Church Unity.
In these words, which unite the passionate enthusiasm of thanksgiving with the clear-cut precision of a creed, St. Paul draws out to us explicitly that which is the great subject of the whole Ephesian Epistle: the existence and the nature of the Holy Catholic Church of Christ. The whole area of humanity, and therefore the whole area of the salvation of Christ, is seen by him as a whole. Over the whole battlefield of the world he watches the sweep of the tides of the spiritual battle. The unity of all men in Christ with God and with each other is the magnificent truth which fills his whole mind and heart, and breaks forth ever and anon in bursts of praise; and the text draws out at last, as it were in a triumphant creed, the great lines of the pervading subject.
I. The picture before St. Paul's eyes was the picture of the Catholic Church of Christ. And that picture differs very much from the appearance which it presents to our eyes now. Far less was it then in extent, numbering its thousands instead of its millions, only spread over the civilisation that fringed the basin of the Mediterranean, instead of pervading the length and breadth of the world. Far less pervading was it in its power. It had not yet penetrated into the very nature of humanity; it had not yet moulded the language, the thought, the imagination, and the life of all the leading nations of mankind. But yet, if it was far less grand in its outline, how much more perfect was it in its unity.
II. St. Paul places the source and living power of our unity not in anything that belongs to us, but in the eternal unity of God. There is one Spirit, the Holy Ghost Himself, making His temple in the hearts of Christians. They who partake of His life are one body still. The bonds which bind all Christian hearts with gold chains about the feet of God have passed upward from the earth. They cannot be trampled and broken under the heel of man; they cannot be severed. Whatever else we have done, the source of our unity we can no more close up than we can stop the outburst of some mighty river when it comes rushing down from its ice cave in the everlasting hills.
III. In all unity between rational beings there must be action on both sides, and God brings in the law in His dealing with us. All His blessings are freely given by His grace; but only by the consent of the human will can they penetrate the soul. Faith, hope, love, that triad of Christian graces these are the conditions which make us one body indeed. What is the duty which this passage forces upon Christians? (1) Realise what you have. Feel, and act as if you felt, the large amount of unity which exists among Christians still. Let us act with, let us think with, let us pray with, all who bear the name of Christ. (2) Strive for what as yet you have not. There is an incalculable waste of spiritual power, not only by division, but by friction and antagonism. There is a bewilderment of truth when it is proclaimed, however loudly, by discordant voices. If only Christendom were united, it would hardly need a generation to convert the world; if only England were united, our isle might be "an isle of saints," a kingdom of God.
Bishop Barry, Penny Pulpit,New Series, No. 679.
I. Ver. 4: The Apostle uses a favourite image here. The Church is represented by the individual man, and the unity of the Church is represented as like the unity of a man. There is an outward oneness of character and walk, as there is an outward oneness in the corporeal structure of a man; and there is an inward oneness, as of the soul in man.
II. The one individual man, having a body and a soul, but still one, is one also as having and owning one Head. Made one body and one spirit, through the one hopeful calling common to all, we are further one as recognising one Lord. And there is but one method of union with Him and with one another in Him: faith, one faith; and one seal of that oneness of faith: one baptism.
III. Thus called, in one hopeful calling, to be one body animated by one Spirit, thus united to one and the same Lord by one and the same faith, confirmed by the seal of one and the same baptism, they who constitute the one Church come to stand in one and the same relation to the Supreme, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all.
R. S. Candlish, Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians,p. 70.
Reference: Ephesians 4:4-6. Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 428.