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Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
4:1-16 Unity of the Body of Christ. Paul now turns to exhortation (with three subsections in vv. 1-6, 7-10, and 11-16) based upon the truths he has been teaching--a common format for his letters, in which doctrinal truths are stated first (here, chs. 1-3), then application to life is built on that doctrine (chs. 4-6). The exhortations of Scripture become empty moralism without this gospel foundation.
4:1-6 Exhortation to Unity. Paul exhorts the church to unity based on the truths of the one God and his one work of salvation.
4:1 prisoner. Paul's imprisonment for the sake of the gospel is for the Lord (see 3:1). His exhortations have great power, since he himself has taken these matters seriously enough to suffer confinement in the Lord's service. Christians are to live in a manner worthy of the adoption, holiness, and unity to which they were called (see 1:4-5; 4:4).
4:2 Humility was regarded as distasteful by the pagan world of Paul's day. Pride was more highly prized. All of the virtues mentioned--humility, gentleness, patience, and most of all, love--were displayed in Christ's own character and are to be evident in the daily walk of every Christian.
4:3 Peace is a state of reconciliation and love and therefore acts as a bond to unite believers in Christ. Believers do not create unity but are to preserve the unity already established.
4:4 Spirit. Just as a human body has one spirit that animates it, so Christ's body, the church, is enlivened by one Holy Spirit who enlivens Christians to eternal life. one hope. Christians do not have separate "hopes" but are together called to eternal life and to enjoy God forever in resurrection glory. They are also called to express that unity this side of eternity. On the church as a body, see Rom. 12:4-8; 1 Cor. 12:12-31.
4:5 One Lord refers to Jesus Christ. One faith refers to the doctrinal truths Christians commonly confess. "One Spirit" (v. 4), "one Lord [Christ]" (v. 5), and "one God and Father" (v. 6) constitute a Trinitarian formula. one baptism. Christians have disagreed about the proper mode of baptism beginning in the early history of the church. "One baptism" here, however, may refer to the baptism of all believers into one body (as described in 1 Cor. 12:13), which is the result of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit when one becomes a genuine believer in Christ. If this view is correct, water baptism would be an outward sign of the inward reality of the believer being in Christ as the result of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit (cf. John 3:5, 8; Titus 3:5). There is therefore a profound spiritual unity of all genuine believers who are "in Christ" (see John 17:21, 23), founded on "one faith" in "one Lord," irrespective of denominational differences. Others hold that the reference here is to water baptism, but would disagree concerning the proper mode.
4:6 over all . . . through all . . . in all. God is omnipresent (see Ps. 139:7-12; Isa. 66:1). Thus the Christian church is "one body" (Eph. 4:4), wherever its separate congregations may be found throughout the world (see Rom. 3:30).
