I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, 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. 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. (Ephesians 4:1-6, NKJV)
Paul begins by saying, “Therefore, as prisoner of the Lord, I beseech you, walk worthy of your calling…” It’s an unusual expression, ‘prisoner of the Lord’. I’ve never dwelt on this or even thought about it specially. But how remarkable – it’s as if we are ‘captives’. Not in the wrong sense. But captive to the Will of God, captives to the Mind of God, captives to the Love of God! In other words, we are held by an invisible power that doesn’t let us escape out of the realm of the Love, out of the Grace of God! Oh, what a wonderful description! When I was in a prison, I was held behind an impenetrable barrage of locked gates and guards with guns… For Paul to express our relationship with Christ in this way… That we are held ‘captive’ to His Love… It so binds us, so holds us… But it’s not only God’s Love for us, but our love for Him! Our love for Him acts as a lock, a guard, to prevent us from getting away! So you and I, we’re a ‘prisoner’ of the Lord! Not in the sense of pain and suffering, but something full of Glory, full of joy! I follow the Lord because I love Him! I preach the Gospel – because I love Him! I see the miracles – because I love Him! My whole life is governed by love. Love is surely one of the most powerful forces!
So back in Ephesians 3:18, Paul is saying he wants us to understand the length, breadth, depth and height of God’s Love, but here, in Ephesians 4:1, we seeing OUR love. If God’s Love to us is so long, so wide, so high and so deep we can scarcely understand it, our love to God is also so beyond description, that all Paul can say is that it is like a captivity, a locking in… OUR love of God, OUR love of God!!! – I could spend an hour just talking on this! It’s so powerful!!! Paul says, as a prisoner of the Lord, I beseech you, walk worth of your calling! In other words, we still have to live up to the standard! We have to live up to the standard of our calling.
We’re called of Christ! We are Christ’s! We belong to Him! All our life has to reflect that! Live with “all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace…” – vv2-3. This is so important, because here we come to keeping the unity of the Spirit. No, we don’t have to have a physical unity, we can have different churches, we don’t all have to be in the same church. No, but the unity we have is a unity in the Spirit, it comes because we are ONE IN CHRIST. In travelling around the world, I’ve found when you are met by Christians, even though you’ve never met them before – especially in Russia under communism – when you come into the presence of Christians, you don’t have to be told these are Christians – you KNOW! It’s as though you sense the Spirit of Unity that you have, because of the ONENESS OF THE SPIRIT, THE SAME SPIRIT. It was so critical to know this during all those years when I was working under communism! Thirty years working with the underground churches with the constant threat of imprisonment – it was very, very important to know who was a Christian!!!
This is how Paul explains it in vv5-6, “ONE Lord, ONE faith, ONE baptism. ONE God and Father of all, who is above all and in you all.” It’s a ONENESS OF OUR FAITH, it’s a biblical bond – not based on Church Doctrine – but biblical faith as recorded in Scripture. I must emphasise this.