Ephesians 2:14–18
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.
Last week, we observed that worship is able to bring healing where only shame previously existed. Not only do we need healing, we need humility. But no one becomes humble; he has to be humbled. And to recognize the price Jesus and the Father had to pay to effect our peace humbles. The implication of our text is that if one still views himself as superior to any other, then he has not been humbled and if he has not been humbled then it means he has not understood the cross of Jesus.
Without Christ, we are not only sick, we are at war. And we are at war on multiple fronts. Most importantly we are at war with God, until we are reconciled to him through Christ’s cross (Ro. 5:10). That peace has been made once and for all. But the Bible says that there are wars that may continue after conversion. One is our ongoing battle with indwelling sin, “I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me” (Ro. 7:23).
The war envisioned here is that addressed by Paul in this chapter—wars among diverse ethnicities, especially among believers. [1] Paul literally calls the conflict between Jews and Gentiles a “hatred-barrier” (μεσότοχον) (14). Jews called the Gentiles “dogs” and considered association with them to render oneself ceremonially unclean (Jn. 18:28). On the other hand, Gentiles considered Jews to be enemies of the human race, “a people filled with hostile disposition toward everybody” (Jn. 18:35; Ac. 16:20; 18:2).[2] Tensions remained even after the formation of the church. Paul learned on his first missionary journey “certain men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved’ ” (Acts 15:1). Even Peter refused for a while to eat with the Gentiles, provoking a rebuke by Paul (Gal. 2:11–21). The controversy was at its height when Paul wrote to the “foolish Galatians” who were severing themselves from Christ by insisting Gentiles add law-keeping to faith for justification (Gal. 5:4). The controversy can be detected in the epistles to the Romans and Corinthians. It continued through his imprisonment (Col. 2:11-17; Ph. 3:2-11). And ethnic division cloaked in theological jargon remained a hot topic in the Church until Paul’s death (1 Tim. 1:6–11; Titus 3:5, 9; 2 Tim. 1:9, 10). Regardless of threats to his life and abject conditions, Paul never quit preaching the gospel, which is the same for all ethnicities and the gospel that proves its power by creating peace among previous enemies (1 Tim. 2:3–7; Titus 2:11; 2 Tim. 4:1–8). So one way in which retelling the gospel in corporate worship creates humility is that it announces to us that our war with God is over in Christ and therefore, we must no longer be at war with one another.
In our text, Paul says Christ has abolished all “laws” that promote the division of the races (15). Of course he is not saying that Christ canceled the moral law or the Ten Commandments. He is saying that Christ fulfilled all that the ceremonial law was intended to anticipate. Having exhausted the purpose of the ceremonial law, Christ also abolished its being used illegitimately to promote the separation of races. Beyond that Christ removed all excuses for one race’s refusing to be reconciled with another. Inasmuch as every human being is created in the image of God, no one has any right to consider himself inferior or superior to any other. Sin has created that kind of deformed thinking, so we have become accustomed to racism as a human problem throughout the ages.[3] We are no longer at war with God, so we must not be at war with one another, and Christ has abolished any laws that one could use to elevate or separate themselves above any other.
Paul goes on to say that when Christ makes peace between an individual and God, it is impossible for that one to remain racist and reconciled to God at the same time. The Jew who was “near” to the revelation of the Messiah could only be made at peace with God in the same way as the Gentile who was “far away”—both had to be reconciled through the justifying work of Christ on the cross (17-18).[4] Every Jew and every Gentile, every man and every woman, every Mexican and every Colombian, every Northern Irishman and every Brit, every white and every black may only receive the gift of peace with God that spares from hell by together squeezing through the narrow “wicket” gate of repentance and faith in Christ’s righteousness alone. There is no “white” gate and another marked “colored.” There is only one way to Jesus and unless you are willing to go through the same one as your white brother or black brother, you will not be saved. Furthermore, you must realize that when you go through that gate it strips away any sense of identity by which you may remain estranged from anyone else who calls himself a Christian (15). Once you pass through that gate you are no longer allowed to alter your judgments, your actions, your decisions, your choices, your living arrangements, your seating arrangements, your worship prejudices, relative to the color of one’s skin or ethnic heritage. If they are on the other side of that gate of salvation and you are allowed to pass through, you now share the same essential ethnicity—you are both sons of God and brothers of Jesus. You no longer have a choice of whether you will love, like, serve, fellowship with, or die for them—they are your family.
This is not a new plan. The Lamb has been slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). If we put it all together this is what we get, God’s eternal plan was to save a people for himself through the death of his Son. The only way anyone is saved is by coming to the cross. Coming to the cross requires standing next to whoever else is there. If you refuse to come to the cross because the “wrong” ethnicity is there then you will be damned. You will either come to the same cross with anyone gathered there, or you will not be saved. A hostile spirit against a Christian of another race is a hostile spirit against Christ himself and to persist in it is to put oneself outside the camp. As long as the wall of “hostility” remains erected toward another race in one who claims to be disciples of Jesus, the cross of Christ has not brought him near for salvation.
[1] Jarvis Williams, One New Man: The Cross and Racial Reconciliation in Pauline Theology (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2010).
[2] Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953-2001). Vol. 7: Exposition of Ephesians. New Testament Commentary (133–134). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.
[3] On this see Thomas Sowell, Ethnic America (New York: Basic Books, 1981)
[4] O’Brien, P. T. (1999). The letter to the Ephesians. The Pillar New Testament Commentary (190–191). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.