Ephesians 4:16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies… The figure is a striking one. The body derives its vitality and power of development from the head. The Church has a living connection with its living Head, and were such a union dissolved, spiritual death would be the immediate result. The body is fitly framed together, and compacted by the functional assistance of the joints. Its various members are not in isolation, like the several pieces of a marble statue. No portion is superfluous; each is in its fittest place, and the position and relations of none could be altered without positive injury. "Fearfully and wonderfully made," it has its hard framework of bone so formed as to protect its vital organs in the thorax and skull, and yet so united by "curiously wrought" joints, as to possess freedom of motion both in its vertebral column and limbs. But it is no ghastly and repulsive skeleton, for it is clothed with flesh and fibre, which are fed from ubiquitous vessels, and interpenetrated with nerves — the spirit's own sensational agents and messengers. It is a mechanism in which all is so finely adjusted, that every part helps and is helped, strengthens and is strengthened, the invisible action of the pores being as indispensable as the mass of the brain and the pulsations of the heart. When the commissioned nerve moves the muscle, the hand and foot need the vision to guide them, and the eye, therefore, occupies the elevated position of a sentinel. How this figure is applicable to the Church may be seen under a different image at 2:21. The Church enjoys a similar compacted organization — all about her, in doctrine, discipline, ordinance, and enterprize, possessing mutual adaptation, and showing harmony of structure. (J. Eadie, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. |
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