A Walk through Ephesians - Pt 7

 

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 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. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:14–22 ESV).

 

I love the first verses in today’s reading: “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both,” so he’s now thinking of Jews and everybody else, “us both one and has broken down in his [own] flesh,” by dying on the cross, “the dividing wall of hostility,” all the hostility that was engendered by the Jews having a Law and the others being passed over, is over (vv. 14–15). That’s over, in Jesus Christ.

 

“By abolishing the law of commandments,” that is, these commandments are not how you come in to favor with God (v. 15). Christ is how you come into favor with God. What a message we have for the world. Christianity is a universally relevant religion. There’s nothing in the essence of Christianity that makes it unintelligibility in any culture on the planet. There are overlapping human needs and divine realities that correspond in every culture. He’s torn away everything that would make it impossible to do global evangelism.

 

“That he might create in himself one new man in place of the two,” just thinking of Israel, and then the world. That’s not the way to think about it anymore. “So, making peace, reconciles us both to God,” that’s got to happen first, “in one body through the cross” (vv. 15–16). Picture it like this. Here are these two camps, Israel and the world, and here’s the cross, and here’s God. And Israel and the nations are alienated from God. Both are broken, neither can fix that brokenness. The apostle then says “a new man” has come in place of the of two and is making peace. The Gentiles have to be reconciled to God. Israel had been rebellious all their history. They’ve got to be reconciled to God. That reconciliation happens here. No end run around the cross, like, “Oh. God can get reconciled to God, Mr. Gentile, and have your nice little tribal religion. And Jew, you can get reconciled to God, and have your little tribal religion.” No, that’s not the way it works.

 

Jesus Christ comes, and you go to God like this, so that, here you have become one new man. This brings massive implications, all over the world, today. Most wars in the world are ethnic-driven, religion and ethnic, religion and ethnic. And if this message were made clearer, perhaps there would be more understanding of what Christianity is all about.