“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Ephesians 4:4-6).
Just as the one body has one Lord (i.e., Christ), it also has the one Spirit (i.e., the Holy Spirit) who unifies it (Ephesians 4:3). This unity is possible because it was the Spirit’s responsibility to reveal the mind and mystery of God (Ephesians 3:5). Just as He did with the holy men of old (2 Peter 1:21), the one Spirit bore along the New Testament’s holy apostles and prophets so that they were guided into all truth—the one faith (John 16:13).
Being born of the water (i.e., the one baptism) and the one Spirit (John 3:5), the child of God is saved and thus added to the one body (Acts 2:47) and sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (Ephesians 1:13-14). This pardon of the guilt of past sins and proclamation of ownership by the one God makes the one hope a realistic possibility, not an illusionary myth.
Like the ligaments which unites a body’s muscles and bones into one cohesive unit, the Holy Spirit is the mortar which unifies the living stones (1 Peter 2:5) in the temple which Jesus built. How clarion is the exhortation of Ephesians 4:3—”endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
