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In Eph. 4:7-10, the Apostle Paul explores several ideas concerning the gifts of grace through Jesus Christ as the foundation and glue that unites the Church in the world.

Firstly, to make his point that each of us is given grace as Christ apportioned it, he quotes Ps. 68:18 with one significant difference. In this Psalm, the king is mentioned as the conqueror receiving gifts but Paul changes it to the conqueror Christ offering and giving gifts. Therein lies the difference between the old Covenant and the new Covenant. In the old Covenant, God gave Israel the Law and received sacrifices and gifts for the atonement of the sins of Israel. But in the new Covenant, a loving God through Christ pours out his love to all believers and bestows on them gifts of salvation and grace. This indeed is the good news of the Gospel.

Secondly, Paul (as often happens in his writings), is captivated by the notion of Christ ascended and links this to the fact that this is the same Christ who descended into the earth and its lowly regions as a man. The great thought here is that the Christ who ascended and the Christ who descended is the same person. The Saviour who conquered death and satan and brings His ‘captives’ to heaven as the Christ of Glory is the same person as the Jesus who trod the earth. Still He loves His people, searches for sinners, heals the sick, comforts the sorrowing and befriends the marginalised. The ascended Christ is still the lover of human souls.

Finally, in Eph. 4:10 is Paul’s thought that while Jesus ascended on high, He did not do it to leave the world. He did it so that He could escape the limitations of His physical body and send the Holy Spirit into the world to fill it with His great love. To Paul the ascension of Christ did not mean a Christ-deserted world but a Christ-filled world.

Let us reflect on these ideas that Paul presented and remember that we are equipped to do good works because every good thing we have is a gift of grace from Christ. As Harriet Auber’s hymn puts it:

And every virtue we possess,
And every victory won,
And every thought of holiness,
Are His alone.