ReNEWed COVENANT Ministry

SABBATH BIBLE STUDY

5-29

(2019)

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Compiled by JS LOWTHER
renewedcovenantministry.com
servant@renewedcovenantministry.com

Ephesianism

(Gifts to Men)

Ephesians ch. 4:7-32

Get out your Bible turn to Ephesians and study to show your self approved …

Ephesianism ch. 4:7-32

In Christ we are given grace and flowing from this original grace(Eph_2:8-10):

Eph_4:7  …to each one of us receives according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
And then this Christological point is made as to explain Psa_68:18 and to fit it into the narrative spoken of in Ephesians thus far.
Eph_4:8  Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”
Eph 4:9  (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?
Eph 4:10  He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)

Paul is entirely placing the emphasis of Psa_68:18 and of the subject matter of the psalm on Christ while the Psalm places the emphasis upon YHWH in the giving of the Law at Sinai.
I think, it is impossible to understand the emphasis Paul is Christologically and Ecclesiologically making in these points without at least reading Psalm 68:18 in context which is used to support the gift we receive of Christ’s Grace ( to notice that we receive freely of Christ’s gift, and that we are not receiving freely of our own selves but through and in Christ and his descension and ascension. )
I am going to read a lengthy portion to show the context of Psalm 68, which Paul quotes word for word from the LXX (Brenton):
Psa_68:1  For the end, a Psalm of a Song by David.
Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered; and let them that hate him flee from before him.
Psa 68:2  As smoke vanishes, let them vanish: as wax melts before the fire, so let the sinners perish from before God.
Psa 68:3  But let the righteous rejoice; let them exult before God: let them be delighted with joy.
Psa 68:4  Sing to God, sing praises to his name: make a way for him that rides upon the west (the Lord (YAH) is his name) and exult before him. They shall be troubled before the face of him,
Psa 68:5  who is the father of the orphans, and judge of the widows: such is God in his holy place.

** Psa_68:6  God settles the solitary in a house; leading forth prisoners mightily, also them that act provokingly, even them that dwell in tombs. **
Psa 68:7  O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou wentest through the wilderness; Pause:
Psa 68:8  the earth quaked, yea, the heavens dropped water at the presence of the God of Sina, at the presence of the God of Israel. (10 commandments)
Psa 68:9  O God, thou wilt grant to thine inheritance a gracious rain; for it was weary, but thou didst refresh it.
Psa 68:10  Thy creatures dwell in it: thou hast in thy goodness prepared for the poor.
(Listen)
Psa 68:11  The Lord God will give a word to them that preach (the Gospel) it in a great company.
Psa 68:12  The king of the forces of the beloved, of the beloved, will even grant them for the beauty of the house to divide the spoils.
Psa 68:13  Even if ye should lie among the lots, ye shall have the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her breast with yellow gold.

Now in our KJV this verse is entirely different from the LXX but only in English renderings, it rather sounds as if we are speaking of more than one king, and this is because the Hebrew is MaLeKI (my King) and the Beloved is rather translated fled apace (this is a mis-rendering of the Hebrew word for beloved in confussion for the word for flee- H1730דֹּד   / DoD, meaning beloved into  H5074 נָדַד/nâdad meaning to flee or wave) but the LXX correctly translates for us more properly and with the fortification of the Beloved of Ephesians context which Paul is quoting from we can swiftly see the right choice as guided by the Apostle, that is that in the Eph Context ‘if you are the beloved of the King of the force ‘if ye should lie among the lots, ye shall have the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her breast with yellow gold… that is gifts to those whom he loves who are his inheritance, ‘his lot. (Eph_1:5-11)

Psa_68:14  When the heavenly One scatters kings upon it, they shall be made snow-white in Selmon.
Psa 68:15  The mountain of God is a rich mountain; a swelling mountain, a rich mountain.
Psa 68:16  Wherefore do ye conceive evil, ye swelling mountains? this is the mountain which God has delighted to dwell in; yea, the Lord will dwell in it for ever.
Psa 68:17  The chariots of God are ten thousand fold, thousands of rejoicing ones: the Lord is among them, in Sina, in the holy place.
Psa_68:18  Thou art gone up on high, thou hast led captivity captive, thou hast received gifts for man, yea, for they were rebellious, that thou mightest dwell among them.
Psa 68:19  Blessed be the Lord God, blessed be the Lord daily; and the God of our salvation shall prosper us. Pause.
Psa 68:20  Our God is the God of salvation; and to the Lord belong the issues from death.

Now, I would strongly encourage those of you who care about the context and meaning of Ephesians as Scripture to read the rest of the Psalm, because this context does not end with this thought, rather if you have been considering all of the connective language Paul has used from this Psalm 68; you will be blessed by the continuation of it, particularly in an English LXX which Paul is preaching Ephesians from to his Greek speaking brothers and sisters.

And so in many ways we are seeing the gift of Christ given to those in the Beloved, whose whom Christ has in the lot of His inheritance, those redeemed to his body, in fact his wife, the common-wealth and citzens of Israel .
It is to this group to which the Ephesian letter and the Psalm of David speak to being given to:
Eph_4:11  … the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
Eph 4:12  to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
Eph 4:13  until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
Eph 4:14  so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

The goal of the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers that he has given to his inheritance is to aid in the giving of the gift to them, to the holy ones, to build them up to the same holy temple told to us in Eph_2:20-22  and confirmed in Psalm 68.

Eph_4:15  Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
Eph 4:16  from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
(Remember the analogy of a body walking? Remember how it is all of the
One Body,
One Spirit
As we are called in
One hope of the call,

and that call goes all the way back to when you were called, when your eyes were enlightened and you have seen the one calling to you but had not heard with definition the words of the call (Eph_1:11-14):
You heard there was:
One Lord Jesus Christ descended and ascended from the heavens
One Faith which delivers Grace by which we are saved
One Baptism we live in the newness of life in, by which we put on our Christ’s uniform.
One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

These last 4 ‘Ones’ which we hold are points which we perfect in our knowledge which comes the Body we are part of which is part of Christ, these last 4 points are taught by those whom God has given us to preserve, write and publish his word as the entirety of this Gospel, and they and us are taught by the One Spirit, which both is the force and power of the message we read or hear, by way of the spirits work in the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, but as well it is the One Spirit which working in us to hear and communicate the word to our spiritual ears.

This happens ‘even as you were called to One Hope.
This is not a trivial doctrine, because a doctrine which teaches you must do ‘X’ or know ‘X’ perfectly before you can be the Called by the Spirit and be the Hopeful recipient of the call and thus be part of the predestined body, thereby being ‘holy and without blame before Him in Love’, being the very beloved’ a reversal of this specified order in Ephesians essentially undermines the communication of the Call we are called to, and then breaks down the church.(Done ignorantly or willfully)

My goal as a teacher of my family, and as a minister of the Gospel is to offer a defendable and solid foundation where you and I together can stand upon the word of God as absolute authority, trusting the every word as well as the flow of it, A faith not in need to cunningly devise interpretations of the scripture but allowing the narrative and flow of thought to teach us to gather, and minister to us, to give the gifts prepared for us by our king who has lead for us from our imprisoning tombs of death and who has in fact lead an appointed number of captives, a host of captives , an army of captives free from death to life in Him
Psa_68:11  The LORD GOD shall give discourse to the ones announcing good news for a great force.
And so we are admonished that in the body we are walking in by the Spirit we are given, and marching unto the call we hear and hope in, Paul says our walk is not the same walk as the Children of Wrath:

Eph_4:17  Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.
Eph 4:18  They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.
Eph 4:19  They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
Eph 4:20  But that is not the way you learned Christ!—

If you notice Psalm 68 beside this revelation you will see the tone of warfare, you will see the Psa_68:21  But God will strike the heads of his enemies, the hairy crown of him who walks in his guilty ways.

Walk!! to those who walks in a course or path of HIS OWN Guilt. To walk in the as the Gentiles do is a walk … which is with out spiritual judgment to think of things which will equip and build, to fitly frame or compact, produce growth and edify itself as a joined body in love:
but rather life in the road of guilt is
Empty minded
dark in understanding
Aliens from the life of God : through ignorance and through blindness of heart
This prior road we walked on was past feeling, given up to lust, and in the examination of the depth of this guilty road we coursed on which deserved God to strike through our head of flesh and empty its contents upon the dust, in the depth of that Alien life form we were greedy to practice every form of uncleanness or impure thing. We may have been reserved in it and have not even know in the depth of our being we were desiring what God deems unclean and impure for his Beloved inheritance because of our empty head and dark heart or Alien life, but nevertheless we did covet that which God’s Word says we are guilty by.
But that is not the way you learned Christ!—
Eph_4:21  assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus,
Eph 4:22  to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,
Eph 4:23  and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
Eph 4:24  and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

If you have been heard from the Word of God and were taught in him by His Spirit the truth
in Jesus you know that the life of a Christian, as a saint is not the same as the life of an alien Gentile. The walking life of a Christian doesn’t want to continue in the simplicity of just hoping to know One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism and One God the Father, we don’t want to know this with an empty mind, a dark heart and knowing the life of God still as an Alien, but rather we are called to take that man off which belongs to your former manner of life and to die to lust which deceived us …that is the old man.
The Saint and member of the body who has inherited by Christ, who is able to hear the word and be taught in Him is renewed in the spirit of your minds, that is by the one spirit
and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness that is the whole Hope of hearing the call to the one Body and continuation of the equipping made available in the spirit unto us as part of grace was given to each one member of the body according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
This new nature is taught according to the true righteousness and holiness of God which has been made available for us by the Word of God and able to be communicated to us by the aid of the spirit of promise which placed the seal of God upon our heart by Faith in hearing his word. To all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
Therefore in this new life by this renewed spirit of the mind, being this renewed man renewed in the image of God we:

Eph 4:25  Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.
Eph_4:26  Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,
Eph 4:27  and give no opportunity to the devil.
Eph 4:28  Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
Eph 4:29  Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
Eph 4:30  And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Eph 4:31  Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
Eph 4:32  Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.