The Cry for Unity

 Ephesians 4:1-6

The Apostle Paul is answering in Ephesians 4 about the fundamental nature and purpose of the church, and its relationships to the world in which it must live. You will recognize these as pertinent questions of the present hour as well.

We are being told today that the church is irrelevant -a useless appendage to a society which has long outgrown the need for the church.

There are others who say that the church is very much needed in this hour, but it must change its approach if it is going to be meaningful in our generation.

The church does not have the right to chart its own course. Its goal has already been set;
its purpose has been determined by its Lord. Paul puts it this way,


…eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:3 (RSV)

"Here is the cause of the church's weakness: It is our lack of unity. If we could only get together then we would have a powerful church again.

The problem is, we are so fragmented, we are so divided, so broken.  Our need, therefore, above all other needs, is to unite.

In Verse 3, the apostle declares for us two great facts about the church . First, there is the clear recognition of the existence of differences among Christians.

Second : Beneath the differences there is also the fact of a basic unity.

 Verses 4-6  Seven elements of unity.
1. One body. The essence of a body is that it consists of thousands of cells with one mutually shared life. It is the sharing of life that makes a body different than an organization.

2. One Spirit.
Here is the great, eternal, invisible Person who is the power behind the Christian church.
The strength of the church never comes from its numbers. It is the Spirit that is the true power of the church, and there is only one Spirit.

3. One hope.
What is that hope?  the briefest expression, "Christ in you, the hope of glory," (Colossians 1:27b RSV).   As John puts it, "that we might be like him when we see him at his appearing," (1 John 3:2). That we should no longer be frail, stumbling, faulty men and women such as we are, but, fulfilling God's intention for manhood, we should be like Christ.

4. One Lord.
Everywhere in Scripture it is only when we acknowledge him as Lord that he becomes our Savior. Lord means "ultimate authority. He is the supreme person of the universe. There is no other Lord; there will never be another Lord.

5. One faith.
There is only one body of truth revealed, one faith. It is what Jude speaks of in his letter, "contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3 RSV), i.e., the whole set of revealed facts about Jesus Christ.

6. One baptism.
It is the baptism of the Spirit, the real baptism of which water baptism is always a symbol.
That baptism is linked here to Jesus Christ because it is baptism into his body. 1 Cor.12:13, "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body", the body of Christ.  Or, as Romans 6:3 puts it, we were "baptized into his death,". We have been made one with him, united with him in all the value of his death and his resurrection.

7. One God and Father of us all.
The mark that we have found him is that we recognize him as Father, we feel his father-heart.  Paul puts it in Romans 8:15, "We have been given the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, 'Abba! Father!'"

Practical Applications.

1. We cannot classify Christians by organizations.

2.The efforts of Christians are not to be directed toward creating unity, but toward maintaining peace in the body.

Resource: Adapted from Ray Stedman & others.