So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. ~ Ephesians 2:19-21

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The song was written as a direct response to the schism within the Church of South Africa caused by John William Colenso, first Bishop of Natal. When the bishop was deposed for his teachings, he appealed to the higher ecclesiastical authorities in England. It was then that Samuel Stone became involved in the debate. It inspired him to write a set of hymns titled Lyra Fidelium; Twelve Hymns on the Twelve Articles of the Apostles' Creed (1866).

"The Church's One Foundation" is included there under the ninth article, The holy Catholic Church; The Communion of Saints. The controversy is alluded to in the hymn's fourth verse: "Though with a scornful wonder men see her sore oppressed, by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed." The hymn is typically set to the tune "Aurelia" by Samuel Sebastian Wesley.

The words also served as inspiration for Rudyard Kipling's 1896 poem, Hymn Before Action, during his time in Africa.

As part of a move to exclude a range of tradition hymns, "The Church's One Foundation" was due to be excluded from the fourth edition of the Church of Scotland's Church Hymnary. It was, however, retained after many objections were submitted to the church committee.

“The Church’s One Foundation” speaks specifically to article nine of the Apostles’ Creed, “(I believe in) the Holy Catholic Church: The Communion of Saints.” The hymn itself is based on I Corinthians 3:11: “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (KJV). This hymn, as well as others in the collection, was intended to serve pastoral, devotional, and catechetic purposes, according to hymnologist Albert Bailey, aiding in the “interpret[ation of] the Apostles’ Creed for the benefit of certain cottagers in his Windsor suburb who were accustomed to repeat it as one of their private prayers” (Bailey, 1952, 377).

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