One in Christ
One in Christ
The 17th Sunday after Trinity – 9/27/2026
Ephesians 4:1-6
Rev. Dr. Christopher W. Brademeyer
That portion from God’s holy Word for consideration this morning is our Epistle lesson from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians in the fourth chapter with special emphasis on verses four through six which reads as follows:
“There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”[1]
Thus far the Scriptures.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Christian is one. He is one with His Lord. He is one with the Lord’s Church. That is to say, our faith is one of unity. We are not fundamentally divided, we are fundamentally united. And our unity is not something that comes by force of human will or from our efforts, rather, it comes from God Himself. That unity expresses itself in a common confession, common doctrine, and a common life together. It is shown when we kneel to receive the Lord’s Supper. In other words, God makes us one by faith and our great responsibility is to confess that unity. St. Paul in our lesson today gives us four dimensions to our Christian unity: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father.
Compare this to the world around us: there are constant divisions between political parties, businesses, towns, schools, sports fans, and, sadly, even between Christian churches. There are so many foolish reasons for this. Money, land, pride, selfishness, and arrogance serve only to divide and destroy. And worst of all, the world is so confused about unity that it accuses those who hold fast to the truth of Christ of being divisive while labeling those who come with half-truths and outright falsehoods as being unifying simply because they do not demand real, actual, substantial unity. Besides this, we often confuse unity with uniformity, seeing outward commonality as the sign of unity rather than deep and abiding common substance.
One Lord
We Christians get our name from the Lord Jesus Christ. It was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians after our Savior.[2] We are Christians because we are in Christ, saved by Christ, and to live by Christ. He defines our entire being and way of life. More still, He is the very foundation of it. We cannot be Christians without our Christ who came to suffer and die for us and our salvation. Without His payment for sin there is no forgiveness for us.
This is to say something simple: we have One Lord. There is One who became man to
save us. One who earned for us the forgiveness of sins. One into whose body we are incorporated when we are brought to faith. As such, we are bound together in this One Lord. And this is not our own doing, it is His. After all, which of us has earned forgiveness? Granted everlasting life? Ensured the defeat of the devil? It is only Christ who has done this, and more, even has provided these blessings to us by His means of grace. Christ set up the office of the Holy Ministry to give us His gifts of His Word and the holy sacraments. These, in turn, hand us what our Lord died for us to have, to create faith in us, and to ensure that His blessings have been bestowed on each of us according to His will.
Not only is this Lord Jesus singular in His ability to provide these blessings, He is also the basis of our unity, the very reason we have been knit together in the Christian Church. In other words, Christ gives you Himself.
One Faith
The Lord also gives to us the faith. That is to say, He grants us faith in Him by the Holy Spirit, but also to know Him and His truth. So we can speak of faith in two senses: what we believe and the belief we have in it. And while these are very closely related, they are necessarily distinct. One of them is the confession we make, the truths we confess, the knowledge we hold to. The other is the subjective, personal, saving trust we have in these truths that are reckoned to us as righteousness.
Both are important. Saving faith does not trust an unknown Christ. How can we believe in what we do not know?[3] Preaching brings knowledge of Christ and, by this, the Holy Spirit creates faith.
But there is only one faith, one truth concerning Christ. It is popular today to appeal to a multiplicity of truths, as if contradictory things can all somehow be correct. This is impossible. Squares cannot be circles and Christ cannot be both the Godman and merely a creature. The one faith is our common confession, that comes from being in and knowing Christ, because there is one Christ about whom we confess truths. There cannot be Christian unity without a common confession of the truth of Christ. We cannot hold contradictory things together and pretend that we have real unity. Christian unity does not mean pretending differences do not matter, it means that we work together, reasoning from the Scriptures, to see the truth. Unity is unity in the truth of Christ. Christ gives you His truth.
One Baptism
And this reality is not merely a set of ideas or intellectual abstractions for you to hold on to, no, it is imparted to you. Here Paul emphasizes Baptism, the means by which we are brought into the Kingdom of God and made children of the Father. Baptism unites you to the death of Christ so that you can receive a resurrection like His.[4] It grants you new birth by water and the Spirit.[5] Through baptism, Christ incorporates you into His body, the Christian Church, and gives you the forgiveness of sins and new life.
Now there are some who would say that there are two baptisms for Christians, one of water and one of the Holy Spirit. But this is simply against what Paul says here and our Lord Jesus teaches elsewhere. Baptism is one just as Christ is one. We do not repeat it because it is the Lord’s work. We do not amend or subtract from it because it is the Lord’s work. That is to say, the Lord Himself uses water and His Word to tie you to the unity that is Him, His Church, His very life. He includes you in forgiveness and salvation. He applies it as the means by which He delivers His life and salvation to you. Christ incorporates you into His death and resurrection.
One God and Father
And this Kingdom, the one into which you were baptized, is under One God and Father. He is not only your God, the creator of our world, He is also your Father. He became your Father because Christ reconciled you to Him. Your Lord Jesus provided holy Baptism which puts God’s own Name on you and that adopts you into His house. And now God is your Father. The God who made heaven and earth is your Father. He put His Name on you in holy Baptism, making you His child by faith. You belong to His household. You are not an orphan blindly wandering through this world trying to make your way to God. Your Father sought you ought and made you His. Christ gives you a place in God’s household.
Conclusion
We Christians are all members of one family, one household of grace, one church. We share in the very life of the Son of God, Jesus. We have been given one common confession of the truth, who is Christ. We have been given one baptism into the Kingdom for the remission of our sins. We have been made recipients of every blessing of heaven, intended for us as sons and heirs of the work of our Lord Jesus. Christ gives you each other as brothers and sisters.
Unfortunately, we often do not live as a unified people. We divide just as well as the world does, over carpet, over personalities, over money, over pride. We hold grudges against our brothers and sisters in the faith. We treat Christ’s truth, His doctrine, like it doesn’t matter. We elevate our own preferences as if they were essential things.
But Christ does not abandon His Church because of our sins. He gives us the very forgiveness that creates and preserves us as Christians in spite of our sins.
Think about a family sitting around a table. They didn’t become a family simply by wishing it to be so. They are a family because they belong to one another, because the circumstances of life have knit them together by blood or adoption. Their family identity is such a part of who they are it is unthinkable to know then apart from it. So it is with you Christians and Christ.
Christians all have a unity that comes from Christ. This is why the Bible counsels us elsewhere to be of one mind in our decisions, to show the unity given in Christ by faith. This is a major reason why we are commanded to love one another just as Christ loved us, because we are in Him and are thereby one. And, above all, this is why we defend and confess the truth of Christ, so that we have the comfort and peace of knowing Him and His truth. You have one Lord, and He is your Savior. You have one faith, and He has given you His truth. You have one Baptism, through which He has joined you to His death and resurrection. You have one God and Father, who has made you His child. And you have one another, brothers and sisters whom Christ has given you to love."
In the holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1] Ephesians 4:4-6 English Standard Version. All further quotations from the Holy Scriptures are from the ESV.
[2] Acts 11:26
[3] Romans 10:14
[4] Romans 6:3-4
[5] John 3:5
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