumph and his generosity. And as we think about that verse, that our our spiritual gifts are not something we produce or we stir up within ourselves. I saw a video this week that was talking about it was at a worship leader's conference, and there were people up there on the platform, and they were talking about your posture and your physical gestures and all of these things. And the whole concept was as a person is up front and they're leading the singing, you need to do these things and avoid these things so that you can get the people involved in the worship and make an emotional connection with them. Well, my thought is that's not why we're here. Yeah, I I I grew up with a well, I won't say grew up, as I was a young adult, I had a pastor who would really get distracted with eye contact. And I don't know if you ever noticed, but I try to look everybody in the eyes when I'm preaching. And I scan the room, and I he would he would look here, like back there in the corner, about three feet above Christopher's head, and he would look back this way in that corner, and he would look back at the back at the top of the door, but he would never look at the people. It was always weird to me. I don't know why that distracted him so much, but he said that was the reason he did that, because he would get distracted in his mind thinking about a conversation he needed to have with that person or that he had had with that person, whatever it may be. And I get that. I mean, I I have a regular battle when I preach don't chase the rabbit. Because as I'm standing here, there are a thousand things going through my mind that I could say, and that's why I bring 23 half sheets of paper into the pulpit is to try to keep me on track so that I'm not chasing rabbits. Because I can do that with the best of them, and then try to figure out okay, how do I circle back around to what I was saying? Because what I'm talking about now has nothing to do with what we're talking about. So it's amazing to me that people want to change the focus of what we do and make it about personal connections, and uh there's just so much in that we are called to use our gifts for the building up of the body, not for personal glory. It's not about Amos standing here and being the greatest singer you've ever heard in your life, and me sitting at the piano and being able to play like the greatest piano player you could possibly think of, and connecting with you and drawing you in and stirring your emotions. If the Holy Spirit stirs your emotions, that's great. But our job is not to get you emotionally whipped up and feeling something because then we're worshiping our endocrine system. Oh, I got goosebumps. We used to jokingly say, group I sang in back in the 90s, we used to jokingly say, ooh, I got goosebumps, must be saved. There are people who that's like their barometer. Boy, we had a great service today. I felt. Wait a minute. You felt what? Because if our feelings are not informed by what we know to be true about God, our feelings can lead us astray. It's kind of like the conversation we had in Sunday school this morning. Our feelings, how I feel about things, can cause us to believe we're saved when we're really not. There are a lot of things that our feelings can do, and if our feelings aren't informed by the truth of the word of God about who God is, who we are in light of God, who we are in light of Christ, and what he has given to us, what we feel outside of that doesn't matter. I got in trouble one time saying that in a Sunday school class. That we need to check our feelings at the door. And there was a person in that Sunday school class who happened to be an elementary school counselor. And she informed me how important our feelings really are. And I said, I'm talking about spiritual matters. I'm not saying if you're a woman and you're leaving Walmart and it's nighttime and you get a creepy feeling about some dude who seems eerily close behind you, don't ignore that feeling. What I'm saying is, if you come here to get your emotions stirred up and get your fancy tickled, so to speak, so you go away feeling better about yourself, you're here for the wrong reason. We're here to worship God. We're here to study his word together, which is an act of worship. And we're here to be informed by Scripture as to then how we should feel. And so we have to be careful that we're not here for false pretenses. For my own gratification. That's not why we're here. We need to trust in the provision of Christ. And so we have to remember that the things that we are given as gifts by Christ are not something we have built up within ourselves or produced within ourselves, but they are provisions that are given by the grace of God in Christ. Back to chapter 1, verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who's blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And then he tells us why. Because he's adopted us into his family through faith in Christ. So we're going to start on verse 9. We're probably not going to get very far into it. I'm just going to tell you this is probably going to be one of those Sundays where I'm just going to quit.

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Okay?

SPEAKER_00 28:06

It's not going to be some grand conclusion. We're just going to say, okay, that's as far as we're going today. We'll pick up there next week. Okay. So verse 9, it says, then Paul gives us a description in saying he ascended. What did it does it mean, but that he had descended into the lower regions, the earth? So he descended from heaven. Philippians 2 tells us that he laid aside his glory. He didn't consider equality with God something to be held on to, to be grasped. But he set that aside and he came to earth. He humbled himself and came to earth as a man, and he humbled himself and submitted himself to death, even death on a cross. What does the Old Testament tell us about someone who hangs on a tree? They're accursed. What is the curse? Our sin. Placed on the perfect, righteous, holy, spotless, blameless, undefiled Son of God. In that Christ was cursed because he took sin upon himself. And then he says, He who descended in verse 10 is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. Paul pauses his description and his discussion of the gifts that Christ gives to us to explain something that may have caused confusion or misunderstanding in his readers in Ephesus. If Scripture says Christ ascended, then it is necessary that it implies that he first descended. Before the king ascended in triumph, he humbled himself and descended to the earth. It's referred to in theological jargon as Christ's condescension. We tend to think of condescending as looking down your nose at someone. Well, that was a pretty condescending attitude. This is talking about Christ condescending in that he laid aside his glory and lowered himself to become a man. And these verses really form one of the riches, richest Christological passages in Ephesians. So that's a if you think of Christological, okay, it's about Christ, and ology is the study of something like biology, theology, theology, the study of God, biology, the study of life. So Christological means it's Christology, it is it is the study of Christ. And what this says spans the entire arc of redemption from Christ's humiliation to come to earth in his incarnation to his exaltation above everything created. Paul reminds us that the one who now reigns over heaven is the very one who first stooped to earth to secure our salvation. We see the whole gospel in miniature. Christ descended, he accomplished redemption, he ascended, he reigns, and he fills all things. So verse 9, in saying he ascended, Paul begins with a logical argument. The ascension necessarily presupposes a descension. Because he was in heaven to start with. So it's a presupposition. It is a it's an implied fact that if he ascended back to where he had been, he must have descended to earth. Okay? It's pretty basic, simple logic. And Paul is reasoning here from Scripture. One cannot ascend unless one has first descended. If you were ascended to start with. Okay, it describes a completed historical event. So we see things that are written in the New Testament in words that are used in the like perfect present tense. Perfect present means it's something that happened in the past and has ongoing effect. This and the aorist active indicative means that it is an event that happened at a point in history and it's completed forever. And so Paul is referring to something that Christ truly did in history. So the question becomes: what descent does Paul mean? Well, there are three major interpretations in the church about this. Throughout church history, they've said it could refer to Christ's burial. That the lower parts of the earth refer to Christ entering the grave. Certainly Christ was buried, Isaiah 53 9. They made his grave with the wicked. However, this really seems a bit narrow in scope. Paul's emphasis is not on the burial of Christ, but on the movement from heavenly glory to earthly humiliation. Second concept is Christ's descent into Hades. Others connect this passage with the statement in the Apostles' Creed that he descended into hell. Some appeal to 1 Peter 3:18 through 20. But from a, I believe, a truly biblical perspective, there are a lot of difficulties that we face in that interpretation of what Paul is saying. John Calvin argued that Christ's greatest suffering was not after his death, but upon the cross. Because that's where he bore the wrath of God in our place. So there are very instructive words that John Calvin wrote. It wasn't just that Jesus, earthly, physical, human body, died, but that in his soul he took on himself the sin of all who would ever put their faith and trust in him. Paul doesn't mention Hades in this passage. So there's nowhere we can draw that inference into this verse. And his focus here is obviously not on the immediate state, but he's contrasting between heaven and earth. So we have Christ incarnation, which is, I believe, the most accurate, honest view of what this means. That he also descended. And I'm glad that people like John Calvin, Charles Hodge, John Murray, R. C. Sproull, John MacArthur, a lot of other people agree with me. It's good to know they got it right. Because you have the eternal Son of God who left the glories of heaven. He entered into our fallen world. He took on human flesh. He humbled himself. And this interpretation, I think, parallels the passage I referenced earlier in Philippians 2, verses 6 through 11. There, Paul writes, though he was in the form of God, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. So this descent is not primarily about geographical location. It is theological. It is the infinite humiliation of the Son of God who laid aside his perfection, his glory, all that was due to him. Augustine wrote, He came down not by losing his divinity, but by assuming our humanity. That is Paul's point. And with that point, we're going to stop for today. And we'll get on to into the lower regions of the earth at the end of verse 9 next week. I told you we were just going to stop. Because once I get into that, it's going to be hard to quit, and it's already uh nearing noon. So we will stop.