CHRIST, according to Col. 3:44When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:4), is our life, not the Father, observe, or the Holy Ghost, but Christ, God manifest in the flesh, He who suffered for us, who rose again from' the dead, He, and He alone is our life. (1 John 5:1212He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. (1 John 5:12).) True it is, that the Holy Ghost is both the originator, and the power of this life, that it is by the Spirit we believe, and by the Spirit we live. But while it is so, the two must not be confounded, namely, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of God; as they are distinct in the Godhead, so they are distinct also in us.
This leads us to the true understanding of the word, "THERE IS ONE BODY, AND ONE SPIRIT." Here the one Spirit is Christ, the new man, the divine nature in us, which is to the mystical body, the Church, what the, soul is to the natural body, wrought in us, as we have seen, by God's Spirit, animated and energized thereby, but at the same time distinct altogether from it; not a divine person and power apart from ourselves, living and acting in us, but our very being, our life, the inner man, strengthened, according as we live in communion with God, by His Spirit.
If the Spirit in this passage is the Holy Ghost, then Christ as "our life" is left out altogether, a strange inconsistency surely, when the Church of God is the subject. Again, on the other hand, for the same reason, it would be equally strange if the Holy Ghost were omitted, accordingly we find it is not so; inasmuch as in the "One baptism" here spoken of, the same truth is declared which appears in 1 Cor. 12:1313For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:13). "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free.”