THIS IS PART OF AN ONGOING SERIES ON THE GIFT OF PROPHECY
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The second major misreading of Ephesians 4 is that the passage itself is mainly concerned with defining special gifts.
What we tend to miss when reading the passage is Paul’s drive to speak of Christ and the ascension. While the purpose of 1 Corinthians 12 is focused on teaching what happens when the Holy Spirit is given to the church, and Romans 12 is concerned with how God gifts certain people to function within a community, Ephesians 4 is far more concerned with the nature of Christ and the ramifications of what He has accomplished.
This is the case throughout the whole book, never so clear as Paul’s quotation of Psalm 68:18:
Psalms 68:18 You have ascended on high, You have led captivity captive; You have received gifts among men, Even from the rebellious, That the Lord God might dwell there.
Ephesians 4:8 Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.”
Paul quotes this verse to prove the fact of Christ coming (descent to humanity v. 9) and His ascension (ascending on high). Paul is not making a case for the gifts but making the case for the divinity of Christ. What follows from his use of Psalm 68:18 is a commentary on why that Psalm points to the humanity and divinity of Christ. Paul is making the case for the nature of Christ, the gifts he lists are of secondary importance and are proofs that Christ has ascended and is seated at the right hand of God.
We read the passage as a teaching on the nature of gifts, but Paul wrote the passage as an exposition on the union of humanity and divinity within Christ.
This is why understanding what has come in the preceding chapters is so important. Ephesians is all about Christ and the new nature that has been unleashed on the world through this divine-human union. Not a new nature for Christ (Christ has always been the divine word), but a new nature for humanity. To Paul, the proof that this union has taken place is that there are now apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. We must stop treating Ephesians 4 as a primary text dealing with gifts. We must properly understand that it is secondarily dealing with gifts. What we can learn about these graces comes about by inference.
Ephesians 4:8-10 Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.” (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)
What had been captured?
Humanity, it had been captured by the serpent at the fall.
So, what does Jesus captivate and lead? Humanity.
Those that were captive, he has captivated. This captivation came about by the divine-human union within Christ. We have been made slaves of righteousness, as Romans 6:18 points out. Then where did he lead humanity? On high. In other words, humanity has ascended within Christ. The by-product of this ascension is gifts. Not because Jesus came down, but because Jesus ascended on high.
“We believers in Christ, having been gathered from the Gentiles, had been taken captive by the devil, though we were creatures of God. We were sold out to the demonic powers. Into this circumstance our Lord Jesus Christ came bearing the baggage of captivity, as Ezekiel says, and, covering his head so that his adversaries would not know him, preaching remission to those who had been taken captive and release to those held in chains.… After Christ freed us, we were snatched out of an old captivity into a new freeing captivity, as he led us with him into heaven.”
“The Word was not in need and did not come into being, nor were humans able to give these gifts to themselves. But through the Word they have been given to us. For these reasons they were given to us after being given to him. For his purpose in becoming a man was that, having been given to him, they might be passed on to us.”
Paul actually changes the phrasing from Psalm 68:18 to prove a point about Christ. Psalm 68:18 clearly states that Christ received gifts among men. This is slightly different than the context Paul used it in. Paul quotes the passage as saying that Christ gave gifts to men. Jerome has this to say about Paul's rephrasing of the Psalm:
“Why this difference? Since in the Psalm the act had not yet occurred but was promised in the future, the phrase was accordingly he received. But the apostle is seeing this as a promise earlier given and later fulfilled. At this time of writing, Christ has already made the gift and churches have been established throughout the whole world. Accordingly he is said to have already given to humanity rather than received gifts among humanity.”
Paul actually re-phrases Psalm 68:18 when he quotes it here in Ephesians 4. Where the original verse states that the one who ascended received gifts, now Paul says that the one who ascended gave gifts. He does this to show that Christ has now ascended, whereas in Psalm 68 Christ had not yet ascended. The whole point of the 5-fold gifts of Ephesians 4 is to witness the divinity of Christ and His impact upon all of humanity.
The basic question that is being dealt with is this: Is Christ really God? Paul’s response is summed up like this: the existence of apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers equipping the saints proves that Christ is God, has ascended on high, and has given grace to the church.
What Christ received as a man, Christ gave to the church. Hence in Psalm 68:18, it says that Christ received gifts, and Ephesians 4 it states that he gave those gifts. What Christ has given then has the outworking of displaying his nature. One of the outworkings of the giving of these distinctives to the church is that we may come to the knowledge of the Son of God and the measure of the fullness of Christ.
What Christ received he gave in order that the church may display his likeness.
We cannot treat this passage as the de facto teaching on church leadership. It was never intended to be so. There are many clear indications in Paul’s letters as to what church leadership should look like. Ephesians 4 is not one of them (see 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, 1 Peter 5, and 3 John 1). Unfortunately, Ephesians 4 is often interpreted to mean that God has created an elite class of super leaders that all walk in these “offices”. This just simply is not the case when reading this passage biblically and historically.
The real issue at the heart of the “why” of the Ephesians 4 gifts is this: what He received He also gave because He received on behalf of humanity in order to gift to humanity. This is a concept we will deal with later, suffice it to say that it is not entirely clear in modern Charismatic/Pentecostal circles. We have failed to produce a theology that understands the divine union and its effect on humanity as a whole.
With all that said, there are things we can say about each of these gifts, or graces as they are properly understood. As graces, they ought to be thought of as operations within the body of Christ. It should be said at the outset, that absent spiritual maturity these graces will be marred by the character flaws of the individual. This has been true throughout history. Remember, the call at the beginning of Ephesians 4 was to “walk worthy” or rather to walk with worth. A teacher-focused on communicating clear principles of the kingdom of God so that others may grow thereby is a beautiful gift to the body. A teacher-focused on being right and proving everyone else wrong is a detriment to the body.
The point of these gifts is to bring into fulfillment the “new man” (Ephesians 3:13-18), ie. the new creation as we are reconciled in Christ. The gifts of Ephesians 4 are intensely focused on the building up of the church.
Many times throughout the Old Testament we see prophetic words bringing significant blessing and prosperity. Take for instance the prophetic ministry of Haggai and Zechariah:
Ezra 6:14 So the elders of the Jews built, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. And they built…