Having established in Ephesians 4:1-3 the foundations of how followers of Jesus live in unity, the Apostle Paul revealed the basis for that unity in God’s nature and actions in our behalf.[1]
Seven times in verses 4-6 Paul used the Greek numeral, heis, one, to emphasize this unity: There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. He used the Greek for “all” four times in verse 6.
Paul’s thoughts, based on what he had previously expressed, focused on the fact of the statement by Jesus of the One/Only True God (John 17:3; 1 Corinthians 8:6). Monotheism was the foundation of Israel’s faith as evidenced in Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”[2] This confession stood in marked contrast to the plurality of gods with their idols in practically every town and city in the ancient Greek/Roman world. You are familiar with Paul’s experience in Athens, Greece “when he saw that the city was given over to idols” (Acts 17:16). This was also true of Ephesus where the goddess Diana (Artemis) was worshipped. A mother-goddess, her shrine was so impressive that it was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.[3]
Acts 19 gives more background to the spiritual atmosphere of Ephesus. Three things stand out in Acts 19 concerning the atmosphere where Paul had his Bible school. First, even the Jews in Ephesus were open to any spiritual reality whereby power could be manifested (19:11-17). Second, magic was a lucrative business for manuscript sellers (19:18-20). Third, the worship of Diana was financially profitable for the guild of silversmiths and any threat to that business was met with violence (19:23-41). With this atmosphere in mind, Paul’s seven-fold focus on “one” in Ephesians 4:4, 5 takes on greater significance.
It is interesting the sequence of spiritual realities listed in 4:4, 5. Paul began with “one body.” That body is the body of Jesus Christ, often called the “Church.” Jesus is the sole Head of this body and His body, like the analogous human body, is composed of many members, all of which are meant to work together in unity (Ephesians 4:7-16; 1 Corinthians 12-14). Paul’s order of the seven was not haphazard. The unity of the body is the natural sequence to how the members of the body are to live “worthy of the calling with which you were called” (4:1; a phrase that appears again at the close of verse 4).
The second in the list is “one Spirit.” This is clearly a reference to the Holy Spirit who is often mentioned in Ephesians and was expressed at the end of verse 3 in terms of keeping “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”[4]
The reference of the “body” and the “Spirit” are connected to the double use of “calling” and “hope” found at the end of verse 4. As noted above, the phrase “just as you were called in one hope of your calling” is an echo of 4:1, “walk worthy of the calling with which you were called.” The “call” upon our lives is “God’s call.” It reflects Psalm 100:3, “It is He (God) who has made us, and not we ourselves.” As the apostle wrote it in Acts 20:28, we have been “purchased with His own blood,” and Romans 14:8, “If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.”
Paul referred to “one hope of your calling” in verse 5. We may “hope” for many things. As Paul wrote, hope is based on unseen and yet unfulfilled promises (Romans 8:24). But for Paul this was not a vague or blind hope. In Romans 5:1-5 Paul tied hope to the reality of our justification, that is, the reality of divine forgiveness of sin, we experienced when we turned to faith in Jesus. It is through faith that we “have access into this grace,” and we “rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” The reality is that “in this world you will have tribulation” (Jesus, John 16:33), but for those justified by faith our tribulations produce perseverance (patience), and perseverance produces character (the character of Jesus), and it is from a life transformed into the glory of Christ manifested in our character, that hope springs forth. We are not disappointed by this kind of hope “because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:1-5). Divine hope is not produced by human effort but is the result of sanctifying discipleship.
Thus, the “one hope of your calling” is rooted in the saving act of Jesus Christ on the Cross. To enter a life where our sins are forgiven is to enter the sphere of eternal life (John 3:16) and a living hope (1 Peter 1:3).
Ephesians 4:5 continued the list with “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” The “Lord” is none other than Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah of Israel. To refer to Jesus as “Lord” meant two things. For the Jews, it meant that Jesus was God, the Lord of creation and of Israel. For the Romans, it meant that Caesar was not “lord” but that Jesus was Lord over all human empires and history. It was a provocative title pregnant with challenge against every authority, principality, and power of Satan
The “faith” is a comprehensive term that encompassed the totality of God’s plans through Abraham, David, Israel, and revealed in Jesus the Messiah. It was, as Jude 3 expressed it, “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”
“Baptism” refers to the initiatory public rite of water baptism which symbolized, and symbolizes today, a witness that our sins are forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ and that we are citizens of the kingdom of God. It is important as Pentecostals to recognize that water baptism and the baptism with the Holy Spirit are separate spiritual experiences. They may occur simultaneously, but are different expressions of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. The first, baptism in water, is an expression of our renewed life in Christ. As Colossians 1:13, 14 put it, “He (God the Father) has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” The baptism with the Holy Spirit is an empowerment in the life of a follower of Jesus enabling us to testify to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Again, it is important to recognize that the Holy Spirit is present in both baptisms accomplishing different purposes.
The final “one” is in verse 6 and tied together Paul’s understanding of the nature of God’s being as Spirit, Lord (Jesus, the Son of God), and God as Father. Those who argue that the Trinity is not found in the Bible are arguing from a lack of knowledge of the Bible. While the nuances of Trinitarian doctrine were worked out over the first 300 years of the church in various church councils, the Scriptural reality was always present from the beginning of the Old Testament through the entire New Testament. It remains important that we recognize that Paul’s language of “one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father” does not refer to three separate “gods.” The New Testament, and faithful contemporary theology, always understands the nature of God in terms of the Shema and the historic Christian definitions of the Trinity.
As noted at the beginning of this essay, four times in verse 6 Paul used forms of the Greek word we translate “all.” This was his way of rejecting the polytheism and idolatry of Ephesus and the entire Greek/Roman world. There are not a multitude of gods who have dominion over certain spheres of life. There is only “one God and Father of all.” The mythologies of ancient Greece and Rome, found again in various forms in contemporary “spirituality” and other forms of idolatry (economics, military power, self-identification) are the domain of demons (1 Corinthians 10:20, 21; 1 Timothy 4:1). These demons, expressed in the principalities and powers mentioned by Paul throughout Ephesians, appeal to fallen humanity’s quest for power, dominion, and self-preservation.
The language of “Father” is of interest to us. Does it refer to God as the “Father” of all humanity, redeemed and unredeemed? Or does it refer to those who belong to God as Father by faith in Jesus Christ? Both John Stott and Noel Brooks follow John Wesley, “One God and father of all that believe. He is above all, presiding over all His children, operating through them all by Christ, and dwelling in all by His Spirit.”[5] The church fathers also support this view. Ambrosiaster in his commentary on Ephesians quotes Ephesians 4:6 and refers to “believers. He (God) is also in all of us, that is, us who are believers.”[6] Origen wrote, “He is God and Father of all by being the God but not the Father of some and both God and Father of others.”[7]
Is Paul then saying that God as Father “of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all,” only affirms this as being over the church? Or is it over all humanity? In pondering this I thought of Martin Luther’s observation in 1531, “If we had only the first three words of the Creed, ‘I believe in God the Father,’ they would still be far beyond our understanding and reason. In short, it does not occur to man that God is Father.”[8] For Luther, unredeemed humanity cannot recognize the Fatherhood of God as such recognition is only given by revelation. Thus, it is those who have heard the gospel message and discovered that God is the loving Father longing for His wayward children, who are able to discern the “all-ness” of what God is doing through the church for the world. Outside of faith in Christ, God is now, or will be in the eschaton, experienced as Judge.
When other passages in Ephesians that refer to God as Father or the fullness of God found in Jesus Christ are examined, the passages tend to focus on God’s Fatherhood in relation to Jesus Christ or to the body of Christ. For example, Ephesians 1:22, 23, “And He (God the Father) put all things under His (Jesus the Son), and gave Him (Jesus the Son) to be head over all things to the church, which is His (Jesus the Son) body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (notice the twice used “all”). And Ephesians 3:14, 15, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” Here “the family” is the covenant family of faith from the Old Testament saints in heaven to the First Century church of Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus the Messiah. Also notice Ephesians 1:10, “That in the dispensation of the fullness of the times (kairos) He (God the Father) might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth – in Him.”[9]
While the Apostle Paul understood from the Old Testament that God was the creator of all, Paul was able to refer to the Fatherhood of God in terms of God’s relationship to those who believed in Him and were therefore counted as righteous. Paul’s language of “all” does not move in the direction of universalism. Rather, Paul always remains faithful to the gospel message that “no one comes to the Father except through Jesus” (John 14:6).
In the next essay we will see how Paul’s emphasis on unity does not restrict the heavenly plan to distribute spiritual callings in diverse ways through people to accomplish the divine mission.
[1] I remind you of Rev. Paul Evans yet unpublished book Hope for Holiness that I referenced in the previous essay. That book focused on the unity theme(s) that run throughout Ephesians. That essay can be found at https://iphc.org/gso/2025/09/30/live-worthy-of-the-call-ephesians-41-3/.
[2] Known as the Shema, the first word of the Hebrew text, “hear.”
[3] Diana is the Roman name for this goddess and Artemis is the Greek name.
[4] Thirteen references to the Holy Spirit in Ephesians: 1:13, 17; 2:18, 22; 3:5, 16; 4:3, 4, 30; 5:9, 18; 6:17, 18.
[5] The Wesley quotation is found in Brooks, Ephesians: Outlined and Unfolded, page 147, and taken from Wesley’s Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament, p. 712. See John Stott, The Message of Ephesians, p. 113. William Hendriksen, who we have quoted in earlier essays, agrees in his commentary on Ephesians, pp. 187, 188.
[6] This commentary was written between 366-384 A.D. and was originally attributed to St. Ambrose of Milan. In the 1600 Benedictine monks attributed the commentary to Ambrosiaster. The quotations are from Ancient Christian Texts, Commentaries on Galatians-Philemon, translated by Gerald L. Bray (Downers Grove, ILL: IVP Academic, 2009) p. 47.
[7] Origen, Epistle to the Ephesians, in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament, Volume VIII, p. 160. Origen lived from about 185-253 A.D. and was a prolific early Christian writer.
[8] Martin Luther, Table Talk, Luther’s Works, Vol. 54 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press1967), p. 17.
[9] It is clear from Jesus and the Apostle Paul that the Fatherhood of God is viewed from the standpoint of loving intimacy by the use of the word Abba to refer to God’s love for His children (Mark 14:36; Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). Also refer to the so called “Lord’s Prayer” where Jesus instructed the disciples to pray to “our Father” (Matthew 6:9 which is one of sixteen times Jesus refers to God as “Father” in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7).
