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Gifts of men

NT Wright points out that the ascent and descent language in Ephesians 4:7-10 is reminiscent of Moses ascending Mount Sinai and then descending with the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Jesus ascends to heaven, and when He returns He does not bring the law of commandments on tablets of stone, but comes in/as the Spirit who writes on tablets of human hearts.

We can put it another way too: Moses went up on the mountain, and came back with a law that was to guide the people of Israel in the way of life. That law ultimately cursed Israel. Israel was not the Adamic race that God called it to be. Torah did not produce a human race that lived before God as GOd wanted human beings to live.

But what the law could not do, God does: What ensures that the church will be the unified new race that God intended? Because the Greater Moses comes with the Spirit, and more concretely with Spirit-filled people. When the Greater Moses Jesus ascends, He comes back with people, not a set of laws. The blessing of the New Covenant is that we have a government of men not laws.

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