Matthew Poole and continuators on Ephesians 4:13

13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith , and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man , unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ .

Or meet; All we Believers both Iews and Gentiles (who while in the World not onely are dispersed in several places, but have our several degrees of light and knowledge) meet, or come together in the unity of, &c.

Either that perfect unity whereof Faith is the bond, or rather that perfect uniformity of Faith in which we shall all have the same thoughts and apprehensions of Spiritual things▪ to which as yet, by reason of our remaining darkness we are not arrived.

Or Acknowledgment, i. e. not a bare speculative knowledge, but such as is joined with appropriation, and affection.

He compares the mystical Body of Christ to a Man who hath his several ages and degrees of growth and strength, till he come to the height of both, and then he is a perfect Man, or a Man simply in opposition to a Child, 1 Cor. 13.11. The Church of Christ (expressed by a Man in the singular Number to shew its unity) hath its Infancy, its Childhood, its Youth, and is to have hereafter its perfect Manhood and state of Consistency in the other Life, when being arrived to its full pitch, it shall be past growing.

Either actively, that measure of stature or age which Christ fills up in it, or hath allotted to it, v. 7. or rather passively, that measure which though it do not equal, yet it shall resemble, being perfectly conformed to the fulness of Christ. As in the 12. verse, he shewed the end of Christ's appointing Officers in his Church, so here he shews how long they are to continue, viz. till their work be done, the Saints perfected, which will not be till they all come to the unity of the Faith, &c.

Marginal references: Or, into the unity.; Or, age.