I meant to comment on Ephesians 4:8 while we were still on the theme of God’s “captives”. The text (Psalm 68:18) is quoted here, speaking about Christ’s church. How wonderful to see God’s people rejoicing in the blood-bought victory of their great Master!

One thing I learned about gunshot wounds when I was a paramedic was very interesting in this regard. Every bullet, as it forces its way through the air, creates a very high pressure zone in front of it. As a result, a very low pressure zone follows the bullet. This creates a vacuum behind the bullet. Because of this vacuum, millions of dust particles that happen to be floating in the air or which are lying near enough to the bullet as it travels by are sucked up into the vacuum behind the bullet. When the bullet strikes its target and penetrates, it draws all of those dust particles and small debris behind it, into the opening it makes. It is these particles that cause a lot of problems with infection in the body after receiving a gunshot wound.

You could examine each of those particles of dust floating around in the air, and not one of them has the power, by itself, to penetrate a target such as a human body. Yet, as the powerful blast of exploding propellant forces a bullet past that dust particle, it achieves something it could never have achieved on its own, it rushes straight into the wound torn open by the bullet.

This illustration may be a little graphic for some, yet I consider the bloody work of the cross, that Christ had to endure far more gruesome than the work a bullet does as it hits its target. Speaking reverently, Christ, in Ephesians 4:8, is the “bullet” that sped ahead through the barriers it was impossible for His people to penetrate by themselves, and the church is drawn in through the opening He has opened into the position of His blessing forever.

How ludicrous, in view of what Christ has achieved for His people, does it appear that there should be struggles for prominence between the members of the church of God? Every one has been drawn in by the awesome power of God. Every one has been drawn in to a position of privilege they could never have achieved as individuals apart from Christ. God has graciously taken each “dust particle” member of His church and has given each a specific position in His desired scheme and has blessed each in different ways. The focus of the church is on Christ, who, by His power has drawn us into this position of privilege.