Transcript
It is time to start our service this afternoon, and I am so glad to have you here with us. I greet you in Jesus’ name, and I am thankful to have this little time to spend with you.
I want to send my special greetings to everyone who has reached out over the past week and communicated in different ways. I am always so thankful to hear from each one of you, and I keep you all in my prayers. I want to make sure I also greet all our listeners at Faith Assembly who are all so dedicated to tuning in and listening here. We send you our love.
And I keep hearing more and more about what is going on there lately, and it’s not good. I know a lot of you are trapped, as you have expressed to me. You cannot leave with great repercussions because of the way the leaders there have so much control over your homes and families. And we are praying that God will make a way. When we cannot escape the fiery furnace, God can deliver us through the midst of it. And we are praying God delivers you by all means. All I can say is, just do your best to not go along with the evil. Don’t compromise yourself, and God knows your heart.
In case this is your first time tuning in with us, and you wonder who we are and what we are all about, my name is Charles Paisley. I and most of our listeners here are formerly members of the cult following of William Branham known as the Message. The Message is a doomsday cult that started right here in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and has spread all over the world. I am formerly the associate pastor of the second oldest Message church in the world, right here in the Jeffersonville area. And this is a little mission we operate to offer encouragement to people escaping the cult, and most importantly, we are going back to take a look at the plain reading of scripture as we seek to wash out all the teachings they indoctrinated us with that are simply not in the Bible.
And we have been working our way through the book of Ephesians for the past few months, and today we are back in Ephesians chapter 4. And this is what is one of the most important passages of scripture in the places we come from. And we have been taking it nice and slow in this section. Today we are going to be looking especially at verse 13, and I will read from verse 11 down to verse 16. I invite you to open your Bibles and read along with me – it’s always a good idea to read along for yourself.
So starting at verse 11, I will read to you from the English Standard Version:
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers,
12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Ephesians 4
English Standard Version
Let us pray.
Lord God, we thank you for having imparted to us the Holy Spirit, who is our teacher. As we turn our attention to these scriptures today, Lord, we ask you humbly to show us the truth, for we know the truth will make us free. Grant us the desire of our hearts. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Introduction
Well, brothers and sisters, these are some big verses to look at. You and I both know it. While I am sure these verses are important to all Christians, in The Message, these verses largely define the entire program.
Message churches do have a program. They are organizations, and they have a program. And their form of organization and their program are overwhelmingly defined by the way they read these verses right here.
And then, I can’t speak for every message church in the world, but I can certainly speak of the ones I come from, and our organization and program were defined right here.
Our organization was what we thought verse 11 said, and our program was verses 12 to 16.
And on the face of it, that might not sound so bad, but we read these verses to mean something very, very different than what their plain words mean.
And before we begin to examine verse 13 today, let me just give a quick recap of what we have covered over the last couple of lessons.
And if you recall, we are looking at a digression being made by the apostle Paul. As he started chapter 4, he did so by beginning to tell the Ephesians how they should behave in light of the doctrines he had shared with them in the first three chapters.
As he begins explaining to them how to behave, he tells them to essentially get along with each other, to show each other love and kindness, and to be forgiving. And as he does that, he enters into this digression.
And he begins to explain why the basis on which they should seek to get along. And that basis was the fact that they were united in Christ. And he explained the ways in which they were alike, and then he explained ways in which they were still different.
And then he entered into a second digression. And his second digression was concerning explaining how we have different gifts. But as we come down to verse 14, 15, and 16, Paul starts to tie all this back to his main point, which is that we should all get along with each other, to show each other love and kindness. And that is the ultimate point of all this. This digression is part of Paul’s explanation of why and how we should all get along. And so, don’t miss Paul’s chief point here.
And when we get into verse 14, 15, and 16, we will come back and see how Paul ties this all together.
But as he makes this digression, in verse 11, he speaks about the ministers Christ called at the time around his resurrection. Verse 11 is speaking of the first generation of Christian ministers. It is a past tense verse, speaking of ministers already called before the book of Ephesians had been written. And verse 12 speaks of the unique mission that very first generation of ministers had. That first generation of ministers equipped the saints to carry on the work of ministry after them. They laid down a foundation, they showed the pattern, and they left their writings, teachings, doctrine, and practices behind. And we still have them today. We have their writings, we know their doctrines, we can know their practices, and we know it all through the Bible. And the Bible is what has perfectly equipped us to continue to do the work of the ministry after they were gone.
A continued work
And each generation of the church which has followed, as continued the work. And as we come to verse 13, we begin to read about the mission of the ministers that continues to the present day. And I want to read verse 13 to you again. And then we will start to examine each part of it. Verse 13 says:
13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Now as we examine this verse, the very first word is until. And that word, UNTIL, lets us know the work that we do as Christian ministers today is ongoing. And it will be ongoing UNTIL all these things we read about here in verse 13 and 14 are accomplished.
And we can, observationally say, that the things of verse 13 and 14 and 15 are not fully accomplished yet. We can look around, and we can see that, the mere fact that you and I are still here, that Jesus has not come back yet. The end has not come. And that mere fact the end has not yet come, lets us know that verse 13 and 14 and 15 are ongoing.
And I believe that is something we could all agree to. We are, as a universal church, still working on verses 13 and 14 and 15.
The Message Interpretation of verse 13
And now, if you are in a doomsday cult that is obsessed with the end of days. These are the passages of the bible that will draw your attention. Because whatever these verses are talking about. That word there, UNTIL – it lets us know something has to happened before the end can come.
And that is part of what draws the interest of The Message to these verses. And so, the whole program, certainly where I come from. Is to do whatever it takes to see to the fulfillment of verses 13 and 14 and 15. And, on its face, that might not sound so bad. But if you have a really twisted definition of what these verses mean. Then it is going to end up leading you to do really radical things.
And very sadly, we had a very twisted definition of what these verses meant. And we started to unravel that in our last lessons looking at verse 11 and 12. And if you wonder about those verses, you might just go back and listen to the last lesson or two.
Now before I unpack what all the phrases here in verse 13 mean. Let me first explain what we believed these things meant in the message. And if you notice, there are three things here in verse 13. 3 things we are seeking to attain.
The first one is the unity of the faith. And in the message, we believed that mean that every single one of us, would believe everything exactly the same. Every doctrine, every parable, every symbol. Everything. We would believe everything exactly the same. But not only that – it also extended to our judgment. We would be perfectly united in our judgment. And that extended very far and wide. Such that we would even share the same opinion on what most people would consider convictions. And, perhaps most importantly. The unity of the faith meant that we would totally support the preachers. And we would say it like this: I stand behind them 100%. And that meant they had our full total and unconditional support, for everything they taught, and every judgment and decision they made. All of that was embedded in this statement, Unity of the Faith. And unity was a huge topic. Preached many many many times. And whenever someone started to preach on unity – it always meant someone must not be in unity. And so, preaching on unity was always prelude to purging or punishing people who were not in unity. If you disagreed with the preacher on anything, you were not in unity. If you did not fully support everything being said and done, you were not in unity. That was embedded in the Unity of the faith here.
Now the next phrase was the knowledge of the Son of God. And that connected back to this unity. And specifically to a perfect understanding of the bible. The knowledge of the Son of God, meant the knowledge Jesus had. When you read the book of Revelation, it starts out saying – the revelation of Jesus Christ. And when we would say knowledge of the Son of God – that is the sort of thing we had in mind. A full understanding of the revelation of Jesus Christ. And so, this knowledge of the Son of God was very much about understanding hidden mysteries which Jesus would reveal to us.
And the last part of verse 13 is – to mature manhood – the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Now that is the English Standard. But we would be more familiar with the language in the King James which says: Unto a perfect man – unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
And this was the big one. We read the King James literally – to mean that we would literally become perfect men and women. And, the teachings of the message are largely based on the manifested sons of God teachings of the Latter rain movement. And the last portion of verse 13, we interpreted to mean that we would become as Christ on earth. Not necessarily individually – but the corporate church would become empowered as Christ on earth. Such that, the corporate church would be empowered in the same way Christ is empowered. And that meant to raise the dead, and to control the weather, and to cast mountains into the sea. And those sorts of things.
And so three things are what we believed verse 13 was about. Perfect Unity. Perfect Knowledge. And perfect individuals. Culminating in the church becoming Christ manifested on earth.
And that is the program of a large percentage of The Message. And their organization, which comes from their understanding of verse 11, is empowered by their understanding of verse 12. To implement the program of verse 13 by all means necessary.
And it has and still does lead to all kinds of abuses. And sometimes they are extreme, even to the point of indirectly killing people.
But as we have already exposed in all our lessons up to this point in Ephesians. The Message leaders are very badly misreading this book of Ephesians. They are so far off base, that they are not even in the ball park of what is right. As we’ve already pointed, verse 11 is talking about ministers from the first generation of the church. And perfectly equipping the saints for the work of ministry was their unique job. That responsibility has not passed down to anyone else. The first generation of ministers, in the early church, perfectly equipped. All who would come after. They did it with the Bible, and we don’t need that to be repeated. And so the preachers who take the perfecting, or the equipping, in verse 12, and apply to themselves, they are usurping to themselves a responsibility that is not theirs. The responsibility of perfectly equipping the saints for the work of ministry, is not the job Of some supposed five-fold ministry in the last days. It was the job of the apostles and Prophets at the start of the church. And they did that job well. And they left us the Bible. And you and I can still be equipped directly from them today. We don’t need middleman.
But verse 13 is a job to be accomplished by the ministry today. But What the ministers of the first generation left us in the Bible, is adequate for us to accomplish verse 13. I don’t need anything beyond what that first generation of ministers left me, to accomplish verse 13. And I want to make sure that is the first thing you catch here today. Verse 12 tells me, that the ministers from verse 11 have already equipped me to everything verse 13 is talking about.
Let me say that again. Verse 12 tells me, that the first generation of preachers in verse 11, have already equipped me to do everything verse 13 is talking about.
Let me say it a third time. And if you need to take time to think about it, and read slowly I encourage you to do that. But for a third time. Verse 12 tells me, that first generation of Christian ministers in verse 11, have already equipped me to fulfill everything in verse 13.
I don’t need a new apostle or a new prophet to write a new book of the bible, or to reveal a new hidden mystery. Everything I need to fulfill verse 13 is already given to me in the pages of the bible by the writers of the New Testaments.
And that don’t mean preachers have no place or role to fulfill today. Because of course they do. But it does mean they do not need to add anything new. We already have everything we need to fulfill verse 13. As is. And the mere idea that we need some sort of a restoration of verse 11 to get to verse 13, is a flawed concept. It is not biblical. I need a restoration of verse 11. Because I still have in the bible what the men in verse 11 left behind. And it is enough by itself to perfectly equip me, without adding to it.
The Unity of the Faith
Now as we look at this mission that we still have to fulfill in verse 13. Let’s unpack it together.
It starts off by saying that we are building up the body of Christ. Until we all attain the unity of the faith.
And, what is unity? And when I say unity – I don’t mean the man-made definition invented by the Latter Rain Movement that has corrupted the minds of the men and women in The Message. I mean the Bible definition. What is the Bible definition of Unity?
And if you have been following along with me through our study of Ephesians. You will remember that Paul already told us what Unity was starting in chapter 2. He told us what it was, he told us how it was created, and he told us how it is maintained.
So we already know those things. We don’t read this verse, and invent our own definition for unity. What we do is apply the same definition Paul has been using all along. And, if you want a deep explanation, I encourage you to go back to the lessons on Ephesians 2.
But the short explanation is this. Unity is being United with Christ. Unity was created, not by you and I, but unity was created by Jesus. He created it, and he maintains it. He created it when he prayed the prayer in John chapter 11. He prayed, “father let us all be one. I in them, and thou in me, that we all may be made perfect in one.” And that is the unity. And it takes unity with Christ to be saved. Because through our union with him, he took our sins to the cross to be punished. Your sins were punished on the cross with Christ. Because you were united with him in his death. That is unity.
And now you are raised to a new life with him in his resurrection. That is unity.
And Paul describes it here as the unity of the faith. And faith here does not mean a body of beliefs. Nowhere in scripture does the word faith mean a body of beliefs. Faith means, quite literally, saving faith in Jesus Christ. The faith by which we are saved.
And when Paul says the unity of the faith. He means the union that you are enter into with Christ at the moment we come to saving faith. The unity of the faith.
And that has nothing, I repeat, absolutely nothing to do with what The Message says the unity of the faith is. And it is so sad. It is so very, very sad. They do have a clue what the unity of the faith is. They have traded the plain reading of the bible for the corrupt ideas of wicked men.
So, when it says, until we all attain to the unity of the faith. It quite literally means, until we are all united with Christ through saving faith. Attaining the unity of the faith is not about reaching some enhanced level of something. Attaining the unity of the faith is about reaching everyone with the gospel, and seeing the lost come to saving faith in Christ. Which is the work of the ministry. Which is what Jesus commissioned them to do before he ascended into heaven. He told them to go to all nations, baptize them, and make disciples of all people.
That is precisely what Paul is talking about here, as he speaks of everyone attaining the unity of the faith. He is talking about reaching the lost with the gospel message.
The knowledge of the Son of God
Now the next part is the knowledge of the son of God. And that is very much the same thing as what we are talking about already. That word there, knowledge. That is not knowledge, as in knowledge of mathematics. Or knowledge of geophagy. Or knowledge of plumbing. Or something like that. Its not the sort of knowledge that comes with expertise in some particular discipline. Like understanding hidden mysteries. But the word knowledge here is the kind that comes with knowing a person. It is a sort of relational knowledge. It is the knowledge you get when you know someone. You know them as a person. You know their character. You know their nature. You know what makes them tick. You know how they think. It is a sort of experiential knowledge. That you obtain through getting to know a person.
And that person here, is Jesus Christ. It is the knowledge of him – as a person. It’s not understanding some hidden mystery he has to reveal to you. But it is understanding his nature and character.
And in that way, this knowledge is right in line with what we have already spoken of. It’s about knowing him as your savior. It’s about knowing him as your Lord. It’s the kind of knowledge of him that comes with being united with him. And it very much speaks of salvation.
And, the main point I want to convey is this. In the proper context of this passage. This knowledge is really about knowing Jesus as your Lord and savior. And it has nothing to do with understanding hidden mysteries or secret revelations.
The knowledge of the Son of God is knowing Jesus as your Lord and Savior. And once again, that is the work of the ministry. To bring people to the knowledge of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Amen
Unto a Perfect man
Now the next part of verse 13 says, unto a perfect man. A perfect man. And that word perfect there. You will find most other translations use the word mature. Unto a mature man. Or a full-grown man. And here is what is important for us to make sure we catch here. Paul is talking about the corporate body of Christ here. When he says, until we all – there at the start of verse 13. That lets us know, he is talking about us all – the corporate body of Christ. The entire church.
And so when he says – unto a perfect man. He is talking about the body of Christ as a whole. He is not speaking about us as individuals.
And think of it like this. Each one of us is a member of the body of Christ. Each one of us is a body part.
And all together, we form a complete full body. And it takes all the parts together, to form a complete, perfect, mature body. If we leave a part out, it won’t be a perfect mature body. If we leave off a hand, or a foot, or whatever. It’s not a perfect complete mature body.
And so, once again, when Paul here mentions a perfect or mature body. He is talking first and foremost about bringing in the lost souls to the church. To finish putting the body together. Until the last soul is saved, this body of Christ will not be complete.
And so, once again, this is really about reaching the lost with the gospel. Which is the work of the ministry. It’s about bringing people to the knowledge of Christ as their Lord and Savior, uniting them to him through faith. So the body of Christ can be filled out and completed and perfected with all its body parts.
The stature of the fullness of Christ
And that at last brings us to the final part of verse 13. “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
Now, in part, this is a repetition. Paul is restating, in a different way, the same thing he just said. Which is that the body of Christ will be completed, it will fully come together, into a completeness. Where all the parts are added to the body, and it is a full man.
Christ was a full man. He had hands, and feet, and eyes, and ears. Jesus was not missing body parts. And so when we think about that here, this body of Christ, which is the church. It is also going to be a complete body. It won’t be missing feet and hands and eyes or ears. Every part of the body is going to be joined to the body.
Unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And I think that is pretty straightforward to understand.
But I want to also remind you, this is not the first time Paul has mentioned this fullness to the Ephesians. And, I do believe there is another layer to the last part of this verse. And if we go back to the end of chapter 3, we can see what Paul said about the fullness there. And I want to make sure I read that to you, so turn back to chapter 3 with me.
And if you remember, at the end of chapter 3, Paul prayed a prayer over the Ephesians. And we spent two messages examining that prayer, if you want to go back and listen to those messages. But I am going to read part of this prayer to you, from verse 14 down to verse 19. And I want you to notice here what Paul says about this fullness here.
Paul says:
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Ephesians 3 ESV
Now that is a beautiful prayer. And I hope you can see how this prayer overlaps very much with what we are reading about in chapter 4. Paul is praying that these Ephesians can understand what the height and depth and length and breadth of the church. He wants them to understand what this church looks like. How big it is, its dimensions. You could say, he is praying that they will understand what he is saying in the verses 13, over in chapter 4.
And he also prays that they know the love of Christ. Because it will take this love for them to understand. Without this love, they will not be able to grasp what he is trying to convey to them. It is going to take love for this whole thing to work. And there in verse 19, he explains that it takes this love for them to be filled with the fullness. And when we take that back to chapter 4, we find that Paul seems to have the exact same thing in mind in verse 14.
This fulness is directly connected to having and knowing love. Let me go back to chapter 4, and read it, and see if you catch it too.
13 … to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
So, there we see this love, mentioned again. Very much in the same way he mentioned in his prayer in chapter 3. And so, what is my point? My point is this: Reaching this fulness that is spoken of in verse 13 – it requires love. Without love, you can’t get there. Without love, you can’t even comprehend what the fulness is – which is what chapter 3 told us. And this is where Paul is starting to bring his digression back home to his main point. Which is that we, as a church, as people who are united with Christ. We need to seek to get along with each other. And show love towards each other.
And when I read about the fulness here in chapter 4, or the fulness in chapter 3 or back in chapter 1 and 2. It leaves me with the understanding that the fullness is specifically every member of the body. The fulness is not some advanced level of something. It’s not about us receiving a greater power, or a greater measure of something as an individual. But the fulness is really about having the body of Christ be complete. With every member of the body being joined to the body.
The plain reading would give us the indication that the fulness means a fully complete body of Christ. And, go back to chapter 1 with me. Because, as we went through the earlier chapters I tried to point these things out as we went. Paul has already used all these words and phrases before chapter 4. And if we wonder what he means, we really only need to go back and look at how he explained it earlier. So let’s see what he says about this fulness back in chapter 1.
And in chapter 1, I will just read verse 22 and 23. Paul says:
“And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”
So, what is the fullness? This verse tells us, the fulness is the body of Christ itself. The whole, complete body of Christ. That is the fulness of him.
And, it’s really, plain as day, black and white. The fulness is Christ, in each and every single member of his universal church body. And the only way you reach and attain to the fullness, is by joining every member to the body of Christ. By reaching every lost soul with the gospel of salvation. Uniting them with Christ through faith. So that they can know Jesus as their Lord and savior.
And doing that will, eventually, when we reach the final end of the ages, doing that will at long last complete the body of Christ. And bring the church to its fulness.
What Ephesians 4:13 about? It is about reaching the lost with the gospel message. It’s about uniting them with Christ. It’s about completing the body of Christ, by finding the missing parts of the body, and adding them to the body.
That is what verse 13 is about. And that is the work of the ministry that the first generation of preachers perfectly equipped us to do. And that is the plain of Ephesians 4.
Closing
I have more to say on these verses. And we will pick up again here again in the next lesson. But we have walked through these verses in a good way so far.
Verse 13 truly is the mission of the church. And verse 13 really should define our program as a church. But not the twisted message understanding of what that verse means. But if we will just take it the plain way its wrote on the page. And use the true bible definition of these words. We will arrive at a correct understanding.
I know I have said a lot today. It’s a lot to think about, if you come from the places I do. Because it is very very different than how we were indoctrinated for our entire lives. But I want to encourage you, think about it. Pray about it. And try, just try to put out of your mind all the indoctrination. And come back and read these verses with fresh eyes.
The unity of the faith is our union with Christ through saving faith. The knowledge of the son of man is knowing him as lord and savior. And the perfect and complete body of Christ, is talking about all the members being added to the church who are still missing.
It is really that simple. That is the work of the ministry. And very very sadly – we have been tricked. We were tricked my men. And some of those men, they were tricked themselves – they didn’t know any better when they taught us those corrupt ideas. But some of them were doing it on purpose – they were just using the bible to give themselves power over us.
And if you are in one of these churches, that are following this corrupt ideology. Let me ask you a simple question. When are you ever going to fulfill your vision? When is your five-fold ministry ever going to perfect you? When are you going to actually achieve your cult unity? What is taking so long? Why can you never seem to actually get there? You turn the screws tighter and tighter – and you never get there. All that happens is that you are making people crack. And even some of them kill themselves under the pressure. Why can’t you ever seem to get this thing you are chasing? Its been 75 years now. And you are still not there. And most of the people who dreamed up these corrupt ideas are all dead. How long are you going to go on with this nonsense? When are you going to come back to Jesus? When are you going to come back to the gospel? When are you going to turn from empty well backs, and your polluted cisterns? When are you going to come back to the one who gives living water?
There is room here for you. But there is no room for all your corrupt ideas and your wickedness cloaked behind a veneer of fake holiness. But if you are today looking for an answer to your problems. And you are seeking to understand why your false religion is not delivering on its promises. I want to invite you today, to come to Jesus. The Jesus of the bible. The one who says, “whoso cometh unto me, I shall in no wise cast out”. And being justified by his blood, we shall be delivered from wrath. So says the book. Amen.
Let me close here in prayer
Prayer
Lord God, Thank you for the bible. And once again, we pray. Show us the truth. It is our honest and humble desire. Because the truth will set us free. Lord, I pray you bring the knowledge of the truth to those who hold the people captive. That they may recognize the error of their ways, and set many souls free. But oh God, if they do not turn from their wicked ways. I pray you visit swift judgement on them, before any more lives are lost. Deliver the oppressed and sent them free. You see the abused, and the raped, and the molested, and the all the manner of evils that are being perpetrated even this very hour. Deliver our loved ones we pray. For your glory. In Jesus name. Amen.