love is mentioned and here it is not; and as the sense is simple and good without any deviation from the plain meaning of the words, the great majority of interpret- ers adopt the view given above.
V.4. Having urged the duty of preserving unity, the apostle proceeds to state both its nature and grounds. It is a unity which arises from the fact—there is and can be but one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God.
One body, ἕν σῶμα. This is not an exhortation, but
a declaration. The meaning is not, Let us be united in one body, or in soul and body; but, as the context
requires, it is a simple declaration. There is one body, viz. one mystical body of Christ. All believers are in Christ; they are all his members; they constitute not many, much less conflicting bodies, but one. “ We, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.” Rom. 12,5. 1 Cor. 10,17; 12, 27. In ch. 1, 23, the church is said “to be his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.” As all true believers are members of this body, and as all are not included in any one external organization, it is ob- vious that the one body of which the apostle speaks, is not one outward visible society, but a spiritual body of which Christ is the head and all the renewed are mem- bers. The relation, therefore, in which believers stand to each other, is that which subsists between the several members of the human body. A want of sympathy is evidence of want of membership.
One spirit, ἕν πνεῦμα. This again does not mean