# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1906_S10
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

10 Proceedings of the twenty-first convention

congregation, the Christian Church. When the Apostle says: one new man, this stands first of all in contrast to the fact that there were previously two. But when he calls this new man, the Church, the body of the LORD Jesus, as in 1:23, then it is natural that there can be only one such body, since Jesus is the Head; and this is just what he says in our passage, 4:4.

Paul says further: "one Spirit." Here too it is not the third person of the Godhead that is meant, but the spirit, the disposition of the Christians. This fits best with what follows: "even as ye are called in one hope of your calling." The unity of the body and of the spirit is explained by the sameness of their calling. With the words "hope of your calling" he stresses the content of their spirit, of their disposition. He had begun his prayer in the first chapter with this thought, when he said: "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of your calling," vv. 17, 18, and then begins the fourth chapter at once with this: "Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called." We expect that he will already have spoken of this hope of our calling in the first three chapters. The calling is that the Holy Spirit calls men to Christ through the Gospel, and this takes place in the Church. In this lies, first, that there must be one body and one spirit, and that we Christians are to preserve the unity. Then it is also indicated in what the spirit consists. Hope as an activity can be taken in a twofold way: first, that in a time of distress one places one's hope on something, and so the same thought would result here as with faith; second, it denotes that one expects something of the future. Hope also denotes the object on which the Christian fixes his gaze and whose possession he expects.

The following passages are to be compared here: Col. 1:5: "For the hope's sake, which is laid up for you in heaven." Here hope denotes that which one expects. Titus 2:13: We are to be "looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." There hope is designated as an inheritance and good whose possession still lies ahead of us. 1 Tim. 1:1: "By the commandment . . . of the LORD Jesus Christ, who is our hope" — that is, that on which we ground our hope. Col. 1:27: "Christ in you, the hope of glory." 1 Thess. 1:3: "your patience of hope, which is our LORD Jesus Christ."

Thus Paul uses the word hope in a twofold sense; it denotes either Christ and everything that is given us in Christ, on which we ground the hope of our salvation, or that which we are to expect in salvation. In this twofold sense the Apostle here speaks of the hope of our calling. "By the fact that this