We may take it as a fact that the bulk of believers repudiate the teaching of

Eph. 3: 1-11  and  Col. 1: 24-27,  and stoutly maintain that the church began at

Pentecost. It is impossible for such to discern the things that differ, and consequently

their idea of the unity of the Spirit is a fusion of the teaching of more than one

dispensation. The unity of the Spirit among other items emphatically speaks of one

baptism. Everyone who believes that the church began at Pentecost has no option but to

believe that there are two baptisms (Acts 10: 44-48; 11: 15-18), and the word "one" has to

be so explained as to imperil the truth that there is one Lord and one God.

Can the unity of the Spirit be maintained by tampering with one item of its sevenfold

perfection? In the dispensation of the mystery there is one baptism. If Col. 2: 12

teaches baptism in water, Col. 2: 11 as surely teaches literal fleshly circumcision. If

one be spiritual so must the other. If one be a literal ordinance so must the other.

In the unity of the Spirit there is no room for more than the one hope of our calling.

At the end of the Acts Paul confessed his adherence to "the hope of Israel"

(Acts 28: 20), and as he had previously written the epistles to the Thessalonians,

Corinthians and Romans, the hope of the church during the Acts period cannot be

dissociated from the hope of Israel. In the epistles of this period we read of the archangel

(I Thess. 4:) who is connected with the hope of Israel (Dan. 12: 1, 2), the manifestation

of the man of sin in the temple of God, which also links the hope of Israel with the church

of the Acts (II Thess. 2:).

The one hope with which the unity of the Spirit is occupied is "the one hope of our

calling". This, taken together with the parallel expression in Eph. 1: 18, "the hope of His

calling ", must indicate something different from the hope of the Acts period, for the

apostle prayed that in order that the church may get to know this hope, a "spirit of

wisdom and revelation" might be granted, which would be quite unnecessary had no

change taken place since the writing of the earlier epistles. "The hope of glory" of

Col. 1: 27 was "the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles", viz., "Christ

among you", Who had been previously preached only in association with Israel. The

"blessed hope" of Titus 2: 13 goes back "before the world began", or "before the age

times" (see Titus 1: 2), so also does its "calling" (see II Tim. 1: 9). Here once more we

have the unique character of the "hope" and the "calling" connected with a period parallel

only with Eph. 1: 4, "before the foundation of the world".

Having seen this truth and having embraced it, how can we think of giving it up or

merging it with the hope of another calling in the name of unity? Such unity cannot be

the unity of Eph. 4: