Ephesians 4:1-16

“The Physical Precedes the Spiritual”

Rev. Tom Harris

August 2, 2009

          The Apostle Paul’s letter to the Church in Ephesus is considered by many biblical scholars to be not actually written by Paul. Many scholars also believe it was not originally written to the Ephesians. In fact, many don’t even think it’s a letter as much as a well organized treaty on Christian faith and life. One argument I found particularly interesting regarding the authenticity of Paul’s authorship is that Paul lived and worked in Ephesus for several years of his ministry. It was considered his home base. So, if he were writing this letter from Rome near the end of his ministry as indicated then he surely would have offered greetings and personal messages to his friends in Ephesus as he did in his letters to Corinth or Galtia. No such personal messages exist in Ephesians.

          However, the fact that this letter is pseudonymous and was only addressed to Ephesus by later scribes copying it does not make it any less important to the church. Though it was not written by Paul it was almost certainly written by a disciple of his who was intimately familiar with his thought and very intentionally writing in Paul’s name in order to summarize his teaching and philosophy. Further, Ephesians has been very influential in the development of Christian theology and ethics throughout Church history. So, regardless of authorship it should be a very fruitful book to work with in the coming months.

          Ephesians can be broken easily into two sections and we will be working with the second section. The first section is contained in chapters 1-3 and covers theology and doctrine. It organizes Christian theology around the idea that God has a plan to unite all creation in Christ. The second section is chapters 4-6 and is about the way Christian’s should live in response to God’s plan to unite all creation in Christ.

          So let’s dive in to chapter 4 verses 1-16.  Verse 1 summarizes what chapters four through six will be about. “I therefore…beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”  As members of the body of Christ we are supposed to be living a certain way. There are a lot of opinions about what that way should be. This author goes on to explain his or her understanding of the essentials of the Christian life. The virtues highlighted  are, “humility and gentleness,” “patience”, “bearing with one another in love”  and efforts “to maintain unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” That’s a pretty good list. I think if we just worked on those virtues and only those virtues we would have our hands full.

          Going into verses 8-10 we switch gears bit. This is one of only two or three references in the entire Bible to the idea that Jesus descended into Hell after his crucifixion. One of the most common questions I get from people about the Apostles’ Creed is where it says, “he was crucified dead and buried, he descended into Hell, on the third day he rose from the dead.” People always want to know, where in the Bible does it say Jesus descended into Hell. It’s not in the gospels. Well this is it. There is also reference to the idea in the book of 1 Peter, but here in Ephesians we have the earliest reference to this idea that was not originally part of Christian theology.

The way the author of Ephesians builds the point about Jesus descending to Hell is interesting. Verse 8 says “When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people.” This is a modified quotation from the Psalms. Psalm 68 refers to God ascending a mountain and receiving gifts from the people. Jewish rabbis over time, began interpreting that verse to refer not to God but to Moses ascending up mountain Sinai to receive, not gifs from the people but to receive the Ten Commandments from God. That kind of creative interpretation was common back then. Now this author in Ephesians is building on the Jewish interpretation and reinterpreting it to refer to Jesus ascending not a mountain but  ascending to heaven and not receiving the Ten Commandments from God or gifts from the people but giving gifts to the people. The author then takes a further step that might sound illogical to our modern ears but would not have been an unusual argument in ancient times. He says, well if he ascended into heaven he obviously had descended to the lower parts of the earth which is interpreted as Hell. And there is where we get the doctrine. The idea is further developed in 1 Peter to say that Jesus went down there to preach the gospel to people who had died before he came. 

          All of that might sound like these people are just making all this stuff up. And in some ways they are. But, the development of these ideas probably happened very naturally in the early Christian community as believers filled in the theological gaps and back story of their experience of the Risen Christ. And even though you know I don’t believe in Hell as eternal punishment the idea that the Grace of God in Christ extends to people not just in this life but even after we have died even to the very depths of Hell is a wonderful expression of universal salvation. Even death, even hell is no barrier to Christ’s reach or God’s irresistible love.

          The final section we will look at today follows the idea that Christ gave gifts after he ascended to heaven. Verse 11 says, “The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” This is the foundational passage upon which the book “The Equipping Church” by Sue Mallory is based. I’ve talked about the book before and think its principles could be applied here at Govans.

          There was a wonderful quote in a commentary I was reading, The Interpreter’s Bible. It said, “The physical always precedes the spiritual.” It drew attention to the idea that in the Genesis creation myth, God created the human body out of clay and only then breathed spirit life into it. The physical precedes the spiritual . And it struck me that, often we expect God to give us a spiritual message or calling that will tell us what we need to do for the church or in our lives before we do anything. “Alright God, I’m sittin’ here in my Lazy-Boy and I’m ready for a spiritual calling.” But, in fact, the way God’s calling usually works is that if we just start doing what needs to be done and a calling will emerge. In terms of church work and perhaps in contrast to some of the philosophy of “The Equipping Church” book, an individual in the church might need to jump in and do some work in the church that just needs to be done before discerning exactly what God is calling him or her to do. So, we might need to volunteer for the Children and Youth Ministry Area or the Administration and Personnel Ministry Area or Adults Ministry Area, all things that need to be done and just get our butts in the chairs around the committee table and be physically present before we can really figure out the exact and perfect calling God may have in our lives. The physical butt in the committee chair always precedes the spiritual calling from God.

The community garden out here would not be growing so well unless people had not gone out and physically turned the earth and prepared the soil and put up the rabbit fence. Only when the physical work was done did the growth happen.

          So it is with our spiritual lives. Commitment to do the work of the church, to fulfill the functions of the body of Christ comes before spiritual growth and divine calling.

          We don’t talk much about spiritual maturity in mainline denominations partly because it can lead easily to self righteousness. If some are spiritually mature then other are spiritually immature and that’s not a very nice thing to say and we don’t like to say things that aren’t nice, at least not in front of the person. But, the beautiful spiritual goal articulated in verse 13 is clear. It says we must work at this thing “until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, [until all of us come] to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” We only achieve the full stature of Christ together as a church, as a body, as a fellowship. And we only will ever grow or mature if we are willing to physically show up, fill the slots, do the functions of the Church. Then we may be surprised that the call of God is not some sensational, fantastic new church program that changes the world. But the call of God is to do the ordinary work of the church: teaching Sunday School, setting up coffee hour, coming to a potluck, going to a bible study, but to do that work with humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”  Only when we embody these qualities as individuals and as a church do we attain the full stature of Christ, spiritual maturity. The physical always precedes the spiritual.