Ephesians 4:13 – The unity of the faith

…unto the end that we should all attain to the unity of the faith…

Paul writes from the prison about the gifts that the ascended Christ gave to the ecclesia. He would not continue to give those gifts;  he gives them “until” they would have fulfilled their function. As building-scaffolding disappears when the building is ready.

Since Christ’s ascension to the time when this epistle was recorded, it was a time of infancy (4:14). The ecclesia needed guidance from men who were deputized by Christ himself. Much of what had been preached as the Word of God was only known locally. Here a letter, there an essay and another book elsewhere. Moreover, not everything of God’s word was recorded (Col. 1;25).

The truth of faith that was available to “the saints” so far was fragmented and incomplete. But… it would not stay that way. Those whom Christ had deputed for that purpose would unite “the faith” (= the Word that should be believed). Once completed, the writings would be included in one ‘library’. That is what ‘the Bible’ is: a library (> biblia = books). Thank God, at the end of their lives, the apostles gathered their writings (2Tim.4:13; 2Pet.1;15) as their inheritance. In it we find “the unity of the faith”!

Delen: