#DailyDevotion The Trinity & The Church Are One
Eph. 4:3-6 3Do your best to keep the oneness of the Spirit by living together in peace: 4one body and one Spirit – even as you have been called to share one hope – 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6one God and Father of all, Who rules over us all, works through us all, and lives in us all.
When Paul speaks about keeping the oneness of the Spirit he isn’t speaking of some ethereal reality or feeling. He is talking about oneness, a unity of the Gospel message in the oneness of the Trinity and that oneness of the Trinity shared with humanity in Jesus Christ. We do this by living together in peace. Remember how “in love” is equivalent to “in Jesus”? “In peace” is also equivalent to being “in Christ Jesus.” For Jesus Christ is our peace. He is our peace between God and man and he is our peace between man and man. To live in peace is to live humbling ourselves to one another, treating the other Christian as more important than ourselves and sacrificing ourselves for the sake of the other Christ as Jesus Christ has done for us.
Paul describes this oneness of the Spirit with this wonderful confession: 4one body and one Spirit – even as you have been called to share one hope – 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6one God and Father of all, Who rules over us all, works through us all, and lives in us all. We have one body, the body of our LORD Jesus Christ, each Christian being a member of that body. As each of us is a member of this body we would do what is best for each member as what is good for each member of the body is good for us as it is the body which we are a member of. This body of Christ is animated by one Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God who dwells in each of us. He came to dwell within us when he gave us faith in Jesus and his Good News. He sealed us when we were baptized into Christ. It is He who maintains our unity in that Good News of Jesus Christ.
We have one hope which we share—Jesus Christ, died for our transgressions and resurrected for our justification. In the death of Jesus we have the promise our sins have been atoned for by his blood. His giving up his life and entering into death is the propitiation of our sins. Jesus raised from the dead tells us he has conquered death and the power of the devil, so he will raise all the dead on the Last Day. Those who who believe in him are raised to eternal life and enter his kingdom. Those who do not believe in him are raised to eternal perdition.
We have only one LORD, one faith, one baptism. Jesus is our LORD, the God of Israel who redeems us even as he redeemed Israel from Egypt. We have one faith, it confesses Jesus Christ as the LORD who created heaven and earth. We have one baptism which we are baptized into Jesus’ crucifixion, suffering, death and resurrection. Even as Jesus died once and was raised never to die again, so too we die once with Christ in baptism never needing to be baptized again.
We have one God and Father of all, who rules over us all, works through us all, and lives in us all. Now Jesus and the Spirit are also God, but the Son is begotten of and the Spirit proceeds from the Father. The Father rules through the Son and the Spirit. He works through the Son and the Spirit and lives in us even as the Son and Spirit have made us their temple. God has restored the oneness he had within himself and humanity when he made us in his image and likeness.
Heavenly Father, so rule, work and live in us so we may be one with one another and you now and forever, through Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with your and the Holy Spirit. Amen.