Ephesians 2:20 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Ephesians 2:20

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Then the illustration changes again rapidly line by line. So we are citizens of a kingdom; we are members of a family, and we are also stones in a building. The building turns out to be a beautiful temple. You are a building, built upon a solid foundation. Of course, the building is the church, the people, not the literal bricks and mortar in which you worship.‘Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.’ Now traditionally, the view has always been that these are Old Testament prophets. But sometime in the 19^th century we began to notice much more chapter 3 and verse 5, where the apostle is speaking about his knowledge in the mystery of Christ – ‘Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.’ So this does rather strongly suggest that the prophets the apostle has in mind are New Testament prophets in this passage and not Old Testament prophets. But perhaps he refers to all prophets, and some feel that is very likely. There is another reference to New Testament prophets in chapter 4:11, so it is quite clear that here we have the apostles who were given the New Testament, and prophets working with them, and these form the foundation of the church. Once the Scripture was complete, the prophets were withdrawn; God gave no more prophets. Now the Scripture is finished; we have no need of prophets, but the church is based on the foundation of the word of God. Old Testament prophets, of course, foretold the church of Jesus Christ. Isaiah and Jeremiah have a great deal to say not only about Christ, but about his church and what it will look like. However, before the Scripture was completed – there were also prophets in the churches, properly authorised, though not huge numbers of them. We know from Acts 13:1 how few there were in the church at Antioch. God was also inspiring prophets to speak his word, and then, with the completion of Scripture, that prophecy came to an end. The gift of prophecy was withdrawn and it is no longer with us because we have all the teaching of God in the New Testament and the canon of Scripture is closed. And Jude verse 3 and the book of Revelation 22:18-19 say it is now finished, complete, entire, intact and must not be added to or taken away from.The apostle goes on in verse 20, ‘Christ himself being the chief corner stone.’ A corner stone, we now know, was part of the foundation and it rose above the earth-line, the line of the ground, and determined the angles and direction of the walls. Christ is the real foundation and his death on Calvary, which purchased salvation for us, but details of how the church should be constructed and how it should behave and what it should look like, are revealed by Christ through the apostles and prophets.

Application

Nowadays and historically, people have added to the foundation sometimes without realising it. When the Reformation crystalised originally in the Church of England, it had not really gone far enough. Even after it had been reformed, there were aspects of its practice, various rules and regulations, which were of human devising. They were not straight from the Scripture. Even when Cranmer and others had rediscovered the gospel, they included much of their own composition. The way they organised the clergy, the way they organised the church, the way they governed it, the way they conducted its worship. Many of the things that are in their worship today, and some of the things in the doctrine, are not in accordance fully with the New Testament. So the Church of England swerved right at the beginning from the revelation of Christ, the foundation which came through the apostles and the prophets.

You also find the Charismatics have done the same. So much of what goes on in many Charismatic circles has nothing to do with the Scripture at all. But there are many, many that are converted and we honour and respect that, and many who are very zealous and sincere. But they have had so many prophets and teachers in the last 30 to 40 years who have had revelations of their own and who have added to the word of God – you must do this, you must do this, you must do this – that strayed from the foundation. There is only one foundation and that is the complete New Testament, the complete Bible, the foundation of the apostle and prophets.

Questions

Elsewhere in Paul’s epistles, the foundation is Christ. Now he seems to have shifted his ground and he says as a church you are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Which is right? Well, there is no contradiction; it is both. You are built upon the doctrinal foundation of the apostles and prophets, what they taught. But it is Christ’s teaching which has been given to the apostles and prophets; they did not lay the foundation; they got it from Christ. He is after all the author and the very embodiment of the foundation, and so ultimately it rests upon Christ. It is just an elaboration.

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Introduction

Ephesians 2:20 Commentary and Bible Study

Explain meaning of Ephesians 2:20