but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head; Christ
—Ephesians 4:15

Continuing the theme of the Christian’s spiritual age and growing up, I would like to dwell in more detail on Ephesians chapter 4, which supposedly speaks of the Christian growing up spiritually. If you read the whole context of chapter 4, Paul is writing about the edifying of the church: “…He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” [Eph.4:11-12] Notice the words “the body of Christ”. That is, the whole process of growing up and growth is directed not at one individual Christian, but at the church, which is the Body of Christ.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.” [1 Cor.14:4] Here the word edifies [Greek oikodomeō], which literally means “to build, to erect”, is the same word as in Ephesians 4:12, which speaks of the edifying of the Body of Christ. And in another place too, when Paul writes about growth, he means the church: “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone, in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” [Eph.2:19-22] That is, when Paul writes about growth and reaching the full stature of Christ, he is not speaking of an individual Christian who has to reach some spiritual level, but of the growth of the church and the edifying of the Body of Christ. That is exactly what Paul writes to the Ephesians: “if indeed you have heard of the dispensation [literally, “house-building”] of the grace of God which was given to me for you.” [Eph.3:2]

The Lord has so arranged it that each of us is a member, and together we are the Body of our Lord, and so we cannot do without one another. “And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body.” [1 Cor.12:19-20] That is why the unity of the faith is connected with the full stature of Christ. [Eph.4:13] Literally it says there “the stature of the fullness of Christ”. And what is His fullness? To the same Ephesians it is written: “…the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” [Eph.1:22-23] The essence of growing up into the fullness of Christ is not some spiritual super-achievement of one individual — that resembles Gnosticism and New Age — but the growth of the church, because the church is His fullness, the fullness of Him who fills all in all [Eph.1:22-23]!