In a blog post where I critiqued Anthony Hoekema on the topic of sola scriptura, I wrote the following vis-à-vis LDS ecclesiology:
Anti-Mormon and Reformed Baptist, James White, in his interaction with the tract, “17 points of the True Church,” argues against the LDS use of Eph 2:20 in the following way:
#3. The true church must have a foundation of Apostles and Prophets. Ephesians 2:19-20. This, again, is true, as far as it goes. Unfortunately, the LDS Church takes it too far. The Mormons take this to mean that the true church must have official positions entitled "Apostle" and "Prophet," which, of course, they have. This is not what Ephesians 2:19-20 teaches. First, the context includes verses 21 and 22, and these must be read also. The text actually says that the church is built on a foundation. Stop there. The word "built" as translated in the King James Version translates the Greek participle epoikodomethentes, which, properly syntaxed is translated "having been built." It is an aorist passive participle. It refers to a past action, one that (in this case) has been completed. To say that today we must continue to build the foundation of apostles and prophets is to misunderstand the text. Next, we would like to point out that the Bible identifies Jesus Christ as the foundation (1 Corinthians 3:10-11). The Church is built upon this foundation, and is continually growing unto an "holy temple in the Lord." The question must be asked, how many times does one lay a foundation? If one is continually laying a foundation, how will the house be built? The answer is obvious. The Mormon Church is still trying to lay a foundation that was laid two thousand years ago. Since this is so, it is obvious to see that in this passage Paul is referring to something other than a continuing office of apostle and Prophet.
Compare White’s comments about the aorist participle with a leading Greek grammar:
The assumption that the Aorist Participle properly denotes past time, from the point of view either of the speaker or of the principal verb, leads to a constant misinterpretation of the form. The action denoted by the Aorist Participle may be past, present, or future with reference to the speaker, and antecedent to, coincident with, or subsequent to, the action of the principle verb. The Aorist Participle, like the participles of the other tenses, may be most simply thought of as a noun or adjective, the designation of one who performs the action denoted by the verb, and like any other noun or adjective timeless” (Ernest D. Burton, Moods and Tenses in New Testament Greek, Kregel Pub., 1978, pp. 59-60)
To add to the body of evidence, I offer the following from the late Harold Hoehner in his detailed commentary on Ephesians (who also provides a good defence of Pauline authorship of Ephesians):
ἐποικοδομηθέντες ἐπὶ τῷ θεμελίῳ, “having been built on the foundation.” Paul makes a transition in his metaphor from those who belong to a household (οικειος) in verse 19 to that of a building in which the Spirit of God dwells (εποικοδομηθεντες . . . οικοδομη . . . συνοικοδομεισθε . . . κατοικητηριον) in verses 20-22. The aorist passive participle εποικοδομηθεντες may signify a temporal idea, indicating that the readers of this letter have already built on the foundation at the time of their conversion, or, more likely, it may denote cause, namely, the reason we are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household is because we have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. The passive emphasises that foundation of the apostles and prophets. The passive emphasises that we who are in one body are recipients of the action. God is the subject of the building. The following preposition επι with the accusative would imply motion (1 Cor 3:12; Rom 15:20) but with the genitive or dative, as here, it denotes place—“on” or “upon” which the structure is built. The word θεμελιος means “foundation,” which speaks of the beginnings of something that is coming into being, a term that is synonymous to καταβολη in 1:4. (Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2002], 397)
