In Ephesians 4:4 the one hope of glory (Col. 1:27) refers to the transfiguration of our body (Phil. 3:21) and the manifestation of the sons of God (Rom. 8:19, 23-25). As saved ones, we have the hope that one day the Lord Jesus will come as our hope of glory and that through Him our vile body will be transfigured (Phil. 3:21). On the one hand, we appreciate our bodies because they are useful and because without them we cannot exist in this world. On the other hand, our bodies are troublesome, for they are often weak and subject to illness. Therefore, we believers in Christ have the hope that one day our troublesome bodies will be metabolically transfigured by Christ to become glorified bodies.
We may find it difficult to believe that our vile bodies will be transfigured into glorious bodies. Consider the process a carnation seed undergoes to produce blossoms. In itself a carnation seed has no beauty, but by being sown into the soil and by growing normally, the seed is transfigured into a plant with beautiful blossoms. In speaking about the transfiguration of the body in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul compares our bodies to seeds (vv. 35-44). We have the solid hope that the day will come for the “seed” to blossom.
According to Romans 8, our hope also implies our manifestation as sons of God. We are sons of God today, but our sonship is hidden and even somewhat mysterious. For this reason, the worldly people treat us the same as everyone else, without any realization that we are sons of God. However, the time is coming when our sonship will be manifested. Then it will no longer be necessary to tell others that we are Christians. It will be apparent to all that we are sons of God in glory. The manifestation of the sons of God will also be the glorification of the sons of God. This is our hope.
Neither the transfiguration of our body nor our manifestation as the sons of God will merely be a sudden, unexpected occurrence. On the contrary, both our transfiguration and our manifestation are gradually taking place today. To be sure, there is a sense in which transfiguration and manifestation will take place suddenly. But according to the truth of the New Testament and according to our experience, transfiguration and manifestation are also a gradual process in which we are involved today. This process is being carried out by the one Spirit, who is the essence, the life, and the life supply of the Body of Christ. The Spirit is presently working within us to transfigure us and to manifest our sonship. This is the reason Paul linked the one hope and the one Spirit to the one Body.
As believers, we are members of the Body of Christ, and we need to be transfigured. Within us as members of the Body and within the Body as a whole, there is the one Spirit, who is the essence of the Body and the life and life supply of the Body. This Spirit is neither dormant nor idle; on the contrary, He is working energetically within us toward the goal of bringing us into the fulfillment of the hope of our calling. This is the reason that the transfiguration of the body will not be accidental. Today the indwelling Spirit is carrying out both the transfiguration of the body and the manifestation of the sons of God. Because we are in the process of transfiguration and manifestation, the rapture should not come as a surprise. Rather, it should be a normal experience.
Ephesians 4:4 implies that the indwelling Spirit today is carrying out the process of bringing the Body of Christ into glory as the fulfillment of our hope. Therefore, in this verse we have the one Body, the one Spirit, and the one hope. Because we all are in the one Body with the one Spirit and have the one hope, we are one. There is no reason for us not to be one, and there is no cause to be different. We are one Body, and we have the one Spirit working within us to bring us to the goal of our hope.
The one hope of our calling is for the one Body. Only those who truly live in the Body with the one Spirit have this genuine hope. The hope of our calling is to be in glory, that is, to be in the divine inheritance in the New Jerusalem. The Body of Christ has the coming New Jerusalem as the genuine hope.
In Ephesians 4:6 Paul speaks of “One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” God is the Originator of all things, and the Father is the source of life for the Body of Christ. The Trinity is implied even here. Over all refers mainly to the Father, through all to the Son, and in all to the Spirit. The Triune God eventually enters into us all by reaching us as the Spirit. The oneness of the Body of Christ is constituted of the Trinity of the Godhead—the Father as the source and origin being the Originator, the Son as the Lord and Head being the Accomplisher, and the Spirit as the life-giving Spirit being the Executor. The Triune God Himself, when realized and experienced by us in our daily life, is the fundamental basis and very foundation of our oneness.
Ephesians 4:6 reveals that the divine dispensing of God the Father into the Body of Christ is in His being over all (as the begetting Father overshadowing us), in His being through all (as the Son caring for us), and in His being in all (as the Spirit living within us), enabling all the members of the Body of Christ to experience and enjoy the Triune God. This indicates that the Father who is over us, through us, and in us is triune; He is the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
God being over all signifies His sovereign authority. We need to realize that God is over us, and we are all under Him. This means that He is sovereign over us and that He is the authority over us. Therefore, we must submit ourselves to His authority and must be under His sovereignty.
God being through all indicates that we should allow God to pass through our being. Most of the time, God cannot get through us because the avenues in our being are blocked to God; He does not have a free way in us. Hence, we must give God a thoroughfare in our being.
God being in all means that, as a result of our being under God’s sovereignty and of our giving Him a thoroughfare, God can abide in us. In Ephesians 4:6 Paul unveils the God of the Body of Christ, the God who is over the Body, through the Body, and in the Body. Such a God is the subjective God for our daily existence. Therefore, day by day we must be under God, allowing Him to pass through us and giving Him the ground in our inner being so that He may abide in us.
Ephesians 4:4-6 reveals four persons—one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one God the Father—mingled together as one entity to be the organic Body of Christ. Because the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all one with the Body of Christ, we may say that the Triune God and the Body are four-in-one. The church as the Body of Christ is a group of people who are united, mingled, and incorporated with the Triune God. This mysterious union, mingling, and incorporation of the Triune God with the Body of Christ are for the purpose of the divine dispensing of the Triune God into the believers. The Lord as the element of the Body is constantly dispensing His life into us, the Spirit as the essence of the Body is continually dispensing Himself into us, and the Father as the origin of the Body is gradually dispensing Himself into us, while He is over us, overshadowing us, while He is passing through us, caring for us, and while He is in us, remaining within us. The church as the Body of Christ is the issue of such a dispensing of the Triune God into the believers.
Out of the Father as the source there is the element, Christ the Son, and within Christ as the element is the essence, the Spirit. The Father is the source, the Son is the element, the Spirit is the essence, and the Body is the constitution. The Father is embodied in the Son, the Son is realized as the Spirit, and the Spirit is mingled with the believers. This mingling is the constitution of the Body of Christ.
The keeping of the oneness is a matter in the Triune God. Our oneness is the Triune God realized and experienced by us in our Christian life. In our experience, the Spirit is first because He is directly related to the oneness, to the carrying out of the oneness in the one Body. Following this, we have the Lord as the Accomplisher and the Father as the source. If we see this, nothing will be able to distract us or lead us astray. We will have the proper discernment regarding the oneness and how to keep it.
The oneness of the Body of Christ is actually the Triune God becoming our experience. Our oneness is the Triune God—the Spirit, the Lord, and the Father—wrought into the Body. Along with the Triune God, we have the faith, the baptism, and the hope. One day we received faith and were brought into Christ. What a glorious visitation was this coming of faith! After we believed into Christ, we were baptized. We became members of the Body with the hope of glorification. The oneness of the Body of Christ is the Triune God wrought into the Body, which comes into existence through faith and baptism and which has the hope of one day being glorified. May we all have the heart to care for this oneness.
The most crucial point in this message is that the Body of Christ is the embodiment of the processed Triune God. The Triune God is inseparable from and embodied in the Body of Christ. The expression in Ephesians 4:4 one Body and one Spirit indicates that the Spirit of the processed Triune God is inseparable from the Body of Christ. As the Body is one, so also the Spirit is one; as the Spirit is one, so also the Body is one. Where the Body is, the Spirit is. Hence, if we live and walk in our natural life and not in the Spirit, we are not the Body of Christ in reality, but if we live and walk in the Spirit, we are the Body of Christ in reality, for in the Spirit we are saved from everything natural. Verse 5, which speaks of “one Lord, one faith, one baptism,” indicates that through faith and baptism we have been brought into Christ the Lord; this means that Christ has become our constituent, that is, we have been constituted with Christ. Verse 6, which speaks of “one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all,” reveals the triune presence of the Father who is over all, through all, and in all; this indicates the full soaking, saturating, and mingling of God with man. Therefore, Ephesians 4:4-6 unveils that the processed Triune God is one entity with the Body of Christ and that the Body of Christ is not only the enlargement of Christ but also the embodiment and expression of the processed Triune God.