“Jesus Changes Our Relationships (Ephesians 2:11-22)", Will DuVal | 9/22/24
Ephesians 2:11-22 | 9/22/24 | Will DuVal
One of the best recent commercials was Heineken’s “Worlds Apart” ad, a social experiment, where they bring 2 people together from polar opposite ends of the spectrum on a variety of different social issues, to see if they can talk out their differences over a beer. WE watch their pre-taped video introductions - the self-professed male chauvinist, AND the far-left feminist - and THEN we watch them walk into a room and meet each other as total strangers. Same sequence with a climate change-denier and a staunch environmentalist. A transgender woman and an ANTI-trans man. After an icebreaker assignment - working together to assemble two Ikea stools and a table - each pair is given 20 minutes and a list of questions to get to know one another on a personal level, before a timer goes off and a TV in the room begins playing those pre-taped videos they recorded: “A woman’s place is in the home,” he says. / “We must destroy the patriarchy,” she says… “Global warming is a HOAX.” / “I’ve devoted my LIFE to fighting climate change.”... “Transgenderism is WEIRD, UNNATURAL.” / “I AM a transgender woman”...
Then they open a cooler, where they find 2 Heinekens, and a question: “Do you want to LEAVE the room, or sit down and discuss your differences over a beer?”
And it’s a Heineken COMMERCIAL so you KNOW how it ends; with the powerful lesson: “Heineken has the power to bring us together - to UNITE - people of otherwise irreconcilable differences.”
Being the skeptic that I am, I’m assuming they ran the experiment a lot MORE times, but it FAILED with some of the OTHER pairs they tried: the KLAN member and the BLM activist… the Ivy League D.E.I. coordinator and the January 6th Capitol rioter… the Israeli defense soldier and the Palestinian Hamas leader – that was all UN-USABLE footage that didn’t make it in the commercial; they DIDN’T stay for the beer together. Cuz there ain’t enough beer in the WORLD to reconcile SOME folks!
But if not HEINEKEN, then what CAN?
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In the second half of Ephesians ch2, the apostle Paul is going to make an absolutely INCREDIBLE claim (“so extraordinary as to seem IMPOSSIBLE”?!); and here’s his claim: that…
“As believers, the GOSPEL that unites us, is more POWERFUL than every other IDENTITY marker that would otherwise DIVIDE us.”
Do you BELIEVE that this morning? Imagine the person that YOU would have the most difficult time sharing a beer with: the tree-hugging, feminist, Socialist, affirmative action & Obamacare -supporting, PRO-immigration, ANTI-gun unapologetic DEMOCRAT - if I played her video bio for you, and then I put not a BEER, but a BIBLE between you and said, “But guess what? You BOTH profess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior… faith in the GOSPEL - that he lived, died and rose again to forgive you of your sins and reconcile you to God your heavenly Father. Now: “Do you want to LEAVE the room, or will you sit down for some BIBLE study together… Could you WORSHIP together at the same CHURCH, as brother and sister in CHRIST?”
Is the gospel that unites us TRULY stronger than the secondary issues by which the WORLD - and the DEVIL - seek to divide us? (I think this is a great sermon for election season, don’t you?)
But Paul’s gonna go even BEYOND that here in Ephesians 2. He’s gonna say: “Not ONLY does Christ have the power to reconcile us to one ANOTHER, and radically transform our relationships horizontally; but even more - ETERNALLY more incredible yet IMPERATIVE - is Jesus’s power to change our relationships VERTICALLY, with God our heavenly Father, and reconcile us to HIM.
Now, before we read the passage, some background CONTEXT may be helpful:
We think “Oh, America is so DIVIDED today…”, but if we could hop in a TIME machine this morning and go back 2,000 years to the city of Ephesus in Paul’s day, THEN we would see, unfortunately, what REAL division LOOKS like. Not over POLITICS. Not over SOCIAL issues. But the ethno-religious divide that for 2,000 years had separated the JEWS (God’s people) from the GENTILES (everyone else).
Quick history lesson: God created humanity GOOD. We rejected God and brought SIN into the world, which separated us not only from God, but from one another as well. Tribalism. But around the year 2,000 B.C., God chose a man named Abram, THROUGH whom God promised he would BLESS ALL the families of the earth, by reconciling them - by the way, to “reconcile” means to “win over to friendliness; to restore to harmony” (dictionary.com); VERY important term for this morning - through Abram’s nation - Israel - God was going to bless and to RECONCILE every nation, tribe and tongue, not only to one ANOTHER, but to HIMSELF.
So God’s PLAN was for Israel to be so DIFFERENT from the surrounding nations - “set apart”, in a GOOD way; in their obedience to God, and as a result, in their being blessed BY God - that the other nations, the Gentiles, would notice, and say, “WE want what YOU’VE got; a relationship with the one, TRUE God.”
But the problem was that Israel failed to stay TRUE to the one true God, and instead of influencing the Gentiles toward Him, Israel was influenced BY the Gentiles AWAY from Him. And they became no DIFFERENT than the Gentiles.
But they ALSO failed in their calling to reach OUT to the Gentiles, and BLESS them. Over time, the Jews began looking down their NOSES at all the other nations, with an air of smug, contemptuous superiority: “We - Jews - are BETTER than you - Gentiles.” Despite the fact that they’d become every bit as SINFUL as the Gentiles, and despite the fact that God had specifically TOLD them in the FIRST place that he DID NOT choose them because they were any better, but frankly, because they were more PITIFUL; God wanted to show off how much undeserved GRACE he would pour out on even the LOWEST of the tribes on earth. )
But the Jews missed the memo. And by the time PAUL wrote this letter to the EPHESIANS, you had first century Jewish rabbis bragging about how they refused to buy their groceries from a shop located on the same STREET where a Gentile had ever WALKED. There was a popular proverb in Paul’s day that said God created the Gentiles simply to stoke the fires of HELL. Jewish oral law had gone so far as to BAN any Jew from helping a Gentile woman in childbirth, since that would bring another heathen into the world. (Hughes, Ephesians, 87)
In OTHER words, even if they’d HAD Heinekens back then, there wasn’t enough beer in the world! As a matter of fact, one time the apostle PETER, who was a Jew, DID sit down for a beer and dinner with this Gentile named Cornelius, because God specifically TOLD him to, in Acts 10: ““[Peter] said, “You know how unlawful it is for [ME] a Jew to associate with… [YOU GENTILES], but God” TOLD me to come (v28), and then Peter LED Cornelius to saving faith in CHRIST, but when the rest of the Jews HEARD about it in ch11, they got UPSET: “the circumcision party criticized him, saying, “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them”?!” (vv2-3) How DARE you share Jesus and SALVATION with THEM!
Like the prophet JONAH, who got upset when God spared the (Gentile) Ninevites. That’s another good question to ask ourselves this morning: “Who, if I’m REALLY honest, do I WANT God to punish? I DON’T want THEM to receive grace. I wouldn’t wanna show up in heaven and realize I’ve gotta spend the rest of eternity with THEM.”
For the Jews, it was Gentiles.
That’s all the backdrop to Ephesians 2. Now we can appreciate the POWER and PROFUNDITY of this passage.
Would you STAND… Ephesians 2:11-22. Hear the word…
“Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 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, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
[This is the word of the Lord… Seated…]
The two most important relationships in every person’s life are our relationship with GOD, first and foremost, and second, our relationship to OTHERS. The greatest commandment - that sums up ALL the Law and Prophets - is: “You shall love the Lord your God… and a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor.”
And Ephesians 2:11-22 explains how Jesus changes - RADICALLY changes - BOTH those relationships, and actually EMPOWERS us to FOLLOW God’s command, to love Him and love one another.
The passage includes THREE sections, describing: 1) what our relationships were like BEFORE Christ, 2) how they were transformed THROUGH Christ, and 3) the kind of relationships we now enjoy IN Christ. That’s your outline; credit where credit is due: I stole it from Warren Wiersbe (NT Commentary, 595-598).
#1) Before Christ, we experienced SEPARATION in our relationships - BOTH with one another AND more seriously, with GOD. (11-12)
Paul opens in v11: “Therefore…”, which points us BACK to vv1-10 from LAST week, where he reminded us that before Christ, we were DEAD in our sins, DOOMED for damnation, but GOD, being rich in MERCY, SAVED us by GRACE, as an undeserved GIFT. Paul REPEATED it MULTIPLE times in MULTIPLE different ways - salvation “is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (2:8-9) - to REMIND us: “There wasn’t ANYTHING particularly GOOD about YOU that CAUSED God to choose to SAVE you. If ANYTHING, as with ISRAEL in the OT, God chooses those who are WEAK and FOOLISH - the WORST sinners - in order to show off his grace and glory all the MORE.”
But Paul’s got 2,000 years of Jewish history BEHIND him now - 2,000 years of a weak and foolish, UNDESERVING people who nevertheless FORGOT just how undeserving they were and started looking down their noses at the Gentiles. So Paul KNEW how much we as CHRISTIANS were gonna need REMINDING, regularly, of just how LITTLE our salvation had to do with US. That’s why he says in v11: “Therefore… remember”.
Remember. It’s the only imperative verb in this entire passage; you may think of Christianity as a big list of rules, “Do’s and Don’t”. But here, God simply reminds us of the GLORIOUS TRUTHS of the GOSPEL - what HE has done FOR us, in His Son Jesus - and his ONLY command in response is: “REMEMBER”. To the extent that you REMEMBER, Christian: 1) who you ONCE were BEFORE Christ… 2) what has now been accomplished for you THROUGH Christ… 3) and what you now get to enjoy IN Christ, as God’s adopted child - to the extent that we REMEMBER it, the rest of the Law and the Prophets pretty much take care of THEMSELVES, don’t they? “Loving God and neighbor” comes NATURALLY, to the believer who REGULARLY REMEMBERS who he once was, and who he NOW is, in CHRIST.
But FIRST, we’ve gotta remember that “at ONE time, you GENTILES” - Is anyone here of Jewish descent? (if so, he’ll get to YOU in v16…) But for MOST of us, if you’re a GENTILE, then Paul’s talking to YOU here in v11: “at one time you GENTILES in the FLESH” - pause: why does he specify that we were Gentiles “in the FLESH”?
Because we were Gentiles by BIRTH, and we were reckoned AS Gentiles so long as we remained “in the flesh”.
But when we were born AGAIN, of the SPIRIT, Galatians 3:7 says of us that “it is those of faith who are the [TRUE] sons of Abraham.” We are now the SPIRITUAL offspring of Abraham (Gal 3:29).
But v11 continues: we Gentiles were “called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision… made in the flesh by hands”.
Circumcision was the sign of the covenant God had given to Abraham, back in Genesis 17. It was a symbol of consecrating the most intimate part of oneself, not to mention your means of reproduction, unto the Lord. And it became SUCH a defining, differentiating symbol for the Jews that over time they began to call themselves “the circumcision”, and conversely, call Gentiles “the UN-circumcision”; the word literally means “foreskin”. Not a great nickname; it was a derogatory term.
But here’s the thing: if Paul were reading this letter aloud to them, his emphasis here would be on the word “CALLED”, he uses twice. He’s saying, “Look, the Jews may CALL themselves “the circumcision”... and they may still call Y’ALL a bunch of “foreskins” (the verb, by the way, is in the present tense - you are “BEING CALLED” foreskins), but Paul’s point is: THEIR circumcision is only in the FLESH; it’s a PHYSICAL circumcision made “by hands”. Which was only ever INTENDED to be a SYMBOL of a deeper, SPIRITUAL reality. Even in the OT, Deuteronomy 30, v6, God had foretold a coming day when I, “the Lord your God will circumcise your heart… so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul”. THAT is the kind of circumcision, the kind of “consecration” that really MATTERS! As Paul says in Romans 2: “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit.” (vv28-29)
Nevertheless, Paul repeats now in v12: “REMEMBER”; “Don’t you start looking down YOUR spiritual noses at anyone else, Gentile Christians; rather, REMEMBER that YOU were at that time…” – WHAT? SEPARATED. In 5 ways:
First, we were separated from CHRIST. Paul’s gonna list 5 spiritual blessings here that BUILD on one another, such that our separation from CHRIST cuts us off from every OTHER blessing that flows downstream from Him. Remember in ch1, Paul told us that God blesses us with “EVERY spiritual blessing”... IN CHRIST. NO Christ, no BLESSING.
You may have seen Pope Francis’s latest controversial comments this past week, at an interfaith panel in Singapore; he said: “All religions are a path to arrive at God. They are like different languages to arrive there. But God is God for all.”
Here’s what JESUS says: “I am THE way, THE truth, and THE life. NO ONE gets to God, except through ME.” (Jn 14:6)
You came into this world DEAD in your sins, separated from ME, and it is only through salvation by and UNION with Me - Jesus Christ - that you can receive ANY spiritual blessings.
SECOND, we were separated from God’s PEOPLE. That’s what Paul’s getting at when he says we were “alienated from CITIZENSHIP [that’s the word here] CITIZENSHIP in Israel”. What’s so great about belonging to ISRAEL? They were God’s chosen people. So to be separated from Christ is to be separated from God’s people.
But that means, THIRD, that we were ALSO separated from God’s PROMISES; we were “strangers to the covenants of promise”. God had made his special COVENANT, his promise of blessing and relationship, with ABRAHAM, Isaac, and Jacob. Later God renewed His covenant with MOSES and David. And then 1,000 years later, God forged a NEW covenant - a better and everlasting covenant - with a new covenant PEOPLE… in CHRIST.
But no Christ, no kinship. No kinship, no covenant.
And FOURTH, no COVENANT, no HOPE. We were separated, v12, from all HOPE. What is the SOURCE of our hope in this life, and in the life to come? – The promises of God.
We can still have hope when this life gets tough because we TRUST GOD when he says, “I am working ALL things together for your good,” if you belong to me (Rom 8:28). God promises, “I know the plans I have for you… plans to PROSPER you… to give you a future and a hope.”
We even have hope when this life is OVER; why? Once again, because we trust Jesus’ PROMISE, that he is preparing a place for us, so he can take us to himself, to be with him in paradise (Jn 14:2-3). We trust Jesus when he says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live” (Jn 11:25).
But once again: no CHRIST, no HOPE.
We are burying our dear sister Jaci Winship tomorrow. TRAGIC, in many ways. But what is MOST tragic isn’t that Jaci was only 66 (I guarantee you SHE’S not upset about going home early!). It’s not even that she spent the last few years mostly estranged - SEPARATED - from her kids, her only family, who cut her out of their lives. What is MOST tragic is that that family - I met with them this past week to plan tomorrow’s memorial service, and to their credit, they want to HONOR Jaci with the kind of service she would have wanted - “Sure, Pastor, preach the gospel…”. They even agreed to the songs… “Christ Our Hope in Life and Death” - but what’s so TRAGIC is they don’t believe a WORD of it! And unless God does a RADICAL work in their hearts in the next 12 hours, they’re gonna sit right here on the front row tomorrow morning, HEARING the gospel, SINGING the gospel… but not believing a WORD of it. They have NO hope that their mother is truly “in a better place” (even though WE know she is!) and they DEFINITELY have no hope that THEY will be there WITH her one day, when THEY die.
Pray for Jaci’s boys. To know the HOPE of Christ.
Fifth, and finally: being separated from CHRIST, we were ALSO, therefore, separated from GOD. “Without God in the world”. Because NO ONE comes to the Father, except through Jesus.
Horizontal separation is BAD… Jews calling you NAMES; but friends: VERTICAL separation, from GOD HIMSELF, is eternally worse. To be cut off from your Creator and giver of life? Your Sustainer, the One who sovereignly watches over you in His LOVING care? To be cut off from the very SOURCE of all LOVE and JOY and PEACE and HOPE and GOODNESS in this world?!
Such was our estate. But now we come to the best words in the whole passage - v13: “BUT NOW… IN CHRIST”
Jesus changes EVERYTHING!
And it brings to mind v4, from LAST week: “You were DEAD in your sins… “children of wrath”... BUT GOD!”
Now in v13 it’s “But NOW… in CHRIST”. Two great, big GLORIOUS “BUT’s” - praise GOD for the Bible’s “BUTs”!
Jesus changes EVERYTHING! And I wanna show you, specifically now, how he changes and FIXES… how Jesus RECONNECTS us in each of those 5 ways Paul just said we were once SEPARATED. Jesus REVERSES the separation; again, the word is: RECONCILES. That is main point…
#2- Through Christ, we received RECONCILIATION. (13-18) Where there was once HOSTILITY and separation, through Christ, there is now PEACE and relationship. Watch this; we’re gonna move QUICKLY:
FIRST, where we were once separated from CHRIST (“far off”), NOW, we “have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace”.
Jesus is the PRINCE of peace (Isa 9:6). Remember what the angels sang when he was born? ““Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those with whom he is pleased!” (Lk 2:14). Jesus brings PEACE to all who belong to Him. Peace VERTICALLY, most importantly, with GOD, and peace HORIZONTALLY, with one ANOTHER.
Second: Where we Gentiles were once separated from God’s PEOPLE, NOW, v14b announces, Christ “has made us BOTH [Jew AND Gentile; BOTH] one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility”. Paul says, “There was once horizontal hostility, between us and y’all - Jews and Gentiles; a DIVIDING WALL” - Paul MAY have had in mind here the literal wall in the Temple complex, that separated the “Court of the Gentiles” from the “Court of the Jews”. Archaeologists have excavated it and found stone signs that used to hang on that wall that read: “No foreigner - Gentile - is to enter… the temple. Whoever is caught shall have himself to blame for his consequent DEATH” (Merkle, 51).
Some of y’all are old enough to remember watching President Raegan issue his famous charge: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”. The GOSPEL - the good news of Christianity - is that there was ONCE a WALL - TWO walls, actually: one between us and GOD, and another between us Gentiles and God’s PEOPLE, the Jews, and all of the benefits and blessings - the covenant PROMISES - that come with belonging to God’s people. And the GOSPEL is that God the Father sent Christ his Son to earth on a MISSION - a demolition mission - God said, “SON, tear down this WALL! BOTH walls!” And that’s exactly what Jesus DID - he built a BRIDGE - TWO bridges! - where there were once walls. And he RECONCILED us both to God the Father AND to one another, as God’s new covenant people. Such that NOW, in CHRIST, Romans 10 declares: “there is no distinction between Jew and [Gentile]; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches [his immeasurable riches of GRACE] on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”” (vv12-13)
It’s hard for us to grasp today just how EARTH-SHATTERING this was in the story of redemption. There was a common prayer in Paul’s day; many Jewish men prayed every day: “God, I thank you that you didn’t make me a WOMAN, a SLAVE, or a GENTILE.”
In Acts 16, when Paul arrived in the city of Philippi, anyone know the first 3 people God called to respond to the gospel message? It was 1) LYDIA, 2) a demon-possessed SLAVE girl, and 3) a Roman JAILER. The first 3 members of the Philippian church were a WOMAN, a SLAVE, and a GENTILE! Cuz God wanted to drive home the point: “in Christ Jesus you are all [children] of God… There is neither Jew nor [Gentile], neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26-28).
Jesus tore down the walls!
THIRD: We are reconciled with CHRIST… and with God’s PEOPLE… which means we’re ALSO now the RECIPIENTS of: God’s PROMISES.
If you’ve been at West Hills awhile, you’ll remember our study of EXODUS a year and a half ago, AND our study of LEVITICUS last spring. When God RENEWED His covenant with MOSES, he added a new stipulation under the “Terms & Conditions”. At Israel’s ADOPTION ceremony in Exodus 19 at the foot of Mt. Sinai just before they received God’s LAW, he told them, “IF - IF - you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, [THEN] you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples” (v5). Later, in Leviticus 26, God spelled it out in even more DETAIL: “IF you’ll OBEY my law… THEN I’ll BLESS you… with RAIN for your crops, EXPAND your borders, victory in battle… and BEST of all,” God promised: “I will make my dwelling among you… and I will be your God, and you shall be my people.”
Beautiful promises. But… remember the SECOND half of that chapter? “But if you will not listen to me and obey…” - PANIC. Disease. Draught. Famine. Slaughter. Slavery. Exile.
CURSES… became part of God’s PROMISES, as a consequence for their disobedience.
What’s the point? v15 here declares that Christ “abolish[ed] the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create [INSTEAD] in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace”.
Here’s the deal: on that previous slide [“Go back a minute, would you, ____”], we could actually LABEL BOTH those walls - the vertical AND the horizontal one - we could label them “LAW”... “COMMANDMENTS”... “ORDINANCES”. Because that’s exactly what separated the Jews from the Gentiles - “we’re circumcised; you’re NOT”; “we keep KOSHER; you DON’T” - but it’s ALSO what separated ALL of us - Jew AND Gentile - from GOD. Because the fact of the matter is: NO ONE kept the Law! If Israel wanted to remain God’s “treasured possession”, if they wanted to ENJOY his promised blessings and AVOID his promised CURSES, they had to OBEY… but they DIDN’T! So before CHRIST came, ISRAEL was every bit as separated from God as we GENTILES were! That’s why Paul says in v16 that Jesus had to “reconcile us BOTH to God”. And he DID by “ABOLISHING the law of commandments… EXPRESSED in ordinances.”
That last phrase is key. Because in Matthew 5:17, Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law… I came to fulfill it.” In other words, if you wanna get to GOD, His Law MUST be followed. “BUT,” Jesus is saying, “y’all keep BREAKING it.” So I’m going to FULFILL the Law, on your BEHALF, by OBEYING God perfectly, and then trading MY RIGHTEOUSNESS for your UN-righteousness on the cross. So instead of following the LAW to get to God, NOW you follow ME, Jesus.” He abolished the EXPRESSION of God’s law AS ordinances, by expressing God’s law in an infinitely more perfect way: HIMSELF! Jesus is “God’s WORD, made flesh”, for us.
Paul puts it this way in Romans 7: “you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong… to him who has been raised from the dead… now we are released from the law… so that we serve [God] in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.” (vv4,6)
In short, if we want to be included in God’s covenant, His promises, His blessings, the ONLY way is through Christ. Because “ALL the promises of God find their Yes in [Christ]. ” (2 Cor 1:20)
Fourth: we were once separated from all HOPE; but through CHRIST, our hope is now RESTORED. v17: “[Christ] came and preached peace to you [Gentiles] who were far off and peace to those [of us JEWS] who were near.”
We BOTH needed peace with God; the ONLY hope of both Jew AND Gentile is being reconciled to God. Paul asks in Romans 3: “Are we Jews any better off [than y’all Gentiles]? – No, not at all. For… “None is righteous, no, not one… ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (9-10, 23).
But JESUS offers us HOPE by FORGIVING our sins, and RECONCILING us to God - we are brought NEAR, v13, by the BLOOD of Christ (Col 1:20).
Psalm 73:28 says, “The NEARNESS of God is our GOOD.” And that’s TRUE. But the problem is that sinners CAN’T get near to God. Isaiah 59:2 says our sins have made a SEPARATION between us and a holy God. So how do we draw NEAR? Remember Leviticus? the Day of Atonement? The one special day a year when Israel’s one special representative, the high priest, put on the special clothes, and made special sacrifices to atone for the sins of the whole NATION, and only then could he draw NEAR to God, go BEHIND the veil in the tabernacle, INTO the holy of holies, to be in God’s PRESENCE. It was a LOTTA work just to get NEAR to God. Do you and I have any HOPE?
Hebrews 6:19 assures us: “We have this… hope; [a hope] that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone [as our] high priest forever” (vv19-20).
Church: You and I now have PERMANENT access to God - the NEARNESS of God can be OUR good at ALL times - because we have a great high priest - JESUS - who has atoned for our sins and reconciled us to God, once and for all. What a blessed HOPE!
Which brings us to the FIFTH and FINAL but FOREMOST gulf that has now been BRIDGED for us through Christ: we are reconciled to GOD. v16: Jesus “reconcile[d] us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” - in v14, Jesus killed the hostility HORIZONTALLY (between Jews and Gentiles); now in v16 he kills the hostility VERTICALLY (between us and GOD). And because he did, NOW, v18 “through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.”
Anyone been counting how many times Paul uses the word “ONE” in this passage?V14: Christ “has made us both one”
V15: “he create[d] in himself one new man ”
V16: “he reconcile[d] us both… in one body”
And now we have, v18: “access in one Spirit to the Father.”
Don’t miss the Trinitarian language there: Through Christ the SON, we now have restored relationship with God the FATHER, whom we ACCESS by the power of the HOLY SPIRIT.
But Paul CONCLUDES now in vv19-22 by driving home this ONE-NESS language even more:
Before Christ we suffered SEPARATION…
THROUGH Christ we received RECONCILIATION…
And now #3- IN Christ, we enjoy UNIFICATION. (19-22)
We have been UNIFIED to one another in the Church, the one body of Christ, because we are UNITED in HIM; Christ is our head. And elsewhere, that is the dominant metaphor Paul uses for the church: Christ’s BODY. But HERE, at the end of Ephesians 2, he employs 3 DIFFERENT metaphors to depict our unity in Christ: we are ALL - Jew and Gentile… white and black… Republican and Democrat… - ALL who are in Christ have now been made into: 1) one NATION; 2) one FAMILY; and 3) one TEMPLE. Let’s consider them each VERY briefly, in closing:
First, we are one NATION; v19a declares of us GENTILES that we “are no longer strangers and aliens, [lotta talk about IMMIGRATION this election season; don’t forget that WE were once the illegal aliens! With no CITIZENSHIP - no home, no BELONGING - in God’s people] but NOW you are fellow citizens with the saints”.
Warren Wiersbe notes that (597): “In the OT, the nations were reckoned by their descent from either Shem, Ham, or Japheth (that’s the “Table of Nations”, in Genesis 10). But in the book of Acts, we see these three families united in Christ. In Acts 8, a descendant of Ham (the Ethiopian eunuch) is saved; in Acts 9, a descendant of Shem, Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul the apostle [is converted]; and in Acts 10, [it is] the descendants of Japheth, the Gentiles in the household of the Roman soldier, Cornelius.” Wiersbe points out: “Sin had divided mankind, but CHRIST unites us... All believers, regardless of our national background, belong to that ‘holy nation’ with our citizenship in heaven (Phil 3:20).
SECOND, we are now one FAMILY. V19b identifies us now as “members of the household of God”. We were once ORPHANS, “children of WRATH”; but by grace through faith, God has now ADOPTED us as HIS children, which makes us all one big, happy SPIRITUAL family, brothers and sisters in Christ. (1 Tim 3:15) And you don’t just QUIT on family, do you, when you have differences of opinion? You WORK IT OUT. Because the gospel that unites us is BIG enough to overcome those differences.
And lastly, we are one TEMPLE. Vv20 & 21 describe a BUILDING, a “structure”, with a “foundation” consisting of “the apostles and prophets” - that’s the holy SCRIPTURES, God’s WORD, which He spoke to and recorded for us through the apostles and prophets. The Bible is the church’s FOUNDATION. And our CORNERSTONE, v20 - the ANCHOR of that foundation, the stone that bears the full WEIGHT of the building and holds ALL the walls together - is Christ JESUS Himself (Merkle, 53).
And guess what: WE’RE the walls, the BRICKS; 1 Peter 2 calls us “living STONES being built up as a spiritual house… to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (vv4-5).
And AS we are “built up” into that house, according to Ephesians 2:20b, “the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” Paul’s kinda mixing metaphors now, the body and the building. Typically buildings don’t “GROW”, but that’s the picture here: a regular old building that MATURES into a sacred TEMPLE unto the Lord. That’s what 1 Corinthians 3:16 calls us “Y’all are God's temple [it’s PLURAL; a BRICK isn’t a TEMPLE… Membership class…] But joined TOGETHER, Paul says, “Y’ALL are God’s TEMPLE”.
3 Closing Exhortations:
1) Remember your former separation. The more we realize just how LOST we were - without Christ, without HOPE, without GOD - the more OVERJOYED we’ll be in our salvation, in being found.
2) REVEL in the GOSPEL, the good news of your reconciliation with God and others, through Christ. And…
3) REJOICE that God has adopted you, and made you a part of His family. And REALIZE that that means you’ve got a whole lot of brothers and sisters with whom to enjoy relationship now as well. Do not FORSAKE this gathering, this body, the Church.
“By this everyone will know that we belong to JESUS - by our love for one another” (Jn 13:35). Jew and Gentile, Republican and Democrat - who could hold THEM together in unity?!
All the beer in the world can’t, but Church: the precious BLOOD of Christ is powerful enough.