What Does Ephesians 4:6 Mean?

(6) **One God and Father of all.**—Necessarily, through the Son, we pass to the Father (as the Lord Himself invariably teaches us to do), since He is (to use the old Greek expression) “the fount of Deity.” He is said to be the “Father of all.” We cannot limit this universal Fatherhood; although, undoubtedly, the context shows that the immediate reference is to those who are His children by adoption in Jesus Christ. The Church is essentially Catholic, inheriting by special gift what is the birthright of all humanity; incapable of perfection till all be drawn into that closer sonship, yet having neither right nor desire to deny that outside her pale at any moment the wider Fatherhood of God extends. **Who is above all, and through all, and in you all.**—The word “you” has little authority; many MSS. and commentaries have “us.” But the best MSS. and authorities omit both, as probably early glosses of explanation which have crept into the text. Accordingly, the word “all” throughout must be taken, as above, as applying to all God’s rational creatures, made in His image (and indeed, in a lower sense, even to all His creatures), but especially and properly to the members of Christ’s Church. In the three-fold sentence many ancient and modern interpreters trace a reference to the Holy Trinity. But, strictly speaking, this cannot be, as the passage expressly points to the Father; although, in virtue of the eternal unity of the Godhead, it may be true that in the expression “through all” and “in all” we trace those manifestations of the Father which are especially made through the Son and by the Holy Spirit. Hence we must refer all properly to the ultimate conception of God the Father; as “above all” in the sovereignty of His will, since to work out “His pleasure they are and were created,” and His will becomes to them the “law eternal;” as “through all” in the diffusive power of the forces—physical, moral, and spiritual—by which the world of nature, still more the world of man, most of all the society of Christians, are swayed as wholes; and “in all” by the indwelling of God in the individual for creation, sustentation, regeneration, which is the breath of life—both the physical and spiritual life. (This individuality, and the especial reference to Christians, are marked by the very natural gloss “us,” or “you,” in this clause.)