Ephesians 4:4-6, Our calling is the only hope.

Tuesday October 20, 2020

 

EPH 4:4-6

There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

 

One body.

 

We closed our study of spiritual gifts with the means of unity in the body of Christ. Humility and love are the means of unity. Following each list of spiritual gifts given by Paul in Rom 12, 1Co 12, and Eph 4, Paul follows with instructions on love, serving one another in humility, the mark of the great society of believers, the way of the kingdom of God.

 

He who has the Spirit will find a place in the body of Christ. To isolate and not seek out His brethren to serve them is to quench and grieve the HS.

 

“By an instinct of its life, the new-born soul forms bonds of attachment for itself to the Christian souls nearest to it, to those amongst whom it is placed in God’s dispensation of grace.” [G.G. Findlay]

 

Same author: “Where the Spirit of Christ dwells as a vitalizing, formative principle, it finds or makes for itself a body. Let no man say: I have the spirit of religion; I can dispense with forms. I need no fellowship with men; I prefer to walk with God - God will not walk with men who do not care to walk with His people.”

 

Findlay claims that God will not walk with Christians who are isolationists, but I would temper that with the truth that God will never leave or forsake His children. Yet, however we word it, God has a way and if we choose an altered way, God is not headed that way. He will stay by our side, but He will not help us down roads that are not His own. The way of God is love and unity. It is abundantly clear in the NT.

 

1JO 4:21

And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

 

The oneness of communion amongst the people of Christ is governed by a unity of aim: “just as also you were called in one hope of your calling.”

 

EPH 4:4

There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling;

 

One Spirit:

 

The Holy Spirit is a Person and is God. Involved in creation (GEN 1:2). The inspirer and revealer of Scripture. The empower of divine action in believers.

 

The Holy Spirit is the revealer of all the beauty of doctrine, revealing it only to those who are taught by the Spirit Himself. Revelation is closed to cold reason and precise logic. The believer must come humbly to God knowing that he must rely on the Holy Spirit for knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.

 

The Holy Spirit is sent by the Son and goes forth from the Father. He is obedient to the Father and Son as the Son is to the Father, but in no way inferior.

 

Only in our world is submission seen as being inferior. The Holy Spirit, like the Son, has a willing subordination in keeping with His person and the unity of the purpose of the Godhead. As it was expected of the Son to obey the Father even to the point of death, so it is harmonious with all that we know of God and His work that the Holy Spirit should be the unseen obedient servant of God, speaking of Christ, rather than Himself, glorifying the Father rather than His own Person directly. Yet as Christ in humiliation brought to Himself the glory of a Savior, so the Holy Spirit will ultimately bring glory to Himself for all that He does as a servant.

 

The Trinity is not three independent Gods all working in their own way, but one God with one purpose, that the Father issues forth and the Son and the Spirit obey. The love of truth, purpose, and righteousness, united together in its fulfillment, in a way that will bring regenerated man into their very sphere of eternal life.

 

As a part of the eternal purpose of the Trinity, the HS undertook all the ministry necessary to sustain the Son during the incarnation in which the Son was to lay aside His own glory and power to some measure.

 

In fact, the HS undertook to beget the Son of God from the virgin Mary, to fill the man Jesus, and to supply all necessary enablement to sustain the Son in the sphere of His humiliation and empower Him for His life among men.

 

MAT 3:16-17

And after being baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him, 17 and behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased."

 

MAT 4:1-2

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.

 

LUK 4:1

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led about by the Spirit in the wilderness

 

LUK 4:14

And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit; and news about Him spread through all the surrounding district.

 

MAT 12:28

“But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

 

HEB 9:14

how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

 

The Holy Spirit has an important ministry to the saints. He regenerates the believer at salvation (baptism of the Spirit), indwells the believer, is the source of revelation of God’s Word, empowers the believer to serve.

 

TIT 3:1-7

Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, 2 to malign no one, to be uncontentious, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. 3 For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. 4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, 5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.