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With these seventeen references to pneuma and pneumatikos to guide him,
the reader is independent of human opinion and will be enabled to keep with
intelligence and some measure of appreciation this second member of the Unity
of the Spirit.
One Hope
We have examined the first two items of the sevenfold Unity of the
Spirit and have seen that the Church of the dispensation of the Mystery is
`the Body of Christ', and that the seal and earnest of the Spirit with His
enlightening and renewing powers is closely associated with the One Body,
even as we read in other connections, that the body without the spirit is
dead, being alone. The next item to demand attention is that of the hope of
this company. It is noticeable that whereas the items `One Body' and `One
Spirit' are stated without qualification, the next item `One Hope' is not so
left without a qualification. It is not hope before the believer generally,
which might be stated in terms broad enough to include the expectation of
every redeemed child of God under whatever dispensation he may have been
blessed; the hope that forms a part of the Unity of the Spirit is `One Hope'
as distinct from the hope of other companies of the saved, and so is further
qualified by the words:
`Even as ye are called in one hope of your calling' (Eph. 4:4).
Everything has been done in the phrasing of this passage to link it
with what has gone before in this unity, `even as', and to separate it from
the phases of hope that pertain to other callings. The word kathos indicates
that some comparison is in mind. We find it in Ephesians 1, where the
`spiritual blessings in heavenly places' of verse 3, are said to be
`according as He hath chosen us' in verse 4. So, in the passage before us,
we must supply the word `call' and read Ephesians 4:4 as though it actually
said:
`Ye are called in One Body, and ye are called in One Spirit, even as ye
are called in one hope of your calling'.
The calling governs the whole of the practical section, for it is
opened with an exhortation to `walk worthy of the calling wherewith ye are
called' and it is surely blindness not to see in verse 4 a resumption of the
same theme. In Ephesians 1:18, the first of a threefold prayer, is `that ye
may know what is the hope of His calling'. It is beyond controversy that in
this prayer the apostle has no other calling or dispensation in mind than
that of the Mystery. When he next uses the expression it is to exhort the
believer to walk worthy of this same calling, and then in the definition of
the Unity of the Spirit he places this `one hope of your calling'.
It is most reasonable that if God has several spheres of blessing, such
as earth, heavenly Jerusalem and far above all principality and power, those
whose calling associates them with either the earth or the heavenly city,
shall entertain a different phase of the Second Coming of Christ, than those
whose sphere of blessing is in heavenly places. Paul has no intention of
obliterating these distinctions by using the word `One' in connection with
the hope. He does not say `there is but one hope for all whatever their
different callings may be' -- on the contrary he says in effect `while each
calling has its blessed hope, and each hope must centre in Christ Himself,
yet in exhorting the church of the Mystery to keep the Unity of the Spirit, I