-Variation on a theme this, and yet so much more. One Lord - Jesus. One faith - in Jesus. One baptism - in to His Body. Each and every person who is in Christ has trusted in the exact same Lord with the exact same faith and received the exact same baptism in the same Name into the exact same body, the one body which is the body of Christ, Who is the one Lord in Whom we all have placed our fiath for the forgiveness of sin. Paul here takes the oneness to an even greater level, that which unites us being far more elemental and pervasive than what he had just mentioned. Three layers of oneness, in fact - a triple-decker oneness sandwich!
-The very core of our faith rests on only One, the Lord Jesus Christ, our risen Lord. This One Who is the One-and-Only Way and Truth and Life distinguishes Christians from the world and from all the followers of every other religious system - He is the One Who thus makes us one. He is the Head of the body and the sole object of our faith, drawing us together across all lines and potential barriers of ethnicity and language and personality and class and socio-economic status. Even today, with this global body fragmented and splintered perhaps beyond repair, the Lord Jesus stands above as the One in Whom all Christians trust. He paid the price, the penalty for our sin, He shed His blood on the cross - there is no one else. This is the fountainhead of our faith, and if Jesus is your Lord and mine, if we both name Him as Lord, then we are one because of that. Or should be...
-Because there is just one faith. This is not the faith as in the body of doctrine which has become as variegated and mottled as the confusing mess on the back of a tapestry. No, there’s just one faith by which we can be saved. No need to believe the particulars of Calvin or Wesley or Luther in order to be saved, nor the emphases of Rome or England or Constantinople - we simply put our trust in Jesus. Any and every man woman and child who simply believes in Jesus as their Savior, that He died for them, to pay the penalty for their sins - that’s all they need to do to make it to heaven. Think about it. The thief on the cross, possibly had never met Jesus or heard any of His teaching, but he hung there, watching Him die, and he put his faith in Jesus. ‘Jesus, remember me,’ he said. ‘Today you will be with Me in paradise,’ Jesus said. That’s all we know, that's all he believed. But it’s enough. Jesus + nothing = enough. Right then and there he gained entrance into heaven. He knew nothing of sacraments or icons, of creeds or councils, of reformed theology or papal infallibility or second baptisms. Just Jesus. Just faith in Him. And if you and I have faith in Jesus, just like that thief, then we’re in, we're family, right along with that thief, and that’s all that matters. Or should be...
-And speaking of baptism, one might ask which baptism the thief received. If there’s just one baptism, is Paul talking about water baptism after putting your faith in Jesus? The thief didn’t receive this. Or is it Spirit baptism, which arguably didn’t happen until the resurrection (Acts 1.5)? The thief apparently didn’t get this either. If anything the thief was baptized into the body of Christ right then and there by Christ Himself, this One Who came to baptize not with water but with the Holy Spirit (Luke 3.16, John 1.33, 1Corinthians 12.13). He was not clothed with power per se, but he was indeed clothed with a washed-whiter-than-snow robe of righteousness, embroidered as it were with the family crest of heaven. And if one is inclined to take issue with the notion of the Spirit being given at all prior to Pentecost, we could fast forward a few weeks and apply the one-baptism motif to every single Christ-follower from that time forward until the time when Paul wrote this letter and then for every day since. One baptism. And if one is still further inclined to suggest (as some do) that Paul here is definitely referring to water baptism, I would point out that the sacrament of baptism, while expected to be common to every believer (Acts 2.38, Matthew 28.19), is a function performed by man. This section however focuses first on the Spirit then Jesus and finally on God the Father, and on the work that these Three-In-One are doing in calling together and uniting people from every tribe and tongue into this one body. It makes more sense to this reader to understand this one baptism in the context of all the Godhead is doing towards producing one single united body of Christ-worshippers. That which makes us one is far greater than anything that might put us asunder...
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