Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Ephesians 4:13

"till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:" — Ephesians 4:13 (ASV)

The ultimate end in view is the attainment of completeness in Christ. “We all” clearly includes all believers, but not all people (3:9). In v.3 “the unity of the Spirit” is a gift to be guarded; here “unity in the faith” is a goal to be reached. Such a realization of unity will arise from an increasing knowledge of Christ as the Son of God in corporate as well as in personal experience. In this way the church comes of age; it becomes “mature” (that is, “a perfect, full-grown man”). The singular is employed because the church as a whole is seen as “one new man” in Christ (2:15). Individualism is a mark of immaturity. This perfection or completeness is proportionate to the fullness of Christ himself. “Whole measure” or “perfection” can denote age (Matthew 6:27) and may well be used here in this sense, since the context has to do with becoming adult. The meaning would be “attain to the measure of mature age” proper for Christians, who have left infancy behind (v.14). But the phrase may also refer to spiritual attainment (cf. Lk 2:52). “Fullness” is here related to Christ. Just as Christians may be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (3:19), so together they are to aspire to “the full measure of perfection found in Christ.”