EXEGESIS OF EPHESIANS 4:1-6

By Jacob D. Gerber

1) Investigation

(a) Significant Text Critical Problems

In Ephesians 4:1-6, there is only one significant text critical problem. At the end of v. 6,

the majority of the manuscripts include only πασιν. The best manuscripts have only the word

πασιν, while some of the often-expanded Western and often-erroneous Byzantine texts, along

with a few others, have πασιν ἡμιν. Metzger adds that “The Textus Receptus, following a few

miniscules and patristic witnesses...adds ὑμιν,” and he notes that “Both readings are explanatory

glosses, introduced in order to establish a personal reference of πασιν to the Christians.”1

Additionally, two manuscripts include the word “ἀμήν” after πασιν. Given the overwhelming

manuscript evidence, and operating on the principle that the shorter reading is generally

preferable, πασιν alone is almost definitely original to the text.

(b) Word Studies

Three words in the passage merit further study: ἀξίως (v. 1), σπουδάζοντες (v. 3), and

ἑνότητα (v. 3). The first word, ἀξίως, is an adverb modifying the infinitive verb περιπατησαι, “to

walk.” Paul uses this word fairly commonly (and John uses it once) to suggest that the conduct

of a believer is to be “worthy” of God (1 Thess. 2:12; 3 John 6), of the Lord (Col. 1:10), of the

gospel (Phil. 1:27), of the saints (Rom. 16:2), or, here, of the “calling to which you were called.”

The use of this word “in connection with ordinary Christians suggests an extraordinary status in

the new order,”2 since it would not be hard to live up to the status of, for example, illegal or

resident aliens, but it would be very hard to live up completely to the status of “fellow citizens

1 Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft, 1994), 536.
2 BDAG 94.
with the saints and members of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19).

The second word, σπουδάζοντες, along with its cognates, often has to do with the speed

with which a task is carried out, as when Paul urges Timothy to “hurry” to him soon, before

winter comes (2 Tim. 4:9, 21). It may also, however, mean “to be especially conscientious in

discharging an obligation, be zealous/eager, take pains, make every effort, be conscientious.”3

The “hurry” is not because of carelessness or lack of desire, but quite the opposite—they hurry

because they are eager to do the task itself. In the context here, Paul is exhorting his readers to

“hurry” to maintain τὴν ἑνότητα του πνεύματος, which brings us to our third word, ἑνότητα.

The word ἑνότητα is important to study because it is so rarely used in the New

Testament; aside from the use here in v. 3, it is only used otherwise in Eph. 4:13.4 The word

means “a state of oneness or of being in harmony and accord, unity,”5 and in both uses it seems

to refer specifically to an ideal quality. In Eph. 4:13, Paul speaks of the “unity of the faith” that

leads to “mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Clearly, this

unity is the goal of believers. Similarly, in Eph. 4:3, the unity is a “unity of the Spirit,” and the

next verse speaks of there being “one body and one Spirit.” The theme of unity pervades this

entire section, so that the word ἑνότητα is not merely one out of many desirable qualities for

Christians, but it is the ideal quality. Taken with the word σπουδάζοντες, Lincoln writes that, to

Paul, unity is “a matter of the utmost importance and urgency—'Spare no effort; make it a

priority for your corporate life to maintain the unity of the Spirit.' Such an exhortation also

makes plain that the unity of the Spirit is a reality that is to be demonstrated visibly.” We will

explore the reason for this urgency below.

3 BDAG 939.
4 The word also comes up as a textual variant to Col. 3:14 (NTG27 529), probably because of its later importance,
especially in the writings of Ignatius (see BDAG 338).
5 BDAG 338.
 (c) Grammatical Issues

The first grammatical issue is to note the intensity with which Paul exhorts his readers in

v. 1. He begins with the verb, and then he writes the conjunction and the indirect object which is

a standard Greek sentence structure. What is interesting, though, is that he adds the first person

pronoun ἐγὼ, which, strictly speaking, is unnecessary because it is implied in the 1st person verb

Παρακαλω. So, to add the pronoun is to put extra emphasis on “I”—that is, on Paul.

Furthermore, the fact that he places ἐγὼ after the verb, conjunction, and indirect object suggests

very carefully and forcefully written Greek, as though Paul were writing, “I exhort you, therefore

—that is, I myself exhort you...” Paul is exhorting his readers on an extremely personal level.

Next, we need to ask how the genitive της κλήσεως is functioning in v. 1. Wallace

explains that certain adjectives and adverbs (such as ἀξίως) “normally take a genitive 'object.'”6

Therefore, it is important that we understand “worthily” not in an abstract sense, but as

specifically relating to “the calling to which you were called.” To walk worthily of the calling to

which we have been called, we are to seek unity in all earnestness, taking seriously the

“mystery...that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the

promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Eph. 3:6).

Third, we need to explore the way in which Paul is using the parallel participles,

ἀνεχόμενοι and σπουδάζοντες. The best classification for these participles is that they are

participles of means, since they are “epexegetical participles in that they define or explain the

action of the controlling verb,”7 which would mean that they would explain how Paul's readers

can “walk worthily of the calling to which you were called.” Specifically, by “bearing with one

another in love” and by “hurrying to maintain the unity of the Spirit.” Of course, the participles

6 Daniel B. Wallace, The Basics of New Testament Syntax (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 64
7 Wallace, The Basics of New Testament Syntax, 274. This quotation was modified from the original text, which
described a singular participle.
do not stand alone in explaining Paul's meaning, since the phrases “with all humility and

gentleness” and “with patience” also help to sharpen our understanding of what Paul means

when he exhorts his readers to “walk worthily of the calling to which you were called.”

Fourth, v. 4 marks a clear shift in the passage, and the grammar is complicated if only

because, without the use of any verb, Paul abruptly begins to name seven exclusively singular

(ἑις, μία, ἓν) points of unity that all Christians share. To make for a smoother English translation,

the phrase “There is” should probably be inserted at the beginning of v. 4.8 Still, Paul does not

include a verb here purposefully because by doing so, he heightens the focus on the seven

acclamations. Hoehner suggests that Paul abruptly shifts to this “one” discourse in order “to

indicate the importance Paul places on the Trinity in conjunction with unity,”9 but I would

respectfully disagree. While Hoehner is right to note the Trinitarian emphasis in the passage,

Paul's writing style here does not spotlight the members of the Trinity over against the other four

“one” units in the passage—the one body, the one hope, the one faith, and the one baptism are all

equally underscored right alongside the members of the Trinity. The emphasis is on all the

commonalities of Christian believers.

Fifth, in verses 4-6, the most complicated grammatical issue is probably the use of the

genitive της κλήσεως—what kind of genitive does Paul intend here? Hoehner writes:

The form of the word is genitive (κλήσεως) and has been rendered as a possessive
genitive, “hope belonging to your call,” but more likely it is either a genitive of
origin, “hope has its origin in your call,” or a subjective genitive, “hope produced
by your call.” The last option is preferred and is consistent with its significance in
1:18.10

Unfortunately, Hoehner does not really give a reason for his preference. I am more inclined to

take this as a genitive of origin, which would mean that the hope would be“out of, derived from,

8 See Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, WBC (Waco: Word, 1990), 223.

9 Hoehner, Ephesians, 514.
10 Ibid., 516.
dependent on, or 'sourced in.'”11 our call. This makes good sense in the context, because Gentiles

would still be without “hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12) apart from the work of

Jesus Christ on the cross and God's call to bring “near” those who were “far off” (Eph. 2:13).

As for the validity of classifying this as a subjective genitive, Wallace gives the following

instructions: “If a subjective genitive is suspected, attempt to convert the verbal noun to which

the genitive is related into a verbal form and turn the genitive into its subject.”12 So, the resulting

phrase would be “Our call hopes.” Is it really our call that does the hoping, or does our hope

depend on our call? Pace Hoehner, I think that a genitive of source/origin is the best

classification for της κλήσεως.

Finally, the last important grammatical issue in the passage is to determine whether the

words for “all” in v. 6 are masculine or neuter. The words are all in the genitive or the dative

case, which are identical in the masculine and the neuter genders. The question, then, comes

down to whether Paul is speaking of “all things” (which a neuter gender would suggest) or “all

people” (which a masculine gender would suggest). The context favors taking these words as

masculine, since v. 6 speaks of God as Father “of all,” which would make more sense in

reference to people, rather than things.13

2) Exposition

Ephesians 4:1-6 marks a dramatic turning point in the book. Paul took the first three

chapters to describe the spiritual realities of those who have been chosen in Christ “before the

foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4), both in regard to individual believers and in regard to the

totality of believers who are being “tightly fitted together” (Eph. 2:21) into a “dwelling place for

God by the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22). Specifically, God has torn down the “dividing wall of hostility”

11 Wallace, The Basics of New Testament Syntax, 56.

12 Ibid., 57.
13 See Hoehner, Ephesians, 519-20.
(Eph. 2:14) between Jews and Gentiles, a mystery that has been hidden for ages, but is now

revealed: “This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and

partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Eph. 3:6). God has done this, Paul

explains, “so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to

the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph. 3:10). Now, beginning in chapter 4, Paul

shifts from description to prescription—that is, he moves from speaking about what God has

done to exhorting his readers toward what they ought to do in response. Eph. 4:1-3 describes the

quality of behavior that Paul expects of his readers, and Eph. 4:4-6 gives further motivation for

such behavior.

Paul makes this transition in a deliberately personal and pointed way. As explained

above, Paul begins chapter 4 by writing, in effect, “I exhort you, therefore—that is, I myself

exhort you....” Although the word Παρακαλω can mean either (1) comfort; (2) appeal, entreat,

request; or (3) exhort, it is important not to translate this too weakly—Hoehner argues only the

word “exhort” captures the meaning and avoids making Paul sound as though he is “pleading for

a favor.”14 At the same time, however, Best is helpful to point out that we should not translate

the phrase too strongly, since it is “weaker and more friendly than 'command', 'instruct' (cf

Philemon 8ff).”15 Paul even describes himself as a “prisoner of the Lord,” which implies to his

readers that they should consider themselves no more free to live as they please than he is. Paul

uses every word in this opening phrase to relate to his readers the urgency of his instructions.

Paul's exhortation is that his readers “walk worthily of the calling to which you have been

called,” which means that they are to live up to the high standards that accord with their high

calling. Christian believers are no mere humans—they are called to be the predestined, adopted

14 Hoehner, Ephesians, 503.

15 Ernest Best, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Ephesians, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark Ltd., 1998), 360.
children of God who are being built into a holy temple that will house God's Holy Spirit! Paul

exhorts his readers to allow their lives to reflect the privilege of such an infinitely high calling.

Using two μετὰ prepositional phrases and a participial phrase, Paul reveals the first

aspects of what he envisions: “with all humility and gentleness,” “with patience,” and “bearing

with one another in love” (Eph. 4:2). Outside Christian literature, the word for “humility” is

often used “in a perjorative sense” but in Christian literature, it is only used in “a favorable

sense,”16 especially as this is one of the key words that Paul uses to describe the “mind of Christ”

in Philippians 2:3: “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more

significant than yourselves.” Similarly, the word for “gentleness” stresses a “quality of not being

overly impressed by a sense of one's self-importance,”17 but Hoehner is careful to note that “The

word never connotes the idea of weakness. Rather, it implies the conscious exercise of self-

control, exhibiting a conscious choice of gentleness as opposed to the use of power for the

purpose of retaliation.”18 Moreover, we should not overlook the importance of humility in the

context of a church: “True humility ensures the absence of the envy which can corrupt corporate

activity.”19

Paul uses the word “patience” to describe that Christians must be “able to bear up under

provocation,”20 a virtue that would go a long way to defuse contention and hostility within the

church. The participle ἀνεχόμενοι continues this idea, urging Christians to “regard with

tolerance, endure, bear with, put up with”21 each other, in accordance with love. Indeed, if

Christians were able to live consistently according to these principles, unity would come easily!

16 BDAG 989.
17 Ibid., 861.
18 Hoehner, Ephesians, 507.
19 Best, Ephesians, 363.
20 BDAG 612.
21 Ibid., 78.
 As explained earlier, Paul exhorts believers in v. 3 to “hurry to maintain the unity of the

Spirit in the bond of peace.” In the context of the book of Ephesians, this exhortation is striking.

In chapters 2-3, Paul had gone to great lengths to stress the unity of Jews and Gentiles, who had

formerly been divided by “the dividing wall of hostility...the law of commandments and

ordinances” (Eph. 2:14-15), and he had explained that Jesus Christ decisively accomplished this

unity by his work on the cross. How, then, is there still a need to “maintain” unity? Was Christ's

work insufficient? Lincoln thoughtfully explains the tension of this exhortation with the

preceding sections of the book in terms of “realized eschatology”:

Unity in the Church is a statement to the rest of the cosmos and its powers of
God's purpose for his world....But it is not simply that the Church constitutes the
realized element in the writer's eschatology; there are both an 'already' and a 'not
yet' to the Church's own existence. If in the first half of the letter the realized
eschatology was such that it might have appeared that the Church already
possessed full salvation, it now becomes clear that appropriating what has already
been provided is a continual process.22

In one sense, the Church is decisively unified in Christ; in another sense, this unity will not be

completed until Christ returns. Christians should rejoice in their unity, strive toward greater

unity, and eagerly anticipate complete unity.

In v. 4-6, Paul gives further motivation to encourage his readers to strive for unity. Using

an explicitly Trinitarian structure, Paul reminds Christians that they are unified by their one

body, one Spirit, one hope (which depends on their calling), one Lord (Jesus Christ), one faith,

one baptism, and one God and Father of all.23 The body imagery is common in the Pauline

corpus, as he describes Christians as distinct members of one body in Rom. 12:3-8 and 1 Cor.

12:12-31. The point of those passages is that God has created and gifted us uniquely, but that we

22 Lincoln, Ephesians, 268-69.

23 Best (Ephesians, 359) disputes that this passage is Trinitarian, but he essentially argues this on the grounds that
this passage does not line up with what he thinks a Trinitarian formula should look like, which is a weak
argument. The fact that Paul deliberately speaks of the Spirit, the Lord, and the Father makes this self-evident
that we should understand this to be a Trinitarian formula.
are meant to use our uniqueness to contribute to the unified Body of Christ (which is also the

point of Eph. 4:7-16). The one hope, which depends on their calling, probably refers to all the

benefits of salvation (both individual and corporate) that Paul has been describing thus far in the

book. We should note (as Hoehner did, above) that this is a very similar phrase to Eph. 1:18:

“that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.” We should also note that Paul

links the one body and the one hope with the Spirit, which fits well with what Paul has already

said. If there is one body, it is because there is a “unity of the Spirit (4:3); and, if there is one

hope, it is because believers were “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the down

payment of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (1:14).

Next, Paul links the one faith and the one baptism with the one Lord, Jesus Christ. On

this basis, Hoehner makes a strong argument that the “one faith” does not refer to “the body of

truth believed by Christians...but rather to the subjective faith which is exercised by all Christian

in Christ their Lord (cf. Col 2:7).”24 He also makes a good case that the one baptism should be

linked not with baptismal practices, but with “the believer's baptism into Christ's death...the

believer's union with Christ in his death and resurrection...the internal reality of having been

baptized into (identified with) the 'one Lord' by means of the 'one faith' mentioned in this

verse.”25 Still, I think that he overstates his case a bit when he completely divorces this “internal

reality” from water baptism, because water baptism is the sign that points to the reality.26 We

should understand the “one baptism” to refer to both the sign and the internal reality of baptism.

24 Hoehner, Ephesians, 516-17.

25 Ibid., 518.
26 Hoehner writes, “Baptism signifies identification as seen in the baptism of Israel into Moses as they went
through the Red Sea (1 Cor 10:2) and the baptism of the disciples with reference to Christ's death (Mark 10:38).
Both of these examples make no reference to water or to the Holy Spirit” (518, my emphasis). He may have a
point in regard to the latter reference, but I cannot understand how he does not see any reference to water in
either the cloud (vaporous water) or the Red Sea (a large body of water). Indeed, Paul's point in 1 Cor. 10:2
seems to be that the Israelites' interaction with water by cloud and water by sea was a baptism into Moses that
prefigured our water baptism into Christ.
 Finally, Paul ends this passage by speaking of the “one God and Father of all, who is over

all and through all and in all.” As mentioned earlier, it makes the most sense to understand “all”

in reference to people rather than things, and so Paul is probably referring again to the good

news that God “predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:5). As Christians, we

have been brought into the most intimate relationship possible to God, being made into children

of our Father, “who is over all and through all and in all.”

Again, Eph. 4:4-6 give believers motivation to strive for greater unity, explaining the fact

that we are already unified by our common body, Spirit, hope, Lord, faith, baptism, and Father.

For this reason, Christian unity cannot be an afterthought—it is a fundamental reality that Paul

exhorts us to maintain! In this passage, Paul urges believers to walk worthily of this unity, and

to do that we must live with the knowledge that we are already unified in the commonalities of

the faith, just as the three Persons of the Trinity are unified in the one Godhead.