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Ephesians 2:13-22
I invite you to open your folder or your Bibles to Ephesians 2:13-22 as we consider what God has to say to us in these verses.
There sure is a lot of division in the world today. People are divided by class, by how much money they have or don’t have. They are divided by skin color. They are divided by country of origin. They are separated by distance, and education level, politics, religion, and type of job they do. If you are looking for something that makes you different from someone else, if you are looking for a reason to separate from someone, to put up a wall of hostility between you and them, you don’t have to look hard to find one.
Paul knew first hand about dividing people into groups. As someone with a Jewish background who had been trained as a Pharisee, he had been taught that there were two main groups in the world. Jews and Gentiles, descendants of Abraham and everyone else. This division wasn’t all bad. In fact, God had created it and commanded it. He chose Israel to be his nation, the bearers of the promise of the Savior and the preservers of his word. He gave them things like circumcision, food laws, Sabbath regulations and a single place of worship. He commanded them to keep separate from idol worshipers so that they would not be led away from the truths he had revealed to them. Separation can be a good thing. As the Bible says, Bad company corrupts good character. And still today God tells us to mark and avoid those who teach false doctrine.
But, as usual, Satan likes to twist what God says. He led the Jews to think that what made them different also made them better. He led the Jews and the early Christians to think that Gentiles weren’t wanted or welcome, even if they confessed Jesus as their savior. He leads us to think that holding to pure doctrine somehow makes us better, or less sinful than others, or more deserving of God’s love. Paul had to remind people over and over again that any earthly thing that might otherwise divide us is overcome in Christ. The only thing that can truly unite sinful humans is a common faith in Christ.
Paul speaks first to the Gentiles. He had reminded them in verse 12 that, by birth, without faith in Christ, they were not God’s people, not a part of his family. They were without hope and without God in the world. But Verse 13 now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace.
What a mess they, and all of us, were in by birth. How terrible to live a life without hope! Even worse, to have your conscience tell you that when you die you will be separated from everything good forever.
Paul started Chapter 2 by reminding everyone that they are born dead in trespasses and sins. By nature we deserved only God’s wrath and eternal punishment and there was nothing we could do to escape it. Whether we knew it or not we were separated from God and, unless he did something to change our situation, that separation would last for all eternity. But, God made us alive in Christ. It is by grace you are saved. In Christ, because he shed his blood in our place on the cross, we have been reconciled to God. He has brought us near. He has declared our sins forgiven. Jesus is our peace, he is the one who came and established peace between God and sinful humans, satisfying God’s law by his perfect life, and God’s justice by his innocent death.
Verse 14-16 He made the two groups one by destroying the wall of hostility that divided them when he abolished the law of commandments and regulations in his flesh. He did this to create in himself one new person out of the two, in this way making peace. And he did this to reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by putting the hostility to death on it.
In another place Paul reminds us that there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for we are all one in Christ. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. No exceptions. Everyone deserves God’s wrath and punishment. And all are justified freely by his grace because of what Jesus has done.
Verse 17 Jesus came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. Both Jews and Gentiles needed to hear the message of how Jesus established peace with God for them. Now through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Whether Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female; no matter what color skin, or what political party; no matter what else might exist to divide you, there is only one way to the Father, and that’s through spirit-worked faith that, in Jesus, all your sins are forgiven.
This is the truth. No matter who you are, what you do, how much you have or don’t have, you are a sinner deserving God’s punishment. And, Jesus lived and died in your place so that you would no longer be separated from God, but have access to him in Jesus. This truth has spiritual and eternal implications, but it also has practical and earthly implications for the church, for those who claim to have faith in Jesus.
Jews and Gentiles, if you believe the good news that you are a sinner saved by Jesus you are not enemies, you are not strangers, verse 19, you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household. You are heirs together with Christ of eternal life. You are equal citizens of God’s eternal kingdom. So, why would you let something like your ancestry, or rules about food, or any other earthly thing, divide you?
Or, Pauls says, look at it this way. You are like a building. Verse 20 you have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the Cornerstone. There aren’t two buildings, there aren’t two temples of God, there is just one, one Holy Christian Church, one communion of saints. Everyone who has heard and believes the message of Scripture, the message recorded and preserved for us through the Apostles and Prophets, the message that God promised and then did send his son to be the Savior of the world, is part of that one holy building. Not because they are holy by what they do, but because they have been declared holy in Jesus. The object and foundation of their faith is the good news about what Jesus has done for them.
Jesus promised that wherever two or three gather in his name there he is with them. Paul puts it this way, verses 21-22 In him the whole building is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you too are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. As people who may be outwardly as different as Jews and Gentiles gather together to hear God’s word and receive the sacrament, the Holy Spirit is at work. Peter says that each believer is like a living stone. The Holy Spirit takes you with your uniqueness as a person, bestows gifts on you, and then fits you into just the right spot in God’s building.
In the Old Testament the temple was where God revealed his presence with his people. Now, through faith in Christ, he makes our bodies his temple and works to reveal himself through us as we share his word and use the gifts that he gives us to serve God and our neighbor.
There is a lot of division in the world. In fact, as people forsake Christ, we can expect that there will be more and more division and hostility between different groups. Sinful nature always looks for differences, for reasons to put others down and exalt yourself. Paul wants the Christians in Ephesus, whether Jew or Gentile; he wants us today, no matter what our earthly status or background, to know that the only thing that unites people despite all their differences, is Christ. Only when you see that you deserve God’s punishment just as much as everyone else; and then see that Jesus died for all, you and everyone else, only then can you join with anyone and everyone else who trusts in Jesus in giving thanks and praise to God. We are not able to join physically with those who live far away, or those who have gone to heaven ahead of us, nor are we able to join physically with those who adhere to a false teaching, but all who trust in Christ for salvation are united in Spirit and will be united physically in the resurrection. In the meantime, don’t let outward things like musical taste, or ethnic heritage, or personal preferences become a wall that divides. Focus on what unites, a common foundation of the apostles and prophets – God’s word, and Jesus, the Cornerstone, the object of our faith, the reason for our salvation.
