Ephesians 8
Last time we were thinking about that glorious prayer Paul prayed for the Ephesian believers at the end of chapter 3. In a sense this ends the more teaching section of the letter and he moves on now to more practical matters. Though this is true there is still a great deal of teaching in this section, especially about the church and our spiritual warfare as Christians.
We are going to think now about the first six verses of chapter 4. Paul tells us in these verses what the church is by nature and also something about its character. This is what he says:
“As a prisoner of the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit - just as you were called to one hope when you were called - one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all and in all.”
He has talked about the church already. At the end of chapter 1 and in chapter 2 he has said that it is the body of Christ. He has explained how Jesus died on the cross so that all mankind might be reconciled to God. The believers in Christ are God’s new chosen people. The difference between Jew and Gentile has ended and now the church of Christ are the chosen people. The church is Christ’s body and He is the head. Paul never thought of the church as a material building. That is a modern idea. True, he likens the church to a temple, to the household of God, but it is not a temple in a physical sense. The church is formed by all those who have been redeemed by Christ’s death. It is a living church formed of living men and women from every tribe and nation and joined to Christ as the head by the Holy Spirit in them.
Paul in these verses lists some facts that are essential to our faith if we are to be part of this living church, the body of Christ. He says first that it is truly one body. We may be different in language, in colour, in temperament, in ideas on many things, but we are all one in Christ, united to Him by one life, the life of God. The person who makes us one is the Holy Spirit. He dwells in each one of us and He imparts the one life of God to each believer.
The we have just one basic hope. Our hope is Jesus Christ, the only one who can reconcile us to God, and the only one through whom the world can be renewed and made what God wants it to be. Paul calls the Lord Jesus our hope again in his first letter to Timothy chapter 1 and verse 1 where he introduces the letter with these words: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Saviour and of Christ Jesus our hope.” There is no hope at all for this world apart from Jesus, but in Him there is every hope and He will fulfil his purpose.
Jesus is our hope because He is Lord of all. There is one Lord and we can never be true believers unless we truly confess Him as Lord. Do you know that chorus: “He is Lord. He is Lord, He is risen from the dead and He is Lord. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”? All our confidence as Christians rest in his Lordship. This is the church’s faith. There can be no other. Christ died and rose again from the dead to reconcile us to God and to be our Lord. No true believer can have any other faith than this.
Baptism is the sign of entry into the church and illustrates the fact that God intends the believer to die to sin and to rise with Christ in newness of life. Paul explains this in Romans chapter 6 verses 1 to 4:
“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised in his death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
Baptism does not make a person a Christian, but it is an act of obedience, and an affirmation by one who has already become a member of Christ’s body through faith in Him.
Then Paul finishes by declaring with triumph that there is one God and Father of all who is the source of all and the sustainer of all and through whom alone we can be saved and have eternal life. When we have that eternal life then we have the living God as our Father. This is the Christian faith; only in truly accepting the reality of these facts and trusting in Christ alone for our salvation from sin, can we belong to the church of God and be a part of the body of Christ.
Then Paul goes on to tell these believers, and so also us today, the kind of people members of this church ought to be. Sad to say, they have not always been like this, by any means. They were not in Paul’s day, and that is why he writes so strongly in this and other letters to make it quite clear what kind of people those who belong to the church ought to be. Later on in the letter he speaks to individuals, but here he is speaking of the kind of life the church as a whole should live. First, he begs them to walk worthy of the high and holy calling. To please God and to keep their relationship with Him right is to be their whole aim in life. They are to be worthy of the one who loved them and gave Himself for them.
Certain characteristics stand out in verses 2 and 3 which cover all that Paul desires of them. The first are humbleness and gentleness, or meekness and lowliness one version puts it. Some people think it weak to be thought of as meek. This is not so. Only one who is strong in love can be meek. Jesus towered above all others in moral strength and yet He stooped in all humbleness to wash his disciples’ feet. He was righteously indignant against injustice and hypocrisy; yet He stooped with ease to the lowest in society and truly loved them.
Then Paul emphasises patience, or longsuffering as a necessary characteristic of the true Christian. We are to love and love and love however much the one we are loving fails to respond. We are never to give up, never completely to lose hope, even for the least responsive. It means too that we are not to be impatient with the failure of others, nor to resent their rejection or ill treatment of us. Then we are to bear with one another in love; this follows on from patience. There is to be no retaliation when others don’t agree with us or are hostile to us. We are to genuinely try to see the other person’s point of view and to put ourselves in their situation.
Paul’s last great plea is for unity. He does this often in his letters. Discord was a great problem then as it is now. Notice again what he says, “Make every effort to keep, or maintain, the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Do all that you possibly can to see that there is no disunity among you; no argument fore argument’s sake; no strife and the bitterness that comes from it. He did not mean that should be no disagreement, but there can be disagreement without bitterness, without falling out with each other. The Holy Spirit should be in control enabling us to find our God’s will and to do it working happily together.
This is the kind of church Paul prays for. Is this the aim for the church fellowship you belong to, and have you the spiritual qualities to make your contribution to realising that aim?