(5) The last difficulty of this kind we have to deal with, lies in the connexion of the clauses of verse 16. “Through every joint of supply” is an incongruous adjunct to the previous clause, “fitly framed and knit together,” although the rendering “joint” gives this connexion a superficial aptness. The apostle’s word means _juncture_ rather than _joint_.[108] The _points of contact_ between the members of Christ’s body form the channels of supply through which the entire frame receives nourishment. The clause “through every juncture of the supply”--an expression somewhat obscure at the best--points forwards, not backwards. It describes the means by which the Church of Christ, compacted in its general framework by those larger ligatures which its ministry furnishes (vv. 11, 12), builds up its inward life,--through a communion wherein “each single part” of the body shares, and every tie that binds one Christian soul to another serves to nourish the common life of grace. We may paraphrase the sentence thus: “Drawing its life from Christ, the entire body knit together in a well-compacted frame, makes use of every link that unites its members and of each particular member in his place to contribute to its sustenance, thus building itself up in love evermore.” * * * * * These difficult verses unfold to us three main conceptions: _The goal of the Church’s life_ (ver. 13), _the malady which arrests its development_ (ver. 14), and _the means and conditions of its growth_ (vv. 15, 16). I. The mark at which the Church has to arrive is set forth, in harmony with the tenor of the epistle, in a twofold way,--in its _collective_ and its _individual_ aspects. We must all “unitedly attain the oneness of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God”; and we must attain, each of us, “a perfect manhood, the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” The “one faith” of the Church’s foundation (ver. 5) is, at the same time, its end and goal. The final unity will be the unfolding of the primal unity; the implicit will become explicit; the germ will be reproduced in the developed organism. “The faith” is still, in St Paul, the _fides qua credimus_, not _quam credimus_; it is the living faith of all hearts in the same Christ and gospel.[109] When “we all” believe heartily and understandingly in “the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation,” the goal will be in sight. All our defects are, at the bottom, deficiencies of faith. We fail to apprehend and appropriate the fulness of God in Christ. Faith is the essence of the heart’s life: it forms the common consciousness of the body of Christ.