Ephesians 4

Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume Chapter 4

We enter now on the latter part of it, in which we have the most weighty and serious exhortations that can be given. We may observe that in this, as in most others of Paul’s epistles, the former part is doctrinal, and fitted to inform the minds of men in the great truths and doctrines of the gospel, the latter is practical, and designed for the direction of their lives and manners, all Christians being bound to endeavour after soundness in the faith, and regularity in life and practice

Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume Chapter 4

In what follows we shall hear of Christian duties, and what the Lord our God requires of us in consideration of such privileges vouchsafed to us.

Verse 1

“live worthy of the calling”

He says this in light of his imprisonment, as a prisoner “in the Lord”

See that he was not ashamed of his imprisonment; in fact, he tells us in other places that he counted it a great joy to suffer for the sake of Christ.

We can learn a lot from Paul in his attitude toward Christ; Christ did not bring social benefit or help Paul to achieve his dreams or what have you.

Christ was his goal; Christ was his dream. That is why even in prison Paul is urging the Ephesians to press on in the faith and live “worthy” of the gospel, because Jesus is worth it and he is the reward.

So let that set our understanding of this; the assumed understanding form Paul is that following Christ is not easy; it does not have great social or material benefits in this life; but it is worth it because what Christ actually offers is greater than anything else we could possibly imagine; redemption, forgiveness, eternal life, and fellowship with God.

Verse 2-3

So what does worthy living look like?

humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, unity of the Spirit

Essentially the fruit of the Spirit.

Are we always good at displaying these? No, that is precisely why we need to be reminded. If we all had it right, if we knew everything about serving the Lord, then there wouldn’t be a need for the Bible would there?

We all struggle in these things from time to time, if not every day. But remember the calling, the gospel of grace by which you are saved, and that should point you toward worthy living.

This should lead us toward Paul’s mindset, that any and all affliction as a follower of Christ is worth it.

Verse 4-6

From verse three we see the assumed significance of the church body, particularly the local congregation because that is who Paul is writing to.

Verses 4-6 press in to that significance

“One body and one Spirit”; he is continuing the theme of unity among believers

Unity comes up in most of Paul’s letters in one way or another, whether he’s talking about Jews and Gentiles, or rich and poor, or slave and free, his point is always this; all who believe are one in Christ.

So “one body and one Spirit” serves to serves to break down any divisions that may exist with his readers; there are no Jewish Christians or Greek Christians or American Christians or Chinese Christians;

You are either in Christ, or you aren’t; and if you are, then you are part of the one body

Verse 5-6

To further make his point, Paul points to the unity of God and the inherent unity of all that comes from him

One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father

Essentially what he is saying is that there are not multiple ways of salvation nor is there a range of acceptable thought on primary doctrines

This is one of the reasons why the unity of God is such an important doctrine; he is 3 persons, but 1 God, for if he were multiple gods then he would be multiple personalities, and if multiple personalities then each would want to be worshiped in a different way

And so there would be many ways of worship, many ways of faith, multiple baptisms, and so on…but says “hear o Israel, the Lord our God, he is one.”

So then this one God presents one way of Salvation, Jesus Christ, which is a single faith, professed through a single baptism, which unites us with a single body (the global church), for a single purpose; God’s glory through salvation.

Verse 7-8

Let’s work backwards on verses 7-8

The CSB does a good job of rendering verse 8; it is a quotation of and the wording is interesting; “he took the captives captive”

Now you are all familiar with how many times the word doulos, or slave, is used in NT to refer to followers of Christ

It is the same idea here but it shows the depth of what is taking place; sinners are captive, to sin and death. That is every person’s status apart from Christ.

But this text says that he took the captives captive; now I don’t want to oversimplify this or give you the wrong impression, but the language used here is that of an army leader going and raiding an enemy’s prisoner of war camp and taking all of those captives back for himself

That is what Jesus does; now it is from love and he leads us to great reward, but still we who were once captives of sin are now captives of Christ.

Ephesians 2:

Ephesians 2:4–6 CSB

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! 6 He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,

Remember Ephesians

you have been taken captive to salvation, the one salvation from the one true God and Father…so then we see the significance of verse 7

“Now grave was given to each on of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift”…what that is saying is that each of us have been given the same grace of Christ, because in the same way he has taken each of us captive to himself.

If he has performed the same saving work for every Christian, how then can we say that we do not each have the same grace from him in our lives?

Some people want to say that they don’t publicly profess their faith like others because “they aren’t called to that” or maybe they say, either explicitly or implicitly, that they don’t know how much suffering they would endure for the name of Christ.

But no one can truly say that, can they? Now to be sure, we have all been called to different roles in the body, but a willingness to live out our faith in love and humility, patience and unity, and to suffer for the name of Christ is universal, because we have all been given the same grace by Christ.

Verse 9-10

The point from Paul here is very similar to what Jesus said in

John 3:13 CSB

13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man.

I don’t to spend much time on this, but lets understand what this is saying

Enoch ascended before Noah

Elijah ascended after

Neither ascended to the right hand of the Father, only Jesus did that

Paul is pointing to Jesus’ humanity and what he accomplished on earth; his resurrection vindicated him as the Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Notice verse 10 where it says “to fill all things”

2 Corinthians 1:20 CSB

20 For every one of God’s promises is “Yes” in him. Therefore, through him we also say “Amen” to the glory of God.

Jesus is the fulfillment of every one of God’s promises and all of human history, and even before, has been working toward his saving work of a people for himself.

And his perfect life, death and resurrection are the means by which he fulfilled all things

Verse 11-13

Ver

Here we see a further emphasis on the church and the provision Jesus has made for his church.

It is prevalent among a lot of people to think that the local church is unnecessary; but apart from the local church, there is no global church.

On the basis of Christ’s saving work, he gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to do what? Equip the saints for the work of the ministry in order to build up the body.

1) this is on the same order of what was said in verses 7-8; each has received the grace of Christ to live worthy lives

So then, each also receives the material grace of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers in the local church…to be equipped for the work of ministry

each person, each church member is part of the work of the ministry

there is no such thing as a Christian who gets to be an uninvolved observer

if you are in Christ, you are in ministry, and he has given these officers to prepare you for that.

We have the word of the prophets and the apostles, and we have the leadership of pastors, teachers, and evangelists.

Verse 13, the goal of this is unity in Christ and maturity