Built Up In Love

(Ephesians 4:15-16)

The work of the ministry gifts given by God is to develop the church and the individual members of the church so that they grow together in harmony into the maturity of Jesus Christ. I discussed the ministry gifts and some of these matters in my last few posts.

What we now see here is that the direction and goal of the ministry gifts is for the children of God to be built up in love.

This is and was the plan of God. To create a people who would live in the love of God by choice, and who He would be pleased to call His people.

The Ministry Gifts

The work of the ministry gifts is to prepare the people of God for the glory that is to come.

The ministry gifts are designed specifically to build up the church. They are meant to bring Christians to maturity in Jesus Christ, and to be mature is to achieve the perfection that is possible only in following Christ.

No-one will live with the Father and the Son into eternity in the kingdom of God who has not reached the place of perfection. As we are told by Jesus Himself:

“You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)

This was not a suggestion but a requirement. You MUST be perfect.

Now, Jesus is not so cruel as to put such a requirement on His people unless such a thing were possible. And in fact Jesus in His death and resurrection opened the door to enable people to be perfected through Him.

First He gave us the righteousness by faith when we believe we have died and been resurrected with Him through baptism in water. By this means we receive perfection by faith. And then He gives us the Holy Spirit to dwell within each individual who receives the Holy Spirit for the purpose of bringing us into the image of Christ, who was the image of the Father, who is perfect.

It is the work of the Holy Spirit to perfect us so that this perfection is not just by faith, but we are perfect as Christ is perfect in every aspect of our lives. This second perfection is a long and slow process as we are told by Paul.

17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

But to come into that perfection we must learn the things of the Lord. We must learn His words and His ways, and this is where the ministry gifts given to the church come into play.

God has appointed people in the church to be Apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists and pastors for the purpose of teaching the people in the church to bring them to maturity and ultimately to perfection in Jesus Christ.

Personal Gifts

In addition to the ministry gifts given to the church, God also gives gifts to individuals so that they can be built up in Christ Jesus personally.

The changes being made in each person are individual, and so God works with each person as an individual.

His gifts include, righteousness by faith, freedom from law, freedom from sin, and the most important one being the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit with spiritual gifts of knowledge, wisdom, speaking in tongues and more.

These gifts are all personal because they are given to deal with our personal walk in Christ. Each of us has personal issues and problems, weaknesses and passions that must be dealt with if we are to be perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect. And the things that need to be dealt with in each person differ from one person to the next.

That is why God gives us the Holy Spirit as an indwelling counselor, helper, teacher, protector and guide to help us in our weakness and to do the work of transformation in us.

And all of these gifts are necessary, both to the church and to individuals, if we are to come into perfection.

But what is it like to be perfected in Christ?

Since we are to be made into the image of Jesus Christ who bears the very stamp of the nature of the Father as we are told in Hebrews chapter 1.

1 In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has obtained is more excellent than theirs. (Hebrews 1:1-4)

So since we are to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ, as we see in the scripture in 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 quoted above, and since Jesus bears the image and stamp of the nature of God the Father as we see in this verse from Hebrews 1, then we should ask, what is the Father like? What are we being transformed into?

The answer to that is quite simple: God is love.

And it is important that we understand the love of God and how His love works in us.

Built up in Love

We are being transformed or built into the image of Jesus Christ, who is in the image of God the Father, who is love.

The working of the ministry gifts in the church are designed to knit the body together into perfect harmony with Christ. We are becoming the body of Christ, with Him as the head. When the working of the church operates as it should, then it is built up in love.

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 knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love. (Ephesians 4:15-16)

So we are being built up in love in this work of transformation. And there are a number of scriptures that suggest this is so. Consider these words from the Apostle John.

15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 In this is love perfected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world. (1 John 4:15-17)

First we see that those who confess Jesus and are followers of Him abide in God and God in them. We have the love of God abiding in us when we confess Jesus at work in our lives through faith.

But more than that we see the transformation power of the love of God in us because it is in love that we are perfected. Yes, we have all of those gifts mentioned above, both to the church and personal gifts, but it is in love we are being built up so that we are perfected in love as God is love.

Furthermore we see the possibility of this perfection when John writes in verse 17 that, “…as he is so are we in this world.”

To paraphrase this for greater insight, what John is saying is, “As Jesus is perfected in love, so are we perfected in love in this world.” Again this shows the necessity and the possibility of being perfected and built up in love.

The purpose of the gifts from God is to bring us to this place where we are perfected in love as God is love. No person will be able to be perfected in the love of God without the gifts. They are very important in this age we live in, but they will not be important, and indeed will not even exist in the next age when we live with Christ and the Father.

This is not to denigrate the gifts of God in any way. It is a simple statement of fact and it is written in the bible.

8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; 10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. (1 Corinthians 13:8-10)

We see here that the gifts of the spirit will indeed pass away and cease to exist when the perfect comes.

Think on this a moment. When you are with Christ and have face to face access with Him, will you need the imperfect knowledge of Christ that we currently have? Will speaking in tongues be necessary when we are perfect, for one of the primary purposes of speaking in tongues is to help us to walk in the Spirit to overcome our weaknesses.

When the perfect comes and we are perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect, we will no longer have any weaknesses, passions, lusts and desires that are so much a part of the human make-up. If these are gone, we will be living in the Spirit and no longer need to merely walk in the Spirit.

And who will need prophecy when we can ask the Lord directly and receive the answers we need?

But…the most important point in this section from 1 Corinthians 13 is at the start of verse 8.

Love never ends.

All of those gifts of the Spirit from God will pass away as they will not be needed when we are living with Christ in His eternal kingdom. But love will never cease.

That is why all of the gifts of God, whether ministry gifts to the church or spiritual gifts to individuals, are given for the sole purpose of bringing us into the love of God. We are constantly being built up in love so that we can live with God. And we are built up in love so that we can be joined and knit together as parts of the body of Christ, the bride of the King.

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