Ephesians 2:11-22
He Himself Is Our Peace
[Introduction]
The Apostle Paul continues his main purpose in chaps. 1-3 to do everything within his ability to convince you of your assured righteous standing in Christ. Paul tells you in v. 11 and again in v. 12 to remember your former existence outside of Christ. In 2:1-3, Paul wanted you to remember the deplorable, depraved nature and character of your life in Adam. Now, he wants you to remember the depth of your poverty in Adam. Why? Well, remember what he is praying for you in 1:15-23: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. Why is it important that God give you a greater knowledge of Himself? vv. 18-19 (cf. 3:18). It is Paul's prayer that by remembering what you have come from and how, by the surpassing power of God that has been exercised on your behalf, you have become what you are in Christ Jesus. As he has been saying from the beginning, Paul wants you to enter into the chorus of praise and thanksgiving that is being offered up by all creation to God who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. But not only does he want you to grow in your thankfulness and gratitude to God for what He has accomplished for you, but he wants you to live and walk out of the fullness of your new life (creation) in Christ. By His Spirit, God is producing in you the image of His Son by faith alone to produce a life of holiness and good works that is consistent with the life of Jesus Christ. You have been saved from the wrath of God by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone. And now flowing from your permanent new life in Christ are those works of faith, the fruit of the Spirit, that are offered up as a sacrifice of praise to the glory of God alone.
In order to fully drive home what God is doing in this fallen world on your behalf, Paul has explained in 1:9-10 that God the Father is summing up all things, things in the heavens and things on the earth into Christ Jesus. God is bringing the entire history of the whole created order to its consummation and glorious fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. In order to accomplish this summation, or bringing to a climax, God is restoring all creation to its intended goal, and under the complete sovereign authority of Christ, both the things in the heavens and all things on the earth. The beginning point of bringing all things in the heavens, or the invisible world, has already begun by Christ destroying the power of Satan and all his principalities and bringing him under his footstool at the cross and resurrection (1:20-21; Col. 1:16, 19-20; 2:13-15; Heb. 2:14-15). But God is also bringing all things on the earth under the footstool of King Jesus and the beginning stages of this royal reign is seen in the new creation of the body of Christ, the church which is made up of elect Jews and Gentiles who have now been brought together into one new man. This new man, new creation is just the beginning stages (the first stage) of what will eventually take place throughout all creation (Jew and Gentile-union is a picture of whole world -- multi-cultural/ethnic "from every tribe, tongue and nation") when finally one day every knee shall bow and tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of all.
[Summary of 2:11-22]
Paul now turns to this latter work of bringing all things on the earth into their consummate goal in Christ Jesus. To illustrate how God has already begun this work and to show us what it will look like when He is finished, Paul turns to the relationship of the Jews and Gentiles to one another (horizontal) and to their new union in relationship to God (vertical). First, Paul focuses on their relationship to one another. From the perspective of a former Jew, Paul points out incredible destitute condition of the Gentiles from the former promises given to the Jews. Ultimately Paul sums up their condition as living in this world without any hope and without any relationship to God (2:12). But again, just as God in his rich mercy and love delivered you from your fallen nature in Adam through the powerful work of Jesus Christ, so now God has brought you, who were formerly far from the promises of God, near to him through the blood of Jesus Christ. He has removed all barriers between the Jews and Gentiles and ultimately all barriers to Himself through the glorious work of Jesus Christ in his suffering and death on the cross. In Christ's crucifixion, he has now brought peace between the elect Jews and elect Gentiles and ultimately between his chosen people and God. The result of this marvelous work is that what you once were as Gentiles in Adam is no longer true. You are no longer strangers and aliens to the things of God but in Christ you have actually reached the consummation that Israel only dreamed of but only tasted. You have been welcomed into the family of the new creation made up of all elect Jews and Gentiles. Something that is both continuous with what has gone before and at the same time something that is gloriously new in Christ. All barriers have been fully removed and you now have full access to God through Christ in the Spirit by being formed into the very temple, the dwelling of God who is in you.
[The Gentiles Former Life -- 2:11-13]
In vv. 11-13, Paul begins his task of bringing you to a greater appreciation of what God has done for you by focusing upon your previous life as a Gentile. Paul is using these categories of Gentile and Jew in their redemptive historical sense. There was a time when God's chosen people were the Jews and they were distinctly set apart from all the other nations of the world who were referred to by the Jews as "Gentiles."
We will see in a few moments that this spiritual distinction no longer exists. The Jews are no longer God's chosen, special people who live within a distinct covenant relationship to him. Where two groups of people once existed, Paul now sees three groups of people in world, (1) unbelieving Israel/Jews, (2) disobedient Gentiles, [both who remain in Adam and under the wrath of God] and now, (3) the new creation; the body of Christ.
But before the fullness of the time of Christ's first advent, the world was separated by two distinct peoples. Paul looks at this distinction from both a positive and negative point of view. First, negatively, he describes the Gentiles from the arrogant Jewish perspective that looked down their nose at the fleshly Gentiles, speaking of them in a derogatory manner as the "uncircumsion." Because the Jews entirely missed the point of their calling and focused on the exclusion of the Gentiles through the sign of circumcision, Paul reminds them what he has now come to realize about circumcision that now that Christ has come and removed the Law, circumcision is now just a work of the flesh that is trying to merit righteousness through the works of the Law. For as Paul, who once took great pride in circumcision (Phil. 3:5), had to remind the Galatians, "For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation." It's not that circumcision was never important as God's covenant sign of inclusion in the gracious promises made to Abraham. It is just that now that Christ has come and fulfilled the promises and brought an end to the Law that now anything that does not flow from the life and teachings of Christ for the new creation is no longer of any concern to the believer. Jesus Christ has leveled the deathblow to Moses and all that belongs to him has been buried with him. The circumcision that now belongs to the Jews is of the flesh. It is of Adam and under the same condemnation that this world is under. But as Paul reminds you, you now belong to the true circumcision: the circumcision of Christ (Col. 2:11; Rom. 2:28-29; Phil. 2:2-3).
But the former status of the Gentiles also kept them from the many positive privileges that were given to Israel in the promises to Abraham, which remained valid and operative under the Mosaic Covenant of Works. First, Paul explains that the Gentiles were separated from Christ, that is the promised Messiah who came to bring salvation to Israel as their new Davidic King who would sit upon their throne for all eternity. Secondly, they were excluded from the citizenship or commonwealth of the chosen people of Israel who were in a covenant relationship to Yahweh. Third, they were strangers or foreigners to the covenants of promise going all the way back to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Israel, and David. Each of these covenants looked forward to the promised Messiah and the salvation he would bring to the chosen people of God. Because the Gentiles were outside the realm of God's Messianic Covenant promises, they walked about in this world and even faced death without any hope and completely stripped of any positive relationship to Yahweh. As Gentiles, you were completely alienated and estranged from God and you died in hopelessness and futility of this vain life without God. God had forsaken you and left you to your own.
But what you once were as Gentiles, Christ has become so that those who were formerly far off have been brought near to God. You were once alienated and estranged from God. God had forsaken you and left you alone. This is exactly what Christ became for you at the cross. At the cross, Jesus Christ became alienated and estranged from God. God had forsaken Christ and left him alone on the cross by striking him with death for your sins. His blood flowed on account of your sin and he paid the full price for your transgressions. You who formerly walked according to the course of this world and who lived in the lusts of your flesh, who were by nature the children of wrath, Jesus Christ has taken that wrath which belong to you upon himself and by the hand of his heavenly father, as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, he was crushed for your iniquities so that by his stripe we are healed.
It is through this bloody and gruesome work of Jesus, the Messiah, that all of you who were at once far away from the Messianic promises of salvation that you have now been brought near to God.
[How We Have Been Brought Near -- 2:14-18]
But it is not as if these Gentiles have just been made into Jews through the work of the Messiah. There is both continuity in the Messiah's work of redemption in that there were promises made to Israel and the fulfillment of those promises has come about through the work of Christ. But there is also radical discontinuity in the Messiah's work. Notice that these blessings through the seed of Abraham are not given to proselytized Gentiles who must first be circumcised and obey the Law of Moses in order to be saved, which was a serious Judaizing error in Paul's day as well as throughout the history of the church and even into our day, but these blessings are given to the Gentiles as Gentiles. They are not becoming members of the commonwealth of Israel with hopes of dwelling in a small piece of real estate in the Middle East. Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus, and possibly to the churches throughout the whole Roman province of Asia. The land of Israel is now of absolutely no importance to the believer as somehow being the homeland of God's people. Jesus Christ has brought us into a new creation, a new community of believers that entirely transcends the old categories of Jews and Gentiles. In this new creation, elect Jews and elect Gentiles now have an equal footing in Christ; there are no second class citizens in this new, unshakable kingdom of heaven. No longer can the Jews speak of the Gentiles in a derogatory manner. Together, they have been brought near one another and are at peace in Christ Jesus as one body. But how has this age-old division been healed? How has this enmity and estrangement from one another been peacefully reconciled?
To explain how Christ has brought the Jew and Gentile together into this new creation, Paul begins with a glorious pronouncement: He Himself (Jesus Christ) is our peace. When Jesus was about to leave his disciples to complete the work he came to do he told them, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you" (John 14:27). It was Paul's prayer for the Thessalonians, "Now may the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance" (2 Thess. 3:16). Jesus Christ is our peace; our reconciliation between one another (both Jew and Gentile) and with God. He is the perfect embodiment of peace and he gives us peace because he gives us himself. Isaiah calls him the "Prince of Peace" (Isa. 9:6). We have peace with one another and we have peace with God because we have Christ, the Prince of Peace. Where we were once children of wrath (Eph. 2:3; Rom. 1:18; 2:19) and the declared enemies of God in full rebellion against our creator, we now have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ having been justified through faith alone (Rom. 5:1-11).
How has Jesus Christ brought forth this peace and reconciliation between the Jews and Gentiles? Paul gives us three participles with Christ as the subject of all of them: Jesus Christ made (v. 14), destroyed (v. 14), and abolished (v. 15).
First (v. 14), Jesus Christ made the two groups into one. God has taken the elect of two former races and formed a third race. Literally, he created (cf. v. 15) a new creation, which he calls the new man in v. 15, who is Christ. By uniting us to Him, we have been newly created into the risen Lord and therefore have become new creations; all old things have passed away (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17). Now the distinctions between Jews and Gentiles have no spiritual meaning. They are only earthly terms to describe the rebellious creation in Adam and under the condemnation of God.
But what was that one thing that divided humanity into two groups, which kept them at odds from one another? What was the barrier of the dividing wall between them? The Law of Moses! Paul says that at the cross, our champion slew our enemy: the Law. In his flesh (or by his blood, v. 13; or through the cross, v. 16), Jesus Christ broke down the barrier; he tore down the wall (ill., the wall of Berlin). He liberated the captives and set them free by destroying the barrier between them. He destroyed Moses and abolished him forever (v. 15). To abolish means to make ineffective, or powerless, to nullify. It is what the author of Hebrews meant when he said that with the coming of the new covenant Jesus Christ made the Mosaic Covenant obsolete (Heb. 8:13). That Covenant, with its letters engraved upon stone, which was a ministry of death and condemnation (cf. 2 Cor. 3:1-11) has been destroyed by the torn flesh of Christ and has made the Law of Moses no effect, nullified, so that it is no longer binding on the new creation in Christ. He abolished the enmity by destroying and nullifying the Law forevermore. And the result is that in Himself he has created a new man, thus forever establishing peace. The elect of the Jews and Gentiles have been united to Jesus Christ, by the enmity of the Law being removed, and they have been made into one new man at peace with one another.
Now that which is contained in the natural law and written on the hearts of all men, which was also contained in the Law of Moses, comes to us in the Gospel imperatives of the Law of Christ but that which applied to the Jews specifically as a unified, covenant of works is no longer a direct or immediate guide for the members of the new covenant community. Now to see what guides us and defines the good works that flows from faith in Christ we must turn to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and since this is the ultimate purpose of even the Old Testament then all Scripture, because it is inspired by God, and as it points to and is summed up in Christ is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
(V. 16) -- And what is now true of the elect Jews and elect Gentiles who have been reconciled to one another through the work of Christ (horizontal relationship), is also true by that same work between the body of Christ and God the Father (vertical relationship). Not only has Christ created a new man, but in that same body, being torn asunder on the cross, he has reconciled them both to God. He has done this in the same way (as in the horizontal relationship) by putting to death or killing our fierce enemy, the Mosaic Law, with its devastating declaration of judgment and condemnation, at the cross. There is a close connection between the destruction of the Mosaic Law and the cross throughout the NT (cf. Col. 2:11, 13-14; Matt. 27:50-51 --> Heb. 10:19-21 -- the veil of his flesh). Jesus Christ's killing of the Law is both his action as our victorious champion and he himself is also the sacrifice so that through his death the Law has been put to death ("Christ in his death was the slain, but the slain was the slayer too"). Jesus Christ has also abolished the Law of Moses by righteously fulfilling all of it in his person and work. Together with his active and passive obedience, Jesus Christ has not only destroyed the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile, but even more importantly the dividing wall between man and God in his own body, that is his flesh.
Together united into the one body (the flesh - humanity) of Christ, the only righteous man, these elect Jews and Gentiles in the one new man (because both Jews and Gentiles were equally the objects of God's wrath -- Gal. 3:10-22; 2 Cor. 3:7-11; Rom. 3:19-20; 7:1-25; 9:30-10:4), new creation, have been reconciled to God by removing the penalty of condemnation that was leveled against us in the Law. Jesus has done this by fulfilling the Law, and thereby becoming our righteousness, and by paying our penalty of sin, and thereby granting us full forgiveness of our sin, both in Adam and all our actual sins that flow from the sin of Adam. The result of Jesus' payment for our sin is that we now have been reconciled to God. Under the Law we were under the condemnation of God and he was our ultimate enemy. We were in complete rebellion to him and were in the process of fleeing from his presence to gain in self-made security in our own self-righteousness. But God came to us, in his great love and mercy, even while we were wicked and deeply depraved in our own sins and gave us his own Son to be our sinless sacrifice (READ: Rom. 5:1-11).
(V. 17) -- In his reconciling work as slayer and the slain, Christ now stands victoriously as the risen Lamb (the Champion), who has been slain but is yet standing, to pronounce peace to his new creation, to both the elect Gentiles (far away) and the elect Jews (near) in one new man, Christ. Paul quotes from two passages from Isaiah (52:7 and 57:19) which were originally preached to wayward Israel that the Day of Good Tidings is coming on Mt. Zion when God will send his suffering servant to die on their behalf and through his death peace and reconciliation will come to all of God's people, not only in Israel but even the chosen ones from among the nations. In his death and glorious resurrection and through the preaching of the apostles, Christ has proclaimed the promised peace of Yahweh is now his people's present possession. But this peace is not simply given to the Jews, but those who are chosen from the tribe of Israel along with those who are chosen from the nations who are now gathered into a new creation, the body of Christ.
(v. 18) -- But how has this long awaited peace come? "through him" -- Christ is both the ground and the preacher of peace. He alone is why we now have peace with God. His flesh has been torn asunder that we might now boldly approach the throne of God's grace. What the Jews were required to do through a whole host of bloody and continual sacrifices, Jesus Christ has now accomplished once and for all and has sat down at the right hand of God. And where Jesus Christ is, there we are seated with him and as Jesus has perfect and full communion and access to God equally in him we also have full access into his presence. But this is not only true for the Jews, but also the Gentiles ("we together"). We who were formerly outside the courts of the temple and did not have any hope of gaining access into God's presence, now through one alone we not only have access but an access and entrance into God's presence that far transcends anything Israel could have ever dreamed of. Just as Christ now beholds the face of God (face to face) so we too, in Christ, peer into the depth of God through our risen Lamb.
And the very name that Jesus alone addressed Yahweh, has become the name we too approach the God of all the universe in free and unhindered access: Father. No longer are we spiritually dead, subject to divine wrath and oppressive bondage under the Law. We have gone through a new birth, a new creation, and in Christ alone we have forever become members of the family of God.
But how is this new family relationship made known to us while we are still on earth? We know that we don't have face-to-face contact in the sense of our own physical eyes. We now only see through a mirror dimly. How is it that we now have this incredible access to the Father? Well Paul has already pointed out that the first reason that we have been united to Christ so that as he dwells in the heavenly places (1:20) so we too have been raised up with him and seated in the heavenly places (2:6). But how do we now take part in this? -- in one Spirit (cf. v. 22 -- Trinitarian work). Remember that Paul made that wonderful declaration in 1:3 that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ and we said that Paul's usage of "spiritual" refers to the Holy Spirit. In other words, it is the Spirit of Christ, the other comforter that Christ sent to us so that we would not be orphans, that makes all the realities of Christ our present possession and experience. And as Paul will point out in the second half of the letter, Jesus Christ has ordained means of grace through which the Spirit works to unite us to Christ and make all that is his our own. The Spirit works through ministry of the Word and Sacraments to unite us and give us continual life in the flesh and blood of our risen Lamb that we might have full access to God the Father.
[The New Status of the Elect in Christ -- 2:19-22]
Now, not that Paul has not already filled us up with a renewed knowledge of the glorious work of God on our behalf in Christ, Paul will explain the full consequences that have resulted from this marvelous work of God through the death of Christ. First Paul speaks of your new union in Christ in political terms and then in intimate family terms.
First, you are now fellow citizens with the saints. Paul has previously pointed out that as Gentiles you were formerly aliens and foreigners to the citizenship of the kingdom of God, which in the Old Testament times (or before Christ) referred to the nation of Israel. Israel was not your homeland. If you traveled to Jerusalem, you were a foreigner, a stranger in the land. You were an outsider not only of Israel but of any positive relationship to God. But now that Christ has come on your behalf and you are united to him, you are no longer a foreigner or stranger, but a full citizen in God's kingdom. But even the elect Jews have received something new. It's not that the Gentiles have now been welcomed into the land of the Jews, for even that land is of no importance anymore now that the fulfillment has come. All shadows have been put away and have become obsolete. Just as there is no longer any distinction between Jew and Gentile, now there is no holy land on the earth. But together in one new man, the body of Christ has become citizens of the heavenly commonwealth, the heavenly, eternal kingdom of God. Together, in Christ, God's elect have a new home where God alone is the builder (Phil. 3:20; Heb. 11:16; 12:22ff.). In the new heavenly commonwealth, there are no second-class citizens or foreigners and aliens who have no home. Now, in Christ, you belong to the kingdom of saints.
But now Paul changes the imagery from the political realm to the family: you are members of God's household. A home is a place of refuge and protection. It is a place where we experience security and a sense of belonging to something much bigger than ourselves. Paul not only assures you that you are citizens of a new city, but even more intimately, you are assured that God is your Father and you, as his child, have been welcomed into the warm fellowship of all God's family. As Gentiles, who were once excluded, you are now home in Christ.
In vv. 20-22, Paul further develops the degree of fellowship you now have within the Trinity. Not only are you now a citizen of his kingdom and a member of his household, but you have become the very temple of the living God. For the Jews, the temple is where they gathered to meet with God and fellowship with him. But even for them, they gained access only through continual sacrifices, through priests and especially the high priest who alone could enter into the holy of holies. But because Jesus Christ is our high priest and has entered by his own blood and through his flesh has removed the veil we now have full access into God's presence. But not only do we have access into his presence, but in Christ we have actually become the place where he has put his presence.
We have become the structure into which God has entered into as closest and as intimate relationship he could possibly have with us. That structure is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets whom Christ called and set apart in the new covenant as his witnesses to his work. Paul links the apostles and the prophets of the early church together. This is important, because both the apostles and the prophets were vessels of immediate revelation of Christ's word to the church. These belong to the foundation of the church so that once that foundation has been laid, there is no need for continual revelation in the church. Christ set apart his apostles and prophets in the early stages of the church to form the authoritative teaching of the church, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who came to teach and remind them of all the things that Christ taught them. Once that foundation has been laid then the church will be built not upon new teachings or new revelation, but by going forth into the world and teaching all that the apostles have passed on to us.
And Paul goes on to say that this authority he has alone given to the apostles and prophets of the early church has been sealed with Christ himself, the chief cornerstone. The chief cornerstone is used by a builder to line up the entire building. Jesus Christ not only seals the work of the apostles, but he himself is the measure and guiding line of their work and the building of the church. The foundation and the position of each individual stone of the whole building is determined by Christ alone.
But this temple is not a temple of earthly stone. This is not merely another rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. This is something entirely new -- the fulfillment of all previous types and shadows. It is the heavenly city of God where there is no need for a temple-structure because God's people themselves have become the dwelling of God. It is a living organism that continues to grow under the ministry of the Word and Sacraments as each new living stone (1 Pet. 2) is baptized into Christ and nourished on his body and blood until all of God's elect are joined together into the eternal, heavenly home of God. It is growing through the work of the Spirit (who again unites us to Christ in heaven -- the life of the Spirit -- we now live in the realm of the Spirit who joins the flesh of the risen Christ to us -- baptism and Lord's Supper) who is working through the Word and Sacraments until we reach the fullness of the new man, Christ (cf. 4:11ff.).
[Conclusion and Summary]
1. You are not second-class citizens in the kingdom of God; the household of God. No longer can the Jews speak of you in a derogatory manner.
2. You have been brought near to God and received the promises of God in a way that the OT saints never dreamed of (look at next week).
3. You have peace with God b/c Christ has conquered the Law and put it to death -- slew the beast at the cross.
4. The newly created believer will grow in holiness and produce good works (fruit of the Spirit) but the guide or norm which defines those good works is not directly Moses, except that he is received in the hands of Christ in the life and teachings of Christ and found definitively in the imperatives of the New Testament Scriptures (ie. the Law of Christ).
5. You now dwell in the immediate presence of the Trinity so that you now may draw near (in the Spirit; cf. 1:3 -- also see Heb. 4, 10).
Paul's purpose in reminding us of who we were and who we now are in Christ is to encourage us more and more to be thankful for the work of God on our behalf and so that we might now live out of the marvelous power of our new union in Christ. He will go on to pray that we will know more and more the love that Christ has for us so that we might not loose heart in our trials and tribulations but in grateful and joyful hope press on, by his strength, to the very end when we will then no longer see through a mirror dimly, but we behold his eternal countenance, face-to-face.
Amen!
-SDG-
