Before entering upon the subject of ministerial gifts, which is brought before us later on in the chapter, the Holy Spirit dwells upon the unity that belongs to the saints of God in Christ now. It was necessary that this should be laid down as a grand platform upon and in connection with which ministry takes its course. For ministry rather brings into prominence individual members of Christ, and not so much the entire body. For although it is a common statement that the Church teaches, it is really and entirely unfounded. Indeed the notion leads to the pretense of infallibility; and this finds its most open expression in Romanism. The truth is, the Church never teaches, but, on the contrary, is the body that is taught. There is no such thing as a body that teaches. The Church, no doubt, contains within itself the husbandman that are employed of the Lord; but itself is God’s husbandry or the scene on which God labors to produce fruit unto Himself. This is an important truth practically; because it destroys all pretension on the Church’s part to create or even define doctrines. The Church is called to be the pillar and ground of the truth; it is bound to take care by holy discipline that nothing contrary to the truth should be tolerated within it: God’s assembly cannot relieve itself from this responsibility. But while this belongs to the entire Christian community, that it should be that body which on earth holds out the truth before men, and within which we must come if the truth, having been believed, is to be acted on at all; yet the way in which God has been pleased to work for the spread of His truth upon consciences is by individual members of His Church who are qualified for this particular purpose. Power to teach depends upon the gift conferred by sovereign grace. It is not from an abstract right that every man can teach or preach if he likes. There is no such license in the Church of God. The Lord Jesus has a right to call and to communicate power in the Holy Spirit as He pleases. The Church is not a society of men who hold particular views on this or that: still less is it the gathering into one of the world. It is the assembly of God, of those He calls and wherein He dwells. And as this is true with regard to the whole —that it all belongs to God—that it is God who forms, and guards it, and maintains His own holiness and glory in it, so is it with regard to ministry, which is one very important function that is maintained in particular members of the Church. That is, there is the unity which the believers now have in Christ Jesus, by virtue of which there is the assembly of God—the common unity of blessing in which all believers now stand, and which is the groundwork, if I may so say, of everything. But in connection with it you have ministry at work, which belongs to particular members rather than to the whole Church. The gifts are in and of some, for the good of all.
This divides the portion before us into two parts. In the early verses, to the end of verse 6, we find rather the unity of the Spirit; from verse 7 the diversity of the members of Christ. First of all, observe that the Holy Spirit has brought us now to the ground of exhortation. We have doctrine in the first three chapters; now we come to practice. “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called” (vs. 1). This vocation consists of two parts more particularly. First, the saints, all who know the Lord Jesus Christ, compose one body in Him; secondly, they are the habitation of God through the Spirit. Thus, although the assembly of God is a body existing upon earth, yet it is founded upon heavenly privileges, the body of Christ showing us our corporate blessedness, the habitation of God through the Spirit rather bringing before us our responsibility as having God dwelling in the midst of us. I apprehend that these two things are very feebly entered into, even by true children of God. When they hear of the body of Christ, the idea is scarcely more than that they are forgiven, or are children of God, or they are going to heaven. How very little all this is a measure of what is implied in the body of Christ! Many true believers suppose it to mean the aggregate of those who are reconciled to God—the objects of His favor who are not left to die in their sins. But you might have all these privileges without any of the characteristic features of Christ’s body, or God’s habitation through the Spirit. It would have been quite possible, if God had been so pleased to order it, that Christians should have been children of God, conscious of their redemption, knowing their sonship, fully expecting to be glorified with Christ in heaven, and yet never have been joined together as one body in Christ, with God dwelling among them by a special presence of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. This was a superadded privilege over and above redemption through the blood of Christ. And this is so true, that if you search all the Old Testament through, you will find that never are the saints of God spoken of there as being members of Christ’s body, the habitation of God through the Spirit.
But more than that. The prophets are full of a glorious scene yet to be enacted on this earth, when the Lord will put down Satan’s power. There is a time coming when evil will no longer be permitted to go unpunished, nor good to suffer here below; and when that day comes, Scripture is plain that although God will have a people for Himself upon earth, they will not be joined together as one body, nor will they form God’s habitation through the Spirit. It is between the two advents of Christ—between the grace which has appeared, and the glory which is going to appear (Titus 2:11-1311For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 12Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; 13Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; (Titus 2:11‑13))—that we hear of this special Vocation wherewith we are called. For let us consider what the body of Christ is—His body, of course, I mean; not as predicated of Himself personally, but as composed of and applied to those who believe in Christ now, that spiritual corporation to which all true saints of God now found upon the earth and ever since Pentecost belong. What are the blessings which constitute it? What does the Holy Spirit mean by membership of this body? I answer, the cross, being the witness and expression of the guilt of the Jews more especially (the guilt, doubtless, of all men in general, but pre-eminently of the Jew), gave occasion for God to dissolve completely, for the time being, the peculiar place of favor which the Jewish people had previously possessed. God Himself blotted out the landmark which separated Israel from the Gentiles; and instead of making Israel to be the one channel of His promise, on the contrary, the tide of blessing turns decidedly and conspicuously towards the Gentiles—to gather out of Jews and Gentiles a people for His name; and to join together this election out of them both, who believe in Christ, into the possession of new privileges that never had been tasted in like mode or measure before.
One most remarkable feature of the blessing is, that the distinction between Jew and Gentile is gone. The cross united them in wickedness before God. But what does God use it for He says, as it were, I will take that very cross which man has made the scene of his outrageous rebellion against God—which proved that my ancient people were grown violent in hostility against Me in the person of My Son; and I will make the cross to be the pivot on which will turn fuller, richer blessing than had even been hoped for by believing men in this world before. Thus, as the cross was the rallying point of Satan to gather men in an unholy union against God and His Son, so God makes it to be the grand center where He forms the Jews and Gentiles that believe in His Son into a new body, where all such distinctions are blotted out forever. And if God is pleased to call out a people for the purpose of giving a practical testimony to this new display of His love, who is to gainsay it? The law is righteous; and it would be an outrage upon God to put the smallest stigma upon the ten words. But while the commandment is holy, just, and good, grace brings in what is higher and better still. It is right, of course, if I do well, that —should be rewarded for it; but is it not more blessed, if I do well, suffer for it, and take it patiently This is grace, acceptable with God, and the practical principle on which He is calling His children now to act. It was not the public rule of government in Old Testament times, but the contrast of it. Does God, then, contradict Himself? Far from it. God may have one way of dealing with the Jewish people; and then He may lay down another way of dealing with Christians. Indeed, who can deny that He has? The Jew would have been guilty of a grievous sin if he had not been circumcised; and I believe that, as far as the earth is concerned, even in the bright day that is coming, the Jew will have His land, and priest, and temple. The will of God for the Jews will remain substantially unchanged. I find in the prophecies a state of things not yet accomplished, when all these outward ordinances of God will be fulfilled. Am I not to believe God till I see the prophecies thus realized? It is not thus we treat the word of a good man. But if we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. And for a man to receive Samuel and Kinas, and not to believe Ezekiel and Hosea, is to treat God as you would not treat an ordinary man. But if I believe all that He has said, there are peculiar principles of God for the Jews which are still to be carried out by the Messiah reigning in power when the devil is bound. God will accomplish all that He has spoken of in the prophets in the days of heaven upon the earth. But meanwhile the Messiah that was promised to bring in the glory came, and has been rejected. Instead of having a throne, He had the cross; and far from taking the earth for His inheritance, He was cast out of it and went up to heaven. A new state of things consequently was opened; and for this order, altogether different from that contemplated generally in the prophecies, we have the New Testament revelation. Therein we find what meets little intimations here and there in the Old Testament, but at the same time introduces, as a whole, a scene without precedent or successor, where God unfolds privileges that were never tasted before, and looks for a walk that He did in no way demand even from saints of old.
There are, of course, certain plain, fixed principles always obligatory. God never sanctioned a lie or covetousness, or malice: no dispensations can neutralize or weaken the grand moral distinctions between right and wrong. But the God that wrought in earthly power to protect His people, and would have protected them had they been faithful under the law, now, on the contrary, calls His people to suffer in grace. The same God that shielded them and brought them through the Red Sea, and who would not allow any power to gain universal supremacy in the earth till Israel had proved themselves unfaithful, then, when they did manifest themselves altogether unworthy, permitted Babylon, the very worst of the Gentile powers, to overthrow them. And then one empire succeeded another, till finally, under the Romans, both Jews and Gentiles united in crucifying the Lord of glory. Then the world’s doom was sealed; the knell of its judgment sounded from the cross of Jesus. You might have expected, had God been then acting upon principles of righteousness, that at once the universe of God would have been convulsed, and Jerusalem and Rome destroyed in His fiery indignation. But, no; heaven opens, but it is to receive the crucified Jesus—not to judge His murderers: it is furthermore to send down the Holy Spirit on earth, to form by grace this new body the Church of God; it is to bring those vile murderers of Jesus, if they only received Him, into a place of blessing, whose breadth, and length, and depth, and height never had been enjoyed or known before.
And this is grace. The law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The gospel of God’s grace goes out; but it does not merely save souls—it gathers them, unites them to Christ, makes them members of Him and one of another. The Old Jewish vantage ground has disappeared; the Levitical privileges are completely eclipsed as far as the Church is concerned. The Gentiles were sunk in idolatry, and the Jews self-complacent under God’s law which they kept not; but both are brought through the Spirit, by faith in Christ, into this one body, and worship God on the same common ground of grace. They are “builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. This is the vocation wherewith we are called.”
“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord” (vs. 1). He again points to that honorable scar from the world’s enmity, because he is bringing out in a practical way what the consequence, even to the greatest servant of God that ever lived (next to Christ), was in this world. After all, he was the Lord’s prisoner. What a wonderful honor! There were no fiery chariots to surround him, as with Elijah; no power put forth to preserve him. He is suffering from the same empire that crucified the Lord of glory; and out of his prison he is cheering the saints to walk worthy of that same calling! Even now the world is overmatched: what will it be when Christ comes? “With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love” (vs. 2). There was a danger of the contrary: spiritual privilege might be misused to puff up the saints. He therefore meets this, and shows them the only proper tone that becomes the Christian. “With all lowliness and meekness” (vs. 2). It is a blessed thing to find zeal: but what can redeem the walk of a Christian which fails in lowliness and meekness? There is a time to be firm and a time to be yielding, but neither gift nor position can justify those who seem to think that in their case the exhortation to meekness and lowliness has no place. We must take care, on the other hand, that it is not meekness in manner or lowliness in word only, for God looks in us for what is real. Too often, humility is but a cover for the deepest pride, as love and the spirit of Christ are most talked of where they least exist. Let us beware of this vain show.
But supposing there is that in others which you cannot overlook, as being contrary to the mind of God, how are we to act? No doubt there is to be the fitly spoken word of reproof, if needful; but there is to be “long-suffering” also; and if there be any place where long-suffering is called for, it is where evil touches ourselves. We are not to tolerate evil against the Lord; but wherever it is that which injures us, longsuffering is the word, “forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Here it is not only the lowly grace and patience which the Christian has to cherish, but the spiritual diligence with which he is called to hold fast what is most precious and divine here below.
“Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (vs. 3). How perfect is Scripture! It does not say, “the unity of the body,” although including it. But had it been said, “the unity of the body,” people might have built up (as indeed they have) an outward institution and made it a point of life and death not to separate from that. But what the Holy Spirit lays upon those belonging to Christ is, “endeavoring”—showing all needed earnestness—not to make, but “to keep the unity of the Spirit” (vs. 3). It is something already made by the Spirit which we have to maintain or observe. It is not merely that we are to have a nice feeling towards our fellow-Christians. This might be in a thousand different bodies; but if ever so well kept, this would not be keeping “the unity of the Spirit” (vs. 3). What is meant then? The unity of the Holy Spirit, which is already formed, embraces all the members of Christ. And where are the members of Christ to be found? In one sense, thank God, everywhere: in another, alas! anywhere. Wherever Christ is preached, and souls have received Him, there are His members. And what have we to do? Diligently to maintain the unity that embraces everyone belonging to Christ—“in the bond of peace” (vs. 3). Here we find peace spoken of, not so much for our own souls with God, but rather for enjoying and furthering practically union among saints of God. The flesh is anxious and restless: a peaceful spirit is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and mightily contributes to the binding together of hearts in practice. God’s Spirit is not occupied with merely giving right opinions about things: deeper purposes are His. He is bowing souls to Christ, and exalting Him in their eyes. But to bring one soul out of darkness into light, or out of a little into deeper light, is surely precious; and this is what God Himself is now engaged with. We do well, while holding fast our liberty for Christ, not to allow the barriers that men have brought in, but to treat them as null and void.
But then, it will be, as is often, said that every man has a right of private judgment: I deny it totally. No man has a right to have an opinion in divine things; God only and absolutely is entitled to communicate His mind. What people have to do is to get out of the way, that God’s light may shine into the hearts of His children. Men, in their self-importance, only cause their dark shadows to pass over each other: they thus hinder instead of helping the communication of divine truth. Whereas, when the desire of Christ’s servant is, that God may lead on and strengthen His children, is it in vain? Never. The moment you begin to gather people round a particular person, view, or system, you are only forming a sect. For this is a party, though it may contain many members of Christ, which forms its basis of union, not on Christ, but on points of difference, which thus become a special badge and means of separating between the children of God. The apostolic Church never challenged a convert’s faith as to an establishment or dissent—never asked, Do you believe in episcopacy, voluntaryism, or even the Church of God? The true and God-glorifying inquiry ever was and is, Do you believe in the Christ of God? Is it true that in early days, if a man confessed Christ, he was cast off by Jews and Gentiles, and became an object of enmity to all the world; and this was no slight a guard then against people confessing Christ, unless they really believed in Him. But if a man had received the Holy Spirit, through the hearing of faith, he was at once a member of the one body, and acknowledged as such.
Why should this not rule now? Am I not content with the wisdom of God Would I then supplement His word, or do without or against it? It is no sect if you act upon the mind of God; it is a sect if you depart from it. The question, therefore, is, What is God’s intention about His Church? How would He have us to meet? Am I willing to receive all real Christians—persons whom all believe to be converted? Doubtless there is such a thing as putting them out if they prove not to be so; for there is no possible case of evil but what the word of God applies to, so that there is not the smallest need for any rules or regulations of men. Unless men are spiritual, they will not keep the unity of the Spirit long; they will soon find abundant ground for faultfinding. But those who hold fast and firm to Christ as the center of the Spirit’s unity, as they are no sect, so they never can become one, whatever be the schisms, divisions, heresies, of their adversaries. It is very sorrowful that any souls should go away in self-condemnation, but it is the more blessed for those, who, spite of all, have faith and patience and grace to stay. The apostle said in writing to the Corinthians, “There must needs be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest.” These were the men who in that day clave to the Lord with full purpose of heart. May the same thing be true of us now! I deny that the word of God is made of none effect, or that I am in any way bound to sin now more than then. The unity of the Spirit which the Ephesians had to keep, is the unity which God lays upon all His children. If the word has regenerated my soul through the Holy Spirit; if through that word I know my Saviour and my Father; if to it I am indebted as the means God uses for cleansing my soul from day to day, am I to say that I need not follow His word as a member of Christ’s body in the assembly of God, where He dwells in the Spirit? Surely, if my soul owns its divine authority, woe is me if I do not seek to follow it in all things. God calls on us to be diligent in maintaining “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (vs. 3). It is not the unity of our spirits, but the unity of the Spirit.
When we reflect that it is the Holy Spirit who forms this unity, is it not a solemn thought? Ought we not to guard against anything that would grieve Him Our Lord attached special importance to what touched the Holy Spirit; and so should we if wise. If the Holy Spirit is here for this purpose on earth, He becomes a divine test for souls, whether they are prepared to honor Him or not. But people might say, If you receive all Christians without requiring them to give a pledge for the future, tacitly, if not expressly, you may accept a Socinian or an Arian. But I do not acknowledge such to be Christians at all: do you? What is the Church founded on? “Whom say ye that I am,” (Luke 9:2020He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God. (Luke 9:20)) says our Lord, in the very chapter in which He first notices that He was going to build the Church. “Thou art the Christ (says a disciple), the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:1616And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. (Matthew 16:16)). And what does our Lord reply “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church” (Matt. 16:1818And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)). Hence there ought to be the strongest, strictest dealing with souls, whether in deed and in truth they believe and confess the divine glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. The smallest compromise as to this allowed would be a reason for standing in doubt of any soul. You have no ground to receive as a Christian him who tampers with the purity, glory, or integrity of the person of Christ. The Church is founded on Christ the Son of God: if this rock be shaken, all is gone. “If the foundations be destroyed, what shall the righteous do?” (Psa. 11:33If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? (Psalm 11:3)). To touch Christ is to touch the very basis on which the Church of God rests.
But where a soul confesses Christ really and truly, confesses Him in such a way that it commends itself to your conscience as divine, receive him; for God has. He may be Baptist or Paedo-Baptist: never mind, receive him. If he is living in sin, need I say that Christ and drunkenness cannot go together? Faith in the Son of God is incompatible with walking in darkness. No matter how a man may talk about Christ, if he joins with that confession a disregard for the moral glory of God, he proves by this fact that he is not born of God. Simon Magus thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money. It was a mistake that he made, some will say. Yes, but that mistake was vital, and proved that he could not have life from God; and therefore, though baptized, he was not received as a member of the body of Christ. We have no reason to think that he broke bread at all. Baptism would be no reason in the face of such circumstances, why the assembly should receive him whom they do not believe to be a saint.
This will show in some degree the character or limits of the unity of the Spirit. For the Holy Spirit, while He calls souls and empowers them to confess Christ, never leaves them to walk in the mire of their own wickedness. If a believer falls into sin of a certain character, he ought to be put away. What is merely personal should be dealt with in a private way; it would be monstrous to put all failures on the same ground. The first and deep feeling of the soul ought to be, in vindicating God, to get the person right. The Church is a witness of divine grace, and has to seek the blessing of the unconverted, and the restoration of Christians who have gone astray. Are we endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit? How is it that Christians are formed into different associations? If the word of God be that which they at all cost seek to carry out, why do they require human rules and modern inventions? If God gives a rule I do not want another; I do want to have His in all its strength, so as to bring forth the truth to a man’s conscience, and say, That is God’s will. Is it well or wise to yield this up?
God has written a word that bears upon everything moral, by which He intended His children to walk: are we doing so You may ask, Are you then perfect? I answer, We are endeavoring to hold fast and in peace the Spirit’s unity, we are honestly seeking subjection to the will of God: are you doing the same? This is the main question for every child of God—Am I endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit? And am I doing it in God’s way or out of my own head? Have I surrendered myself to His will? Our business is to be dutiful to Him. We have our orders, and our responsibility is to carry them out, subject to Him whose we are, and whom we are bound to serve.
But further this unity is to be kept in the bond of peace. God is forming His Church of all those who belong to Himself. It is not Christian persons holding particular views of this or that; but the Spirit holding to His own unity, that is, to what Christ is to them, not to the points in which they differ one from another. If I want to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, I must have my own soul settled upon this: the Holy Spirit is glorifying Christ alone. You cannot please the Father more than in exalting the Son; and you cannot touch Him more nearly than by slighting His Son. All is secured in maintaining Christ. This brings it to the simplest possible issue. What have we to do with forcing people to give up their views and adopt ours, let them be ever so correct? God’s word furnishes a ground, in the name of Christ, on which you can embrace all saints, let them be ever so weak or prejudiced. Let us beware of being more careful of our own reputation or ease than of His will. Let us not be vain of our little knowledge, or of the point we may have attained to in practice. Let us look up to the Lord for faith and patience to own every real member and servant of Christ, wherever found. Let us cleave to the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and be diligent in maintaining it, whatever the difficulties may be, and they are great. Faith does not see many bodies and one Spirit, it knows but one body. Bearing with others who in this see dimly or double, let us be rigid in holding fast the name of Christ, and for ourselves be careful to accredit nothing contrary to it. “There is one body and one Spirit, even as we are called in one hope of our calling.” This is our most essential, vital blessing in Christ; “for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones” (ch. 5:30). “One Spirit” is added immediately, because it is the Holy Spirit who makes it good; and what we are now by the power of the Holy Spirit, we hope to enjoy by and by with Christ. We shall have it fully and perfectly in the presence of God in heaven. This is the first unity.
There is a difference between this and the following verses. The fourth verse is one character of unity, the fifth another, and the sixth a third; and these concentric unities enlarge respectively. “There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling” (vs. 4). Nobody enters into this who is not born and baptized of the Holy Spirit. This one body is on earth, no doubt; but then it is a real thing and of God now, whatever may be the glory proper to it hereafter. But in verse 5 you have a more outside unity, an area of profession, larger than that of real spiritual power. Here “the Lord” is made prominent; and there are many who will say in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?” (Matt. 7:2222Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? (Matthew 7:22)).
Hence we hear next of “one faith,” by which is meant the Christian faith. If I talk about faith in the sense of its being the medium by which we lay hold of Christ, and are saved in the grace of God, it is never called one faith. By the latter is meant the common faith that all Christians profess, in contradistinction to the religion or law of Jews and the idolatry of Gentiles. Accordingly “one Lord, one faith,” (vs. 5) is followed by “one baptism;” because whoever professed to believe in Christ was baptized with water. Simon Magus received Christ nominally, and was baptized, though he soon proved to be no Christian. Thus, verse 5 gives us, not the unity that is real, and holy, and enduring, but of the Christian profession.
Last of all, we have “one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all” (vs. 6). Evidently in this I stand before a still vaster compass. There is an immense mass of mankind that does not profess Christ at all. The bulk of men have gone on with their idols, spite of law and gospel. Are there no claims there? I own one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all. That is, it is a personal God. Not at all the idea that everything is God—which is infidelity in its worst shape, or Pantheism. I own “one God,” not a number of divinities, like the Gentiles, but “one God and Father of all” (vs. 6). The Jew did not believe that He was the Father of all, nor even properly this for the chosen nation; but rather their Governor, even Jehovah. The Christian revelation brings out God in an infinitely larger, as well as for us more intimate, character; but larger, too, as embracing all creaturehood—“One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all” (vs. 6) (His supremacy and providence—but more than these) “and in you all.” There is His near connection with some, and not with all. For it is not said, “in all,” but “in you all.” The Holy Spirit is speaking of the Father’s peculiar relationship to the Christian. Thus nothing can be more full and beautiful, and orderly, than these unfoldings of unity in and around Christ our Lord.