Fitly Framed Together

by J.L. Ferguson, Barrhead | Category: General | Feb 1977

There are two New Testament occurrences of this expression. In

Ephesians 4:16, "all the body" is viewed fitly framed and knit together.

In conjunction with Christ, the Head, this is achieved through two things.

In the first place, "through that which every joint supplieth". It is, of

course, impossible for every believer to help in supplying the needs of every living member of the Body. But there is a part for all believers to play in the fitly framing together of at least some members of the Body. In the second place, "according to the working in due measure of each several part". This contemplates the same process. Every believer is viewed as having a responsibility to contribute at least some "working in due measure

In this way the Body is said to "increase", the objective being 'the building up of itself in love". It is the increase of edification, not of numerical strength. Members of the Church the Body, linked to the Head by an eternally inseparable bond, are looked to by the Saviour of the Body to minister to each other for general spiritual growth. To achieve this purpose He gave gifts and specific guidance as to where and how they were to function. Body membership is of itself an invisible unity. Members must declare themselves if they are to share in the increase or contribute to it. So the invisible unity had to have a counterpart in a visible unity; which leads us to the second use of the expression.

In Ephesians 2:21 we read "each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord". We quote from the R.V. Paul was writing to the church of God in Ephesus. Like the church of God in Corinth, and all the early churches, it was termed a building. Paul himself had laid the foundation during three years of patient labour. It comprised believers, converted in an idolatrous city, baptized into the Name and separated as disciples, as set out in Acts 19. The assembly was later described as a golden lampstand (Rev. 1). At the time the Revelation was written it was one of seven such lampstands in the province of Asia, all churches of God, all grouped together. This was evidenced in the one book which sufficed for the messages to all. The church of God in Ephesus was in a fellowship of churches. Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, in whose ministry Christ Jesus was the chief Cornerstone, Ephesus was thus fitly framed with the other churches of God in the great link-up of the early testimony. They were forming a holy temple in the Lord.

It was evidently the divine plan that in these local assemblies the gifts of the Body should function and thus the members of the Body should increase and develop spiritually. But the assemblies were not independent units of testimony, unconnected groups of Christians. On the contrary they were in a unity worthy of the One Body. The church of God in Corinth, for example, was called into a Fellowship which was wider than its own assembly borders (1 Cor. 1:9; 2 Cor. 1:1).

Many readers will be aware of a textual problem in the Greek of

Eph. 2:21. Should the reading be pasa he oikodome ('all the building' A.V.) orpasa oikodome ('every building' R.V.M.)? Textual scholars are marginally in favour of pasa oikodome as the best attested reading. The difficulty in translating the phrase is apparent from the following renderings (there are many more) down the centuries:

Wycliff-1380"In whom eche bildynge made"

Tyndale-1534"In whom every bildynge coupled togedder"

A.V.-1611"In whom all the building fitly framed together"

R.V.-1881"In whom each several building fitly framed together"

R.S.V.-1946"In whom the whole structure is joined together"

Phillips-1958"In Him each separate piece of building, properly

fitting into its neighbour"

N.E.B.-1961"In Him the whole building is bonded together".

These will suffice to illustrate the point. Westcott has no difficulty in supporting 'every' or 'each several'. To him, "This harmonious fitting together of the parts and the building up of the whole (v.22) are present and continuous processes. Each several building is incorporated in the whole and grows not by itself but with the whole". Alford has difficulties. "To a classical Greek ear, any other rendering of pasa oikodome than every building' seems preposterous enough. But 'every building' here is quite out of place, inasmuch as the apostle is clearly speaking of but one vast building, the mystical Body of Christ". But is he? Did Paul write only of the unity of the Body? Did he not write also of the unity of the churches?

Whichever translation is accepted it seems to us that the sense is the same. Paul viewed the churches of God, built by men on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, as integrated into a fitly framed structure, whether regard is had to the resultant overall building, or the several parts which went to make it. Thus it may be viewed as 'all the building' as in the A.V.; which has regard to all the churches as fitly framed by the apostles' teaching into one thing for God in divine testimony. Or it may be viewed as 'each several building' as in the R.V.; thus having regard to the individual churches which when fitly framed together in divine testimony with other churches of God, formed one unified spiritual structure, a holy temple in the Lord. And this temple stands related to the people of God, seen collectively in divine worship and service, just as the spiritual house is "for a holy priesthood" in 1 Pet. 2:5 (RVM); whereas the "mystical Body of Christ" to which Alford refers is a Church of individual believers and as such has no collective, visible expression.

We invite the attention of all our readers to this basic New Testament truth, that not only does God view believers as fitly framed together as

members of the Body of Christ, but He desires that those members of the Body who are alive on the earth at any one time should be together in divine testimony; not scattered through all the sects, but in churches of God fitly framed together by bonds of adherence to the apostles' teaching, the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.

J.L. Ferguson, Barrhead | Feb 1977
General