until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, as we mature to the full measure of the stature of Christ.until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
6 sermons cite this verse
… Great job. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 11 through 16 says this. So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature. Everyone say mature. And become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. In other words, God has created the church so we could do good works for the reason of two things, unity and maturity. God wants to develop you and grow you. He wants to stretch you so you can have unity and maturity. Isn't this so cool? Maybe you hear like, well, why do we got to have pastors at this church? Why do we got to have worship leaders? Can't we all just kind of like, you know, gather in a room? Well, we have people who are pastors and evangelists and teachers. …
When you read the 103rd Psalm and similar joyous odes, he seems to be smothered with the delicious bloom which yields a most pleasing perfume of thanksgiving! Watch him at another time, when he is putting forth the green shoots of holy desire—his heart thirsting after God as the panting hart thirsts for the water brooks, his inmost soul longing to drink a deep draught of the Divine Grace that comes from the Most High! Then see him at another time when, as an old man, his fruit grows ripe and you observe his rich experience full of unction, bearing fruit unto the Lord. Everywhere David is beautiful, except when he sins—and so are all those who seek to follow David's Lord and make Him their All-in-All. Some Christians seem to be always the same. I wish I could always be the same by being always at my best, but it is very bad to always be the same at your worst! And I know some professors who appear to be just like that. They have a faulty string in their harp, yet they always want to play on that string whenever we are with them! Indeed, they seem to think that that particular string of theirs is the one upon which we all ought to play. And if our harp strings do not happen to be faulty like theirs, they fancy that our harp can scarcely be right—that our spot is not the spot of God's children. Yet you know that if one child in your family happens to have a defect somewhere or other, you would not think it essential or desirable that all of your children should have the same defect! It is well that they should all have the family likeness, but there is no need that there should be a family deformity peculiar to them all! Yet some Christians seem to think that there is such a need. I hardly think that many Christians are always at their worse, though, in another sense, I hope some are, because if they are ever worse than I have seen them, they must be bad, indeed! But I do wish we could all be always as we are at our best—only then I would wish that we could be something even better than that and keep on advancing "till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Yet it may be that these varying modes of feeling and ways of looking at things are, after all, as far as they are not sinful, the various parts that help to make up the complete beauty of the Christian character! …
… All right, now look at verse 13. Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. All right, here it is. Watch this. Here's what he said. Test yourself. First of all, if a body is growing and being built up as the body of Christ, they will be moving toward a unity of their faith. That does not mean that they will agree on every jot and tittle in the Bible, but it does mean they will have, for the most part, an agreement about what they believe the Bible teaches. And there will be unanimous consent on the doctrines of the Word of God. It does not mean that every single detail we would agree on. Secondly, and not only that, but moving deeper in our knowledge of the Son of God. If you are not growing in your understanding of who God is, what He's like and how He works in the human heart, then something is missing in your life. …
Now that all Christians are, in some sense or other, one, in our Lord's eyes, is plain, from various parts of the New Testament. In His mediatorial prayer for them to the Almighty Father, before His passion, He expressed His purpose that they should be one. St. Paul, in like manner, writing to the Corinthians, says, "As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. . . . . Now ye are the Body of Christ, and members in particular." To the Ephesians, he says, "There is one Body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all." And, further, it is to this one Body, regarded as one, that the special privileges of the Gospel are given. It is not that this man receives the blessing, and that man, but one and all, the whole body, as one man, one new spiritual man, with one accord, seeks and gains it. The Holy Church throughout the world, "the Bride, the Lamb's wife," is one, not many, and the elect souls are all elected in her, not in isolation. For instance; "He is our peace who hath made both [Jews and Gentiles] one, . . . to make in Himself of twain one new man." In the same Epistle, it is said, that all nations are "fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and fellow-partakers of His promise in Christ;" and that we must "one and all come," or converge, "in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ;" that as "the husband is the head of the wife," so "Christ is the Head of the Church," having "loved it and given Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word." These are a few out of many passages which connect Gospel privileges with the circumstance or condition of unity in those who receive them; the image of Christ and token of their acceptance being stamped upon them then, at that moment, when they are considered as one; so that henceforth the whole multitude, no longer viewed as mere individual men, become portions or members of the indivisible Body of Christ Mystical, so knit together in Him by Divine Grace, that all have what He has, and each has what all have. …
By a Church being thus formed in order to its being built up, something more is needed. We cannot build without union. A house is not a load of bricks, neither is the Church a mere conglomeration of human beings. A house must have its doors, its windows, its foundations, its rafters and its ceiling. So a Church must be organized—it must have its distinct offices and officers, it must have its departments of labor—and proper men must be found, according to Christ's own appointment, to preside over those departments. Our Savior was raised up on high to receive gifts for men and to give gifts to men. And those gifts are first, Apostles, then pastors and teachers, and Evangelists, and so on, "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 and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Some of the old Roman walls are compacted with such excellent cement that it would be almost impossible to separate one stone from another. In fact, the whole mass has become consolidated like a solid rock—so embedded in cement that you cannot distinguish one stone from another. Happy the Church thus built up, where each cares not only for his own prosperity, but for the prosperity of all—where if there is any joy in one member, all the members rejoice, and if there is sorrow in any one part of the body, all the rest of the body is in sorrow, too, "remembering them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body." And yet, what are some churches but semi-religious clubs, mere conventions of people gathered together? They have not in them that holy soul which is the essence of unity! There is no life to keep them in entirety. Why, the body would soon become disjointed and a mass of rottenness if the soul were not in it—and if the Spirit of Christ is absent, the whole fabric of the outward church begins to fall to pieces—for where there is no life, there can be no true union! …
III. A MOST BLESSED CONSUMMATION that the room will be filled. It is an old saying of the natural philosopher that nature abhors a vacuum. It is true, I doubt not. But here is another axiom—Grace abhors a vacuum. The good man of the house could not bear to see a vacant seat at his table. All things were ready, but there were empty places and he did not like it. The glory of the feast is to be found not merely in the provisions, but in the guests, so he must have the chairs occupied as well as the table covered. With reverence let it be said, the Glory of Christ lies not only in His Sacrifice, but in the sinners that that Sacrifice saves! A king is no king who has not any subjects. A head is no head if it has not a body. And so Jesus Christ would be a King without subjects if there were none saved. He would be a Head without members—and that is a ghastly thought! He must have a people and, what is more, He must have all His people. In our natural bodies, if but a little finger is missing, the body is not perfect. So also in Christ—if all His members are not saved, there would not be a perfect Christ! The Apostle tells us that the Church is the fullness of Christ. Hence if a part of the Church were lost, a part of Christ's fullness would be lost. Therefore He must cause all to come in the unity of the faith unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, for Grace abhors a vacuum! When at last the end shall come, and the dispensation of Grace shall be wound up, it will be seen that at the Table of Mercy here below, there was not a seat left empty! "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me." "Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. And whom He did predestinate, them He also called." So it shall be. Satan shall not be able to point to a single empty place and say, "There should a certain soul have been seated. God appointed it, but I frustrated His purpose!" That cannot, shall not be! The wedding must and shall be furnished with guests! …