For the purposes of study and analysis, "unto" is the safe translation, and the

occurrence of eis in Eph. 4: 13 subdivides the goal into three parts.

Till we all come

UNTO (eis)

The unity of the faith.

The knowledge of the Son of God.

UNTO (eis)

A perfect man.

UNTO (eis)

The measure of

The stature of

The fullness of

THE CHRIST.

The goal of the ministry given by the ascended Lord, when He gave some apostles,

some prophets, some evangelists and some pastors and teachers, was "the unity of the

faith". This unity of the faith embraces, and is partly explained by, "the knowledge of the

Son of God" which, in its turn, is revealed under the figure of the "perfect man", and this

perfect man is none other than Christ in all His fullness of stature--truly an amazing

Goal.

In the epistles of Paul to the Romans, Galatians, Hebrews, both epistles to the

Corinthians and the first to the Thessalonians, reference is made to Christ as the Son

twenty-seven times, but in the epistles of the Mystery there are but two such references,

the one already quoted from Eph. 4: and one in Col. 1: 13, "The kingdom of His dear

Son".

The doctrine of the sonship of Christ had been made known before the opening of the

dispensation of the Mystery. The sonship of Christ, even as to its human side, forms a

definite part of the witness for the present dispensation. This is implied in the exhortation

given to Timothy:

However great the difference between the position of the risen Christ as Head of the

Church, and the position of the risen Christ as David's heir, the Person remains

unchanged, and consequently the doctrine of the sonship of Christ, so clearly taught in

Romans and Hebrews, remains a fundamental of the faith of all times.

We have already observed that the one reference to "the Son of God" occurs not in the

doctrinal but in the practical section of Ephesians. In the fourth chapter we are not taught

the doctrine of the Divine sonship, but we are told that we shall never attain to full

growth and maturity apart from "the recognition of the Son of God".  What this

recognition involves is discovered in the expansion of the theme that follows. Christ is

"recognized" as "the perfect Man", and the measure of our growth is "the measure of the

stature (or age) of the fullness of the Christ". Just as in Paul's early epistles the sonship

of Christ is stressed, so also in the same epistles the sonship of the believer is stressed;

and just as there are only two references to the sonship of Christ in the epistles of the