Paul stresses in these chapters that no one person has all the gifts, and that's by design. And Paul stresses that each of us needs the others' gifts. None of us can break out and go it on our own. No one person's gifts is sufficient to himself. That's the beauty, Paul says, of the body.
God has designed that His people rely on one another in the church, which means that being part of a body of believers is not optional but essential for God's people. We need the gifts the Holy Spirit has given to our brothers and sisters in Christ, and they need our gifts as well. Welcome back to Renewing Your Mind on this Saturday as we conclude our study in Dr. Guy Water's series, The Life and Theology of Paul. And today we're going to be ending our time together by reflecting on the importance of the church in the Christian life.
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Well, let's join Guy Waters now as he helps us understand what it means to be a part of the body of Christ. You notice that Paul. Writes his letters to churches, and you'll also notice how the commands, the imperatives, are given to the church, to believers together. And if you look up the phrase "one another," you'll see how often that crops up in Paul's writings.
So, in this lecture, I want to give some thought about what Paul has to say about the church. And how would Paul have us think about the church?
Well, he uses a variety of pictures. He says, on the one hand, that the church is a family. We've already seen him speak of believers as sons of God. He addresses us as brothers, and so in First Timothy three, when Paul wants Timothy to understand what the church is. He says the church is the household of God.
We are a large family. But then he can also describe the church as a temple. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit individually, and the church is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. That's Paul's point in Ephesians too, verses 21 and 22, and he says, "As the church, there we are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit." But the one picture that Paul develops throughout his letters, and it's the picture we'll spend time on in this lecture. Is the church as body?
We are an organic, living body.
So, how does Paul speak of the church as body? And we'll look at the way that Paul develops this throughout his letters. We'll begin first in Romans and First Corinthians. And then we'll look at two later letters, Ephesians and Colossians.
So first, Romans and First Corinthians. And in Romans twelve and First Corinthians twelve, he speaks of the church as body. And two things I think emerge from Paul's discussion of the church as body in these chapters. One concern for Paul is that believers understand the unity of the body. Romans twelve four, one body.
And the very next verse, one body in Christ. Though we are many, we are one body in Christ. First Corinthians twelve at the twelfth verse. Just as the body is one and has many members, all the members of the body, though many, are one body.
So it is with Christ.
Now notice when when Paul talks about the unity of the body, he doesn't here give it as an exhortation. Pursue a unity that you don't have. Rather. It is a given. It is a fact.
Paul says you are one in Christ, and that has implications, of course, for the way we're to live. It's telling that Paul tells churches that are racked by division and faction that they are one. In First Corinthians, the opening chapters, Paul has to deal at length with groups and factions that have rent the unity of the church. In Romans fourteen and fifteen, he'll have to address a major division in the church between the groups he calls the strong and the weak. And the scandal of these divisions, and part of the way Paul wants these believers to overcome these divisions, is that these divisions stand in the way of the church being who she is, living as who she is, one body in Christ.
And Paul is saying, since you are one, you need to live as one. You need to bring to visible expression the unity that is yours in Christ.
So put away these divisions.
So Paul speaks in these two letters of the unity of the body, with all that that means for our fellowship as believers in Christ. But a second thing that he addresses in both letters is gifts. Paul stresses, in the context of the unity of the body of Christ, that Christ, by His Spirit, has given gifts to the church.
Now, in Corinth, these gifts have become the occasion of not only disorder, but pride, and so Paul needs to help the Corinthians understand. What gifts are and what they mean.
So let's think about what Paul has to say about gifts in the church. We can think about it along four lines. First, and and perhaps most importantly, for us grasping what Paul has to say, is that he lifts our attention off the gifts plural. To the giver of the gift, any understanding of gifts in the church needs to begin with and have its focus upon the giver of those gifts.
So, in First Corinthians twelve verse thirteen, Paul says, "In one spirit we were all baptized into one body; we were all made to drink of one spirit." He's saying, "Remember when you were brought into the body of Christ when you became a Christian, and what happened? We were all made to share in the Holy Spirit, and that leads to the second point. This Holy Spirit, He is the giver of all gifts in the church. Verse four: There are varieties of gifts." He is creative in his allotment; he disperses them widely, but they all proceed, he says, from the same spirit. Verse eleven: all these persons they are empowered by one and the same spirit, who apportions to each individually as he wills.
Notice, Paul stresses that the spirit gives gifts.
Sovereignly, so there's no room for any person boasting.
Well, I have this gift, and you don't. The only reason Paul says you have this gift is because the Spirit will to give it to you, and you can't boast in that. And then Paul wants to know what is this purpose of the Holy Spirit in giving the gifts that He gives. And Paul says, for all the diversity of gifts, for all their variety in the church, there is a single underlying purpose. For Corinthians twelve seven, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
Gifts are not about elevating me, about Putting me forward in the church, but they are, Paul says, for the common good. And he goes on to say in chapter fourteen, verse twelve, "You Corinthians, you're so eager to manifest the spirit, while strive to excel in building up the church." That's what Paul means by the common good, edifying, building up others. Using the gifts that you've been given, Paul says, to strengthen and build up others in Jesus Christ. The purpose of these gifts is not to exalt yourself, but it is to serve others. And that's one reason why Paul accents and privileges what we might call word gifts when he talks about gifts in both these letters.
By word gifts, I mean gifts that teach and share the word of God in the church, teaching and preaching to name two. Because it is by the word that the Spirit brings growth in the life of the church, and those word gifts are well suited to building up the body of Jesus Christ. And then there's a fourth thing that Paul wants us to understand, and that is the meaning of the diversity of gifts in the body. Paul stresses in these chapters that no one person has all the gifts, and that's by design. And Paul stresses that each of us needs the other's gifts.
None of us can break out and go it on our own. No one person's gifts is sufficient to himself. That's the beauty, Paul says, of the body. He stresses every member is a true part of the body. Verse fifteen of First Corinthians twelve: If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.
He's saying, if you're part of the body of Christ, whatever your gift is, you are part of the body, and you serve a purpose in this fellowship. And Paul stresses. Because we are the body, you have to have a diversity of gifts. What would a body look like if we were all hands or all feet? That's what he says in verse nineteen of First Corinthians twelve.
If all were a single member, where would the body be? And of course, just as in the human body, each part needs the other.
So in the body of Christ.
So in verse twenty-one, no part of the body can look to the other and say, "I have no need of you." Rather, we suffer and rejoice together. Verse twenty-six.
Now, in two later letters, his epistle to the Ephesians, his epistle to the Colossians. Paul picks up this description of the church as body, and he draws two important points for the Christian life and for the church in these letters. First of all, he highlights Christ's headship over the church, his body. He highlights the headship of Jesus Christ over His body, the Church.
So, in Colossians one eighteen, He is the head of His body, the Church. Compare Colossians two, verse nineteen, and you see the same point stressed in Ephesians one, at verse twenty-two. Several times in these letters, he wants us to know that Christ is head over the body, his church.
Now, what does it mean that Jesus Christ is head over his body, the church? And Paul helps us to understand that in at least two ways. The principal way is that he has authority over the church. He is the church's king and head.
So in Ephesians one twenty-two, he has authority. The Father has put all things under his feet and gave him head over all things to the church.
So here, being head means having authority, and the church is part of the all things that Christ has authority over. But Paul develops it in another way. He says not only is Christ the head of the church and that he has authority over her, but he is the source of the church's life and growth. That comes up in Colossians two nineteen. He is the head from whom the whole body grows with a growth that is from God.
And here we see the kind of rule that Jesus sways over the church. He sees to it that she grows with the growth that He alone supplies as her head. But Paul doesn't leave it to our imaginations to guess or try to figure out how this growth happens. And that's the second major emphasis in Ephesians and Colossians. There is a pattern for growth.
In light of that reality, that Jesus Christ is head, and we are His body, the church. How is it that the church grows? And that's the the theme of Ephesians chapter four. Beginning about verse seven on down through verse sixteen, Paul begins this portion of Ephesians four by thinking about the ascension of Jesus Christ and His reign in heaven, and what He has done as victorious King is to share the spoils of His victory with His people. That's what kings did in antiquity, and even until modern times, on their victory, on their ascension, they will share gifts with those over whom they rule.
So, what is it that Jesus has shared with His church? And Paul says He has given grace, and He has given gifts. Verse seven, he has given grace to each one of us according to the measure of his gift. Each of us in the body of Christ has been given grace by Jesus. But then he goes on to say he has also given a variety of gifts.
That's the focus of verses eleven through sixteen. There are apostles, prophets, there are evangelists, there are teachers. Paul says you need to think of these as gifts from the ascended Christ to His church. And again, you'll notice what is the common thread in all these gifts. These are people who build up the church by bringing her the word of God, whether revealed word or to preach the word of God written.
So Christ has given gifts to His body in the form of these word gifts, and how do they work? And Paul tells us, "Well, here is what they do as they open the Word of God to the people of God." Verse twelve, they equip the saints for the work of ministry as they preach, as they teach. They're helping God's people to minister to one another. They're equipping them with the Word of God so they can go and serve one another. And He says in verse twelve, "This is just how the body of Christ is built up.
We're going to grow as we feed from the Word of God, and as we live out what we learn in our lives with one another." What's the goal? What's the aim? That we would be verse thirteen, one in the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. That we would attain to a mature manhood, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Now he's he's saying, what do we want for the body of Christ? We want for the body of Christ what we would want for any person to grow up. To be mature, to be healthy.
Now, what are the marks of maturity? How do we know the church is growing into maturity? And Paul says there will be unity, that is agreement about and commitment to the teaching of Scripture. And this happens, Paul says in verse fifteen, as we speak the truth in love.
Now, Paul's last three letters—we often call them the Pastoral Epistles—letters that he wrote to to Timothy, and one to Titus. Paul is becoming very much aware that his days on this earth and his ministry as an apostle of Jesus Christ are drawing to a close, especially as he writes Second Timothy. He knows the time of his departure is near, so what Paul does is to equip the church for life after the passing of the apostles. The apostolic foundation has been laid, so what is the life of the church to look like here on out? And he talks here a good bit.
About those who are entrusted with the ministry of the word, that's why we call them the pastoral epistles, because they say so much about pastors and elders. But this is really for the benefit of the whole church, and he stresses that these men have certain qualifications. He has to be able to teach. Paul writes Timothy in First Timothy three. That is, he has to be able to explain the Scripture to others.
He has to be orthodox. Titus one nine. He must hold firm the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict it. But overwhelmingly, qualifications that Paul gives have to do with character, because Paul wants teachers whose lives are going to pattern what they teach, who are going to be examples to those who believe, and their work is to teach and preach the word of God. And to exemplify that life for other believers, and it's in this way Paul says the body will be built up.
Now, a couple of lessons for us as we draw this lecture to a close. Again, Paul is reminding us that the Christian life is not a solitary life.
Now, private devotion is necessary. But there is more to living the Christian life than private devotion. We need to be with God's people. We need to be with God's people to worship Him together. We need to be with God's people to enjoy the fellowship and the exchange of gifts one with another, because we need the gifts of each other to grow, and that's how the body grows in Christ.
So the life that Paul has been describing in Romans chapters six, seven, and eight is a life that is lived together. But then, secondly, Paul stresses the importance of unity in the church, and he stresses that it is both a fact and a command. It is something that is true of us as the church. But it's something in light of that that we have got to live out.
So we are Ephesians four three to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. But notice carefully how Paul understands unity. Paul never understands unity at the expense of truth. In fact, it is precisely through our one commitment to the truth that unity is on display. For the apostle Paul, a unity that tolerates and accepts and embraces error is no unity worthy of the name.
We are rather to grow up in every way into Christ as we speak the truth in love. And then Paul gives us a reminder, an exhortation. Each of us, he says, has gifts and graces. And the question he leaves with us is, "What is it that you are doing? What is it that I am doing, to use those gifts and graces, not to promote myself, but to build others up in the body of Christ?" There's always a temptation to pride, jockeying, comparison, but Paul says, "Remember, you are a member of the body of Christ, and with that framework, use your gifts and graces to serve others." How could you be building others up in Christ today?
That's a question that we should return to often as followers of Jesus. If you've been born again into God's family, then the Holy Spirit has gifted you in unique ways for service in the church. This has been the Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Thank you for joining us today as we wrap up our study exploring Paul's life and theology. If you'd like to hear the remaining messages from this series, exploring topics like sin, justification, and sanctification, then you can request this series today.
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Martin Luther is often thought of as the first of the Protestant reformers, but were there other reform movements that came before Luther? Find out next Saturday as we begin a study in church history with Dr. W. Robert Godfrey here on Renewing Your Mind.
