Paul reminds his readers that unity is an important feature of the Triune God. In addition to mentioning the word ‘one’ seven times, he mentions two matters of unity when he refers to each of the divine persons. Maybe this description of God was a kind of memory statement that Christians used at that time. Whether it was or not, we can see that unity is prominent in how God works.
Paul first mentions unity and the Holy Spirit and in this connection he says that Christians belong to one body and have one hope. The body he has in mind is the church and what holds it together, enabling it to function, is the Holy Spirit who empowers God’s people to do his will. The essential life of the body is clearly an incentive to unity. Just as when something is wrong with one part of the physical body, it affects the whole, so when one member of the body of Christ is not what he or she should be, it affects others in the body, particularly in a local gathering of believers.
Paul also mentions the one hope that Christians share, and that hope is the second coming of Jesus. The apostle’s concern here is not the unchanging reality of the hope but the effect it has on how a Christian lives in the present. Nothing a Christian does can affect the certainty of the hope, but wrong actions can diminish and even remove the enjoyment of the hope day by day. Expressions of disunity inevitably have this effect because the Spirit is grieved and does not provide inner assurances of the glory to come.
The second divine Person that Paul mentions is Jesus and states the obvious feature that he is the Lord of his church. Connected to Jesus, according to Paul here, is the one faith and the one baptism. We have to decide whether faith here refers to the act of believing or to the doctrines one believes. Both options could be connected to baptism, so asking what it signifies may not help. Probably it includes both ideas because the idea that one can have a merely intellectual belief in particular doctrines is not suggested in the Bible as a help to true unity.
The reference to baptism reminds us that baptism is connected to authentic discipleship. In the Great Commission, Jesus stated that disciples should be baptised and taught the various teachings that he had passed on to the apostles. Of course, the point here is that there was only one form of Christian baptism at that time and anyone who became a Christian had been baptised. The question about baptism would not have focussed on how much water was used, but in what name, and normally the name would be that of the Trinity.
The third divine Person is the Father. Paul points out that he is the Father of all his people, that he is transcendent, far above all, yet involved in all, and in all his people. The point is that the exalted Father does not omit any of his people from his blessing. He recognises and blesses the people he has joined together. Moreover he works out his purpose through all of them, despising none of them, and is delighted to live in the hearts of all.
Since the Trinity express unity, it is ridiculous as well as sinful for Christians not to do so as well.
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