One God and Father of All

Ephesians 2:18—5:20

One God and Father of All

The Three Named Together, and the One Above All

Naming three proves they are distinct --- yet Paul crowns only One.

--- The Standing Stone ---

Behind “LORD” in your Bible lies a hidden name --- in the Hebrew it is Yahuah Psalm 83:18**; Yahuah is the Father** Isaiah 63:16**; Yahuah is the only God, beside Him there is no other** Isaiah 45:5**; therefore Yahuah the Father is the only true God, leaving no room for a second or third person** 1 Corinthians 8:6**.**

1 --- The Claim From Ephesians

From the second chapter to the fifth, Paul keeps naming the Father, the Son, and the Spirit close together in the same sentences. He writes of coming to the Father through the Son by the Spirit. He writes of the Father strengthening by His Spirit so the Messiah may dwell in the heart. He writes of being filled with the Spirit and giving thanks to the Father in the name of the Son.

Because the three keep appearing side by side, many readers are taught that this is proof of three persons inside one God. The argument is not built on any single verse. It is built on the pile --- three names, again and again, in one breath. So the case has to be answered as a whole, not verse by verse, because the whole weight rests on one move.

2 --- Naming Three Is Not Merging Three

Here is the hidden assumption: that naming three together must mean the three are one being. But that does not follow. Naming people together proves they are distinct from one another --- it never proves they share one nature.

Paul names “Paul, and Apollos, and Cephas” together in one sentence 1 Corinthians 1:12. No one reads one being out of that. Three names in a row mean three. To gather Father, Son, and Spirit into a sentence shows they are three real and separate realities. It says nothing about them being one substance. That conclusion has to be carried in from outside and laid on top of the words. The verses never say it.

So before a single line is examined, the argument has already assumed the very thing it set out to prove. And when these chapters are read closely, they say the opposite --- most sharply in the one passage that gets quoted most.

3 --- The Verse That Undoes the Argument

The favorite passage in this whole stretch is the list of “ones” in the fourth chapter. It is often read aloud as if it were a creed of three-in-one. Read it slowly and it does the reverse.

Ephesians 4:4—6

There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

Count what Paul actually does. He names “one Lord” --- that is Yahushua. Then, separately, he names “one God and Father of all” --- that is Yahuah. He does not call the Son “God” here. He calls Him “Lord.” He does not call the Spirit a second or third God. The Spirit is simply “one Spirit.” This is the same line Paul draws elsewhere: one God, the Father, and one Lord, Yahushua 1 Corinthians 8:6.

Then comes the word that ends the matter. The Father, Paul says, is “above all.” Sit on that. If the Son and the Spirit were each fully the one God, equal in every way, the Father could not be above all --- because “all” would include them. The very verse handed over as proof of three equals seats the Father over everything and gives Yahushua the title Lord, not the title God. Their strongest text crowns the Father alone.

4 --- Access Into the Holy Place

Go back to where the stretch begins. The first time the three are named together, Paul is not describing the inside of God. He is describing the inside of the new creation --- and he reaches for the language of the temple to do it.

Ephesians 2:18

For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.

The word access is priestly. It is the language of being brought in --- of a priest given leave to enter the holy place. Hebrews says it plainly: we now have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Yahushua, by a new and living way Hebrews 10:19-22. “Access unto the Father” is not three persons taking turns at a door. It is entry into the presence --- the holy place --- that the Messiah opened by what He did.

Read on a few verses and Paul says what we are now built into:

Ephesians 2:21—22

In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

We are the temple. And when His Spirit comes and dwells, the glory of Yahuah fills that temple the way it once filled the tabernacle in the wilderness and the house Solomon built Exodus 40:34-35 2 Chronicles 5:13-14 --- except now the house is us 2 Corinthians 6:16. This is the indwelling Paul is describing: the Father dwells in the Messiah --- “the Father that dwelleth in me” John 14:10 --- the Messiah is in the Father, and by the Spirit the Messiah comes to dwell in us --- “I in my Father … and I in you” John 14:20. The glory flows outward from the Father, through the Son, into the new creation; and our access runs back along the very same road, home to the Father.

This is exactly the place where most Christian teaching cannot follow. It long ago let go of the temple and the priesthood --- it has no working idea that the born-again believer is now the temple and a royal priest 1 Peter 2:5 1 Peter 2:9. So when it reaches a verse like this, it has no box left for “access unto the Father” except to turn it into a statement about the inner workings of God. But Paul is not prying open the being of God. He is opening the door of the holy place. The three are named because all three are at work bringing us in --- the Father we come to, the Son who opened the way, the Spirit by whom we enter. That is not a council of equals. It is the Father, His appointed door, and His own indwelling presence.

5 --- The Glory in the Inner Man

The next time the three appear, Paul shows the same temple from the inside --- the glory dwelling in the inner man.

Ephesians 3:16—17

That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.

“His Spirit” --- the Father’s own. Just as the spirit of a man belongs to that man and is not a second man living inside him 1 Corinthians 2:11, the Spirit of Yahuah is His own reach and power. By it He strengthens the inner man, and by it the Messiah comes to dwell in the heart. It is the same picture as before, only turned inward: the glory of Yahuah filling His temple, except here the temple is the inner man. The Spirit is how the Father reaches in. It is not another God He must share the room with --- it is His own presence filling His own house.

6 --- Two Fillings, and Where the Thanks Goes

The stretch ends with a choice between two fillings --- and then a direction.

Ephesians 5:18—20

And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; … Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul sets two things against each other, and what divides them is what controls a man. The wine here is no blessing; it is the counterfeit. The word for “excess” is the same word used of the prodigal son’s riotous living, when he wasted everything he had Luke 15:13. Wine that rules a man empties him out. The Spirit that fills him does the opposite --- and the word “filled” is a continuing word, keep on being filled. It is not one drink at a doorway. It is a whole walk.

That is how Paul has spoken from the start of the letter --- walk worthy Ephesians 4:1, walk in love Ephesians 5:2, walk as children of light Ephesians 5:8. The Spirit-filled life is a road you go down, not a threshold you stand on.

And see where the filling pours out. The thanks goes “unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord.” The very same order as the opening: by the Spirit, in the name of the Son, unto the Father. The Messiah is the name we come in. The Father is the One we come to. Across four chapters the pattern never once breaks --- and it never points to three equals. It always rises to One.

Conclusion

The Verdict

Paul fills these chapters with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and never once blurs them into a single being. He is not describing the inside of God; he is describing the inside of the new creation --- a temple filled with the Spirit, brought near to the Father through what the Son did. And the closer you read, the clearer the order becomes: everything rises to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit. The three are real, and they are distinct, and they are not equal in rank --- for one of them is named above all.

The chapter they hand you as a creed of three-in-one ends on a wall of plain monotheism: one God, and that one God is the Father.

Paul names the Father “above all” --- and the One who is above all cannot be one-third of anything.