Efésios 4:4-6

2. Three motives to the preservation of the unity in the Spirit

Ephesians 4:4-16

a. The working of the Triune God in the Church

(Ephesians 4:4-6)

4There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called [as ye were also called] 5in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6One God and Father of all, who is above [over]8 all, and through all, and in you all [in all].

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Connection.—These three verses are joined to what precedes without any connecting particle, and, as parallel clauses, follow each other without any such particle, since the context, being quite clear, requires none. Theodoret: πανταχοῦ τὸ ἓν καὶ εἱ̄ς τέθκεικεν εἰς συμφωνίαν συνάπτων τὴν ἐκκλησίαν. Bugenhagen: omnia, unde Christiani sumus, unitate nobis commendantur. The exhortation to maintain the unity of the Spirit has mainly occasioned these verses; they give a reason for it; γάρ is wanting however, on account of the liveliness of the discourse, and for emphasis.9 The objective bases for unity in the Spirit, to which they have been exhorted, the motives for such exhortation are stated.10 Hence we should supply ἐστίν, and not ἐστέ, as though it were continued exhortation (Syriac, Calvin, Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, II. 2, p. 127, and others). [Braune’s view is that generally received, and by far the most tenable.—R.]

Ephesians 4:4. The nature of the fellowship.—There is one body and one Spirit [ἓν σῶμα καὶ ἓν πνεῦμα].—Ἓν σῶμα (Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 2:16; Romans 12:5; 1 Corinthians 12:13; 1 Corinthians 12:20) designates the totality of Christians as a corpus mysticum; it is not=ἐκκλησιά, church, which is to be viewed as the external phenomenon, the body of Christ is hidden, but a reality, like the body of nerves, a hidden reality, which can be traced, making itself perceptible, the invisible church, the unity of which is emphasized by the Apostle and to be held fast.—Καὶ ἓν πνεῦμα is added to designate the soul of this body, the Holy Ghost, which forms and moulds the body, and to show that this σῶμα of Christ is no πτῶμα. He is not speaking therefore of an ideal invisible church, which does not actually exist, but of the actual, real essence of the church, which is internal, but comes into being continuously. It is foolish to explain here, we should be united penitus, corpore et anima, non ex parte duntaxat (Calvin and others).

Since Christ’s body and the Holy Ghost are perceptible, not in their essence, but only inwardly and in their effects and consequences, Paul refers next to their own experience:

As ye were also called in one hope of your Calling [καθὼς καὶ ἐκλήθητε ἐν μιᾷ ἐλπίδι τῆς κλήσεως ὑμῶν].—According to the calling (καθὼς καὶ ἐκλήθητε), by means of which he who is called has obtained or can obtain knowledge and perception of the “body” and “Spirit” just mentioned! This calling points likewise (καί) to the unity, because it is consummated “in one hope;” as soon as a man is called of God, he is in the hope of salvation (σωτηρία, κληρονομία) and this hope is one and the same for each and all who are called, by right, in tendency and effect. This “hope” belongs so especially to the being called (ἐκλήθητε) that it can be termed all along “of your calling;” hope and calling are not to be separated from each other. Bengel is excellent: Spiritus est arrhabo, atque ideo cum ejus mentione conjungitur spes hereditatis. They belong together from the beginning; Paul here however refers to the history of the origin of church-fellowship which is to be maintained, whether one looks at the unity of the church, or of principle, or of aim. It cannot be said that the calling consists in hope (Bengel: ἐν exprimit indolem rei, Harless and others), still less that it takes place by means of hope (Meyer), or that ἐν is=εἰς. Winer, p. 385.

[See Eadie for a list of prepositions used with καλέω in the New Testament. He, with Alford and Ellicott, rightly supports the usual meaning of ἐν here: the element in which the calling took place. Ellicott speaks of this sense of the preposition as being, “so to say, its theological meaning.” He takes the genitive as one of originating cause, but it is rather that of possession, “the genitive of the correlative noun, suggesting what belongs to the call and characterized it, when they received it. The ‘hope’ is ‘one,’ for it has one object, and that is glory; one fountain, and that is Christ” (Eadie). Ἐλπίς is of course subjective.—R]

Ephesians 4:5. Christ and the union with Him.—One Lord, one faith, one baptism.—This refers to the way and the means of salvation. Εἱ̄ς κύριος, “one Lord,” is Christ, the Lord par excellence. See Ephesians 4:1; Ephesians 1:21. The word found in Deuteronomy 6:4 is now applied in the New Testament to Christ (1 Corinthians 8:4-6). His will has authority over all. Each one stands equally near to Him; for there is “one faith,” which unites with Him; faith (Ephesians 1:1; Ephesians 1:15; Ephesians 2:8; Ephesians 3:12; Ephesians 3:17) unites inwardly to the one Lord, trusts Him as Lord. Hence there is but one faith, and not several kinds: fides, qua creditur; it is not then a faith in abstracto (Harless), nor the doctrine of faith (Grotius and others); for this faith is actually and efficiently present and a living power, a believing. [A vast deal of difficulty as well as of error is avoided by bearing in mind that πίστις, “faith,” in the New Testament, almost invariably means subjective faith (Galatians 1:23 is the only exception, and this perhaps an apparent one). The conception of “faith” as a universal dogma belongs to a later age, and while it has preserved Roman Catholic uniformity, has not “kept the unity of the Spirit.” So the Apostle implies: Because there is one faith, keep unity, not because we need unity, lay down one objective Catholic undoubted Christian faith. Dr. Hodge defends the objective sense here, but must make limitations which are of necessity indefinite enough to cast doubt on his own view. Still the context plainly points to the “one Lord” as the object of the “one faith;” and in the nature of things one subjective recognition of this eternal truth respecting Christ, this apprehension of Him in His Person and work, necessarily involves a common objective profession of it, and thus we pass to the third term of the verse, which is to be regarded as the external sign of faith, and in one aspect as a profession objectively made.—R.]

Faith, which is one, begins with baptism, which is also only one; the former is an internal subjective medium, the latter an objective one, from without and above; these two factors make the Lord our own, and us the Lord’s own. Modo baptismus modo fides præponitur, Mark 16:16; Colossians 2:12 (Bengel). [The order of the words does not justify this view of Dr. Braune’s. Alford takes the verse as presenting three great facts on which unity rests, the first objective, the second subjective, the third compounded of the two: “the objective seal of the subjective faith, by which, as a badge, the members of Christ are outwardly and visibly stamped with His name.” To find a reference to one mode of baptism is unwarranted by text or context.—R.]

Why the Lord’s Supper is not mentioned, is evident from the context, which contains the motives for the exhortation, to desire to preserve the unity of the Spirit. The Lord’s Supper is rather an act of the preserved unity, than a motive for its preservation. It is celebrated by those who have been reconciled with God and hold each other to be brethren; it does not so much give an impulse to peaceableness, as it is a result of the same, as a common celebration of those who have become united together, as an attestation of the church which has become one in the Lord. De Wette refers to this by intimating that the Lord’s Supper is not mentioned, because it is a representation of unity.11 The reference to the fundamental conditions of the Christian communion at its beginning is an insufficient ground for the omission of this sacrament (Harless and others). Still less admissible is it to suppose that it is included in the one sacrament of baptism (Calovius), or in the “one Lord, one faith” (Olshausen), or to explain historically, that there has been as yet no separate celebration (Meyer), or that this is prophetic foresight, since the unify of the sacred feast would be broken nevertheless (Stier), or because he did not wish to hinder the manifold form of the rite (Schenkel), or because a definite expression for it was wanting (Bleek).

Ephesians 4:6. The deepest basis of true unity. One God and Father of all.—Hero God the Father is referred to, after the Spirit (Ephesians 4:4) and the Son (Ephesians 4:5) have been made prominent. As little as God can be disunited with Himself, so little should you who are His children be among yourselves. Hence to the phrase “one God,” there is added epexegetically: “and Father,” the genitive “of all,” under which Christ cannot be included, leading us to understand it as the Father of believers, of those who have become God’s children in Christ. “Father” cannot then mean merely “creator,” according to the heathen conception, nor can “of all” be neuter in this context. Nam omnes ad unitatem rediguntur (Bengel), and the following “all” (πάντων πᾶσι) takes up the first one again, referring to persons, to the members of the Church, who should preserve the unity in the Spirit; on which account Ephesians 4:7 continues: “to every one of you.” It is accordingly neither neuter (Irenæus and others), nor to be extended to men in general (Holzhausen).

Who is over all, ό ἑπὶ πάντων marks the Ruler, Guardian, Guide (Winer, p. 351) governing over all (Winer, p. 390). Chrysostom: ἐπάνω πάντων, τὴν δεσποτείαν σημαίνει.

And through all, καὶ διὰ πάντων, per omnes operans (Bengel); the individuals are instruments, means, as Romans 15:18; 1 Corinthians 3:9; Galatians 1:1 : διʼ ἀνθρώπου—διά Ἰησοῦ. See Winer, p. 390.

And in all, καὶ ἐν πᾶσιν, dwelling in all (Bengel, Winer), filling them, perfecting them (John 14:23). All three qualifications refer to “God and Father,” hence are not to be interpreted in a trinitarian sense, of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, so that He who is “through all” is the Head working through all, and He who is “in all” is the indwelling Spirit, yet such a reference lies unmistakably in the background (Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 12:4-6; 2 Corinthians 13:13), at all events was not far off, so that Harless can discover here a recapitulation of “one God,” “one Lord,” “one Spirit,” which Stier and others think was intentional. Comp. Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, I. p. 201 f., who doubts any reference to the trinity, but applying it to the Father not without the Son and the Spirit, excludes no one Person. The reference to Redemption alone is clearer, hence “through all” is not to be understood of the all-pervading creative power, nor of Providence in general.

[While the mention of “one baptism,” with its Trinitarian formula, suggests the great probability of a reference to the Trinity in the several expressions of this verse, which is further favored by the first and third prepositions, it is far safer not to press it. The express mention of the “Father” is against it; διά can be referred to the work or office of the Son only by departing from its proper sense or inverting its relation to the rest of the verse (“per quem omnia facta sunt,” Aquinas, so Olshausen), and as Eadie remarks: “In previous portions of the Epistle triune relation has been distinctly brought out; here the representation is different, for unity is the idea dwelt on, and it is the One God and Father Himself who works through all and dwells in all.” Ellicott here confessedly allows doctrinal considerations to outweigh his exegetical convictions, and it is precisely thus, that those who defend the well-grounded doctrine of the church lose in their contests with those who impugn it. They attack our exegesis of a passage like this, and we must defend the doubtful, unimportant outpost at a disadvantage.—One thing is certain that this passage refers to believers alone, neither teaching God’s Fathership of all men (though Alford thinks it is referred to as a lost possession), nor pantheism of any kind.—R.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The unity of the Church. Although ἐκκλησία and σῶμα (Χριστοῦ) describe so nearly the same, that of the former it is said (Ephesians 1:23): “which is his body,” while in Colossians 1:24 we read of “his body, which is the church,” yet the two may be thus distinguished: the former designates the church as an assembly of believers, of saints; the latter as a living organism, the organ of Him who is the Head, thus with the corpus Christi mysticum, giving more prominence to the inner concealed side, the unity of the same. Hence there are indeed “churches,” but no “bodies of Christ.” The Nicene creed was right in adding: unam to sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam (the Apostles’ has only: sanctam ecclesiam catholicam); so the Augsburg Confession, Art. vii: quod una sancta ecclesia perpetuo mansura sit. Strictly there is but one Church of Christ, though in groups of congregations with different confessions. No confessional church (though, strictly speaking, the term is a misnomer) is the Church of Christ, it is only a church by the side of others, through which the body of Christ extends itself.

2. The distinction of the body of Christ from the Spirit is indicated definitely enough by their being placed side by side, yet the latter at the same time gives prominence to the church as the working-place of the Spirit.12

3. The call, when accepted and effectual, begins within the called, not with a mere promise which he receives, but with a hope corresponding thereto, so that the objective call of God and the subjective acceptance of the man come together, and he from the very beginning knows and feels himself to be shown out of the lower sphere of life into the higher one.

4. Christ is the One Lord, and no faith in Him is genuine, except it be in Him as Lord. It is not sufficient to believe the Master or Teacher; it is not enough to feel and deem ourselves scholars, hearers, disciples. The Christian must be servant, subject of Christ, not merely to bear or listen to Him, but to belong to Him, to hearken to Him, to obey, to follow Him as His vassal, attendant, servant. No human dignity, in the history of our lives or of the world exceeds the dignity of Christ: He is the one only Lord; who gives Him up, must give up faith and the fellowship of the church.

5. Baptism, with which faith begins (regeneratio præcedit fidem) imparts the germ of the new life, the beginning of the gift of the Holy Ghost, the principle of faith in the subject, as at birth, upon coming to the light of the world, man is endowed with reason. It is not merely a symbolical act, nor a mere prophecy of the cleansing which begins later, but it is the incorporation into the body of Christ, animated by the Spirit, implantation into the soil of divine life. [This is the Lutheran view, approaching, in its estimate of the objective grace of this Sacrament, the position of Romanism and Anglicanism. Certainly the fact that baptism is mentioned at all, puts it into an exalted position, from which unchurchly Zwinglianism would degrade it. But it is not placed before faith, nor is there here any warrant for the assertion that faith begins with baptism. The Reformed or Calvinistic view is most in accordance with our passage. See Heidelberg Catechism, Questions 69–74; Belgic Confession, 34; Westminster Confession, 28; comp. especially Romans, p. 206, Doct. Note 3.—While there is no reference to the one mode of baptism, there is probably an allusion to the fact that baptism is not or should not be repeated.—R.]

6. God, the Father of believers, is not far from them, over them, but near to them, disposing concerning them, working through them, yes, dwelling in them, as in a temple, furnishing His work as in a work-shop. God is a Person, who not only rules throughout the universe, but gives to His own a special personality.

7. The Atheist denies the Father, the Deist the Son, the Pantheist the Holy Ghost, because he substitutes for it the unholy “spirit of the world” (Baader).

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Ever return from multiplicity to unity, and in freedom to obligation; but never let your view of the unities be disturbed. Do not hold faith higher than baptism, penetrate into the communion of the Church until you reach the Spirit which is its soul, and do not sunder the Lord Jesus and God the Father!

Starke:—There is but one Church, which receives life and movement from the Holy Ghost, and hence but one ship, with which we can sail into the haven of bliss; all other vessels destroy and drown.—Christians are all equal in the fellowship of heavenly possessions, and no one has a better God, Christ, Spirit, Faith, etc., but what one has, the others have also, although one may have a greater enjoyment of such possessions than another.

Rieger:—The body of Christ is ruled by one Spirit; one Lord gave Himself for the Redemption of all; out of one Word of truth and of faith are we convinced; one baptism is the door of entrance for us into the kingdom of God. Therefore God administers such a government of love over all, that as much as possible equality is established; out of his property every one can contribute something to the common benefit: as God on the other hand so gives Himself to be enjoyed by each, that he dare not look too anxiously upon others, still less through secret envy render difficult his keeping peace with all.—Heubner, see Homil. Notes on the preceding section.

Passavant:—There is one path, one goal, one house, one family, one home to which you have been called; you all hope for one heaven, and in the same heaven to obtain a common inheritance, an identical blessedness and glory in the heavenly life.—“I do not know, how it happens, that we glory in being the children of God so confidently and yet at the same time forget brotherly love.”

Stier:—Where there is still body, there is also Spirit—that is the Apostle’s great thought.—Baptism and Faith belong together: 1. As faith is the subjective appropriation, so baptism is the objective representation of the same; 2. Faith takes out of the Lord’s hand, in baptism we have the firm foundation and beginning from the Lord.—I confess that I find the one faith on the Lord in many a [Roman] Catholic with the hearty joy of fraternal agreement, and in many a zealot for the pure Word and Sacrament I might look for it with pain and in vain.

[Eadie:—“One baptism” is the result and expression of the “one faith” in the “one Lord,” and, at the same time, the one mode of initiation by the “one Spirit” into the “one body.”—All this unity is but the impress of the great primal unity—one God.—Christ’s claim for the preservation of unity is upon all the churches—a unity of present connection and actual enjoyment—not a truce, but an alliance, with one living and cognizance—not a compromise, but a veritable incorporation.—Hodge:—All sins against unity are sins against the Holy Ghost.—R.]

[Seven times does the word “one” occur in these verses, but the middle term is “one Lord,” next on either side “one hope”—“one faith.”—How great a unity results from “one faith,” the same trust of the heart on the “one Lord;” one creed often leads and always permits us to chop logic and split hairs, but where the “faith” is “one,” hearts are one, and no earnest Christian has failed to notice how quickly this manifests itself.—It is a comfort to come back from the jars of the church of to-day and the wars of the church of the past, to the simple truth: There is one body: but here too faith is required.—R.]

Footnotes:

Ephesians 4:6; Ephesians 4:6.—The Rec. inserts ὑμῖν (with very slight authority), while D. F. K. L., good versions and a few fathers, 40 cursives, read ἡμῖν; no pronoun occurs in א. A. B. Cּ, 10 cursives. Most fathers also sustain the omission, which is accepted by nearly all editors and commentators since Lachmann, the pronouns being regarded as exegetical glosses to confine the assertion to Christians.—R.]

[9][So Eadie with more correctness than Alford and Ellicott, for though γάρ is not to be supplied, yet the logical connection of the assertion is argumentative. It is one of the rare cases where the grammatical nicety of the commentator last named has led him somewhat astray.—R.]

[10][So Meyer: “Objective relations of unity, to which the non-observance of the precept in Ephesians 4:3 would be opposed. These are: 1. The Church itself constituted as a unity—one body, one Spirit, one blessed consummation, Ephesians 4:4; Ephesians 2:0. That by which this constitution of the same as a unity has and does come to pass—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, Ephesians 4:5; Ephesians 3:0. The supreme Ruler, Administrator and Preserver of this entire unity—one God and Father, etc., Ephesians 4:6. Notice the triple tri-partite division.”—R.]

[11][On this question, which seems to have occupied undue prominence from the sacramental tendencies of many commentators, Ellicott remarks that if a reason must be assigned, “it must be referred to the fundamental difference between the sacraments. The one is rather the symbol of union, the other, from its single celebration and marked individual reference, presents more clearly the idea of unity,—the idea most in harmony with the context.”—R.]

[12][Hodge: “There are many passages to which the doctrine of the Trinity gives a sacred rhythm, though the doctrine itself is not directly asserted. It is so here. There is one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father. The unity of the Church is founded on this doctrine. It is one, because there is to us one God the Father, one Lord, one Spirit. It is a truly mystical union; not a mere union of opinion, of interest, or of feeling: but something supernatural arising from a common principle of life. This life is not the natural life which belongs to us as creatures; nor intellectual, which belongs to us as rational beings; but it is spiritual life, called elsewhere the life of God in the soul. And as this life is common on the one hand to Christ and all His members, and on the other to Christ and God, this union of the Church is not only with Christ, but with the Triune God.”—R.]