one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

The list of “ones” continues. We have focused on one body, one spirit, one hope of your calling.

Now it is one lord, one faith, one baptism, and in the next verse we have one God

There are seven “ones” in total.

Meaning we are serving one person, Jesus Christ. And that should be the motivation of patience, motivation for gentleness and bearing with one another (Ephesians 4:1-3). If I am not patient, I am not humble, and I do not have gentleness, patience, and/or “bearing with one another,” that means I do not have a vision of one Lord.

Again, we are serving one Lord, and that is the direction of our effort.

To repeat, if I am proud, arrogant, impatient, not tolerating others, not gentle, I am not serving the one lord.

And in another place, we read that the anger of man does not serve God’s purpose (James 1:20). And in a way, pride, harshness, impatience, and lack of tolerance are flavors of anger.

The direction of our heart should be to the Lord; that is where our allegiance is tied, that is the one we bow to and submit to. Therefore, we do not have personal ambition that would require us to trample on other people in arrogance, impatience and lack of tolerance.

These are the components of the truth that we believe. It is not an amorphous blob of nothingness. It is “come as you are,” but not “believe what you will.”

The whole point of the first three chapters in this book of Ephesians is to inform us of the truth we should believe.

There is no oneness with those who do not share our foundation of truth.

And when you see “faith,” think of the reality of the unseen that we believe to be true.

Paul said Jesus appeared to him last of all (1 Corinthians 15:7-8); that is the cutoff of the truth emissaries. That is why he can say one faith. What he is saying is that there is no future upgrade to truth on this side of eternity.

And it is the same truth that is bearing fruit till today, the same seed of the word sown. There is no improving the faith. Just as there is no other Lord, there is also no other faith.

Baptism is the initiation process into the church. That is the formalized way of becoming part of the church, the body of Christ, and it is a protocol, something done in public view by someone else.

It is different from what is in your heart. It is a public statement of allegiance that is valid. After believing the truth about Jesus, the Ethiopian eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to stop me from being baptized?” (Acts 8:36). Almost like forcing the hand of Philip.

And Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). That is clearly an element of the truth, the element of the faith in that. That is why baptism is not just a sideshow.

To say we should only be baptized in the name of the Lord is only a third of the truth, in my opinion.

We have a clear statement about the definition of baptism from the mouth of Jesus: baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

So if the disciples heard that from the mouth of Jesus, why would we think they would do something different when Jesus rose from the dead and gave them an instruction? He did not say it privately to one person; he said it to a group.

So why did Luke in the book of Acts write that they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus?

There may be three ways to look at it

A: We can take it (baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus) as shorthand, since we want to see coherence in the scriptures, rather than conflict, as it is from one author - the Holy Spirit.

So it is beyond an argument how we should be baptized; I am talking about the baptismal formula of the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

B. Another way, in my opinion, to look at the difference between the words of Matthew and Luke in Acts is to see that an earlier practice was not using the trinitarian formula, but when Matthew wrote it, and it was well circulated, they had to switch.

It does not mean the earlier baptisms were not valid; it is just that now, not to follow the words of Jesus with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would be rebellious.

It’s like Jesus saying, “You have heard that it was said … but I say to you …” (Matthew 5:21–22, 27–28); and, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin” (John 15:22). And just as there was an initial hesitation about the inclusion of Gentiles in the church and God had to correct that over time.

It was probably okay for them to baptize in the name of Jesus, but after the book of Matthew became widely available, everyone had to switch, in my opinion.

Another person may say, but it’s just a formula; why does it matter how and if it is done? It’s not just a formula; it is obedience, and that runs deep. That is the truth.

C. And a third way to see it is that baptized in the name of Jesus is a nod and wink to the fact that there are other kinds of baptisms, but this one is different.

So we should not say what was done in the book of Acts is the complete truth, seeing that even in the early days of the church, there was also a rejection of the inclusion of the Gentiles in the church, but that was not the complete truth.