SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/6/2019
8:42 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“The Purpose of God’s Pattern”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
4:13-15a
Message of the verses: “13 until we all
attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a
mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of
Christ. 14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there
by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men,
by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15 but speaking the truth in love,”
We
will first look at the 2nd main point, a kind of introduction to it
and then look at the first sub-point after that.
When
we first look at verse thirteen we see the following “the unity of the faith,
and the knowledge of the Son of God,” and this shows us that the building up of
the redeemed involves a two-fold ultimate objective as seen in this section of
verse 13. Out of this section of verse
13 will flow spiritual maturity, sound doctrine, and also loving testimony.
John
MacArthur writes “Some commentators advocate the view that such an ultimate
objective is only attainable at glorification, believing that Paul is
describing our final heavenly unity and knowledge. But the idea does not fit the context at all,
because the apostle is not describing the final work of Christ on behalf of
Christ on behalf of the church in heaven but the e work of gifted men in the
church on earth. These results could
only apply to the church in its earthly dimension.”
Unity
of the Faith
When
we talk about faith here we are not talking about saving faith as we explained
when we were looking at verses three and five:
“3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” “5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Faith here as in verse five is speaking to
the body of Christian truth, to Christian doctrine. This faith here is the content of the gospel
in its most complete form. The church at
Corinth clearly illustrates disunity in that church and it comes from doctrinal
ignorance and also spiritual immaturity.
You only have read through the first six chapters of 1 Corinthians to
see this. When the things in a church
are taught and followed, things that we have just learned about like the works
of service and also when the body is thereby built up in spiritual maturity,
then unity of the faith is an inevitable result. MacArthur goes to say “Oneness in fellowship
is impossible unless it is built on the foundation of commonly believed
truth. The solution to the divisions in
Corinth was for everyone to hold the same understanding and opinions and to
speak the same truths (1 Cor. 1:10).
“Only
a biblically equipped, faithfully serving, and spiritually maturing church can ‘attain
to the unity of the faith.’ Any other
unity will be on a purely human level and not only will be apart from but in
constant conflict with ‘the unity of the faith.’ There can never be unity in the church apart
from doctrinal integrity.”
Quotation for today, and this one is
from David Jeremiah: “If we ignore
Divine directives, we cannot enjoy God’s blessing.”
4/6/2019 9:08 AM
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