Living stones, I presume? How to live the privilege of being God’s temple (Ephesians 4:1-16 and Psalms)
The false dichotomy of theology
and practical application
It is almost a truism that Ephesians 1-3 are about
theology and Ephesians 4-6 give us the practical response to that theology. There
seems to be a clear shift in Ephesians 4:1: “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord,
urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”
We are no longer merely in the realm of describing the “calling”, but are moving
beyond it, to what a “manner worthy of the calling” might look like.
Having said that, Paul does not leave theology behind
here. Instead, for the next few chapters, Paul keeps highlighting the wonderful
truths from the rest of the book and applying them to the lives of the Ephesians.
In so doing, he magnifies the privileges of the Gentiles’ inclusion more and more
in various different ways.
To start with, he focusses on the privilege of being
God’s dwelling place. Rather than continuing to use the language of the temple,
Paul increases the level of privilege and states that this united Church is in fact
Christ’s body (4:12). The body metaphor, however, doesn’t replace the idea that
God’s people are his dwelling place, it simply adds to it. As usual, we can tell
more clearly what Paul is saying because of his use of the Old Testament.
Psalm 68
Psalm 68 is quoted in Ephesians 4:8. It is quoted
very slightly differently to the manuscripts we now have of either the Hebrew or
Greek versions of Psalm 68. Specifically, Paul has written that God “gave” gifts,
rather than “received” gifts. Though this is not how our manuscripts have preserved
Psalm 68:18, this idea is clearly present within Psalm 68, which says “Awesome is
God from his sanctuary; the God of Israel - he is the one who gives power and strength
to his people”. God gives to his people in Psalm 68, and Paul is using the same
idea here. At the time of Psalm 68, David and his musicians were rejoicing at God
equipping them, both with the strength to defeat their enemies (68:1-2, 11-12 et
al), and with people to help sing His praises in the sanctuary (68:24-25).
Why this Psalm?
There are hints that Psalm 68 is a celebration of
the same part of Israel’s history as we looked at previously - 1 Chronicles 15-16 (and 2 Samuel 6). This clearly comes after a military victory, whilst the tribes
of Israel were still united (68:27) and there is rejoicing at the permanent dwelling
place of God (68:16), even mentioning the “temple at Jerusalem” which is now a possibility
(68:29). This seems to fit the bill as the time when the ark of the covenant was
returned to Israel, after it had been captured by the Philistines, and just after
David had gained control of Jerusalem.
This means that wherever Psalm 68 allusions come
up in Ephesians, there is strong “It’s Coming Home” energy. As with the possible
links to 1 Chronicles 16, links to Psalm 68 make an Old Testament lover think about
the dwelling place of God being restored to its rightful location.
As well as all this, there’s another good reason
that Paul might have chosen Psalm 68, rather than other important Psalms relating
to the temple (for example Psalm 30, which, like the latter chapters of 1 Chronicles,
shows the immense amount of preparation David made for the construction of the temple,
even though he knew it would not be built in his own lifetime). Psalm 68 makes sense,
because it comes just after a number of Psalms which are explicitly about the inclusion
of the nations in God’s blessings. “All flesh shall come” to God (65:2), who is
the hope of “all the end of the earth and of the farthest seas” (65:5). He is the
one “all the earth” (66:1) should shout to and all “peoples” (66:8) should bless.
It is because of Him that “the nations be glad and sing for joy” (67:4). It is in
the context of this international proclamation of God’s character (see also 68:29
and 68:32) that this wonderful song about God’s dwelling place is put by the compiler
of the Psalter. What an excellently Ephesians-y passage for Paul to get his readers
to think of at this point.
Other hints of the melody of Psalm
68
And there do seem to be a few references to Psalm
68. The Greek version of the Psalm ends with the exact “Blessed be God” that Ephesians1:3 starts with. We also have “Blessed be the Lord” in 68:19, which is one verse
after the verse quoted in Ephesians 4. As well as this, the word for “heavens”,
which is usually translated “the heavenly places” in Ephesians 1:3, has only one
occurrence in the whole Old Testament, which is in Psalm 68:14 (translated as Almighty
- i.e. the heavenly one who is almighty), and has another near relation in Psalm68:33 (what is translated for us as “in the heavens”, effectively separating out
the two parts of the Ephesians 1:3 word for “heavens” with the “the” in the middle).
Ephesians 1:3-14, then, starts, and is constantly
punctuated by, tiny snippets of references to Psalm 68 and 1 Chronicles 16, two
different songs which celebrate the arrival of God’s dwelling place to where it
should be. Ephesians is laced with references to the Biblical equivalent of “It’s Coming Home”. And this is also what he chooses to quote from in Ephesians 4. So,
as Paul increases the privilege from being part of God’s dwelling place to Christ’s
body here on earth, he doesn’t leave the temple imagery behind, but rather fuses
the ideas together. As he’d written back in chapter 2:21, this is a living, growing
temple, just as it is a living, growing body (4:12-16).
Living out the privilege
Much of Paul’s “instructional” teaching is itself
a reminder, and an expansion, of the radical theology he has already been teaching.
The Ephesians are certainly supposed to follow these instructions, but this isn’t
just because they’ve been given something good and they ought to as a grateful response.
The logic of 4:1-16 seems to suggest that their privilege continues to increase
as they speak the truth in love. The living temple-body grows as they build each
other up through truthful and loving words. That is where the passage culminates
in 4:15-16.
So much more could be said about Ephesians 4:1-16,
and the beautiful picture it gives of a church:
·
The “unity” would be massively countercultural in
the fractious Gentile world the Ephesians would have come from (it seems likely
that the “unity” in 4:3 is between Gentiles and other Gentiles, as that is who the
letter seems to be addressed to - cf. 2:11, 3:1 - rather than between Gentiles and
Jewish people, though the text is not super clear either way here).
·
This is a really odd place in which the “gifts”
given are people, rather than competencies, and they are given to the whole church
collectively, rather than to individuals, which is a different usage to, for example,
1 Corinthians 12-14 or Romans 12.
·
It’s also a really important passage for shaping
our understanding of what a church meeting is all about. Rather than the sermon
or talk being the main event, it is instead the “team talk” before the main event
- the church itself going out and talking to one another and building each other
more and more into the glorious dwelling place of Christ. This has huge implications
for everyone, whether we’re the ones giving the talk or the ones listening to it.
Quite rightly, there are a huge number of practical implications of Ephesians 4:1-16. But, while we live them out in our daily lives, we mustn’t lose the sense of privilege that it keeps reminding us of. Ephesians doesn’t merely “get practical” half-way through. It continues to be richly theological throughout.
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