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DIVISION I. § 6. CHAPTER IV. 1-16

The unity of the church

Connexion of thought

This Epistle to the Ephesians, viewed as a whole and from the point of view of a sympathetic intelligence, has a remarkable unity, and a unity progressively developed. Thus, first of all, the apostle opened the imagination of his hearers or readers to consider the place which the catholic church holds in the divine counsels for the universe, in the realization of the human ideal, and in the work of redemption from sin (chap. i and ii). Then he proceeded to justify and explain his own activity in the cause of catholicity, and made them feel at once the glory and the profound difficulty of the ideal of unity in diversity which it involves (chap. iii). It follows naturally and logically that he should set the Church before them as an actually existing organization, and bid them study it exactly and note the grounds of its unity and the common end to which its different elements or members are meant to minister; and this is what he actually does in the fourth chapter (1-16). Viewed, however, as a matter of grammatical structure, it is probable that this passage forms another digression – the real necessity of the argument acting as an overmastering motive which pulls contrary to the immediate grammatical purpose of the writer. Thus he had begun, at the beginning of chapter iii, to pass from the doctrinal exposition which is involved in his opening chapters to practical exhortation. The Asiatic members of the catholic church are to be exhorted to live up to their calling: to turn their backs deliberately on their old heathen habits, and to conform themselves entirely to the principles of their new state. To this exhortation he actually and finally attains at chapter iv. 17. The intervening passage (a chapter and a half) is occupied, first, with the digression which we have just considered at length, about St. Paul's mission to the Gentiles and the difficulty of its realization, and with the great prayer which that topic suggests (chap. iii); secondly, with another digression on the character of the unity of the Church. This is, I say, probably the case grammatically. For 'I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles' (iii. 1) is almost unmistakably intended to introduce a moral appeal to which his imprisonment for the sake of those to whom he writes adds weight and force[¹²⁵]. It is taken up, after a digression, in iv. i, 'I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily'; but the appeal there begun yields anew to the necessity of further exposition, and only reaches its free expression in iv. 17, 'This therefore I say and testify in the Lord'; after which point we have moral exhortation and little else.

Now, therefore, we are to occupy ourselves with what is grammatically a second digression, but logically and really a most necessary step in the exposition of St. Paul's thoughts – the subject of the unity of the church catholic, its nature and obligations. Conscious of the profound difficulty of welding naturally antagonistic elements, such as Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free men, into one catholic fellowship, St. Paul appeals to the Asiatic churches with all the force which he can command as a prisoner on their account, to 'walk' as their catholic calling involves; that is, to exhibit all those moral qualities which are necessary to maintain peace under difficult circumstance – a modest estimate of oneself (humility or 'lowliness'), a mildness in mutual relations ('meekness'), an habitual refusal to pass quick judgements on what one cannot but condemn or dislike ('longsuffering'), a deliberate forbearance one of another based on love. They are to accept one another as brethren, with the rights of brethren. And the reason why they should exhibit these qualities is not far to seek: they actually share one common supernatural life – the imparted life of the Spirit – and they are, therefore, to make it their deliberate object to preserve this actual spiritual unity in its appropriate outward expression, that is in harmonious fellowship, – 'giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.'

The unity of the church

But at this point the idea of the unity of the Church is felt to need fuller exposition. In what sense are Christians one? They are one as one body or organization, made up no doubt of a multitude of differing individual members, but all bound into one, under Christ for their head, by the fact that the one Spirit, which is Christ's supreme gift, is imparted to the whole organization and every member of it: and this common corporate life, where the elements are so different, is made possible by the one hope reaching forward into an eternal world, which was set before them all when they received their call into the body of Christ. This should be enough to annihilate lower and shorter-lived differences. 'There is one body[¹²⁶] and one spirit even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.' It follows from this that there is another threefold unity. For the existence of the common head involves a common allegiance to Him as Lord, an allegiance which is justified by what He is believed to be by all Christians; an allegiance, further, which is more than an outward fealty, being cemented by an actual incorporation into His life which takes place through the speaking symbol of the laver of regeneration[¹²⁷]. 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism.' But once more. This common union with and under Christ in the Spirit, is not anything less than union with the one and only God and Father, who is over all as the one head (even 'the head of Christ is God'), through all as the pervading presence, in all as the active life, 'one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all things.' Thus their unity is the deepest and most ultimate conceivable: it has a width and range from which no one can be excluded: while it has a closeness and cogency like the unity of blood.

To realize what this unity is and may be, involves on our part a continual looking out of ourselves, out of all individual, social and national differences, up to the common source of all the gifts of all Christians. Whatever each one possesses is simply the gift of the divine bounty or grace, given to him by a definite act of bestowal, varying merely in kind and degree according to the sovereign will of Christ the Lord, the only giver; and it is therefore to be used in His service and for His ends. The Psalmist had sung of the divine king of Israel mounting as an earthly conqueror unto his sanctuary throne in Zion after making captives and receiving gifts from among his enemies without exception.

 
'Thou hast gone up into the heights,
Thou hast led captives captive;
Thou hast received gifts among men, yea from the rebellious also[¹²⁸].'
 

It stands to reason that to St. Paul's mind this conception is realized nowhere but in Christ. Its application to Christ is in fact assumed – 'therefore,' i.e. with a view to Christ, 'he' or rather 'it,' the Scripture 'saith' – and the passage is given free interpretation, and, more than this, free modification, on the basis of this assumption. For (1) the ascension of the conquering king is spoken of as the result of a previous descent to the 'lower regions of this earth of ours[¹²⁹].' No man, as St. John says, hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven. The person who 'beggared himself' to come down to our earth and who subsequently mounted into the divine glory is one and the same person, Christ the incarnate Son; and He thus descended and re-ascended in order that He might, through the atonement wrought by Him in the flesh and through the exaltation which rewarded it, restore to the universe that unity of which sin and rebellion had robbed it, and 'fill all things' once again with the divine bounty and presence[¹³⁰].

(2) The sense of the psalm is – possibly not without Jewish precedent[¹³¹] – altered in expression so that, instead of the conqueror receiving gifts from men, his conquered enemies, we have him represented as 'giving gifts to men.' This modification, whether original in St. Paul or accepted by him, is no doubt due to the fact that his mind is full of the idea of Christ as conquering only to bless, receiving homage only to be enabled to bestow on them who offer it the fulness of the divine bounty. And the 'captives' of Christ, to St. Paul's mind, are no doubt not men, but the hosts of Satan reduced to impotence. The exalted Christ, then, is the source of all gifts in His Church, and He bestows on men various endowments in such a way as to maintain among them a necessary relation. 'No member of the body of Christ is endued with such perfection as to be able, without the assistance of others, to supply his own necessities. A certain proportion is allotted to each, and it is only by communicating with others that all enjoy what is sufficient for maintaining their respective places in the body[¹³²].' This is the principle of mutual dependence, the fundamental principle of corporate life. Thus 'He gave some as apostles, some prophets,' others in other varying capacities to fulfil varying functions; the principle of the bestowal being the same throughout. Each 'gifted' individual becomes himself a gift to the Church. He is 'gifted' not for his own sake but for the Church's sake – 'with a view to the perfecting of the saints,' or 'the complete equipment of the consecrated body,' for the manifold 'work of ministry' entrusted to it; or to look at the matter from a rather different point of view, 'for the purpose of completing the structure of the body of Christ' – that living company of men in whom Christ expresses Himself and through whom He acts upon the world. And that structure is not complete till all together attain what is impossible to any isolated Christian individual, the unity not only of a common faith, but also of a common knowledge of what is revealed in the Son of God; or, in other words, to the full-grown manhood; which, once again, means that complete developement in which the fulness of the Christ – all the complete array of His attributes and qualities – finds harmonious exhibition over again in His people, His body.

But the possibility of this completeness on the part of the Church as a whole, depends on the stability of the individual members in the common faith. Thus it is Christ's purpose that His members should cease to be as children, stirred up like the waves of the sea, or carried about like feathers, by every wind of false teaching. There is, it must be remembered, a kingdom of deception, an organized attempt to seduce souls, of which wicked men make themselves the instruments. In view of this hostile kingdom of error, the Christians must abide in the truth revealed to them in love, and so grow up into the completed life of Christ. For He is the head, and in Him they are the body. And the body is a unit of many parts fitted and held together in one life by a supply from the head, which circulates through every joint, and for the full and unimpeded communication of which each several limb must do its proper work, so that the whole body may grow into completed life in that mutual coherence which is Christian love.

This prolonged paraphrase may serve to bring out the innumerable points of interest in that rich passage in which St. Paul as it were gives the reins to his imagination and his feelings in order to describe the glory of the unity of the Church.

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. But unto each one of us was the grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith,

When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, And gave gifts unto men.

(Now this, He ascended, what is it but that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ: till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we may be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error; but speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into him, which is the head, even Christ; from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.

In this great conception of church unity there are several points to which special attention must be given.

i

The Church is one, first of all, because a common inward life, the Spirit, from a common source, Christ, flows in her veins and makes her to be one body. What is this 'unity of Spirit?' says Chrysostom. 'As in a body it is spirit which holds all together, and makes that to be a unity which consists of different limbs, so it is in the Church. For the Spirit was given for this purpose that He might unify those who differ in race and variety of habits.' This inward life is no doubt, as we shall see, imparted, maintained and perfected through outward means or institutions – baptism, the eucharist, human offices and ministries; but none the less it is the inward life which makes the Church one. So that her unity is like the unity of a family or a race, a unity of blood and life which exists in spite of all outward differences: and not like such a unity as is produced by outward government, as, for example, Armenians, Syrians, Kurds, and Turks make up the unity of the Turkish empire, or Englishmen and Frenchmen the Dominion of Canada. The unity of the Christian Church is thus a unity which ought to express itself in 'the bond of peace,' but which does not consist in that, any more than the unity of a family consists in the affection and sympathy which yet brothers ought to have one to another. This Pauline idea of church unity – which is the idea also of the New Testament as a whole – constantly finds expression in early Christian writings, but one particular expression of it may be cited. Hilary of Poitiers, in argument with the Arians, is confronted with the position that the phrase 'I and my Father are one' means only one in will, not one in nature, like the phrase used of the Church, 'one heart and soul.' He refutes the argument by urging that, in the latter case also, what is referred to is not a unity of wills but of nature: believers are 'one thing through a new birth into the same (new) nature.' 'Ye are all one,' says St. Paul, 'in Christ Jesus.' 'The apostle teaches that this unity of the faithful comes from the nature of the sacraments… What then can concord of minds have to do with a case where men are already made one by being clothed with one Christ through the nature of one baptism?[¹³³]' This passage gives a striking view of what ultimately constitutes church unity.

It is necessary to call attention to this position because the great Roman church, which occupies so large a space in the whole area of the church, and impresses its ideas so powerfully upon men's imagination, has perverted this idea of church unity by a one-sided emphasis on unity of government. I find a typical modern Roman statement in Dr. Hunter's Outlines of Dogmatic Theology[¹³⁴]: 'The Church has a principle of oneness which joins the members together, and distinguishes the society from a mere aggregate of unconnected units. The members are associated in order that, believing the revelation that God has given, and using the means of grace which He has provided, under the direction of the governors who have their authority from Him, they may attain the end of their being, the salvation of their souls. In other words, the unity which the Church must have includes the unity of faith, unity of worship, and unity of government.' Here we have church unity described as an outward association of individuals to attain a certain end by submitting to a common authority in matters of belief and worship. The unity of spiritual life which St. Paul and St. Hilary put distinctly first, becomes secondary or subordinate. It is not even specified among the three chief elements of unity. But it makes the greatest possible difference whether you say 'the Church is one because all baptized persons share a common life in Christ, and ought therefore to behave as "one body,"' or 'the Church is one by submitting to a common authority in belief, worship, and government.' The second is the Roman, the first is the apostolic statement.

ii

Once more, St. Paul's idea of the unity of the Church forbids us to conceive of it as complete in this world. Each particular church with its own organization has a certain relative completeness, but it gains all its meaning and life through fellowship in the body of Christ – the whole society of men who, having Christ for their head, live in the unity of a life derived from Him. The head of the body is out of sight. So also are the members of the body who 'are fallen asleep' but are still 'in Jesus[¹³⁵].' It is, so to speak – and increasingly as history goes on – only the lower limbs of the body who are on the earth at any particular moment. And they find their centre of unity at no lower point than Christ, the unseen head. This idea is vigorously expressed by St. Augustine[¹³⁶]: 'Since the whole Church is made up of the head and the body, the head is our Saviour Himself, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, who now, after He has risen from the dead, sits at the right hand of God; but the body is the Church – not this church or that, but the Church scattered over all the world; nor is it that only which exists among men now living; but they also belong to it who were before us and are to be after us to the end of the world. For the whole Church, made up of all the faithful, because all the faithful are members of Christ, has its head situate in the heavens which governs this body: though it is separated from their sight, yet it is bound to them by love."

Now it is obvious that this Pauline and Augustinian idea of church unity excludes, instead of suggesting, the Roman method of arguing for the papacy from the necessity that a body must have a head. An association of men in this world, such as the Church on earth is – a 'body of men' in this sense – may be governed in any of the various ways in which human societies are governed, not by any means necessarily by a monarch[¹³⁷]. In this sense a body need not have a single head; or it can be ruled by a president in a council of equals. But in St. Paul's sense, the Church as a body must have a head, and that head can be none other than Christ, because, according to his spiritual physiology, from its head the Church receives its continually inflowing life; and because the body is not completely, but only partially, in this world, and the head must be over all the members, and not only over some.

iii

But if the unity of the Church, as St. Paul expounds it, is before all else a unity of life, it is as well a unity in the truth. It is a unity based on belief in a divine revelation, given in the person of Christ – based on the common confession that Jesus crucified and risen is Christ and Lord[¹³⁸]. To say that 'Jesus is the Lord' involves further – what is implied in this passage of the Epistle to the Ephesians – the confession of the threefold name – the 'one God and Father,' the 'one Lord' Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the 'one Spirit' which is His gift; and there can be no real question that St. Paul's language constantly involves that the Son and Spirit are with the Father really personal, and really divine, included, so to speak, in the one only eternal Godhead. A creed then is at the basis of the Christian life – a creed which finds its best expression and safeguard in the formulated doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. There is no reason to think that St. Paul, if the situation of the later Church could have been made plain to him, would have shrunk from these dogmatic safeguards of the Church's central faith.

But if we grant – what cannot really with any show of reason be denied – that the Church is a visible organization based on a certain revealed truth, which must be accepted by its members, and which admits of being formulated in order to be preserved; still this truth may be advanced and defended mainly by one of two methods – that of external regulative authority, or that of appeal to principles, discussion, controversy, exhortation. And it can hardly be denied that St. Paul prefers the latter. Sharp appeals to authority are indeed to be found in St. Paul[¹³⁹], but they are very rare. For example, in none of his epistles against the Judaizers is the authority of the apostolic decision, as to what might and what might not be required of the Gentile Christians 'in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia[¹⁴⁰],' brought into requisition; though that decision 'settled the question.' He prefers to prove that 'circumcision is nothing.' This may be in part accounted for by St. Paul's refusal to admit that his own apostolic authority needed the support of the twelve, and by the limited area to which the decision was addressed; but there is another reason as well. For he plainly, as all his epistles show, prefers to appeal not to authority at all but to the spiritual reason; to expound principles, to argue, to awaken the heart, conscience, and mind of Christians. It must be admitted that there is very little in St. Paul's epistles about differences of doctrinal views among Christians as distinct from differences in practices. Yet there is enough – as in the vigorous passage about the 'regarding of one day above another[¹⁴¹]' – to justify the belief that he would not have viewed with any disapproval the existence in the Church of tolerated differences of opinion where they did not touch the basis of the Church's life. Such differences of view are hardly separable from what St. Paul glories in – a unity which is consistent with great variety of gifts and character, and great freedom. It is unity in variety which he has as his ideal, such a unity as is always characteristic of a unity of life, like that of nature or of a free people; or a unity, again, like that of a great Gothic Church, or of the Bible.

It is quite certain that St. Paul would have deprecated that 'short and easy' method of promoting unity which has constant recourse to the external pressure of dogma and authority.