(1) The foundation for all exhortation.
I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,
a. Therefore: Paul spent three chapters spelling out in glorious detail all that God did for us, freely by His grace. Now he brings a call to live rightly, but only after explaining what God did for us.
b. Walk worthy of the calling with which you were called: When we really understand how much God did for us, we will naturally want to serve and obey Him out of gratitude.
i. Understanding who we are is the foundation of this worthy walk. “Luther counsels men to answer all temptations of Satan with this only, Christianus sum, I am a Christian.” (Trapp)
ii. The idea is clear. We don’t walk worthy so that God will love us, but because He does love us. It is motivated out of gratitude, not out of a desire to earn merit.
iii. “Every believer is God’s first-born; and so higher than the kings of the earth, Psalm 89:27. He must therefore carry himself accordingly, and not stain his high blood.” (Trapp)
2. (2-3) The character of a worthy walk.
With all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
a. With all lowliness and gentleness: A worthy walk before God will be marked by lowliness and gentleness, not a pushy desire to defend our own rights and advance our own agenda.
i. Before Christianity, the word lowliness always had a bad association to it. In the minds of many it still does; but it is a glorious Christian virtue (Philippians 2:1-10). It means that we can be happy and content when we are not in control or steering things our way.
b. Longsuffering, bearing with one another: We need this so that the inevitable wrongs that occur between people in God’s family will not work against God’s purpose of bringing all things together in Jesus – illustrated through His current work in the church.
i. Chrysostom defined longsuffering as the spirit that has the power to take revenge, but never does. It is characteristic of a forgiving, generous heart.
c. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: This humble, forgiving attitude towards each other naturally fulfills this gift of the unity of the Spirit.
i. We must endeavor to keep this unity – we do not create it. God never commands us to create unity among believers. He has created it by His Spirit; our duty is to recognize it and keep it.
ii. This is a spiritual unity, not necessarily a structural or denominational unity. It is evident in the quick fellowship possible among Christians of different races, nationalities, languages, and economic classes.
iii. We can understand this unity of the Spirit by understanding what it is not. In a sermon on this text, Charles Spurgeon pointed out some of the things that the text does not say.
· It does not say, “To endeavor to maintain the unity of evil, the unity of superstition, or the unity of spiritual tyranny.”
· It does not say, “Endeavoring to keep up your ecclesiastical arrangements for centralization.”
· It does not say, “Endeavoring to keep the uniformity of the Spirit.”
iv. Structural unity can even work against true unity of the Spirit. We can perhaps see a purpose God has in preventing a structural unity of the church right now, to keep misdirected efforts of the church (such as ambitions for political power) from fulfillment. “It is not a desirable thing that all Churches should melt into one another and become one; for the complete fusion of all Churches into one ecclesiastical corporation would inevitably produce another form of Popery, since history teaches us that large ecclesiastical bodies grow more or less corrupt as a matter of course. Huge spiritual corporations are, as a whole, the strongholds of tyranny and the refuges of abuse; and it is only a matter of time when they shall break to pieces.” (Spurgeon)
v. “For the church fellowship in which the Gentile and Jewish believers were united was no mere enrollment on a register of membership; it involved their union with Christ by faith and therefore their union with each other as fellow-members of his body.” (Bruce)
vi. We are confident that this unity is found in Jesus Christ, by the Spirit of God. “We want unity in the truth of God through the Spirit of God. This let us seek after; let us live near to Christ, for this is the best way of promoting unity. Divisions in Churches never begin with those full of love to the Savior.” (Spurgeon)
3. (4-6) The description of the unity of the Church.
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.
a. There is one body and one Spirit: We have unity because of what we share in common. In Jesus we share one body, one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one Father. Each of these common areas is greater than any potential difference.
b. One baptism: Some think that because Paul says there is one baptism that the idea of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a subsequent experience is invalid. But Paul only spoke here of the baptism by water which is the visible token of God’s common work in every believer, and thus a basis of unity. There aren’t separate baptisms for Jew and Gentile.
i. The concept of the baptism in the Holy Spirit is spoken of clearly in Matthew 3:11, Acts 1:5 and 11:16. This may be considered an initial (and sometimes dramatic) experience one has with the fullness of the Holy Spirit, a filling God wants to continue through a person’s Christian life.
But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore He says:
“When He ascended on high,
He led captivity captive,
And gave gifts to men.”
(Now this, “He ascended”; what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)
a. Grace was given: We all have grace given to us according to the measure of Jesus’ gift. This is the basis for God’s distribution of spiritual gifts through His church: grace, the free, unmerited giving of God. No one deserves or has earned spiritual gifts.
b. When He ascended on high: This giving happened (as described prophetically in Psalm 68:18) when Jesus ascended to heaven. This was evidence of His triumph over every foe (the leading of captivity captive).
i. Bruce on the picture from Psalm 68: “One may picture a military leader returning to Jerusalem at the head of his followers, after routing an enemy army and taking many prisoners.”
ii. As Jesus said, It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you (John 16:7).
c. When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men: Paul did not quote the passage exactly as it appears in Psalm 68. Either he altered it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit or under similar inspiration he quoted from an ancient translation (called a Targum) that quotes the Psalm in this manner.
i. Psalm 68:18 reads: You have ascended on high, You have led captivity captive; You have received gifts among men. There is certainly enough room in the language of the original Hebrew to allow Paul’s reading, even though it is unusual.
ii. “It is enough for me that the apostle, under the inspiration of God, applied the verse in this way; and whatever David might intend, and of whatever event he might have written, we see plainly that the sense in which the apostle uses it was the sense of the Spirit of God.” (Clarke)
d. Now this, “He ascended”; what does it mean: In this, Paul demonstrated how the words He ascended in Psalm 68:18 had reference to the resurrection of Jesus, speaking first of His rising from the lower parts of the earth, and secondly of His ascension far above all the heavens.
i. Some think that the phrase lower parts of the earth refers to Jesus’ preaching to the spirits in prison described in 1 Peter 3:19 and 4:6. While this aspect of Jesus’ ministry in Hades following His work on the cross is true (and prophesied in Isaiah 61:1-2 and Luke 4:18), Paul did not necessarily refer to it here.