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Eph_4:3. Parallel of ἀνεχόμενοι κ . τ . λ ., which is characterized as respects the effort by which it must be upheld.
τὴν ἑνότητα τοῦ πνεύματος ] The πνεῦμα is not the human spirit, so that in general animi studiorumque consensus is meant (Ambrosiaster, Anselm, Erasmus, Calvin, Piscator, Estius, Wolf, Koppe, and many, including Meier, Baumgarten-Crusius, and Rückert, according to whom Paul did not write τοῦ νοός , because he derives the unity of the spirit from the Divine Spirit), but, as is shown from Eph_4:4, and is in itself clear from the exhortation to the Christian life (Eph_4:1), the Holy Spirit, instead of which we have not, with de Wette and Schenkel, to understand the Christian spirit of the community; the N.T. knows not this modern notion, but knows only the Holy Spirit of God, as that which rules in the church (Eph_2:22), and upholds and developes its specific life, so that the latter has precisely in the κοινωνία τοῦ πνεύματος (Php_2:1; 2Co_13:13) its common source and support. Rightly already Chrysostom ( τὸ πνεῦμα τοὺς γένει καὶ τρόποις διαφόροις διεστηκότας ἑνοῖ ) and his successors, Beza, Calovius, Bengel, and others, including Harless, Winzer, Bleek, and Ch. F. Fritzsche, Nova opp. acad. p. 244: the unity, which the Spirit produces. Comp. Php_1:27; 1Co_12:13; Joh_17:21. And this unity is the identity of faith, of love, of sentiment, of hope, etc., in the different subjects who are moved by the Spirit.
ἐν τῷ συνδέσμῳ τῆς εἰρήνης ] is attached by Lachmann to what follows, whereby the parallelism with the preceding participial clause is destroyed. And after the definition by ἐν τῷ συνδέσμῳ τῆς εἰρ . being prefixed, several of the following elements of unity would not be appropriate, since even without the bond of peace there is one Lord, one baptism, one God and Father.
ἐν is ordinarily taken as instrumental: through the bond of peace. In opposition to the parallelism with ἐν ἀγάπῃ ; and through the unity of the Spirit the bond of peace is preserved, not the converse.[199] Hence: in the bond of peace, by which is denoted the ethical relation, in which they are to preserve the unity of the Spirit, namely, while peace one towards another must be the bond, which is to envelope them. τῆς εἰρήνης , accordingly, is genitive of apposition. Comp. σύνδεσμος εὐνοίας καὶ φιλίας , Plut. Numbers 6; Act_8:23; Isa_58:6. Others: “vinculum, quo pax retinetur” (Bengel; so Theophylact, Calovius, and others, including Rückert, Meier, Harless, Winzer), and this is held to be love. Appeal is made to Col_3:14, and to the parallel with ἐν ἀγάπῃ . But, in Col. l.c., love in fact is expressly named, and designated as σύνδεσμος τῆς τελείοτητος ; while justice is done to the parallel with ἐν ἀγάπῃ by our interpretation also, and it was at any rate most natural for the reader to understand under the bond of peace peace itself, conceived of as a bond. Expositors would not have sought for another explanation, had they not taken ἐν as instrumental, in which case the difficulty obtruded itself, that the unity of the Spirit is not preserved by means of peace, but peace by means of the unity of the Spirit.
That, moreover, no inference may be drawn from Eph_4:3 as to divisions prevailing in the church, Bengel has already rightly observed: “etiam ubi nulla fissura est, monitis opus est.” And particularly was such exhortation natural for the apostle, even in the absence of special occasion, considering the many saddening experiences which he had met with elsewhere on this point!
[199] What de Wette observes in opposition to this view—that the peacefulness, to which the readers are exhorted, is to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the fact that it holds all enveloped with the bond of peace—is not sufficient; since this peacefulness, which encircles all with the bond of peace, at any rate presupposes the unity of the Spirit. Where there is dispeace, this unity is already wanting.