The place which this name occupies in relation to the Faith which is next named suggests that the living personal Christ is the true uniting principle amongst men. Nor can we ignore the fact that in this great catalogue of the Christian unities the Lord stands in the centre of the three personalities named, and is regarded as being at once the source of the Spirit and the manifestation of the Father. It would not be going too far to suggest that we have in the name, standing as it does, for the most part, in majestic simplicity, a reference to the Old Testament name of Jehovah, which in the Greek translation familiar to Paul is generally rendered by this same word. Here, as generally in the New Testament, the name ‘Lord’ designates Christ in His authority as ruler of men and in His divinity as Incarnation of God. The deep foundation of Christian unity is laid in the divine Christ. We deal with them quite simply now, and consider them in the order in which they stand here. These three clauses of our text may be considered as substantially including all the members of the series. Hope and faith are human acts by which men are joined to God Baptism is the visible symbol of their incorporation into the one body. ‘Spirit, Lord, God,’ are the triune divine personality. One Father is last, and between these there lie the mention of the one Spirit and the one Lord. The outward institution of the Church, as a manifest visible fact, comes first in the catalogue. He is exhorting here to a unity of spirit corresponding to it, and he names a seven-fold oneness-one body and one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. It is no wonder that Paul in this letter dwells so long and earnestly on that strange fact. Pharisee and philosopher, high-born women and slaves, Roman patricians and gladiators, Asiatic Greeks and Syrian Jews forgot their feuds and sat together as one in Christ. It is difficult for us, amidst our present divisions, to realise how strange and wonderful it then was that a bond should have been found which drew together men of all nations, ranks, and characters. In these the mass of Christendom has still one faith.Įphesians 4:5The thought of the unity of the Church is very prominent in this epistle. Again we note that, with but few exceptions, all Christians, even in the divided condition of the Church, are still united in the “one baptism ” and if we look to such expressions of the one faith as are contained in the baptismal profession ( e.g., of the Apostles’ Creed), it is clear that our divisions, great as they are, turn mainly on the fourth subsidiary Article on the “Holy Catholic Church,” and not on the three primary Articles of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It is on the indwelling of Christ in each heart by faith that the spiritual unity of all Christians-primarily with Him, secondarily with one another-depends and that spiritual unity is “put on” in baptism ( Galatians 3:27), in which we are “buried with Him and risen again” ( Colossians 2:12), growing into the likeness of His death and resurrection ( Romans 6:3-5).

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(5) One Lord, one faith.-From the idea of “the calling,” the Apostle passes naturally to Him who calls-the “one Lord”-and to the method of His calling to Himself, first, by the “one faith,” and then by the “one baptism” at which profession of that one faith is made.

One baptism one spirit