The gifts pertaining to special office in the Church were bestowed to promote its corporate efficiency and to further its general growth (vv. 11, 12). Now, the purpose of these endowments sets a _limit_ to their use. “Christ gave apostles, prophets,” and the rest--“_till we all arrive_ at our perfect manhood and reach the stature of His fulness.” Such is the connexion of verse 13 with the foregoing context. The aim of the Christian ministry is to make itself superfluous, to raise men beyond its need. Knowledge and prophesyings, apostolates and pastorates, the missions of the evangelist and the schools of the teacher will one day cease; their work will be done, their end gained, when all believers are brought “to the unity of faith, to the full knowledge of the Son of God.” The work of Christ’s servants can have no grander aim, no further goal lying beyond this. Verse 14, therefore, does not disclose an ulterior purpose arising out of that affirmed in the previous sentence; it restates the same purpose. To make men of us (ver. 13) and to prevent our being children (ver. 14) is the identical object for which apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers are called to office. The goal marked out for all believers in the knowledge and the moral likeness of Christ (ver. 13), is set up that it may direct the Church’s course through dangers shunned and enemies vanquished (ver. 14) to the attainment of her corporate perfection (vv. 15, 16). The whole thought of this section turns upon the idea of “the perfecting of the saints” in verse 12. Verse 16 looks backward to this; verse 7 looked forward to it. So much for the general construction of the period. As to its particular words and phrases, we must observe:-- (1) The “perfect [full-grown] man” of verse 13 is the _individual_, not the generic man, not “the one [collective] new man” of chapter ii. 15. The Greek words for _man_ in these two places differ.[105] The apostle proposes to the Christian ministry the end that he was himself pursuing, viz., to “present _every man_ perfect in Christ.”[106]