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He Is Our Peace

Eph 2:11-22

Our passage today is similar to the great passage above from Eph 2:1-10 . Both begin with the desperate plight of existence apart from God, then expounds the divine response to that plight, and finally ends with the positive implications of God's intervention in our present day lives [Thielman, BECNT]. Put another way, they both contrast our hopeless past without God, and now our hope-filled present with God.

But the major difference is one of direction. Verses 1-10 has a vertical orientation, reconciling man to God, while 11-22 has a horizontal orientation, describing the reconciliation between man and his fellow man.

Our Past Condition

Eph 2:11-12

‎Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)—remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.

What do we remember? A trained memory is one that forgets everything not worth remembering.

We tend to remember our accomplishments and try to forget everything that was bad.

There is a Christian way to remember and forget: forget all our boasting in the past apart from God, and remember those things that make us appreciate our present status more.

Paul is reminding us of our pre-Christian past. In this specific context, he is reminding his Gentile readers of their exclusion from Israel, the chosen people of God. A helpful way for us to visualize this would be to think of our past, if we can, or the plight of someone who is outside the church.

Jews divided humanity into two groups: Jews and Gentiles. They looked down upon those who were not circumcised, those who did not share in the national covenant between God and Israel.

Circumcision was given only to men, and was a ritual in the flesh which did not necessarily signify spiritual regeneration. Like those inside the church but who are not saved. But the Jews took great pride in it. They would pray "Thank you Lord for not making me a Gentile or a woman" They did everything possible to separate themselves from the Gentiles and deny them the privileges of being a Jew.

But circumcision was a physical manifestation of a deep spiritual reality. The Israelites enjoyed so many privileges denied to the Gentiles.
1. They had access to the Scriptures. Rom 3:1-2 says "‎What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God."
2. They had knowledge of the promises of God. Rom 9:4,5 ‎says "....the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen."‎‎

Having no access to the Scriptures, or the Jewish way of life, Paul identifies 5 disadvantages of being a Gentile in verse 12

‎"remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world."

1. We were separate from Christ, who was the promised Jewish messiah that the people of Israel hoped to see in their lifetime. Even Jesus said He came to minister to the Jews first. For eg, note His conversation with the Greek Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7
2. We were excluded from the citizenship, or the commonwealth of Israel. We were isolated from a way of life that had God at the centre.
3. We were foreigners to the covenants of promise, in that we did not have access to the blessings promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and David which culminated in the salvation that was to come through the Messiah.
4. Tragically, this meant we did not have hope, not a hope, but the hope of salvation and hope in the face of death. The Greeks and Romans dreaded death, and many cultures avoid the fear of judgement by believing in reincarnation and second birth.
5. All of this meant we did not have any relationship at all with God, spiritually, not even ceremonially. 

Our Present Status

But due to the work of Christ, the tragedy of our past condition has been converted into the joy of our exalted present status.

Eph 2:13-18

"‎But 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, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit."

We who were once far away from the God of Israel have now been brought near to Him through the sacrificial death of His Son, Jesus Christ the Messiah.

"‎For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations."

‎He himself is our peace - Peace is not just the absence of conflict and war, it is more than that. Peace is the result of salvation that comes from God alone. It is the result of harmony between people. It is the result of wholesome personal relationships, in our families and in society. All of this is contained in true peace, which has been given to us by Christ Jesus, because He has reconciled all things in heaven and on earth by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross (Col 1:20 ). He not only brings peace, but He is peace. Peace is a person, and that person is Jesus Christ, not Peace Be Upon Him, but Peace be unto you. The angels proclaimed peace to the shepherds at His birth, Jesus proclaimed peace to the women and the disciples after His resurrection, and through His spirit, He says "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you, not as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" (John 14:27 )

Jesus does three things to bring about peace

1. He has made the two groups one - No more Jew, no more Greek/Gentile, no more slave, no more free, no more male, no more female, just one in Christ. He has overcome the fundamental social divisions not just of the Roman world, but of all of history itself.
2. ‎He has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility - There was a real physical barrier in the temple in Jerusalem beyond which only the Jews were allowed to go. Paul was arrested for purportedly trying to bring Greeks past it (Acts 21). But the barrier that kept people separate was the holiness code of the Jewish law, the do's and don't, the fence that was supposed to keep Israel separated from God but which only served ultimately to exclude Gentiles from the old covenant.
3. ‎He has set aside or abolished in His flesh the commands and regulations of the Law - He has nullified the requirements of the Law that kept the Jew apart from the Gentile, and made a new covenant for both Jew and Gentile by His death, by His perfect offering of Himself once and for all.

‎Robert Frost writes in his famous poem 'Mending Wall.'

‎He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
‎My apple trees will never get across
‎And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
‎He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.

‎Jesus Christ makes good neighbours, he has destroyed the fence!

The purpose of peace

"‎His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility."

1. To create in himself one new man/humanity out of two - Christ has not joined the Gentile into Israel, or taken the Jew out of Israel to be joined with the rest of the world, He has created a whole new race altogether; Christians, a third identity. And out of the two, he has created a new man, because everyone else is the descendant of Adam, but we are the descendants of the second Adam. But indeed, He has also created a new humanity, because this is not an individual entity, but a corporate entity, the people of God, the church that has been united in Him. Thus He has made peace between men, between tribes, between races, between nations, between Canadians and Americans, between Germans and the British, between Indians and Pakistanis. Christianity and the church is a new race that transcends the barriers of our old ones.
2. To reconcile everyone in the church to God through his death on the cross - Everyone needs to be saved, because just as Gentiles were dead in their transgressions and sins, following the ways of the world (Eph 2:1,2 ), so were the Jews who lived among them and gratified the cravings of the flesh (Eph 2:3 ). And so, everyone is deserving of the wrath of God. Being in Israel, or in the church or in a Christian nation does not save you. We are all sinners and we all need Jesus to save us and to reconcile us to God. 

And by His death, Jesus has put to death the hostility that existed between man and God, and man and man.

The preaching of peace

"‎He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit."

Jesus came and inaugurated the gospel of peace, as it is called in Eph 6 , and the apostles, beginning with Peter in the house of Cornelius, preached it not just to the Jews who were near, but also to the Gentiles who were far away. And isn't that what the church and its evangelists do today too? Go out into the whole world, making disciples by preaching the good news of that peace from God that is available to them through Jesus Christ.

And it is only through Christ, that we both, all of us who belong to the church, all of us who are indwelt by the Spirit, whether Jew or Gentile, have access to God, not just to call Him God and Lord, but also to call Him Abba Father, for we are chosen in His Son to be his sons and daughters. The time has come when the Father is not worshipped in Jerusalem or Samaria, but we are all able to worship Him in Spirit and in truth, for God is spirit.

Our Position in God's Household

"‎Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit."

Consequently, because of what Jesus Christ has done for us, and the peace that He has given us, and the reconciliation that He has worked out in our lives, we are no longer disadvantaged by being outside the commonwealth of Israel, or by being a stranger amidst the people of God; rather we are now fellow citizens, holding the same passport as everyone else, in the church of God. Moreover, we are full members of the household of God, fellow brothers and sisters in the family that is able to call God our Father. This family has no ethnicity, no identity and no culture that supersedes the position we have in Christ. Whether Asian, Arab, Caucasian, African, we are all members of the same family.

This household, the church, is built on the foundational preaching and teaching of the NT apostles and prophets but its one sure foundation is Christ Jesus himself, the chief cornerstone‎ that bonds the entire structure together. He is the rock on the which the Church is built, against which the gates of Hell itself cannot prevail.

In Him, the building which is the church is united, each member a living stone that falls into its perfect allotted place, and is joined not only with each other, but is planted in the cornerstone.

Together, we grow and rise to be the sanctuary of God himself, His holy temple.

In Christ, we are being built, like living stones as Peter says, into a spiritual house, a dwelling, a tabernacle in which the God of Israel has taken residence and lives by His Spirit.

What a turnaround! We who were outside the commonwealth of Israel, are now equal citizens in the household of God because of the work of Christ, who is our peace, whose reconciliation has not only ended the hostility between God and man, but whose ministry has transcended the human distinctions of race and status. And He has built, and is building the Church, into which he joins those he has rescued from the slavery of sin.

So, one final time, let us look at the parallels between verses 1-10 and our passage today.

1. In verse 5, we, who were dead in our transgressions, were made alive together with Christ. In verse 19, we are made fellow citizens together with God's people
2. In verse 6, we were raised up together with Christ, in verse 21, we were joined together as the church.
3. Again in verse 6, we were seated together with Christ in the heavenly realms, in verse 22, we are being built together to become the dwelling place of God.

The vertical reconciliation serves to form the horizontal reconciliation; one is not enough, both are needed for the ministry of reconciliation to be effective. The individual is not just saved, he is saved into a community, the church.

The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died.
She is from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.

The Church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain, and cherish,
Is with her to the end:
Though there be those who hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against both foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.

’Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.