It is written (Mt 4, 10)--indeed, it is the first commandment--"Thou
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." There
Christ requires of us, under the penalty of forfeiting eternal life,
to honor him as our Lord and so to regulate our lives that we shall
know we serve him. Peter also teaches (1 Pet 4, 11) that all the
Christian's words and deeds should be regarded not as his own, but as
God's. The word and the act are to be of the ability which God gives,
that in it all God may be glorified. Of necessity this condition can
obtain only through the Holy Spirit.
27. In this point--the glorification of Christ--do the true
Christians distinguish themselves from false Christians, hypocrites
and factious spirits, who likewise triumphantly boast of the Spirit
and of their divine office. But the vanity of their boasting is
evident from the fact that they do not hold to the doctrine that
glorifies Christ, but preach that which leads to other evils and
deceives; yes, which condemns and persecutes the right doctrine and
the true faith of Christ. Further evidence of the emptiness of their
boasting is apparent in the fact that they have no conscious
testimony that they serve Christ, nor can their followers give
assurance on the same point. You have here the clear sentence of Paul
declaring this class devoid of the Holy Spirit and thus separated
from the true Church and from Christians. He exhorts us to be on our
guard against them, and would bring Christians together in one faith
and under one Lord and Spirit. Now he teaches how to employ rightly
the manifold gifts of a united Church for the general benefit of its
members.
"Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit."
28. "In former time, when you were heathen, you followed many kinds
of idolatrous worship, many doctrines and spirits; but it was only a
divided religion, and representative of blindness and error. Now,
however, you possess various beautiful divine gifts and offices.
These are mutually related and all emanate, not from man's reason or
faculties, but from the one true God. They are his work--the
expression of his power. Notwithstanding the dissimilarity of gifts,
offices and works, of a certain order in one and otherwise in
another, many and few, great and small, weak and strong--notwithstanding
all, we are not to divide the Spirit, God and faith; we are not to
create factions, exalting this individual or that one solely because of
his gifts, and despising others. All gifts are direct from one God, one
Lord, one Spirit, and to serve the same purpose--to bring men to the
knowledge of the one God and to build up the Church in the unity of
faith. Therefore, you are united in the one doctrine, your object being
to serve God and the Church in a harmonious way." This verse is briefly
the substance of all that follows in the text.