Welcome to the Gospel Coalition podcast, where we help to renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel.

Today's podcast is the fifth of seven plenary messages on Ephesians delivered at TGC's

2025 national conference. Listen now to Andrew Wilson on Ephesians 4, 1 to 16, equipped together.

What a morning. The British are coming. Sorry. I know that's bad news on this side of the Atlantic, isn't it?

Do you want to turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4? We're going to be in Ephesians 4, 1 to 16,

tragically having to skip the second half of chapter 3, but obviously the first half of Alastus opened up for us so beautifully earlier.

We're going to read it in a moment, but I want to set the scene.

Ephesians doesn't make sense without the ascension,

which would sound odd to some of us because I think we would be used to thinking that of the resurrection or the cross. If I said, Ephesians makes no sense without the resurrection. Everyone says, well, of course, because Christianity doesn't work without the resurrection. You can't, it's a load-bearing wall. You can't take it out. If I said Ephesians doesn't make sense without the cross, we'd all say, absolutely, because how could you have a gospel without a cross as we've just been singing? And if I said Ephesians doesn't make sense without the

gift of the spirit, those of us who know the letter well would probably say again, of course,

Ephesians, I did the nerdy stats on this, but Ephesians is, in crude percentage terms,

is the most spirit filled book in the Bible in terms of the number of times the word spirit

appears. And so we might say, well, you can't take the gift of the spirit out either. But if I said you can't have Ephesians and the

argument doesn't hold, it doesn't watch if you don't have the ascension in it. Some of us might

be tempted to ask why. The ascension doesn't feel, probably to some of us, our church traditions,

the ascension doesn't feel like a load-bearing wall. It probably feels like, do you call them stud walls here? Sort of at the wall that you can kind of, like a bathroom, where you sort of build it within a room and then create a new space. It feels like something you can stick up, take down, but you wouldn't lose the house if the ascension wasn't true. And I put it to you that in Ephesians, you absolutely would. Ephesians doesn't work without the ascension not only

being true, but actually being at the heart of the argument that Paul is making. So in chapter one,

the ascension is completely central to the chapter in a way that the resurrection actually isn't. I mean, obviously, if Jesus isn't alive, then there's no ascension is completely central to the chapter in a way that the resurrection

actually isn't I mean obviously Jesus isn't alive then there's no ascension

anyway but bear with me the the resurrection is not integral to the argument of

chapter one in the way that the ascension is when Paul says God raised Christ

from the dead tick and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places

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