So we started Ephesians chapter 4 last time and we've covered the first six verses of chapter 4. So we're gonna be looking at verses seven to 10 here this evening. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, when he ascended upon high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto man. Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. All right, so chapter four begins the second half of the letter body of Ephesians, and this is the part of the practical exhortation to the church in Ephesus. So essentially, Paul's giving them commands for their daily lives in this present age. And so you remember how that he placed his apostleship in the cosmic purpose of God in Christ, and he placed the congregation at Ephesus as one body of diverse members, being Jews and Gentiles, in that purpose in this age to bring glory to God. And each one, each member of this body is to be active in bringing this glory to God. And chapter four begins explaining how that they are to do this. And so chapters four to six are just loaded with imperatives of things Paul is telling them to do. So Paul commanded the believers in Ephesus in the opening part of chapter four, he commanded them how they were to live, to walk, to behave, to conduct themselves, and particularly how they were to conduct themselves toward each other in that church at Ephesus. And he gave them three traits that they were to cultivate and nurture, and that is humility and gentleness and patience. He also gave them two actions or behaviors that were to come from those traits toward others. And that is bearing with each other and making every effort to maintain the bond of unity in peace or harmony or concord. as that word indicated. Now, Paul's going to get more specific as he proceeds, but he then stressed seven foundational elements of the unity for them in the church at Ephesus. And he did this by giving them seven ones. One body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and Father. So Paul was emphasizing and stressing that unity, and having emphasized it, he introduces here in verses seven to 16, which forms a section within this passage, he introduces a contrast. So he does this overstress, in a sense, of unity, and then he starts with a contrast. Now, his particular theme in this section of verses 7 to 16 is that of diversity of individual members in the unity of the whole body for the purpose of building up the body by the efforts of each of the individual parts. So we're starting just with verses 7 to 10. And here's where Paul alludes to Psalm 68 to make a point. But we need to find out what is his point. So Psalm 68. This reference here is one of those places that usually comes up. People are asking questions. Everybody's always got a bunch of questions about it. It's a text that has thousands upon thousands of interpretations that have been given for it. Some of them just getting really weird and kooky. Some of them seemingly plausible. But we want to know. why Paul is alluding to this psalm. What does that psalm have to do with what Paul is saying to the church at Ephesus? And so we're gonna spend a little time looking at Psalm 68, so we won't, we're just gonna cover these few verses. So let's start with verse number seven. where Paul begins, but unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. So you notice that Paul starts out here immediately with this contrast, but he's giving an adversative conjunction here. There's something that he's going to say that is distinct and different in some way from what he just wrote. Now, contrast does not equal contradiction, so he's not contradicting what he said, he's not changing what he said, but he is saying something additional that is different, it is distinct. So he had just emphasized unity, oneness. That was the stressed note in the beginning of chapter four. And so now he's going to stress, and notice he speaks of every one of us. And so he's looking at individuals here. Every one of us. And he includes himself with the believers at Ephesus because what he goes on to say is that each one is given grace according to the measure or is given a portion of the gift of Christ. So Paul has also talked about his gifts. He has been gifted to preach the gospel, to reveal the mystery in Christ. We saw that back in chapter three, verse two, verse seven to eight, first part of chapter three in particular, where he talked about his imprisonment as being a part of his apostleship. And he's also talked about them being recipients of grace, particularly in salvation, back in chapter two, verses five and eight. And that was something that he was stressing that was in common between the Jews and the Gentiles that were in that same church body. So he's including himself And he's referring to these unique gifts. So by specifying every one of us is given, Paul is certainly in no way making an argument that everyone is an apostle or that everyone has the gifts of revelation that he has, or he's not making that argument in any way. Gift, this word for gift, now this is the common word for grace, charis is the word in Greek. This is a different word, this word for gift, and it's a word that indicates a gift without payment. And it was used even secularly in formal and legal capacities to refer to like a charitable donation, something that might be tax deductible, you know, today for that instance. It's a gift given without any sort of repayment. So Paul is proceeding from talking about the oneness Now he's coming down to talk about each one. So he's going from common to particular. Each one has received, each one has received grace, a portion of grace after the gifts of Christ. Each one has received, Paul is saying, to this church, but not all the same. So what he's saying here is actually very similar to what he has said in some other places like 1 Corinthians, First Corinthians chapter 12. And I'll just look at a few verses here. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. There are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. So you're getting the exact same type of stresses that Paul is making here in that The body at Corinth is one whole body that's made up of many different members, and those members are different from one another in their form and function, and they have been gifted differently, but it is the same God, it is the same spirit that has done it, and of course that tends toward the aspect of unity. He says something very similar in Romans chapter 12 verses 3 to 8. I want to turn over there. So he's making these statements very similar. That was 1 Corinthians 12 verses 4 to 6 and Romans chapter 12 verses 3 to 8 about all one body made up of different members, members differing from one another, and the gifts that each has, or the abilities that each has, and so on, are different. Now this really is the controlling theme as we go, particularly through verse number 16 in this section. So let's go to verse number eight now. Wherefore, he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. So here Paul is alluding to Psalm 68, and particularly verse number 18, which is most like what he's saying here. But it's not an exact quote. It's rather a summary sort of statement from this psalm, and we refer to it as an allusion. There are a few places, I don't have them right off the top of my head, but there are a few places where there are some quotes, something along the line of the scripture says, And, but there's no, that exact statement is not found in any one verse of the Old Testament, but it is, it's sometimes referred to them as like compendium quotes, where you take several different verses and their statement is sort of just summarizing them with teaching. So that's not an uncommon thing to encounter in the Bible at all. This is an allusion, not an exact quote. So Paul's not going back to Psalm 68 and plucking verse 18 out and, you know, quoting it out of context or giving it a different meaning than what it has in its original context. And this is more particularly what we would call an intertextual allusion. So an intertextual allusion. And so by referencing this, he's actually accessing the full context of the psalm without quoting the entire psalm, without going through a teaching of the entire psalm. He's alluding to it. So if someone was, you know, making a comparison of something and I were to look at that and to say, well, you know a rose by any other name, and that's all that I said. Well, you would know what I meant because of what I'm alluding to. And you would know that I'm saying those two things are the same thing. They're just called something different or whatever. And you would know that. That's a literary, an intertextual literary type reference. And so that's the way that this is working. So it's important to note that when he quotes Here's the quote, so to speak, though again, it's not an exact quote. So when you get to verses nine and 10 here, those are not quotes from the psalm. In verses nine and 10, Paul is drawing something from what he has just quoted. Now this is very similar to what we had encountered a number of times in the letter to the Hebrews. So the writer would quote something from the Old Testament, sometimes maybe two or three things, and then he would draw something out of that. There's some conclusion or some consequence from that that he would give. And that's sort of what Paul is doing here. So verses 9 and 10 are essentially what Paul is saying based on Psalm 68, mostly verse 18, but really he's alluding to the whole psalm. When this is done in Hebrews, when Paul's doing it here, it doesn't violate that original passage, it doesn't contradict it, it doesn't change its original meaning, but rather it's importing that meaning. So it's also important to note as you read this, what is it that Paul is emphasizing? What is it that he is picking up on? It seems like there's something important here that Paul's getting a hold of. One of those would be that this psalm is about Christ. So he just mentioned that gift of Christ, and then he refers to the psalm of Him ascending up on high, He that ascended. He also descended first. He that descended is the same also that ascended for that he might. So Paul is emphasizing, first of all, that that psalm is about Christ. And he is saying something about Christ from that psalm. And two things in particular, that he ascended and that he gave gifts. And we see that both of these things are mentioned as you go on, this one goes down into verse number 11, as he gave and some of the gifts that he has given. So the Psalm is about Christ and that Christ in ascending gives gifts. That's what Paul is emphasizing, is picking up on here in what he's saying. So we want to do just a little review of Psalm 68. I kind of thought, see one of the benefits that we have is that we studied the entire collection of the Psalms so that we would understand this verse. So really everybody's probably got it, right? I mean, there's really no need to even explain this. We can probably just move on, but. No, I know how that is. But we did study the entire collection of the Psalms. And so that is a great benefit to us as we see a reference to something in the Psalms that we can go back to that Psalm and to understand its contextual meaning and then see how that it is being used. So that's what we want to do. So Paul, in this letter to the church at Ephesus, In his immediate point that he's making here, he's talking about that the body at Ephesus is a unified body of diverse members. Now, particularly Jews and Gentiles, but diverse members. But they're also diverse in another way that he's just introduced, and that is being uniquely gifted. And it doesn't have anything to do with being Jew or Gentile, that just has to do with being people, and so different parts of this body, and having unique gifts. And as you go on through this section, the point that Paul's making about that is, is that that is for the benefit of the whole body. So that the gift that the individual has is for the benefit of the whole body, for the purpose of bringing glory to God in this age, again, partaking in God's cosmic purpose in Christ. All right, so, We'll go over to Psalm 68. This is a long psalm, so I'm not going to read it all. I'm just going to kind of skip through it. This part here, it was the summary of the psalm that I gave for our study, just giving sort of that one-sentence description of what this psalm is about. Psalm 68 looks forward to the restoration of Israel as deliverance from death, when the Messiah conquers all the nations of the world and establishes his kingdom from Zion. So that is what this Psalm is about. And so Psalm 68, you can see that it was written by David. And it is what we would refer to as, I think I called them a kingly, royal, some would say messianic, certainly, Psalm. This psalm is a hymn of praise about the coming anointed son king to Zion. And obviously Paul is referring to this in Ephesians chapter four and verse number eight and he is saying that it is about Christ. And so once again, we have that just golden jewel of an interpretive principle that the Holy Spirit is not wrong about what any passage of the Bible means. So Paul says it's about Christ. We certainly know that it's about Christ. This Psalm is what I called prophetic predictive. It is looking forward to the future. In fact, to the coming of the Messiah and his kingdom. contains elements of praise and thanksgiving and so on. But what we know about this psalm also is that it is in a David group of psalms in book number two. And it has a number of connections with those psalms. So the previous psalms, psalm 65 through psalm 67, there's links, the headings of the psalms, they are answers to earlier laments that described exile and abandonment and the oppression of enemies. And so Psalm 68 answers those with the rising of the king, the conquering of the enemies, and the gathering of the people of the nation. Psalm 65, seven speaks of the quieting of the nations. Psalm 66, seven of the watching or ruling of the nations. Psalm 67, four, justice on earth. And then here in Psalm 68, particularly in verses 16 and 24, we get references to the enthronement of the Messiah. It's also strongly connected to some of the Korahite Psalms, which are after David's time, but the collection comes in Psalms 45 to 48, so they come earlier in the collection. Those Psalms, in Psalm 45, the king has the nations beneath his feet. In Psalm 46 and 47, he's exalted, reigning over the nations of the earth. And in Psalm 48 in particular, he's reigning from Zion. So there's connections there with all of those. So we get, in this psalm, we also get some sort of past and future references, because there's references to Sinai and to the Exodus. So that comes in this psalm as well. The psalm uses imagery of military, warfare, the divine warrior imagery, creation, there's resurrection imagery. We notice as we go through the Psalms several ways that death and resurrection were sort of depicted with figurative type language. And really Psalm 68 revolves around a motif of contrasts. So if you trace sort of the movements of the psalm, you're from heaven to earth, you're from Sinai to Zion, you're from the wilderness to abundance, you're from prison to victory celebration, there is scattering to gathering, there's death to life, there's oppressed to thriving, and there's heights to depths, and it's sort of how the psalm works structurally. So just a quick breakdown, so in verses one to three, you get an envision a vision of the scattering of the enemies and so God is going to arise And his enemies are going to be scattered of course this sort of counters encounters the exile judgments on Israel when they are going to be scattered. So we get imagery like smoke driven away, wax melting before the fire, that sort of thing. They just can't stand before Christ and His coming. Verses four to six give us a call to praise, to praise God. Now there's an interesting section here as well. as God is going to be a father to the fatherless, a judge of the widows. In other words, he's going to set them in families. So one of the plight of the fatherless and the widows was the lack of family, the lack of others to care for and to help and so on. And God is going to set them in families. And so as we go on through this psalm, verses 7 to 10, we get reference to the exodus, leading people out of Egypt to Sinai. Verses 11 to 14, we get reference to the conquest of Canaan. And in verses 15 to 27, is where we get the vision of this great victory to come. So the hill of God as the hill of Bashan, a high hill, the hill of God, this is a reference to Zion. Zion by that name is not in this, but the hill of God is Zion. That hill of Bashan is most likely probably Mount Hermon, the tallest peak in that region. And Zion is exalted above it. essentially what we're seeing here. The hills and the mountains are envious of God's hill. Once he comes to his hill, he will dwell there forever. Once he ascends this hill, he will not relinquish this throne. And again, this is Psalm 2, you know, setting his son, his anointed son king on his holy hill of Zion. And ascending the mountain, ascending the mountain, he leads forth the enemies. So in other words, these are, and I say enemies, he leads forth those that he has conquered, those that he has conquered. In other words, his conquest is total, it is complete. And here you'll notice that he receives gifts and essentially gives gifts. So he in turn, the spoils are given to the people. And this is part of what Paul is picking up on. Then we get praise to the Lord for His salvation, we get deliverance from death, reference to the king and his sanctuary, the king in Zion, and call to praise. And then we get the ending of the psalm, as you get verses 28 to 35, the kings of the earth in that day, they're directed to praise, their tribute, their presence will be brought in. They're the conquered nations, as it were, the subdued. nations, all the earth is directed essentially to sing praise to God. Why? Because He sits enthroned on Zion. So He's the God of Israel ruling over the kingdoms of the earth. So Psalm 68, one of the Teachings in Psalm 68 is that movement from the Old Covenant to the new from Sinai to Zion And we get the shaking of essentially the shaking of Sinai contrasted with with Zion just like the writer of Hebrews Used that imagery as well Psalm 668 obviously teaches the salvation that the turning of the plight like the Poor and the fatherless and the widows and how their how their situation is reversed And so this Psalm essentially envisions that millennial reign of the Davidic Messiah. He comes to earth as a mighty warrior leading a great army and crushes his enemies beneath his feet. He gathers and restores his people of Israel to their inheritance. He establishes his reign from Zion. and then all the kings of the earth bring their tribute to Zion. All of those that he led captive, so to speak, in that warfare imagery. So Psalm 68 is a war psalm, a war psalm of the Messiah. And in verse 18, which is what Paul was quoting from here in verse number 18, referring to, alluding to mainly, This part of the Psalm is where Yahweh ascends the high mountain of the enemy stronghold, conquers, leads them forth, receives tribute or spoils, and distributes them to his people, which essentially reverses their poverty and their oppression and their fatherlessness and all of those things. He sets the lonely and the bereft in families and just loads them with gifts, and we see that or daily loads us with those benefits. And so Paul is using this psalm then to make a point to the church at Ephesus. Now again, verse eight is where he made the illusion, and verses nine and 10, he's not quoting from the psalm, he's drawing from it. So verses nine and 10 say, now that he ascended, What is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. So he makes this point and here he is still in Psalm 68. But from that point forward, he's not in Psalm 68. His point that he's making is again, two things. That it's Christ, it's the same Christ. It's the same one who in Psalm 68 is going to ascend, same one. And he that gave gifts is giving gifts. That's the point that he is making. Making so he ascended and this ascension in Psalm 68 is the ascension to Zion. This is when he establishes his reign from Zion when he conquers subdues all of his enemies and Subjugates the all of all the nations that are put under his feet. He rules over them So he ascended to Zion again. That's in Psalm 68 that future time Paul says He that ascended. In other words, the one David is talking about in Psalm 68 that ascends that high mountain in Psalm 68 is also he that descended first into the lower parts of the earth. Now, what is he talking about here? He is talking about his descent to the earth in his incarnation. This one that David was talking about in Psalm 68, that ascended to Zion, is the same one that has also first descended. His ascent to Zion hasn't happened yet. He first descended to the lower parts of the earth. So we could even talk about his humble incarnation. We just recently looking in Isaiah chapter number 11. But he did so in order that he might fill all things. So he that ascended in Psalm 68 is he who also has descended first. He came into the world. And he that descended, he that came into the world is also the same one that has ascended up far above all the heavens, which what is that? That is Psalm 110, Christ at the right hand. So again, he's not in Psalm 68 at this point. He's saying that it's this same one. He descended first, then he ascended above all the heavens to the right hand of the Father. So that ascent to Zion is still yet to come. In other words, what's Paul talking about in all these verses? He's again talking about that cosmic purpose of God. Cosmic purpose of God. he did this, he ascended to the right hand, that he might feel, and things is that word not actually in the Greek, that he might feel all. And this word for feel is most often translated fulfill, that he might fulfill all. What's he talking about? He's talking about the unifying of everything. in heaven and in earth, in Christ, in his kingdom, which Paul talked about beginning back in chapter one of this letter. So again, we're back at that cosmic purpose of God in Christ. So Psalm 68 envisions that fulfillment of God's cosmic purpose in Christ, in his kingdom. So in this present age, Christ has ascended. And we just recently, having gone through Hebrews, saw how the writer there emphasizes over and over again, where is Christ right now? Where is He in this present age? He is at the right hand of the Father in the heavens. That's where He is right now. That's where He is in this present age. He has ascended that He might fulfill all things. And a part of that fulfilling is the giving of gifts. So in other words, the Christ that ascends the hill of Zion gives gifts. But Paul is showing how also In ascending to the right hand, he is also given gifts. So each believer in Ephesus, Paul is saying, each one has received a portion, that word for measure that is used there, have received a portion of the gifts of Christ, has received grace, which grace can also refer to a gift, but each one has received for the good of the body and for the fulfillment of God's purpose. So, Paul has shown how that a serious, God-glorifying, thorough unity does not exclude uniqueness or individuality. Now, issues of things like pride and self-centeredness and self-serving, those sort of things can be detrimental to that unity, but individuality is not eliminated. In other words, Jews don't cease being Jews because they're equal members in a body with Gentiles. And the same way, Gentiles don't cease being Gentiles because they're equal members in a body with Jews. And furthermore, again, not really having anything to do with the Jew and Gentile distinction, but Christ has given gifts to all. And each one has received of these gifts. And they're all different. And of course, Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 talks a lot more in a lot more detail about this, how that they're given essentially by the sovereign will of the Spirit. The Spirit gives them as He wills to give. He gives them in the measure that He gives. So, you know, two people may have similar gifts, but one person may have a greater portion than what the other person has and all of those sort of things. And Paul deals with all of those. That there shouldn't be any envying and strife because of that. There shouldn't be any schism in the body because of that. We all should be able to recognize that that is the case. For one thing, there's no one person that has all gifts. There's no one person that can do everything and do everything well. And we each have the gifts that we have been given, some greater, some lesser. They differ from one another. And that's something that should not be an issue of contention. It shouldn't be an issue of competitiveness or envy, again, or strife or schism, Paul uses that word, because just as he says there in 1 Corinthians 12, because it's the same God, It's the same spirit. In other words, if the spirit has given me some portion of a gift and the spirit has given you some portion of a gift, if they've come from the same spirit, then those gifts are not at odds. If we are at odds, there's a problem there, but those gifts are not at odds. because the spirit is not divided against himself. So that's part of Paul's argument there. And again, he's not going into all of that here, but he is talking very similarly. And another thing I think that we take from this is that It's part of God's cosmic purpose, again, in this present age, just as he previously referred to God's glory, or God, rather, receiving glory in churches through all generations of this present age. And a part of that is the fact that within these bodies, every building that the Lord builds that Paul talks about, that within these bodies, within these buildings, he has given a diversity of members, he's given a diversity of gifts, but they are all for one and the same purpose. And that is for the building up of the body in order to glorify God and fulfill his purpose in this present age for those bodies. All right, so that gets us to that point, and then we'll get to the actual gifts that were given and what this has to do with. This is kind of a little bit of background. And again, Paul making the point that it's one Lord. It's the same. It's the same one and all toward this same purpose.