God Spoke To Me

 

 

God Spoke To Me

Special Revelation and Sufficiency of Scripture

Many today, and throughout the history of Christ’s church, have sought to fadd their words to those of Scripture. We see the self-proclaimed prophets, apostles, and miscellaneous ‘words from God’, which it is said the Spirit gives apart from His word. Amazingly, many of the same people will profess loudly, the sufficiency of Scripture for God’s people. Let us take a brief look at the role of the Apostles, prophets, teachers, and evangelists, as is taught in Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus:

Ephesians 4: 1-16

Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, ² with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, ³ being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. ⁴ There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; ⁵  one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶ one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

⁷ But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. ⁸ Therefore it says,

“ When He ascended on high,
He led captive a host of captives,
And He gave gifts to men.”

⁹ (Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? ¹⁰ He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.) ¹¹ And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, ¹²  for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; ¹³ until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the  knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. ¹⁴ As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; ¹⁵ but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

We see that in the beginning of the chapter from verses 1 to 6,  Paul is writing these things to teach us how to walk in unity and love – being of the one Spirit, as we are one body.

In the next 4 verses, ie., verses 7-10, we see that each one of us has received grace according to Christ’s gift, and we learn when the body of Christ received these gifts, which is when Christ ascended on high.

We next read in verses 11-12, a list of offices which were given to the church, and what their role or task is for the church. The offices listed are: apostles; prophets; evangelists; and pastors and teachers. Their role or task for the church is:

12a for the equipping of the saints for the work of service,

In the first part of verse 12, we see that these offices have the task to equip the saints for the work of service. It is clear then, that the saints have a work of service, and these offices equip the saints for the work of service. In the rest of verse 12, we read what this work of service is:

12b to the building up of the body of Christ;

In the next verse, we read how long, this ‘equipping of the saints’, is to last:

13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

In this verse, we read that this equipping is to last until we have a unity of faith, and a knowledge of the Son of God – which is mature, or in its own terms, ‘to a mature man’. The term, ‘to a mature man’, attaches to all that precedes it in the verse. This is confirmed by the rest of the verse, which sums it up in entirety:

13b to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

What we learn, is that the equipping of the saints for their work of building up the church, is to last until we have a mature faith and knowledge of Christ. We then learn what the result of this equipping will have for the saints:

14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;

In these 2 verses, we not only have confirmation that the task of the ‘equipping’ is to bring us to maturity, as we are no longer children, but that leaving spiritual childhood, we will no longer be carried about by every wind of doctrine. Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Christ. Until this time, the offices mentioned are to equip us for our task of building up the church in love.

How can we know then, when these offices have equipped us for our task? When we no longer have to be carried about by every wind of doctrine. How can we know that we need not be carried about by every wind of doctrine? When these offices have finished their task, then we can know that we need not be carried about by every wind of doctrine.

Most would agree that the apostles died over 2000 years ago, and so they must have completed the task of equipping the saints. Some however, entertain the idea of ‘modern-day’ apostles.  As we will see, the same apostle who wrote these things to Ephesus, also spoke to Timothy about that which equips us for every good work, and is prescribed for Timothy, so that the church would not be deceived. Compare the following verses:

2 Timothy 3:13 But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

Ephesians 4: 14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;

In both cases, Paul tells us that there is something which equips the saints, or the man of God, so that we will not have to be deceived by deceitful men.

In Ephesians, Paul says it is the work of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors and teachers.  In 2 Timothy 3, Paul says that it is the Scriptures which equip the man of God for this task:

16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

The one who believes that the work of the apostles, prophets, etc, are something external to and after the delivery of the Scriptures to the church, is in the position of saying that either the Scriptures are not sufficient for equipping the saints, or that the work which the apostles, and prophets do outside of Scripture after it is received by the church, do not equip the saints anymore than the Scriptures have done so.  Simply – If the Scriptures are fully equipping, then the work of equipping the church has been completed. Therefore, there can no longer be a special word from God, or a private revelation for the church today. The Spirit speaks through the ‘theopneustos’ word of God, and are able to make the man of God thoroughly furnished for every good work.

Kind regards

Troy Smalley