The Messenger 2
Introduction
For as long as we live in this 4-dimensional world of space and time there is going to be an ongoing struggle between faith and our senses. Let me illustrate what I mean.
Jesus said “Lo, I am with you all the days – perpetually, uniformly and on every occasion – to the very close and consummation of the age” (Matt 28:20 – Amplified Bible).
It is a wonderful promise that Jesus made in that verse. But wonderful as it is, we would have to confess that we don’t always live as though it were true, do we?
So where does the problem lie? There are three possibilities. Either that promise isn’t real, or some sin in our life has muddied the waters, or faith has been squeezed out by our senses.
It surely can’t be because the Bible misrepresented what Jesus actually said. If that promise existed only in the mind and imagination of the writer then we find ourselves at a difficult place. We just can’t be sure when we read the Bible what to believe. On the other hand it could be because sin has separated us from Jesus. That is more than possible. But it is most likely to be because we have spent too little time filling our minds with God’s Word. That has left our senses with an easy victory in the battle of the mind.
What should we be doing? Spending more time focusing on the Word of God. When we do the Spirit renews our mind and gives faith the edge over our senses. But it will also enable us to discover just how practical, relevant and fascinating God’s Word really is.
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things” (Phil 4:8).
An Overview
Today we are going to begin looking at the message that comes out of the 2nd chapter of Ephesians. Soak it in. Let the Spirit instruct and renew your mind as you go through the reflection.
Before we get into a more detailed study of the passage, however, I want to begin with a broad overview. Let me suggest that you take a few minutes now to read through Ephesians 2.
Did you notice, as you were reading the passage, how its message falls under TWO main headings? We can summarise it as:
1. This is what you were: You were dead in your transgressions (verse 1); You followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air (verse 2); You gratified the cravings of your sinful nature and followed its desires and thoughts (verse 3); You were by nature an object of wrath (verse 3); You were separate from Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, a foreigner to the Covenant of Promise, without hope and without God in this world (vs. 12).
It may not be the way in which we thought of ourselves while we were outside of Christ. It may not be the way in which others thought of us. But it is, says Paul, how God saw us outside of Christ. And if we are going to appreciate what we have been saved into then we need to be clear what we have been saved from.
2. This is what you have become by grace: You were made alive with Christ (verse 5); You were raised up with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly realms (verse. 6); For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith (verse 8); You are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works (verse 10): You who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ (verse 13); You Gentile believers have been united with Jewish believers in one body (verses 14-16); You have access to the Father through the Spirit (verse18); You are fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household (verse 19); You have been built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets (verse 20); You are being built together with other believers to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit (verse22).
John Stott captures the essence of the message in that chapter:
“Against the sombre background of our world today, Ephesians 2 stands out in striking relevance. Paul first plumbs the depths of pessimism about man, and then rises to the height of optimism about God. It is this combination of pessimism and optimism, of despair and faith, which captures the refreshing realism of the Bible. For what Paul does in this passage is to paint a vivid contrast between what man is by nature and what he can become by grace.”
It is worth taking note of a comment Paul makes in his letter to the Church at Galatia:
“Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and trying to pervert the gospel of Christ” (Gal 1:7).
Given the essentials of the gospel message Paul highlights in Ephesians 2, it is easy to see why some preachers would be tempted to take a more popular route in their presentation of the gospel. In the process, however, they pervert the gospel. And nothing perverts it more than when grace is cheapened by an over-emphasis on spiritual experiences while downplaying doctrine, or by highlighting the optimism of faith in God without also focusing on the pessimism of man. By diluting or ignoring those essential spiritual foundations that Paul is so careful to articulate in Ephesians 2, the preacher may ensure his personal popularity, but at what cost to the hearers?
Notice in chapter 2 how Paul moves us from the pessimism of man to the optimism of faith in God – “But God….” he says (verse 4), “But now in Christ….” he says in verse 13). Against the dark, sombre background of man’s hopelessness, Paul points us to the miracle of God’s undeserving love and mercy. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saves a wretch like me!”
In our next reflection we will keep that grace in mind as we take a closer look at how God sees us outside of Christ.
If you have a question or a comment about this series please feel free to write to me, Brian, at
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The Messenger 2
Introduction
The contents of Ephesians chapter two, as we saw in the previous reflection, can be summarised under two main headings:
This is what you were; this is what you have become by grace.
Today we are going to focus on what we were outside of Christ – outside of our union with Jesus.
Some people spend all their life trying to escape from the person others see them as or from the person they see themselves as. They can even appear to be reasonably successful in their attempts to reinvent themselves. It is amazing what positive thinking and positive attitudes can achieve. Others, on the other hand, are not so successful. They live their whole life in the shadow of the negative opinions they have of themselves or the negative opinions others have of them.
But whatever front we may present to the world, failure or success, God looks on the heart of man and He sees what neither we see in ourselves nor others see in us. And not any of the masks we may wear, not all the positive thinking we may cultivate can change one single thing that God sees. And what does He see? Let’s remind ourselves of that summary in the previous reflection. He sees us as:
Dead in our transgressions; following the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air; gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. He sees us as someone who by nature is an object of wrath; separate from Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, a foreigner to the Covenant of Promise, being without hope and without God in this world.
It is certainly not a flattering image of the human race, is it? In fact Paul goes so far as to describe man outside of Christ as having been an enemy of God (Rom.5:10). He has certainly, to quote John Stott, plumbed the depths of pessimism about man.
What prompted God to act?’
If that is what we were; if that is how God saw us – and such an image of man must have been utterly repugnant to a holy, righteous God – what was it that moved God to give us a second chance?
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions….” (2:4-5).
There it is then – God’s love and mercy. Despite what was in us, it was what was in Him that moved God to reach out and rescue us. Love and mercy!
How do we define the love that characterises the nature of God? “God’s love can only be known from the actions that it prompts. It is seen in the gift of His Son. But obviously this is not the love of complacency, or affection, that is , it was not drawn by any excellency in the objects of His love. It was an exercise of the Divine will in deliberate choice, made without assignable cause save that which lies in the nature of God Himself” (W.E.Vine). How well Vine expresses God’s love when he writes “it was made without assignable cause save that which lies in the nature of God Himself.”
‘Mercy’ in the New Testament is from the Greek word eleos. W.E. Vine in his Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words defines eleos as “the outward manifestation of pity; it assumes need on the part of him who receives it, and resources adequate to meet the need on the part of him who shows it.”
The love and mercy of God – how gloriously they stand out against the backdrop of the Bible’s pessimism about man. And what a challenge to the Church. “Jesus leaving Heaven to come to Earth to seek and save broken people in a fallen world is the basis by which we MUST be willing to leave the four corners of our church buildings to engage the world and seek justice for the oppressed” (Philadelphia Project). Irrespective of what is in others, it is what is in us who claim Christ lives in us that ought to prompt our actions of love and mercy.
No hymn that I can think of encapsulates the depths of God’s love and mercy better than the one written and composed by Frederick Lehman. It is entitled The Love of God. It has three verses. I want to share with you the first and the last verses:
The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell; it goes beyond the highest star, and reaches to the lowest hell; The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win; His erring child He reconciled, and pardoned from his sin.
CHORUS:
O love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall for evermore endure, the saints’ and angels’ song.
Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made. Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.
That last verse, incidentally, was written nearly one thousand years ago by a Jewish songwriter and was put on the score page by Frederick Lehman, a Gentile songwriter.
Paul has reminded his readers that what they were is, as the tense clearly indicates, something that is now in the past. In Christ God has been merciful. In Christ the past is forgiven and forgotten.
“Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea” (Mic. 7:18-19).
Ephesians chapter two has indeed plumbed the depths of pessimism about man. But the letter never leaves us there. Against the backdrop of what we were, it takes us to the heights of optimism about God that fills us with a sense of awe and gratitude at the sheer magnitude of God’s love and mercy in Christ.
Have you ever heard someone say “I can forgive what was done against me but I can never forget?” Maybe you have said it yourself. But God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, not only forgives those who turn to Him in repentance and faith, but He remembers their sin no more (cf. Heb 8:12). Or as Micah reminds us – “He hurls them into the depths of the sea.”
If you have a question or a comment about this series please feel free to write to me, Brian, at
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The Messenger 3
Introduction
In your reading of Ephesians chapter 2, and we touched on this already, you may have noticed two things: firstly, the contrast that Paul makes here between ‘the natural man’ and ‘the spiritual man’ and, secondly, the distinction between the personal dimension of the salvation message in the first half of the chapter and the broader aspect of the salvation message with its emphasis on the church that appears in the second half. If you haven’t picked that up before take a few moments to go through that chapter again.
Now as we continue you will begin to see just how significant for our understanding of the message of Ephesians those two points are.
From natural man to spiritual man
In his dialogue with the Pharisee, Nicodemus, Jesus was wanting him to see this clear distinction between the natural man with its limitations and the spiritual man.
“Jesus answered, ‘I tell you the truth, no man can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh (the natural man or woman), but the Spirit gives birth to spirit (the spiritual man or woman)’” (John 3:5-6).
In summarising the meaning of ‘natural man’ Stephen Motyer refers to those lower aspects of our human nature that “mark us off as creature. As temporarily and spatially confined, as limited to this worldly, ‘fleshy’ modes of perception that cannot penetrate the world of the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor.2:14ff).”
It is a fact that in this world there are there are some very clever, wise, successful, sophisticated and cultured people who would fall under the category of being a natural man or woman. And it is true that in this world we often owe a great deal to what these people have achieved. But with all their natural human abilities, talents and achievements, they remain men and women who are unable to penetrate the world of the Spirit. To such people all those who proclaim salvation through the cross of Christ, who profess a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and the Father, and who express their joy in songs of praises might as well be talking an alien language. As Paul points out to his readers in his letter to the Corinthian Church:
“The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them” (1 Cor. 2:14).
Paul’s statement and Stephen Motyer’s summarising of the natural man are reminders that without the sovereign intervention of God we remain in a state of lostness, cut off from the true purpose of our existence on this earth, unable to penetrate the world of the Spirit. This is the point Jesus was making to Nicodemus. Despite his being a high-ranking Pharisee and a spiritual leader, Nicodemus could neither see nor enter the Kingdom of God unless and until he was born again.
It is this contrast between the unregenerate natural man and the regenerated spiritual man that sums up Ephesians chapter 2. The former is excluded by virtue of his or her nature, the latter included by virtue of what God has done in his or her life.
The challenge
Chapter 2 does not deal with the challenges that come with our being a regenerated spiritual man or woman. It is something we will only pick up further on in Paul’s letter. However, because I don’t want to see these reflections ending up as little more than a theoretical exercise, I want to encourage you to think about the practical outworking of being a spiritual man or woman in our world today. What are the challenges we are being left with in that first half of chapter 2?
As I said before, our being ‘born again’ is not simply about going to heaven when we die. Yes, it is that, but there is more. It is also about how we live out our life in this world so that others can see Christ in us. Ours in not a mere verbal profession of faith – it involves a visual expression of a life that is demonstrably different from the one we had outside of Christ. If it is not that then why does Paul bother to point out in his letter – this is what you were outside of Christ and this is what you have now become in Christ? In verse 10 he writes “We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared for us in advance to do.” No escaping the challenge that comes with our being in Christ, is there?
Think for a moment what we face in this life as a spiritual man or woman. Spiritually we may be in the Kingdom of God yet physically we still live in this world. The challenge we face is how we balance the responsibilities we have in both realms. How do we prioritise those responsibilities? And every day we experience the pressure of conforming to this world’s norms, values, attitudes and standards of behaviour that often are in conflict with our having been set apart for God. So how do we handle it? How do we ensure that we think and act as born-again, spiritual men and women though we live in an alien world that neither accepts nor understands spiritual things?
Enthusiasm is not going to be enough for the pressures of this life will gradually wear us down and quench our enthusiasm. Religious devotion is not enough for it will ultimately leave us, if not filled with self-righteousness, then devoid of the spontaneous joy of someone who has been chosen, redeemed, forgiven, adopted into God’s family, made privy to the mysteries of God, included in Christ, sealed with the Holy Spirit and who has had God’s grace lavished upon them. So what is the answer?
The answer to the challenge of being a spiritual man or woman living in this physical world is found in one verse in a later part of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. It is found in the divine imperative in Eph. 5:18 – “Be filled (literally – go on being filled daily) with the Spirit.
In his book “What does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit?” John MacArthur tells how ”in the summer of 1872 near Dublin, Ireland, two prominent evangelists were discussing ministry. The two men were the British evangelist Henry Varley and the renowned American evangelist Dwight L. Moody. Their conversation contains one of the best-remembered quotes attributed to the life and times of Moody. The remark affected him for the rest of his life. The morning after an all-night prayer meeting, as the two men strolled around the grounds of the mansion where the meeting had been held, Varley uttered a brief but thought-provoking statement to Moody. This is how Moody recorded it in one of his diaries: ‘The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.’. . . A man! Varley meant any man. Varley didn’t say he had to be educated, or brilliant, or anything else. Just a man. Well, by the Holy Spirit in me I’ll be that man.’”
“By the Spirit in me I will be that man” said Moody. Listen carefully. God may be speaking to you right now and saying to you “If you want to be a spiritual man or woman in this world fulfilling my calling on your life; if you want to live in this world but not let the world shape your thinking or your behaviour then let my Spirit living in you fill you and go on filling you moment by moment, day by day.”
Here are the first two verses of a spiritual song by Keith Getty and Stuart Townsend. If your heart’s desire is to live in this world as a spiritual man or woman make this your prayer:
Holy Spirit, living Breath of God,
Breathe new life into my willing soul.
Bring the presence of the risen Lord
To renew my heart and make me whole.
Cause Your Word to come alive in me;
Give me faith for what I cannot see;
Give me passion for Your purity.
Holy Spirit, breathe new life in me.
Holy Spirit, come abide within;
May Your joy be seen in all I do—
Love enough to cover every sin
In each thought and deed and attitude,
Kindness to the greatest and the least,
Gentleness that sows the path of peace.
Turn my striving into works of grace.
Breath of God, show Christ in all I do.
If you have a question or a comment about this series please feel free to write to me, Brian, at
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The Messenger 4
Introduction
You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ. For in scripture it says – ‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone….’” (1 Peter 2:5-6).
Those words from Peter’s letter have captured the theme of the second half of Ephesians 2. If you read that chapter of Ephesians from verse 11 to the end you will notice how the focus has moved away from the personal dimensions of salvation with its emphasis on what we have become in Christ. It is now focused on what God is building. He is building writes Paul “a dwelling in which He lives by His Spirit” (verse22) with Jesus as the cornerstone and those in Christ as the living stones. Here Jesus is portrayed “not solely or mainly as the saviour of each individual soul but rather as ‘gathering up’ all humanity in Himself” (CJ Ellicott).
Remember
Paul, in this second part of chapter 2, has painted “a vivid contrast between the double alienation the Gentiles endured before Christ – an alienation from God and from Israel – and their double reconciliation through Christ. For by His death Christ demolished the Jew-Gentile and God-man barriers, and is now creating in relation to Himself a single, new, multi-cultured, human society which is both the family he loves and the temple He lives in. Paul’s Gentile readers must have read with amazement the exposition of the gospel of peace” (John Stott).
To help his Gentile readers appreciate this ‘double alienation’ and this ‘double reconciliation’ Paul exhorts them to think back to what they had been outside of their union with Christ. “Remember” he says in verses 11 and 12 – “remember that as Gentiles you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel (the People of God) and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ….”
But now in Christ! God’s long-term plan was beginning to come together and that plan included the Gentiles. A double alienation had become a double reconciliation
Bridging the religious divide
God did not choose Israel to be His people because they were bigger, stronger, wiser or more loved than the people of other nations. God wanted an instrument through which He could bring salvation to this world. So He began by choosing Israel and making them His covenant people. “I will be your God and you will be my people” He had said to the nation of Israel.
Did they disappoint Him? Yes they did. Did they sometimes rebel against Him? Yes they did. But God had bound Himself to them by a covenant. And through all their tumultuous history God never left Himself without a witness in the nation. And then in the fullness of time, when the time was right, a son was born into a Jewish family and was given the name Jesus. Salvation had come into the world. But salvation was not just for the Jews. That was never God’s plan. Before completing His earthly ministry Jesus gave a clear mandate to His disciples – “Go and make disciples of all nations….”(Mat. 28:19).
From the early chapters of Luke’s Book of Acts, however, it would appear that the disciples were in no hurry to take the Gospel to all nations. If we had been in their shoes we would probably have been no different. After all, as most of us know from our own experience, it is easier to stick with what one knows and feels comfortable with than venture into the unknown. And crossing social, cultural, religious and geographical barriers is never easy. How long the Jerusalem Church would have remained insular in its outlook is impossible to say, but two things happened to get the Church of the 1st century moving. A persecution of Christians in Jerusalem drove many of them out of their comfort zone (Acts 8:1 & 4) and an arch-enemy of the Church, Saul of Tarsus, a zealous orthodox Pharisee, was suddenly and dramatically converted. It he who was to become the Church’s greatest champion (Acts 9) and played a pivotal role in taking the Gospel to the Gentiles across the Roman Empire.
Some challenging conclusions
In our next reflection I want us to examine the contents of 2:11-22 in more depth. For now, however, allow me to draw some challenging and interesting conclusions from what we have looked at so far in that second half of the chapter.
1. Salvation is not just about God and me. It is not just about God and you. While there is no mistaking the personal dimension to salvation, it also has the broader dimension of that which God is building – His Church. All those in Christ become the ‘living stones’ out of which God shapes His Church. It is important that we hold in tension these two dimensions of salvation so that we neither miss the personal need for repentance and faith nor the corporate implications of our salvation as God builds us together to become a dwelling in which He lives by His Spirit. You have been saved not just for your sake but for His sake.
2. God’s plan of salvation came to fruition through His chosen People, the Jews, but His plan in choosing Israel was to make salvation available to all nations.
3. “No Christian can be anti-Semitic. Christ was a Jew, and that by divine intent. In a conversation with a Samaritan woman, Jesus declared: ‘Salvation is from the Jews’ (John 4:22). All people are indebted to the Hebrew nation for the Saviour” (Christian Courier).
4. Nothing, no force on earth or in hell, will ultimately thwart the plans and purposes of God for His Church. Whatever obstacles may appear to stand in the way of God’s plans He will find a way to overcome them. What God has purposed He will accomplish. In the midst of all the chaos in the world today and all the divisions in the Church hold on to that. Sometimes when we look at the divisions in the Church it is impossible to imagine how the Church could rise ‘to become a holy temple in the Lord.’
5. We don’t choose with whom we will be united as believers – God does.
Cheap grace
I want to refer to the phrase cheap grace coined by the German Theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book entitled “The Cost of Discipleship” It is a term that accurately portrays the way in which many churches today are presenting the Gospel of salvation.
Bonhoeffer makes the point in his book that as more and more people adopted the Christian Faith, the Church became ‘secularised.’ It began to adapt the biblical demands of obedience to Jesus to the accepted norms of secular society. It lost the sense that Christianity in effect is and always has been counter-culture. Christianity, however, is seldom presented today as a radical call to discipleship. Instead the Gospel with its emphasis on grace is being cheapened by adapting it to accommodate the lowest common denominator. The result? People are tempted into thinking that they can simply add Jesus to their life without really having to change in any discernible way.
“Obedience to the living Christ was gradually lost beneath formula and ritual, so that in the end grace could literally be sold for monetary gain.” Think of the Church selling indulgences in the time of Luther.
And that, I feel, is a good place on which to end today’s reflection.
If you have a question or a comment about this series please feel free to write to me, Brian, at
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The Messenger 5
Introduction
How the Gospel affects each of us personally is very much to the fore in chapter one and the first half of chapter two. But, as we have begun to see, the emphasis has shifted in the second half of chapter two from the personal to the corporate dimension of God’s purpose for the Church. Gentile believers and Jewish believers have been brought together in Christ through the cross, both ‘having access to the Father by one Spirit’ (v 18). Out of the two God is building His Church.
Holding in tension both the personal and the corporate dimensions of salvation is essential for a balanced and truly biblical expression of the Gospel. Emphasising only the personal dimensions of its message diminishes and undermines the purpose of the Gospel. It portrays the Gospel as something that serves our personal interests only and not God’s.
Yes, we need always to hold on to that great truth that God loves the individual and has a unique plan for each of us. It is out of that great love for us even while we were sinners that the Father has reached out to us in Jesus to address the deepest needs within the human soul. But it is also the purpose of the Father to take us on a journey of faith into the broader dimensions of His plan for the Church. This, too, is an expression of His infinite love for He is inviting us to become an integral part of what He is building. And what He is building is not made from bricks and mortar but, as Peter reminds us, from living stones – men and women who are in Christ, in union with Christ, and who are filled with the Holy Spirit.
God is building a house
Paul uses three fascinating images to express what God is building. In verses 19-22 he speaks of it as God’s household (v 19), as a holy temple in the Lord (v 21) and as a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit (v 22). It is clear that in each of those expressions of what He is building, God is not only the builder but also the architect with believers as the living stones out of which the building is being put together
Think about those images for a moment. What do they have in common? What thoughts does God want to convey in those images?
The presence of God and unity among believers are two thoughts that stand out. Let’s spend a while reflecting on that because it is going to impact on how we meet for worship, where we meet for worship and our attitude to other believers who meet separately from us.
Special buildings dedicated to worship have long played a role in Christianity, some extremely elaborate in their design. The world, unbelievers among them, may admire beautiful places of worship – cathedrals. temples and churches. Some of these beautiful buildings have stood for centuries. People may marvel at their architecture, at their intricacy and aesthetic beauty. It requires no faith on their part to do so. But however aesthetically pleasing the building may be to the human eye God, as the martyr Stephen reminds us in the Book of Acts, does not dwell in buildings made by human hands:
“The Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says: ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me?’” says the Lord (Acts 7:48-49).
I am not suggesting that church buildings are wrong or that we abandon them because of what Stephen’s words bring to our attention. What I do want to emphasise, however, is that it is not the building but the presence of the Lord that defines the real place of worship. Beautiful buildings are no guarantee of the presence of God. It is what God is doing in the hearts of the people who gather there that ensures His presence. Without that presence even the most beautiful of church buildings loses its meaning and purpose and becomes as lifeless as a mausoleum.
To bring this point home I want to refer to something that took place in the beginning of the 20th century at a singularly insignificant building in Azusa Street, Los Angeles, California.
“The group from Bonnie Brae Street eventually discovered an available building at 312 Azusa Street in downtown Los Angeles, which had originally been constructed as an African Methodist Episcopal Church in what was then a black ghetto part of town. The rent was $8.00 per month. A newspaper referred to the downtown Los Angeles building as a ‘tumble down shack’. Since the church had moved out, the building had served as a wholesale house, a warehouse, a lumberyard, stockyards, a tombstone shop, and had most recently been used as a stable with rooms for rent upstairs. It was a small, rectangular, flat-roofed building, approximately 60 feet (18 m) long and 40 feet (12 m) wide, totalling 2,400 square feet (220 m2), sided with weathered whitewashed clapboards. The only sign that it had once been a house of God was a single Gothic-style window over the main entrance.
“Discarded lumber and plaster littered the large, barn-like room on the ground floor. Nonetheless, it was secured and cleaned in preparation for services. They held their first meeting on April 14, 1906. Church services were held on the first floor where the benches were placed in a rectangular pattern. Some of the benches were simply planks put on top of empty nail kegs. There was no elevated platform, as the ceiling was only eight feet high. Initially there was no pulpit. Frank Bartleman, an early participant in the revival, recalled that ‘Brother Seymour generally sat behind two empty shoe boxes, one on top of the other. He usually kept his head inside the top one during the meeting, in prayer. There was no pride there…. In that old building, with its low rafters and bare floors…’
“By mid-May 1906, anywhere from 300 to 1,500 people would attempt to fit into the building. Since horses had very recently been the residents of the building, flies constantly bothered the attendees. People from a diversity of backgrounds came together to worship: men, women, children, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, rich, poor, illiterate, and educated. People of all ages flocked to Los Angeles with both scepticism and a desire to participate. The intermingling of races and the group’s encouragement of women in leadership was remarkable, as 1906 was the height of the ‘Jim Crow’ era of racial segregation, and fourteen years prior to women receiving suffrage in the United States.
“Worship at 312 Azusa Street was frequent and spontaneous with services going almost around the clock. Among those attracted to the revival were not only members of the Holiness Movement, but also Baptists, Mennonites, Quakers, and Presbyterians. An observer at one of the services wrote these words: No instruments of music are used. None are needed. No choir- the angels have been heard by some in the spirit. No collections are taken. No bills have been posted to advertise the meetings. No church organization is back of it. All who are in touch with God realise as soon as they enter the meetings that the Holy Ghost is the leader” (Taken from an article in Wikipedia).
What took place at Azusa Street was an exceptional event and is certainly not something we can imitate although some people try. The point I am making, however, is that it is not where we meet but how we meet and whether God presence is there that defines what God is building. Things happen when God is manifestly present amongst His people. People get convicted of sin, lives change, healings take place, the captives are set free and people worship freely.
“And in Him (Jesus) you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.”
In our next reflection we shall be looking at how God is able to take a disparate group of people and bring about an amazing unity as He fits the living stones together.
If you have a question or a comment about this series please feel free to write to me, Brian, at
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The Messenger 6
Introduction
Since we began with these reflections on Ephesians we have been focusing on the profound depths of God’s plan of salvation. The sheer grandeur of what we find in the first chapter defies all human imagination. Its message lifts the human spirit to new heights of worship and leaves us with a sense of overwhelming gratitude towards this great, holy, gracious and awe-inspiring God.
In chapter two we learn about God’s decisive action in Christ to restore what had been fragmented and alienated from Himself. We see God gathering unto Himself a new humanity as a “dwelling in which He lives by His Spirit.” Paul reminds his Gentile readers that they too are included in this great plan. Formerly alienated from both God and Israel they have been reconciled to God in Christ and brought into this glorious new humanity.
In all of this it is the Father’s ultimate intention in the ages to come to show the incomparable riches of His grace expressed in His kindness to us in Christ.
Jesus the Cornerstone
We turn our thoughts now to the final verses of chapter two, verses 19 – 22:
Consequently, you (Gentile believers) are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. With Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone. In Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.
In the process of reassuring Gentile believers of their inclusion in God’s plan for His people Paul has left us with three interesting images of the Church: God’s household (family); a building that is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Jesus as the chief cornerstone; a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit. All three of those images are intended to highlight the importance of unity in God’s Church and the fact that it is God’s unique creation and His unique possession.
As we look at the history of the Church and the many and often conflicting expressions of church life, it is not always easy to see the kind of unity that is reflected in those verses. Nor is it easy to think of the Church as God’s unique creation and possession. After all the gap between the various expressions of today’s church is vast. Differences range from the traditional, liturgical churches led by a minister in robes to the informal churches with their music bands and charismatic worship styles led by a Pastor (the title by which some like to be called), some of whom seem happy to preach in an open-neck shirt and a pair of jeans; from the ultra serious to the ultra light-hearted; from the 10-minute read sermon to the various preaching styles that characterise the more modern church.
Elizabeth Esther has drawn up an amusing list of ten preacher types that she has listened to over 32 years. She put the list on her blog. Let me just touch on a few: the soap-box preacher who has a pet doctrine he likes to work into every sermon; the “get high on god” preacher who considers his preaching a success if everyone is moved to tears; the prosperity preacher who promises that following Jesus equals lots of material “blessings”; the meddler whose favourite topic is sin and who uses your problems as sermon illustrations.
It all seems confused and confusing and light-years away from the early church. The late Selwyn Hughes in an edition of his Everyday with Jesus had this to say: “The task of the Christian Church is not to invent new gospels, new moralities, or new theologies, but to be the faithful guardian of the one and only Gospel. There is a need, I think, for another reformation, for all Christians to take a stand foursquare on the Word of God, as did Martin Luther, and say with him: ‘Here I stand. I can no other.’”
I want to add my own “amen” to that statement. But let me be clear about something. Being a faithful guardian of that one and only Gospel does not mean that we cannot modernise the methods and strategies of presenting the message in our contemporary world. The challenge the Church faces, however, is how to present the Gospel message in a contemporary way without compromising the integrity of the message that God has entrusted to it nor detracting from the awesomeness of a holy God. So how does the Church remain relevant to this generation while still, in the words of Selwyn Hughes, standing foursquare on the Word of God?
The Christian youth organisation, Youth for Christ, has a tagline that I believe successfully embraces this challenge – “Geared to the times, anchored to the rock.” Commenting on this tagline in his blog, Dave Bartlett, a former fulltime worker within the organisation, writes – “methods and strategies in ministry will continue to change but the message of the cross will never change.”
New methods and strategies in ministry will not only impact the way in which the Gospel is shared but ultimately begin to impact how the Church is shaped in the 21st century. So how are we meant to distinguish today between what can change and what should never change? How do we decide which change is right and which is not? In other words, how do we determine what changes are acceptable to God and what aren’t?
In verse 20 Paul speaks of Jesus as the chief cornerstone of the building. “The cornerstone was the major stone that was set down. It had to be so large to support the super structure. It had to be so accurate because the walls were all conformed to the angle of that stone. And every other block in the entire building fit into that stone. So the cornerstone was the thing that framed everything. It was the thing to which everything was adapted. The cornerstone was the support, the unifier, the connector, the strength giver, it was everything. And that is Jesus Christ……..And notice it says that the foundation then is built of the apostles and prophets. Now we could say then that the foundation is the apostles and prophets and that would be true in a sense, but I think more accurate than that is the fact that they laid the foundation. In Greek, for those Greek students who might be here, we would call it a subjective genitive. And we would say what it means is not so much that the apostles and the prophets are the foundation as that they laid it” (John MacArthur).
In structuring the church and in proclaiming the message today there is a flexibility when it comes to non-essentials – methods, styles and strategies. In the essentials, however, we are to make certain that we do not compromise the integrity of what God is putting together nor the integrity of the doctrine laid down through the New Testament apostles and prophets. Whatever we are doing in shaping the Church it needs to be checked out to see if it lines up with the chief Cornerstone. Whatever is being preached from the pulpit needs to be checked out against the doctrines laid down through the New Testament apostles and prophets. And if we are being built together, as the Word teaches us, to become a place where God dwells by His Spirit, is His Spirit really present when we come together? Or is reliance on the Spirit being replaced by a reliance on human dynamics, church traditions and a good entertainer for a preacher?
Churchgoers can be extremely gullible at time and can get carried away by every novel teaching and doctrine. The Berean Christians of Paul’s time set us an example that we could all follow (Acts 17:11). We need to take responsibility to ensure that what is being taught, proclaimed, received and practiced in the church today lines up with the Cornerstone and checks out with the doctrines of the New Testament apostles and prophets if we are truly to be “geared to the times and anchored to the Rock.”
If you have a question or a comment about this series please feel free to write to me, Brian, at