What Is the One Body of Christ in Ephesians Chapter 4?

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, an Oklahoma rancher and farmer. Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for over 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, it's good to see everybody in again today, and beautiful spring day, and we're glad to have all of you in here with us. And for those of you joining us on television, again, we always like to make it known we're just an informal Bible study. We're not going to be preaching at you, and we're not going to be looking down on you. We're just simply trying to open the Word where anyone can read it, understand it, and of course profit from it. We always like to also let it be known that all of our past programs are available on videotape, audiotape, and then they've all been transcribed into the printed page by Jerry and his wife. And if you're interested in any of these materials, you just give us a call or drop us a note. The address will be on the screen periodically throughout the program. And so we just appreciate the fact that so many of you use them for home Bible studies and in your churches in various ways and means. And again, we just give the Lord the praise and the glory because we are always just dumbfounded that the Lord has seen fit to use us. We never claim to be anything more but just a common, ordinary Sunday school teacher, I guess, more than anything. But whatever, you let us know if you can use any of these materials. Now again, we're going to go right into the Scripture. We're going to use every moment that we can to search the Scriptures. And as you've seen on the board, we're going to be starting this afternoon in Ephesians 4, verse 1. And right off the bat, like Paul does so often, he says, "...therefore..." And of course the reason he's always using therefore is to remind us to constantly go back because the Scripture from start to finish, of course, is a progressive revelation. From Genesis to Revelation it is a progressive unfolding of God's program of the ages. And then, of course, in Paul's seven church letters especially. We haven't had it on the board since we first started in Ephesians, and that's already several months ago. But remember I always like to start out, in fact keep your hand in Ephesians, we'll come right back to it. And turn with me to Timothy, if you will, and 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16. And then we'll come right back to Ephesians. But 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16, the Spirit has inspired the apostle to write something that is more than meets the eye. All Scripture, all Scripture, that means from Genesis through Revelation, is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. Now that, of course, applies to the whole Scripture, but it has a unique application to Paul's seven church letters as we refer to them, and that, of course, would be Romans and the Corinthian letters and Galatians, the first three. And then the next three are where we are now, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, for the six, and then the seventh, of course, would be the Thessalonian letters. And I think I put it on the board a long time ago, and maybe it would behoove us to do it again, that in these first letters of Romans and the Corinthian letters, we'll put both And then we have correction, and then reproof, and then we jumped up, like I said, into the church epistles, or the prison epistles rather, of the apostle Paul, which get into higher ground or deeper waters spiritually, however you want to put it. And that, of course, is a repeat of the format of doctrine on a higher ground, Ephesians, and then, of course, you'll come into the same thing in the Philippian letters of correction, and then to the next one, which would be Colossians, which have that same format. And then I put it out, I think we get another jump up when we get to the Thessalonian letters, which are instructions in righteousness, predominantly because they refer to the Lord's coming. And always keep those formats in mind as we study the seven church letters as we refer to them, the apostle Paul, doctrine, correction, reproof, and again, doctrine, correction, and reproof. So that tells us that Ephesians then is primarily doctrinal. It's not so much practical, it's doctrinal. Now what's doctrine? Doctrine is what God expects us to believe. Doctrine is teaching. And see, there's so little doctrine. I remember talking to an individual, I think on one of our tours to Israel, and he was from one of these ecumenical groups, and I won't name it, don't have to, but as we were speaking with a young man over there in the hotel lobby, and I started asking him some questions about his ecumenical group, and he said, remember we don't deal with anything doctrinal. I said, that says it all. That just tells me exactly where you're coming from, because if you don't have doctrine, you've got nothing. You might as well shut the book and go home, because we have to rest on doctrine. What does God expect us to believe? And it's laid out so plainly, but we're living in a time now that He is just simply legion, that everybody says, well doctrine doesn't count, all we have to do is get along with our neighbors and do the best we can, but that's not what the Scripture teaches. The Scripture says, Thus saith the Lord. So Ephesians chapter 4, coming back with this format now, that we're up here in a higher level of doctrine than Romans was, and this is what we're looking for. What does God want us to believe, and what are we to share in a teaching mode to those around about us, which of course would be primarily then believers. Doctrine is primarily for the believer. Now that doesn't leave the unbeliever without doctrine of course, but once we become a believer, then we have to be established in our faith with doctrine. So now Paul starts out the chapter, and I'm going to put it where we would normally put it. "...therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you, or beg you, that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called." Now of course we hold this to almost any profession don't we? I don't think any of us would like to have a personal physician, someone that we have to literally commit our health and well -being to, to be some kind of a deadbeat that you can't trust. I wouldn't. I wouldn't want that kind of a family physician, somebody that you just couldn't trust him, you didn't know that he'd come to the office sober or inebriated or whatever. You wouldn't know that he'd just as soon charge you three prices as one. He's just not adhering to the vocation wherewith he's been called. Well now Paul is bringing that same analogy into the life of every believer. God has called us to this particular role in the midst of an ungodly world, to live a life that literally reflects our vocation and our calling. And then verse 2, it's so practical, we're not to be arrogant, we're not to be puffed up and give people the impression that we're better than they are, or that we know more than they do. But it's with lowliness, and meekness, and long -suffering, and forbearing, or putting up with one another, but in the spirit of love. And there's so much of that lacking today. How many local churches, and I don't care what denomination you can think of, local churches are in a constant turmoil because of a lack of love one for another. Just because somebody doesn't agree right down to the last jot and tittle, then hatred comes up, and variance, and the very things of course that Paul had to admonish the Corinthians about. And so here he comes now to this higher level of the Christian walk, that we do not do it with arrogance and pride, but with lowliness and meekness. Now meekness, I always use the term, I guess it shows my age, meekness is not being a milk toast. And those of you who are older, you remember there used to be a cartoon, and he was always being walked on by everybody, and he never had any backbone. But that's not what the word meek means, because who was called the meekest of all men? Moses was. And you know what a man's name was, Moses, I've always pointed that out back there. First of all he was the second highest man in Egypt, what does that mean? That meant that he was a military man, it meant that he was a civil engineer, it meant that he was not a milk toast. And then the best one of all, I always get a kick out of when he had to flee Egypt, and he goes out there to Midian, and he comes up to the well, and here are the shepherds daughters, and all the other shepherds, you can about imagine the Middle Eastern types, what now we see as Bedouins and so forth. And they come up and try to water their livestock, and what does Moses do? Single handedly drove them all away. Well now that's not a milk toast, I mean that's a man's man. But he was still meek. And so what does that tell us? To be meek just simply means that we know what we stand for, but we can do these things in the spirit of love, and I guess the word we'd use in politics today is diplomacy. And you do these things without raising the ire of people, and I think this is exactly what Paul is expecting you and I as believers to do, is to be meek, and yet do it with patience, which is another word for long suffering, and putting up with one another in love. And then verse 3. I want to move on quickly to verse 4. into 4, 5, and 6, that I am not ecumenical. I think you all know that by now. I'm anything but. I'm probably closer to what they call the exclusivist, because the Bible is. It's a narrow book. The Bible makes stipulations that God has laid on the human race, and those things are not broad and open ended, but rather they are particular, and as such I will never bend. I'd rather, like I've said so often, just quit what I'm trying to do as to compromise, and to be, as they say, ecumenical. And so what we're going to find here is that in the spirit and the bonds of love and peace, yet we're going to stick to what the Word teaches. We're not going to compromise it, and we're going to maintain the bond of peace as Paul says in Romans, as much as lieth in us. So now then we come down to verse 4, and this is where I really wanted to spend most of the time in these next few half hours. The singleness of purpose in these next few verses. This is not a broad range that just brings in the multitude. This is going to do just the opposite. This is going to bring us down into the narrow range of God's dealing with the human race. All right? Verse 4, there is one body. One. Now that means exactly what it says. For example, let me take you all the way back to Genesis. Back to Genesis, and that would have to be about in chapter 10 or 11. In chapter 10 of course you've got the three sons of Noah coming off the ark, and they begin to repopulate, and you've got all the genealogy of those three sons. And you come down to chapter 11, and the whole earth was of one language, one speech, and it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. They had everything, the brick for stone, and slime for mortar. But now look at verse 4. Here is the offspring of the three sons of Noah, have already by God been delineated into three actual lines of the human race that would develop. But they've all stayed together. But now look what God had evidently made so clear. They said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered. We're not going to be scattered. Well now we've got to back all the way up, if you will, to when they first came off the ark, and that would be in chapter 9, and this is what they were evidently making reference to. Now remember, these people were just as human as we are. They knew what God had said. They had a memory. They passed it from one generation to the next, although there was only 200 years time between the flood and the Tower of Babel, and those people lived that long, you know, in those years. But look what God told them in Genesis 9, verse 1. And so God blessed Noah and his sons, and He said unto them, Be fruitful, multiply, and what are the next three words? Replenish the earth. He didn't say replenish the Middle East, He didn't say replenish the fertile crescent. Replenish the earth. And what did that imply? That they were to move out, see? They were to pioneer the very fringes of civilization, they were to keep moving out. But what was the response of these people at Babel? They said, We're not going to do it, we're not going to be scattered, we're going to stay here and be one. But God had said scatter. Now look at the church today. Now come back to Ephesians, and I think you'll get what I'm driving at. Now the admonition is that the Body of Christ is to be one, singular in purpose, around the whole planet. The Body is to be one. But what has happened to the church? Now when I say the church, I'm talking about the whole gamut of Christianity. It's fragmented, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of groups and denominations and divisions and so forth. And that's not what God intended. See what has happened? That which God intended to be scattered, man says, Uh uh, we're going to stay and be one. What God has said over here, I want to be one, man has done what? Fragmented it. Isn't that amazing? How that Satan can always bring about just exactly the opposite of what God intended. Back here to Ephesians then, God's first intention for the church, the true church, the true church made up of born again, regenerated, blood blot believers, was that we were to be one. One in mind, one in purpose, and instead as I've already said, we've got hundreds if not thousands of fragmented groups, all claiming of course to have some sort of Christianity. But there is only one true body of Christ. Now I'll probably get a little flack, although I never do even when I expect it. Here we have one body in which there are no unbelievers. There are no professing Christians without salvation in the body of Christ. Only a true believer ends up in the body of Christ. Now let me show you what I'm driving at in verses that we've used before. Come back with me to I Corinthians chapter 12. Of course we've used these verses before, but I don't apologize anymore like I used to, because letter after letter keeps coming in and says, keep repeating it, keep repeating it. And after three or four times we finally see it. So I Corinthians chapter 12, and let's start at verse 12, where Paul is using of course the analogy of the human body. I Corinthians 12, verse 12. For as the body, our human body, is one, and has many members, and all the members of that one body being many, are one body, so also is Christ, or the body of Christ. Now verse 13. For by one Spirit, which will be the next thing we look at in Ephesians, are we all baptized into the one body. Whether we be Jew or Gentile, bond or free, we have been made to drink into or partake of that one Spirit. One Spirit is putting us into the one body. Now verse 14. For the body that is of the human element, or of the body of Christ, is not one member, but many. Then we come over in the same chapter to verse 27, where Paul is emphasizing this concept of the body of Christ. Verse 27. Now he says, you, writing to the believers at Corinth, are the body of Christ, and members in particular. Then we don't find all that much mention about the body of Christ until we get all the way into Ephesians, and then as we've already seen in the last several series of programs, in Ephesians chapter 1 now then, about verse 23, we have another reference to the body of Christ. In fact I'd like to start with verse 22. And he hath put all things under his feet, and gave him, that is God, the triune God God the Son, hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body. And so this is a Pauline term, the body of Christ. And then if you come on over to the next page, next chapter, chapter 3, where we were a couple weeks ago, there again he makes reference that even the Gentiles now, not just Israel as you had the promises back under the covenants, but now under this period of time when God is forming the body, it includes Gentiles. Verse 6 of Ephesians 3, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel. See, the teaching of the body of Christ, that consortium of only the true saved believer. Now I've made the comment on the program before, and while I'm talking you can be turning to Hebrews chapter 13. I've got one more verse I think I want to use with reference to the body. And I've made reference to it over and over on the program. I don't care again what denominational handle people may have, all the members of that local church have been no doubt baptized and memorized by whatever ritual the church demands. But I can ask people straight eye to eye, are all your church members true believers? And most people will almost think it's a ridiculous question. You know they're not! In fact I had a letter a while back, maybe I should make comment on it. What do you mean when I speak of a true believer? Well I mean just exactly what I've said. I'm not talking about somebody who has simply made a profession and has joined a church or an organization. I'm talking about someone who has truly and completely placed their faith in the work of the cross, in His death, burial and resurrection, plus nothing for salvation. And as a result of that salvation they have a whole changed attitude towards life, towards others, and as John's little epistle says, we know we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. Another one I always say, when you pass from death unto life, you're going to have a love for the Word of God like you've never had before. And our mail expresses it letter after letter after letter, and several say the same thing in one day's mail, I'm finally loving the Word of God. Well that's a sign of being a true believer. The professing Christian who is merely a church member, he's not that concerned about what the Bible says, he's not that concerned about spending most of his or her time with fellow believers. And so when we have come to that place of completely, absolutely without anything else, trusted the Gospel for our eternal salvation, then yes, we're a true believer. Now that doesn't mean everybody is going to be as spiritual as the next person, there are certainly room for different levels of that within the body. Now you want to remember, Hebrews was written primarily to Jewish believers, but he says, So even these Jewish believers to whom the book of Hebrews was addressed, and does not make that much reference to the church body as he does in the church epistles, nevertheless these Jewish believers were considered by the Apostle as members of the body of Christ. Now I don't put Old Testament believers in the body of Christ. Some may disagree with that, but I can't see that Old Testament believers are in the body. They are in a division all their own, and of course that's why we make that separation as we teach, that God dealt with Israel on the one hand, but He's dealing with the whole world's population over here in the calling out of the body of Christ, which is two separate entities and I think, I was so tickled the other day, I read someone who agreed with me 100%, I don't think we'll ever lose that distinction between Israel and the church. Not through all eternity there's going to be a special role for you and I as members of the body of Christ, there's going to be a special role for the covenant people of Israel, and I can find nothing in Scripture to refute that. So anyway, this is as far as we're going to get in this half hour, is that the body of Christ is one, it's singular. It's not something that can just open its arms and say, well come on in, we don't care what you believe, just come on and become a member of us. No, the body of Christ is stipulated as only those who have been placed into it by an act of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit cannot place us into the body of Christ until we have believed the gospel as sinners, as sons of Adam, and that Christ has done it all. And that again, I've just got to go over and over, it is faith plus nothing. Faith plus nothing.