01.09. ESSAY NO. 9
ESSAY NO. 9
First, Calling of the church (Ephesians 1:1-23, Ephesians 2:1-22, Ephesians 3:1-21); second, Conduct of the church (Ephesians 4:6-9); third, Conflict of the church (Ephesians 6:10-20) is an alliterative outline of Ephesians. A backward glance at the first division recalls that God in eternity planned the church, and that Christ in time purchased it to be his instrumental body and a temple for God’s -habitation—a new institution on earth. This exalted creation and use of the church demand correspondingly lofty living on the part of the church. Consequently, Paul begins the second division of the book, "I therefore . . . beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called" (Ephesians 4:1). "Therefore" shows that the "walking" is the effect of the "calling." Emphasizing this relationship of cause and effect by using "therefore" and "wherefore" eight times in the next two chapters, Paul mightily exhorts Christians unitedly to live in keeping with their high calling.
"The Unity of the Spirit" But as unity is a prerequisite to the worthy walk of a church, Paul considers it first in his discussion of conduct. By teaching men, praying for them, and pervasively influencing them, the Holy Spirit transforms cooperative men so that they share in his nature; then, he can dwell in them and use their yielded spirits and bodies in doing his work on earth. If Christ needed a body that he might accomplish his part in man’s redemption, is it incredible that the Holy Spirit likewise needs human bodies in continuing the same work? Such Spirit-born and Spirit-led men constitute the church. Of course, the church, called, organized, and animated by the Spirit, instinct with his new order of life, possesses a unity derived from the Spirit. Unregenerate men do not have the proper motivation and enabling to attain this unity. "For heavenly tulips on earth, the bulbs must be imported from heaven." But without this Spirit-given, organic unity, no organization can be God’s church. If a church loses this deep, constitutional unity, it ceases to be his church. This is the unity that Paul beseeches the Ephesians "to keep in the bond of peace" (Ephesians 4:3) with diligence.
Seven Unifying Facts
Since this organic unity given by the Spirit, and by the Spirit only, is essential to the very being of the church, which cost God so much time, grace, and wisdom, Paul in the next three verses describes it by listing the seven unifying facts that comprise it. These unalterable, final facts demand either acceptance or repudiation. No other reaction is possible; a man who rejects even one of them is not to consider himself a Christian at all.
"One body." The church, the mystical union for which Christ asked his Father in the prayer, "That they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one" (John 17:22-23). "One Spirit." The third person in the divine trinity. Power centers in him as suffering does in Christ and grace in God. "One hope." Many elements enter into the Christian hope, but Paul in his writings, probably stresses "the blessed hope" of Christ’s return most of all. Nothing holds men together like a great common hope. "One Lord." "Christ, as a lamb standing in the midst of the throne," is placed at the center of these seven facts, suggestive of the truth that everything in the entire universe focuses in him. He is the key to all truth; all mysteries are uncoded in him. "The acknowledgement of God in Christ solves for thee all questions in the earth and out of it" (Browning). "One faith." Attitude toward Christ is the same for all—the most learned, the most illiterate, the best, and the worst. A weak hand can take a gift as well as a strong one. Christians are all alike in their absolute commitment to Christ. "One baptism." Immersion of the body in water is what the Bible means by "baptism" unless a baptism of suffering, of the Holy Spirit, or of some other kind is specified. Sinners are saved "by grace . . . through faith," but not without water. In Paul’s time, there were no unbaptized people in the church. "One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all." One sovereign person, "Who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable" (1 Timothy 6:16). “A presence . . . and a spirit, that impels all thinking things, all objects of all thought, and rolls through all things” (Wordsworth).