Ephesians 4:3 Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 1. All real unity is manifold. Feelings in themselves identical find countless forms of expression; for instance, sorrow is the same feeling throughout the human race; but the Oriental prostrates himself upon the ground, throws dust upon his head, tears his garments, is not ashamed to break out into the most violent lamentations. In the north we rule our grief; suffer not even a quiver to be seen upon the lip or brow, and consider calmness as the appropriate expression of manly grief. Nay, two sisters of different temperament will show their grief diversely; one will love to dwell upon the theme of the qualities of the departed; the other feels it a sacred sorrow, on which the lips are sealed forever. Yet would it not be idle to ask which of them has the truest affection? Are they not both in their own way true? In the East, men take off their sandals in devotion; we exactly reverse the procedure, and uncover the head. The Oriental prostrates himself in the dust before his sovereign; even before his God the Briton only kneels: yet would it not again be idle to ask which is the essential and proper form of reverence? Is not true reverence in all cases modified by the individualities of temperament and education? Should we not say in all these forms worketh one and the same spirit of reverence? 2. All living unity is spiritual, not formal; not sameness but manifoldness. You may have a unity shown in identity of form; but it is a lifeless unity. There is a sameness on the sea beach — that unity which the ocean waves have produced by curling and forcibly destroying the angularities of individual form, so that every stone presents the same monotony of aspect, and you must fracture each again in order to, distinguish whether you hold in your hand a mass of flint or a fragment of basalt. There is no life in unity such as this. But as soon as you arrive at a unity that is living, the form becomes more complex, and you search in vain for uniformity. In the parts it must be found, if found at all, in the sameness of pervading life. The illustration given by the apostle is that of the human body — a higher unity, he says, by being composed of many members, than if every member were but a repetition of a single type. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.WEB: being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. |
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